Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 75: The Moment Recovery Becomes Real - with Isy Williams

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75: The Moment Recovery Becomes Real - with Isy Williams · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Hi everybody. So there is a point in recovery
• 0:03
  when something shifts when all you know, we actually talk about
• 0:07
  the we're not just referring to men, but that's who I typically
• 0:10
  work with. But when a person stops trying
• 0:12
  to recovery and they start living recovery where it comes
• 0:17
  from something like it's a checklist bound or I'm doing it
• 0:20
  for another reason, that it actually becoming something that
• 0:22
  they live because we're not about the checklist.
• 0:24
  It's not going to be about the compliance.
• 0:26
  It's about the level of ownership.
• 0:28
  It's about choosing like the discomfort, choosing courage,
• 0:31
  choosing recovery. So today I get a chance to have
• 0:35
  you meet Izzy Williams. She's a fellow coach and a
• 0:39
  choose recovery services and we want to talk about this turning
• 0:42
  point. So we're both passionate about
• 0:44
  the subject. So I'm going to be asking her
• 0:45
  some questions, but I'm excited to spend some time with you on
• 0:48
  it. Welcome to Beyond the Facade
• 0:54
  podcast. I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and
• 0:56
  I'm thrilled to have you join me in the space today.
• 0:58
  What we're going to be doing is diving deep into the trials and
• 1:01
  triumphs and truths of seeking authenticity.
• 1:04
  Becoming your true self isn't about a single action or a
• 1:07
  moment. It's a relentless pursuit, a
• 1:10
  commitment to self that reveals the rich connection and meaning
• 1:13
  that our life has to offer. So whether this is your first
• 1:15
  time tuning in or you're a regular listener, know this What
• 1:19
  you're building here goes beyond a.
• 1:20
  Conversation. You're here to.
• 1:22
  Challenge to change and to celebrate the incredible journey
• 1:25
  of becoming your authentic self. Because when you dare.
• 1:28
  To show up fully, the rewards are immeasurable.
• 1:31
  So welcome to Beyond the Facade. Let's get started.
• 1:35
  OK, All right everybody. So let's start off with an
• 1:38
  introduction to Izzy. So Izzy, I'm going to talk about
• 1:40
  you for just a second, but I'm going to save all the things
• 1:43
  that you want people to hear about.
• 1:44
  And but I'm going to share a couple things.
• 1:47
  So we I love it when you get a chance to pull coaches in here
• 1:50
  that you guys haven't had a chance to meet.
• 1:51
  Izzy is our, like I just said, a coach for us, but we loved Izzy
• 1:56
  in the skill set she brought. She has a story just like
• 1:59
  everybody does it choose recovery services.
• 2:01
  That's powerful. That brings hope.
• 2:03
  So if you get a chance to spend time with her, you'll probably
• 2:06
  you'll get that sense that it's not just something that she got
• 2:09
  an education on, but it's a lived experience.
• 2:11
  Izzy, I'm glad to have you here. I'm glad that people get a
• 2:13
  chance to sense your energy, whether it's half of our
• 2:16
  listeners are, excuse me, 47% of our listeners are actually the
• 2:22
  betrayed partner. Then the other part is the
• 2:25
  person that did the betraying. And so we're speaking to both
• 2:28
  people, but it's made for specifically the content to be
• 2:31
  around the betray, the betraying partners experience.
• 2:34
  But Izzy, what do you want people to know about you before
• 2:36
  we get into content? Luke, thanks for having me on
• 2:39
  again. I really appreciate it.
• 2:41
  I think the best thing to know about me is I, I, I have a heart
• 2:47
  to do this work. And I think I would say that of
• 2:50
  pretty much all the stuff on cheese recovery that we didn't
• 2:54
  land here just by chance. And I think out of that heart I
• 2:58
  really love to encourage, although I work predominantly
• 3:02
  with the betrayed, my, my demographic is mostly women.
• 3:06
  I have such a heart for the men. Again, we just clarify, didn't
• 3:11
  we earlier on for the use of language.
• 3:14
  We fully recognise that there are wives and females that
• 3:18
  betray their partners. So just I say men to say because
• 3:22
  that's usually who I'm working with, their wives or their
• 3:25
  partners. But I've got such a heart to
• 3:27
  encourage men that in this, in the difficult journey of
• 3:32
  recovering from problematic sexual behaviour or sexual
• 3:35
  addiction, there's such hope. There really is such hope to
• 3:39
  really not just master your recovery, but completely change
• 3:44
  and move into new healthy cycles of living and becoming the men
• 3:47
  they really want to be. And I think that's such an
• 3:49
  important message in addiction and the problematic sexual
• 3:52
  behaviour. If I think if the guys aren't
• 3:54
  hearing that when they're in the trenches and doing the hard work
• 4:00
  and seeing little results, often times for extended periods of
• 4:04
  time, sometimes I think they need to hear that message that
• 4:07
  keep pushing through and that there really is hope to adopt A
• 4:11
  new healthy cycles of interacting, of behaviour, of
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  intimacy. So yeah, that's really quite a
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  passion I have. I love that.
