navigate your way out of porn i'm dr trish leigh neuroscientist and sex addiction coach in this
video let's talk about three main concepts how they impact your brain and what to do about it
so number one is nature nurture and navigate those are all the three components that have to do with
why you go back to the screen to self-soothe and to feel okay and to take the edge off of
stress and boredom i'm gonna break them down for you then number two
i'm going to explain to you what happens in your brain when you're doing that and what you can
do different instead that's number three your brain tip strategy for the day so let's dig in
let's talk about nature and nurture two sides of the coin and navigate which is new in terms of
neuroscience so you may have heard nature and nurture before and i've talked about it before
on this channel i know i have videos on nature and nurture so basically nature means that we are born
with genes and i don't really love using the word genes because i've made a video on epigenetics
so epigenetics means above genetics and so i rather think about it as familial
predisposition which means brains don't fall far from the tree so what i mean by that is
that your brain pattern functions very much like your parents which functions like your siblings
families brains are alike that's nature you're born with a brain that's like your families
and so what that means is you engage in the world in a way that's very similar to the way that your
parents did and actually my little daughter circa said that said something the other day
we were cruising and um in north carolina actually this never happened in buffalo
but in north carolina there's squirrels that will run out in front of the car all the time
i call them squirrels with a death wish you've met me right so there's a squirrel with a death
wish cruises out little guy too cruises out in front of my car and i'm like i was waiting for
the crunch that you know of him being squashed under my giant truck's tires got my truck back
by the way so then i don't hear the crunch and i'm like oh thank goodness no i didn't kill that
squirrel and my little daughter said you know what patty cause she calls me patty you know what patty
i really like about you that you're like me that you don't like to kill animals and i'm like cers
you don't like to kill squirrels in the car because i don't cause i've been doing that forever
so first of all she's like me she's a mini me she looks very much like me and she acts like me
but at the same time so that's the the nature part her brain's very much like my brain
and you know my whole family although we have different personality types
we kind of roll the same but the nurture part is the environment so not only is her brain like me
she's being grown up in a way like me because i'm the one who's teaching her and so when i am glad
this girl squirrel with the death wish made it and she's glad too i said to her like if i like
to hit those squirrels you'd like to hit those squirrels because every time a squirrel came
out in front of me and i hit him and i cheered you and i would have been cheering for the last
11 years for all the squirrels we hit instead we're psyched when we don't hit the squirrels
nature and nurture but this is the key component navigate that's the third piece
so nature is what you're born with in terms of familial predisposition genetics or your brain
doesn't fall far from your parents tree nurture is the environment that you grow up in but then
like i just said i have six kids so my six kids interact differently within the environment that
we have that's the navigate that's the special sauce here that we're talking about in this video
so what happens is i could have a kid that wants to hit the squirrels just because inherently
they're navigating the world differently than i am so if that was the case if every time we didn't
hit a squirrel i cheered and every time we hit a squirrel they cheered they're navigating the world
differently and there's examples in twin studies it's actually very interesting where there's
twins so they're genetically the same they grow up in the same household but one develops a very
positive attitude and others develop a negative attitude so if something goes wrong and here's
an example is if you know dad comes around the corner and he's all irritated about something and
he starts yelling at them to put the cereal and the bulls away kid number one who has a positive
attitude is like dad is having a cranky day i'm gonna put this bull away and i'm gonna skedaddle
kid number two takes that all on is like dad's mad at me i'm not enough i'm not good enough i
screwed up that's the navigation navigating the nature in the nurture so i'm going to go on to
number two but i'm going to bring it back for a minute number two is the science behind it it's
called neurogenics the way you navigate the world with what you have depends on how you interact in
very certain situations and if you're always using the same programming you are programming your self
so we do have programming from the past from our parents from our teachers from our culture but our
reactions can then also create kind of the definition of the way that we navigate the world
and in my program i try to teach people to act differently to change their thought systems
so if you take a new action you will think about the world differently
so the next time a person comes in and yells at you instead of going oh it must be me
if you think that's about them and it has nothing to do with me and i'm gonna extend my love to that
person but i'm also gonna protect myself and not let them in on my energy you will begin
to navigate the world differently now what does that have to do with porn you can do that exact
same thing with porn use so when you realize your use of porn is a reaction it's the way
you've programmed yourself to respond to stress or boredom over time and i know over time can mean
three years five years 25 years 55 years i get it if you've programmed yourself for 55 years
to respond to react actually to react to stress and boredom by going into the screen you can in
fact use neuroplasticity and neurogenics growing new nerve cells honing new nerve cells cutting
new neural pathways so that you get different actions and different thought systems by using
them using them every day so when i say run don't walk when you have the urge to go into the screen
have a plan but run away what i mean is navigate the world make a new choice every
time it presents itself navigate nature nurture navigate navigate your way out of the screen
decision by decision and i know it can be tricky at the beginning but with every small win it gets
easier because you've taught your brain we don't do that anymore when when we feel stressed out
we don't escape we go work out offload that stress and then we approach the thing that's stressing us
and remember too that stress might just be coming from the ab effect of porn use which is making it
so that you can't break out of this cycle the a effect is you feel great when you're watching
it the b effect is that you actually are more stressed out in the world because of watching it
so that takes us to number three which is your brain tip strategy
it's to navigate differently so what i encourage you to do in this video is figure out the times
especially that you're reacting you're going to a default mode of how you interact in certain
situations and the easiest thing to do is to think about the difficult situations in your
life so when you get angry why are you defaulting to angry when you want to run into the screen
why are you defaulting to that reaction and when you get more thoughtful you can have a response
you can respond in a new different way and instead of going into the screen
you can go regulate your boredom and your stress in a healthy way or approach and engage the thing
that needs to be taken care of and when you navigate in a different way you're going to
get a new outcome you're going to break this cycle you're going to get on purpose in your
life and you're going to be able to achieve your goals and your dreams and then life is
a beautiful place to be okay i hope that helps you out and if you're looking for help on this journey
uh reach out to me dr trishleigh.com i would love to be involved i have programs in different shapes
and sizes to fit your needs and as always control your brain or it will control you
you