• 4:21
  I love that. Yeah.
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  And you do. Your energy brings that safety
• 4:24
  to this work. And excited for you guys.
• 4:26
  Get a chance to spend time with Izzy, But you'll censor presence
• 4:29
  here as we talk. OK, before we jump into the
• 4:31
  first part, I want to, I wasn't planning on doing this so much,
• 4:35
  but let's talk about the stages of change here for a second.
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  If you look Google or do some work on motivational
• 4:41
  interviewing, it's a weird way to describe it, but it talks
• 4:44
  about change. So like if a therapist or a
• 4:47
  coach meets with somebody and does some motivational
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  interviewing, it's like, what? Where are they at the change
• 4:52
  process? Are they ready for change?
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  And if they're not ready for change, what would get them to a
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  place where they're ready to? I like to call let go of an
• 4:58
  outcome, stop controlling, basically submit, you know, 12
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  step submit. What is the word surrender?
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  Yes, surrender. So we're going to be talking
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  about this place where we go from control, managing an
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  outcome as the individual, securing recovery, the person
• 5:20
  that did the betraying, the hiding where it becomes
• 5:23
  something that I have to do to something.
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  I'm letting go of an outcome and I lean into and now I'm doing
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  it. A lived experience.
• 5:29
  Izzy, let's start off with the part we've called the spark of
• 5:31
  transformation. So I loved what you recently
• 5:35
  said to me, that when a person did the betraying, the personal
• 5:39
  compulsive behavior, personal lying chooses full immersion
• 5:43
  into recovery and really works their tools, great things start
• 5:48
  to happen. Can you tell me more about what
• 5:51
  that immersion looks like to you?
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  What you noticed? Yeah, wow, that's such a good
• 5:56
  question. I think what that immersion
• 5:59
  looks like to me. My main framework for that is
• 6:03
  looking at my husband and his own phenomenal recovery, which
• 6:08
  was multifaceted. Lots of things have contributed
• 6:10
  to the success of his recovery, but looking at other husbands or
• 6:16
  partners of the betrayed, I think there's lots of things
• 6:22
  contribute to helping them get to that place where they really
• 6:26
  are immersed. It's like taking an external set
• 6:30
  of behaviours which they know they need to adopt in order to
• 6:35
  recover well and for their recovery to be successful and
• 6:38
  actually internalising them, isn't it?
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  So it's taking the outside and making it their inner, their
• 6:44
  inner language, if you like. So becoming organic, making it
• 6:48
  organic. Does that make sense?
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  Yeah. What did you, since you brought
• 6:51
  him into it, I wouldn't pulled him into it.
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  But since you pulled him into it, can I ask you a question
• 6:54
  about him? Sure, Yeah, and.
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  Then you can choose what you want to talk about, what you
• 6:58
  don't. What did you notice like from
• 7:00
  him? I don't know.
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  From a change standpoint, Sometimes when change is
• 7:03
  already, it's like half one foot in, not inexperienced, not all
• 7:06
  the way in the commitments. So what did you notice about the
• 7:09
  halfway in, halfway out experience?
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  What for my own husband? Yeah, you, what I want to say is
• 7:14
  you brought him up, but yeah, like you, you watched it.
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  You said he's working as a recovery.
• 7:19
  He's there's been some change there.
• 7:21
  So I assume that wasn't maybe all the case.
• 7:23
  There has been times where you've witnessed kind of part
• 7:26
  way in part way not and then a Foley in a committed.
• 7:29
  So I just wondered about that. Yeah, no, I definitely brought
• 7:32
  him up for a good reason because I feel and he would say it
• 7:35
  himself, that he's a really good example of somebody that spent
• 7:41
  the best part of four, 4 1/2 years, let's say three years
• 7:45
  really struggling to grasp his recovery and not working the
• 7:49
  tools. Not being all in, but not really
• 7:52
  being aware that he wasn't all in.
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  Trying but not getting good results in terms of my ability
• 7:58
  to respond to him. And just his own frustration at
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  not being able to breakthrough into being the man he wanted to
• 8:07
  be and adopting the habits and the mindsets that he really
• 8:10
  wanted to. So I think it was almost like
• 8:15
  it's like running a marathon and you're tired along the way, but
• 8:18
  you know, you've got to keep going.
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  But there's times where you stop and you kind of give up and you
• 8:22
  you stop running and you're just kind of walking.
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  So there was lots of that. But I think a key turning point
• 8:28
  for him, just to backtrack, I think he often, he would say
• 8:33
  that he often measured his success of recovery against how
• 8:37
  I felt, how I was showing up and what I thought.
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  And whilst I think that's good wives, definitely their input is
• 8:45
  is crucial. We could agree on that.
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  I think a huge turning point for him is when he came up against
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  frustration after frustration because I wasn't responding to
• 8:56
  his changes perhaps the way he wanted.
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  He got to a point, I think, where he it changed where he
• 9:04
  felt I need to do this for me. I need to recover for me,
• 9:08
  regardless of how Izzy feels or shows up or what she thinks.
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  And that was hard because he didn't want to say to me, I
• 9:15
  don't care what you think. Is he, I know I'm recovering
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  because that's not a safe, that's not a safe behaviour for
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  a recovering husband or or partner to say to his betrayed
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  wife if you're looking to save the relationship, right?
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  Definitely came into a place where he wanted to internalise
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  his recovery for himself. And the path of frustration
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  almost led him there. I think he also realised that
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  just certain things, certain ways of thinking and his belief
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  system just wasn't conducive to good healing.
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  So much of his therapy also showed up in that with the fact
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  that he was able to identify when he was acting in, by acting
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  in, I mean instead of acting out right with sexual problematic
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  sexual behaviour, acting in as in returning to perhaps pelting
• 10:10
  or sulking when I didn't show him the attention that he
• 10:14
  wanted. So he was able to identify when
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  he was acting in and when he went into like little boy mode.
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  And I don't mean that in a condescending way, but the young
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  wounded boy in him would often show up in the relationship in
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  certain moments where he was triggered.
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  And he got to a place where he didn't want to keep living out
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  of that, that little broken boy where he wanted to show up as
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  the man. But he wouldn't have been able
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  to change that had he not been aware of his brokenness and how
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  he had patterns of behaviour and default, default kind of coping
• 10:49
  mechanisms that were faulty. So that was a huge pivotal point
• 10:53
  for him. The other pivotal point for him,
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  I think that he would say is when he really took hold of his
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  recovery tools, which his CSAT helped him massively with
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  actually realizing he's got all these good intentions for
• 11:07
  recovery and all the things he needs to do.
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  Go to the 12th step, have a coach, have a mentor, do your
• 11:13
  daily meditation or your commitment to your higher power,
• 11:17
  your seeking out, your tending to your spiritual life.
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  He meant to do those things and semi thought that he was.
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  But when he actually realised, you know what, I haven't taken
• 11:26
  full hold of this and really worked my tools.
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  And then when he began to do that, there was a very marked, I
• 11:33
  wouldn't say sudden, but it was pretty quick compared to the
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  last 3 1/2 years of dipping in and out of recovery, not being
• 11:40
  consistent. There was very marked change in
• 11:44
  his commitment to his recovery. So that to me was like his full
• 11:49
  immersion. Why do you think he went from, I
• 11:54
  don't know, just call that so just say this would Why do you
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  think he went from not valuing the tools to leaning into them?
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  I'm sure a lot of partners will be listening to this being like,
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  I wish he would. I wish he would use the tools
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  and I'm thinking about showing up with men that I work with and
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  some of them a lot of things taking priority over recovery,
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  like not using the tools, not because they're like these tools
• 12:17
  are junk. They're not going to work.
• 12:18
  It's the priority that they put. So why?
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  What do you why there was there a shift?
• 12:26
  Yeah, it's a good question, Luke.
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  I wish he was here to. Speak.
• 12:29
  I know. That's what I was thinking.
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  I was like, Lucy, yeah. He loves, he loves to share, he
• 12:33
  loves to share his story in in in a healthy context, I think.
• 12:38
  I think he valued the tools. I just, I perhaps wonder if he
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  didn't really, he wasn't at a point yet where he realised how
• 12:49
  effective they actually are when you dig into them and utilise
• 12:57
  them again. I think, like I said before, I
• 13:01
  think what played into that was repeated frustration, realising
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  this is just not working and him coming back to me and me saying
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  but you, I feel like you need to dig in more for yourself.
• 13:16
  That's good. Yeah, I feel like that was a
• 13:19
  significant piece of what caused the shift.
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  I want, I wanted to jump in there and ask, OK, Izzy, here's
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  what I'm thinking. Like this transformation begins.
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  And one of the things that I'm hearing you talk about that I
• 13:30
  think really, really matters is the people that are trying to
• 13:36
  recover, individuals seeking recovery to betrayed somebody.
• 13:39
  There is a piece of motivation that exists to be able to
• 13:44
  survive by not losing your tribe, by not losing the people
• 13:48
  that are going to help you make it through life.
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  But I love what recovery does is if you stay in the right
• 13:53
  environments, the right therapist, the right coach, the
• 13:56
  right group is you'll constantly be in in a partnership with
• 14:02
  somebody that really gets recovery is you'll realize like
• 14:05
  you can't keep that control, that you can't control other
• 14:08
  people. You can't control how they feel,
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  what they think. And you realize I can't
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  influence people and be healthy. So it's not about me getting
• 14:15
  somebody else to see something. It's about what do I want inside
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  of myself. So I heard you say he stayed in
• 14:19
  that environment long enough to kind of like hit the wall over
• 14:23
  and over again, like that fly that bangs their head on the
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  wall. They're going, I can't do this
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  anymore. But you didn't leave the
• 14:28
  environment that that always existed to have the tools there.
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  So now there was a value in it. Now I wasn't doing it for
• 14:33
  somebody else. And that's where the real
• 14:35
  transformation began. And it came because there was
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  awareness of something that didn't exist before, that was
• 14:41
  always there, but now he had to be able to see it because it's
• 14:43
  all in layers, right? So now there's this, there's
• 14:46
  clarity, there's understanding, and there's growing connection.
• 14:49
  And now there's a desire to connect to an authentic self,
• 14:53
  like who am I? And it's a beautiful part of the
• 14:55
  process. And it's like layered.
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  So I think there's a part of me that does the motivational
• 15:00
  interview and it goes, What stage of change are you in?
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  And it it's not to make somebody hurry up to the next stage as we
• 15:06
  can create awareness of where you're at with readiness for
• 15:08
  change. It will move on its own as long
• 15:11
  as you don't leave the environment that will foster
• 15:13
  that. Any thoughts on that before we
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  go to the next part? No, I love that.
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  I do. It's got me thinking that
• 15:20
  digging into the tools of recovery for a husband, they can
• 15:26
  really connect that that piece about connecting to the
• 15:29
  authentic self. I think that's really what
• 15:30
  happened with my husband is that in digging into the tools
• 15:37
  consistently showing up for 12 Step Recovery Programme
• 15:40
  meetings, even that was inconvenient because one was on
• 15:43
  a Saturday morning and one was on a Sunday afternoon.
• 15:47
  His outright commitment to do that, being around the other
• 15:51
  guys because these were all male groups obviously, and just
• 15:55
  really spending the time investing the time in showing up
• 15:59
  to those meetings. I think that contributed
• 16:02
  massively to the transformational effect because
• 16:06
  I remember he said being around the other men who were broken
• 16:09
  and struggling also impacted him, where he just knew deeper
• 16:14
  and deeper he didn't want to stay in that place.
• 16:17
  He didn't want to live his life out of that constant struggle,
• 16:23
  and he believed that there must be more.
• 16:24
  So for him at least, that was a huge, that played a huge part in
• 16:30
  that transformation, in that shift into not just the shift
• 16:34
  of, hey, I'm not just doing this for Izzy.
• 16:37
  I'm doing this for me. I need to do it for me.
• 16:39
  I want to be better. I want to be free.
• 16:41
  I want to see if I can really live out of a place of healthy
• 16:45
  coping mechanisms, healthy interaction, if I can experience
• 16:50
  true intimacy and move away from my brokenness, into wholeness
• 16:54
  and healing. And I think you can't
• 16:58
  underestimate the power of the therapy and the tools and the
• 17:03
  application of the recovery package if you like the recovery
• 17:08
  journey. And I've seen for myself in my
• 17:11
  own husband, that's why I'm using him as an example, that it
• 17:14
  really works. It does work.
• 17:17
  And it's been very important for his direction and healing as a
• 17:23
  man in his own right, not just as a husband.
• 17:26
  Yeah, all of that. Let's touch on this part, but
• 17:29
  we'll touch on it briefly, then we'll move to the discomfort
• 17:31
  part. But let's talk about you.
• 17:33
  You mentioned before that ownership is critical, that
• 17:36
  nobody can do recovery for you. And I want to ask you, why do
• 17:39
  you think that ownership is so essential?
• 17:41
  But you also mentioned, I think this was you that said this, but
• 17:44
  you talked about recovery being something that happened.
• 17:47
  Something that happens isn't something that happens to you,
• 17:51
  but it's something that happens through you.
• 17:53
  I can't remember what was that you or not?
• 17:55
  Was it you that said that? I'm not sure.
• 17:58
  I've said a lot of things, yeah. They've said a lot of things,
• 18:00
  I'm not sure, but the can you speak about that ownership
• 18:03
  piece, anything that comes up for you around and we kind of
• 18:06
  already have, but any thoughts there?
• 18:08
  Yeah, Luke, I think when I think of as a betrayed wife, when I
• 18:12
  think of the betrayed women that I work with and I think of my
• 18:15
  own journey, I read like a meme. Is it called a meme?
• 18:19
  I read a meme or a quote a long time ago that said you didn't
• 18:23
  cause your pain but you have to fix it.
• 18:26
  You've probably heard that somewhere in me along my journey
• 18:31
  I internalised that and that helped move me from the
• 18:35
  injustice of betrayal to actively working to recover from
• 18:43
  it. OK, I didn't do this to myself.
• 18:45
  It's not fair. She's legitimate isn't it?
• 18:48
  And justified completely, 100% to I need to own moving forward
• 18:54
  and working through this pain so that I can do something
• 18:57
  productive, powerful and healthy with my pain.
• 19:01
  Though I didn't 'cause it or plan it.
• 19:03
  And it's kind of hijacked my life.
• 19:05
  I see that playing out for the husband.
• 19:09
  And that's why I'm passionate as well about encouraging the
• 19:12
  husband, the man, the partner with problematic sexual
• 19:15
  behaviour. And because that plays out for
• 19:17
  their recovery too, doesn't it? They may feel like they they
• 19:21
  kind of landed up with this addiction, this problematic
• 19:24
  sexual behaviour that's often totally derails their life.
• 19:28
  But then they have a have to face that moment, that crossroad
• 19:32
  where they're going to decide I can, if I own this, I stand a
• 19:37
  very good chance of mastering it and ruling over it.
• 19:41
  If I take the chance of digging deep and throwing myself into
• 19:46
  recovery, like I would throw in myself into my job, for example,
• 19:50
  and invest as much intentional energy and thought into it as I
• 19:55
  would something that I know I need to do, which is go to work
• 19:59
  to earn money, then that's the power of that's the power of
• 20:06
  transformation. That's the key to transformation
• 20:08
  and that's the power of ownership.
• 20:10
  And I think we could all agree, hopefully, that whatever we take
• 20:14
  responsibility for and we really own and internalise.
• 20:19
  Because that becomes not just something we're doing, it
• 20:23
  becomes who we are. Then that's where it unfolds and
• 20:26
  manifests in our life and it becomes real and we see results.
• 20:30
  You can apply that to so many things in life, right?
• 20:34
  So that's my thoughts on that. That's beautiful.
• 20:37
  I want to build on that with you because that's inspiring to hear
• 20:40
  that part. And I think about recovery being
• 20:42
  like a reclamation process, like what's mine, and I get to go two
• 20:46
  different ways. Yeah, I love the fact that
• 20:48
  you're talking about. I didn't 'cause that, but I do
• 20:52
  need to do something with that and that that's my
• 20:54
  responsibility, Learning what is your responsibility and what's
• 20:57
  not your responsibility. And I'll think about the people
• 21:00
  that I work with because I work, I work with men and they go
• 21:04
  through and they recognize and family of origin.
• 21:07
  There was some burdled blurred lines who whose emotions am I
• 21:10
  responsible for and learning what's mine and having ownership
• 21:16
  of it. And even though I didn't 'cause
• 21:18
  it, there can be ownerships over certain things, but there are
• 21:21
  certain things that I don't. The most common one that I won't
• 21:23
  go down into because it's a podcast on its own, which is my
• 21:27
  partner's emotions, my partner's feelings, if I caused harm, if I
• 21:31
  hurt. Sometimes a maladaptive part of
• 21:35
  that process is taking on somebody else's emotions and
• 21:38
  being responsible for them. And it can become really hurtful
• 21:41
  when I go to my partner. OK, my job is to fix your
• 21:44
  emotions. No, my job, my responsibility,
• 21:47
  what's mine is to be present with you and your emotions, not
• 21:50
  to fix yours. So I just like to hear talking
• 21:52
  about ownership of what is mine. I think it matters.
• 21:55
  It does. I love that.
• 21:56
  That's powerful. That's powerful in the dynamic
• 22:00
  between the husband and wife or the two partners wanting to heal
• 22:05
  and restore coupleship. That's so powerful because
• 22:07
  there's that confusion, isn't there?
• 22:09
  Between, OK, I caused my partner or my wife or my husband so much
• 22:13
  pain. So now I've got to fix this
• 22:15
  pain. I've got to stop their pain.
• 22:17
  But the truth is they can't stop their pain.
• 22:19
  They can help restore safety by demonstrating they're willing to
• 22:24
  rebuild trust. But the wife or the betrayed
• 22:27
  partner still has to learn and own her or his part in saying,
• 22:33
  OK, this person hurt me, but I've got to learn to manage my
• 22:36
  own emotions and not make them fully responsible for fixing my
• 22:40
  emotions. And again, that's part of her
• 22:42
  journey or their journey, isn't it?
• 22:45
  To get to a place where they've grieved, they've moved.
• 22:49
  They're hopefully moving through those stages well enough to
• 22:52
  reach a point where they can say, OK, my husband, my partner
• 22:56
  can't fix my feelings. Excellent.
• 22:59
  I can fix my feelings, things you can do a lot.
• 23:02
  So that ownership part is extremely powerful in so many
• 23:05
  dynamics. Not just for the partner with
• 23:07
  the addictive behaviour or the problematic sexual behaviour,
• 23:10
  not just for the betrayed partner, but for the coupleship
• 23:13
  too, just for the whole thing. It's so important.
• 23:16
  Izzy, you said something to me that stuck with me.
• 23:18
  You said the people in recovery have to embrace all the
• 23:20
  discomfort and me and the willingness to face their fears.
• 23:24
  Can you talk to me more about that?
• 23:25
  Because we're already on emotions.
• 23:26
  So what do you notice about people that start to see
• 23:30
  discomfort differently or what they do with it?
• 23:34
  Such a good one, isn't it? It's like open the can of worms.
• 23:37
  I think it's human nature to avoid discomfort, to avoid
• 23:41
  particularly emotional pain. I've learnt on this journey that
• 23:45
  I was in, I was avoidant. Never would have thought I was
• 23:48
  avoidant, thought I was. You understand that?
• 23:51
  No, not at all. No, because I'm not afraid of
• 23:54
  healthy confrontation. Therefore I labeled myself as
• 23:58
  I'm definitely not avoidant. But actually when I discovered
• 24:03
  in my journey of all the pain of betrayal and having to do the
• 24:08
  hard work to heal, I was super avoidant.
• 24:12
  But you never know what comes out of you when, when pain
• 24:16
  points get touched, right? You just don't know what's going
• 24:19
  to show up. And obviously, it's helpful to
• 24:21
  find out because then you can you can minister to your needs
• 24:26
  and your healing accordingly, I think.
• 24:30
  Sorry, Luke, what was the question again?
• 24:31
  Did I just go back? No, just the discomfort.
• 24:33
  What do you notice about people the the how they embraced all
• 24:36
  the discomfort and specifically in the change process?
• 24:39
  Like what does discomfort have to do with the change process?
• 24:44
  Yeah, it it, it's such a good topic, Luke.
• 24:48
  Discomfort has a lot to do with the change process.
• 24:51
  I often think of it like the butterfly.
• 24:53
  Again, this is something I read. It's not my wisdom, it's
• 24:55
  somebody else's, but it's so good.
• 24:57
  So people, we see a butterfly, we see the beautiful butterfly
• 25:00
  flying around, but we don't appreciate what that little
• 25:06
  Caterpillar went through to get to being the butterfly, right?
• 25:10
  We can't appreciate the the process.
• 25:13
  So I think there has to be a process, a willingness rather to
• 25:19
  submit to the process of change. And that will mean embracing
• 25:22
  discomfort because it's simply the fact that whether you're sat
• 25:27
  with a problematic sexual behaviour or sexual addiction,
• 25:30
  or whether you're the betrayed partner, there is massive,
• 25:33
  intense, severe discomfort that comes with facing the stuff, all
• 25:39
  the stuff that needs to change. So for the person with the
• 25:43
  problematic sexual behaviour or the sexual addiction, it's the
• 25:47
  discomfort of realizing this has derailed my life and landed me
• 25:52
  in a place where I'm powerless. You can't control myself.
• 25:57
  I'm ruled by this thing. I'm not ruling over this thing.
• 26:00
  So that discomfort I can send you on different trajectories,
• 26:06
  right? Ending on what you choose to do
• 26:08
  with it. That's why I think it's so
• 26:09
  important to embrace the discomfort.
• 26:12
  And that's not a good feeling. It's not a good feeling.
• 26:15
  But if we can understand that, the principle that we don't
• 26:19
  always have to operate on feelings, we can trust a process
• 26:23
  here and know that it's OK if it's uncomfortable.
• 26:27
  I won't die because of the discomfort.
• 26:29
  I can face the discomfort. I can createspace emotionally
• 26:33
  inside myself to explore the discomfort and I'm trusting that
• 26:40
  as I face the discomfort, I will make the next step forward in
• 26:45
  the process of the transformation of the healing,
• 26:48
  whatever you want to call it, of the freedom from the problematic
• 26:50
  sexual behaviour. The cycle of addiction makes
• 26:53
  sense. And I think the dialogue that I
• 26:56
  have of myself around discomfort really matters.
• 26:58
  I know from being a man when it comes to what I was taught
• 27:02
  growing up, which is be tough is the discomfort.
• 27:05
  What I the way I ran at it was no, just be OK with discomfort.
• 27:09
  Like just it's fine. Like just it's hard toughen up.
• 27:12
  But it. Discomfort is actually the
• 27:14
  process of sitting with the discomfort, like it's going,
• 27:17
  acknowledging, and then it feels like I'm embellishing, but to a
• 27:21
  certain point, I'm really not, which is this does feel like
• 27:24
  it's going to kill me. Thinking about that thought,
• 27:26
  feeling about that thought, not drowning in it, but going, yeah,
• 27:30
  I want to acknowledge the fact that my partner's not wanting to
• 27:33
  engage with me physically. I feel like I'm not going to be
• 27:36
  OK. But instead of drowning in that
• 27:39
  going, yeah, there's a part of me that says I'm not going to be
• 27:42
  OK and to think about those thoughts, think about those
• 27:44
  feelings instead of powering through them.
• 27:47
  So the discomfort isn't just going, I'm uncomfortable, let's
• 27:50
  go. It's like, what?
• 27:52
  What is this discomfort saying? Yeah, that's so good.
• 27:55
  Yeah, and again, that's for both parties, isn't it?
• 27:58
  Yeah, it's not. Yeah.
• 27:59
  Thank you. It's for both parties and it's
• 28:02
  for the growth in the coupleship as well.
• 28:04
  If couples get to a place where they're able to work on the
• 28:08
  coupleship, on work on the US, that's also going to be there.
• 28:12
  Facing the discomfort. It it's a tetchy subject because
• 28:16
  we typically want to guys or people with problematic sexual
• 28:21
  behaviour don't want to face and embrace their reality.
• 28:25
  And that's what the discomfort often comes from.
• 28:28
  Embracing reality where I am actually at, where I have landed
• 28:33
  and what to do with it and wading through it.
• 28:36
  There's such huge hope and that's always my message is that
• 28:40
  there's always hope and there's complete hope of change,
• 28:44
  transformation and a new beginning.
• 28:47
  I love to herald that message. I love that.
• 28:50
  I love that. All right, so Izzy, so you've
• 28:52
  talked about this new cycle, one where there's awareness and
• 28:56
  clarity and authenticity and they replace the things like
• 28:58
  shame and hiding. So I'm curious, what does that
• 29:02
  look like day-to-day? Because as we wrap out this
• 29:04
  podcast, I want to talk about what does this new cycle look
• 29:07
  like if it's not about perfection and it's not about
• 29:10
  never messing up, but what is it about?
• 29:12
  Yeah, Thanks, Luke. It's such a good question to
• 29:15
  wind down with. I think it's the clarity of
• 29:21
  coming into realising, embracing the reality, accepting that
• 29:25
  there's going to be discomfort moving forward into new habits,
• 29:30
  new patterns, new ways of thinking and behaving.
• 29:33
  It's so important for both partners, but particularly the
• 29:36
  partner struggling with the problematic sexual behaviour, to
• 29:40
  be able to know what does that look like everyday, practically?
• 29:43
  Like how would I know if I'm really in a good place in my
• 29:47
  recovery and moving into like the new cycle, the new way of
• 29:51
  showing up for themselves and for their partner again, to use
• 29:54
  Matt as an example, my husband, he he has literally gone from he
• 30:00
  would also say Luke, his faith. And I would agree with him.
• 30:04
  His faith is a huge part of his transformation as well.
• 30:08
  But he can speak to, excuse me to that in more detail, but I
• 30:12
  think that he shows up in completely different ways than
• 30:16
  how he showed up before. He's done some inner child work
• 30:19
  and that completely opened his eyes to seeing the broken little
• 30:24
  boy that would show up in him in the relationship.
• 30:26
  So that's a huge piece of it. He's doing and done family of
• 30:30
  origin work and he comes out with incredible insight, which
• 30:34
  he will share with me. So that's another thing.
• 30:36
  He will openly share insights from his own heart.
• 30:39
  He'll just come and share them with me.
• 30:41
  I don't have to go digging for his heart.
• 30:43
  I don't have to go ask questions or seeking him out.
• 30:47
  He happily, comfortably comes to me and shares insights into his
• 30:52
  own heart and his own personal journey and he volunteers that.
• 30:56
  So what that is to label it is he's become emotionally present.
• 31:02
  So again, he's not perfect and I don't expect him.
• 31:05
  I'm healed enough, thank goodness, to be able to know he
• 31:09
  doesn't need to be perfect, he doesn't need to get it right all
• 31:12
  the time. But even when he does make
• 31:14
  mistakes, perhaps in not realising that I'd be triggered
• 31:17
  by something, he's really, really quick to come to me and
• 31:19
  say I can see that that was a trigger and I just want you to
• 31:23
  know that I see that and I'm sensitive to it.
• 31:26
  New patterns. Yeah, he didn't.
• 31:28
  He didn't go fix the trigger or prevent the trigger, but he
• 31:31
  showed up for me in the trigger. Yeah, he saw.
• 31:36
  He saw it and the way he spoke to me, that the way he was
• 31:39
  emotionally available and attentive is so soothing and
• 31:42
  healing and reassuring for me. It just maintains that
• 31:45
  connection with us and it maintains that sense of safety I
• 31:48
  have as a betrayed partner that I don't need to.
• 31:50
  I don't feel hyperactivated or hyper vigilant and I have to be
• 31:55
  aware to ask him all the time. Like how are you doing?
• 31:57
  What did you think about this and that behaviour, safety
• 32:00
  seeking behaviour. So it's valid and I'm, I'm not,
• 32:02
  I'm not invalidating that, but there's a place where the
• 32:07
  betrayed partner can grow past that.
• 32:09
  And it's this beautiful dance between husband and wife or
• 32:13
  betrayed partner in person with problematic sexual behaviour,
• 32:16
  where they come to that place of healing where they can dance
• 32:18
  healthily together. So that's how that one of the
• 32:22
  ways that shows up in in everyday life.
• 32:23
  And there's so many other things, Luke, that my husband
• 32:26
  does. It's so many exemplars me how he
• 32:31
  how his recovery is successful that he's come into that new
• 32:36
  cycle. And that's what we don't want it
• 32:38
  to be that this podcast turned into the hey, Izzy, tell us what
• 32:41
  the checklist looks like. We defeat the purpose of the
• 32:43
  podcast. The thought here, what I'm
• 32:44
  hearing you talk about is it's lit.
• 32:47
  It's letting go of the managing the behavior because I remember
• 32:50
  because what did he do? He's like, I'm not going to try
• 32:52
  to manage Izzy. I'm not going to show up and
• 32:55
  need her to feel something differently.
• 32:56
  He named what he saw in you and he held space for it.
• 33:00
  You know, it's a trigger word for people.
• 33:01
  But he was like, I see this and then you give his present for
• 33:05
  that. So I think about I love that
• 33:07
  it's not about managing behavior, but it's about
• 33:09
  embodying change and I can reflect on my recovery.
• 33:12
  I remember sitting in my truck one time and I it was one of the
• 33:15
  many times that I made it a long time without acting out.
• 33:18
  And I knew it felt it in my bones that like Luke, your
• 33:21
  moments from acting out again and you don't want to act out,
• 33:24
  but but you just it felt like my will was taken from me and I was
• 33:28
  going to act out. And it was devastating to gone
• 33:31
  for the amount of time and felt like I was powerless.
• 33:34
  And I recognized that whole time I was trying to manage my
• 33:36
  behavior. I was trying to not do something
• 33:39
  right. But what it was really about was
• 33:42
  managing the embodying change, which is all the things that led
• 33:45
  me to that point that I was out of control.
• 33:48
  I think once we let go of the managing the behavior and
• 33:51
  embodying change, the discomfort, everything we talked
• 33:53
  about today, that's recovery and that's submitting to a process.
• 33:57
  But Izzy, I just want to thank you for your time.
• 33:59
  It sounds like we're going to have you back again.
• 34:01
  So I'm very excited about that. And anything you want to say
• 34:04
  before we conclude? I'm really grateful, it's been
• 34:08
  such a pleasure to be here and to share.
• 34:10
  And yeah, again, my message will always be that there is complete
• 34:16
  hope for betrayed partner, person struggling with sexual
• 34:20
  problematic sexual behaviour and the coupleship.
• 34:23
  There really is hope on so many levels and just to plow in and
• 34:27
  not to be discouraged. Discouraged is part of embracing
• 34:30
  the discomfort, but just to keep on pushing forward and trust the
• 34:33
  process. Cool, good stuff.
• 34:36
  Thank you for your time, Izzy, everybody, if you're listening
• 34:39
  and you're in that space, maybe you've been doing a lot of work,
• 34:42
  but it feels mechanical. Just want to challenge you.
• 34:45
  Go all in, then don't dip your toes into recovery.
• 34:47
  Dive all in. Transformation doesn't come from
• 34:50
  like partial effort and doesn't come from a side recovery being
• 34:54
  a side hobby or a side gig. It comes from you choosing to
• 34:59
  immerse yourself in that discomfort into your own journey
• 35:02
  and facing that hat on. So anyway, everybody take care
• 35:06
  and we will talk to you next time.
• 35:10
  Hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 35:12
  If this is something that. You connected with.
• 35:14
  I'd love to meet with you more and talk about it.
• 35:16
  So what you can do is go to chooserecoveryservices.com.
• 35:20
  Or check the show notes. And there what we can do is set
• 35:22
  up a quick conversation. Thanks so much for listening to
• 35:25
  Beyond the Facade where we. Unmask the authentic self.