Hello, hello, and welcome to the Borealis

experience. I'm your host Aurora, and I'm very excited to

have Louis Brandtmeyer with me again. Last time, we talked

about the spiritual awakening and Louis journey on how to

become an empowered person and inspiring others today. And

today we want to talk about, yeah, how we can empower people,

how we can inspire people, to be more, yeah, happier with

themselves, and maybe liberated from addictions, and to then

enter relationships, and have a fulfilled life. Together with

others, Louis opened up to me a little bit and shared that he

was addicted to porn for quite some time. And he was able to

liberate himself from that addiction and to now live, free

and passionate life where he's not restricted by porn anymore,

because addictions, feel good in a moment. But when you look at

it on a deeper level, it's always Yeah, keeping you in a

specific mindset that doesn't help you open up in real life

and be successful in real life. So let's just jump in Louis, and

share with us how it all started. How did you become

addicted? And how were you able to free yourself?

Absolutely. So I'm happy to be here grateful to be here,

excited to share. My story starts in approximately eighth

grade. This was maybe 15 years ago, when I started to find

myself desiring connection and contact with women. And this was

the early days of dial up internet. So we didn't have

multiple tabs or streaming like read to you porn or whatever.

But we did have pictures, images, lots, lots of images.

And before I knew it, surfing the internet late at night, I

discovered lots of different images actually going back even

further than that. My grandmother was an artist. And

in her artists study, she had a book of nudes of have like the

female body. So while it wasn't intrinsically pornographic, or

even addictive, at that point, it opened me to that. And then

on the cable box, this is really dating me because this is like

early 2000s. Back when we used cable boxes, there were some

channels that we got that we weren't supposed to get. And

they'd come in through like psychedelic multicolor and

they'd show up for a couple seconds, and then it would blip

out. And then I'd have to switch to the next channel and switch

back. And I saw people doing things that was that were very

interesting to me. As an adolescent. I was like, What is

this this is I'm feeling things in my body. And so I started to

get turned on and before I knew it in my grandfather's bedroom

upstairs in the large house, I had discovered porn with

pornography, and it wasn't you really wasn't a thing at that

point. And the dogma of Catholicism, which I grew up in,

had me feel shame and guilt and go to Confession every Sunday

and you know, share this sin quote, unquote. And so sexuality

was being suppressed, repressed rejected, title, this perverted

deviant. And so there was this mix between like a really

authentic desire for touch and physical expression with the

programming of religion and then also the programming of culture.

Because porn is also programming. porn is built for

people to be fulfilled porn is built for people to have orgasms

and consume more pornography and buy more pornography is a

product and nowhere in porn. Is there an expression? Well, okay,

with the rare exception of some feminists and female gays

inflected pornography, nowhere is porn, before the holistic

health and well being of the individual zooming it, I look at

it As fast food which if you eat enough fast food, you will die

of heart disease, for example, the great metaphor because

people are consuming porn instead of finding a way to

fully embody their desire and express their desires in the

world, so I didn't have a father at the time, who could teach or

train or lead or guide me in any way in the direction of like a

healthy expression in sexuality. And what I had was called the

same culture that tells women to be as Virgil and pure as the

Madonna but as, as open and slutty as a whore. Like the same

culture that makes both things look good and leave leaves women

confused and tells me, then you need to be studs, you need to be

having lots of sex with lots of people, you need to figure it

out, you need to be good at it, and you need to impress your

woman and all this shit. So porn was my only sexual expression

for three or four years, through high school. I barely went out

on dates barely made out with women. And I was in an all boys

Catholic High School. So I didn't really receive any sort

of sexual education. Other than abstinence is best. If you do

have sex, you're going to hell, if you masturbate or have sex of

any kind, you need to confess it as soon as possible, so you

don't burn forever. And

I, I was hardcore Catholic, like I was serious about it. I loved

the religion, and I loved serving it. And I and I was

obsessed with perfection. I was obsessed with being not sinful,

not a sinner. And then I became an atheist. And as an atheist,

it was like, oh, wow, all of this stuff that I thought was

bad. Now I can do it. Live, cheat and steal. Because you

know, at all, all the ethics are made up. And I still believe

this on some level that all ethics are made up. It's just

that for me, living from love, feels better, works better,

leaves a better trail, and a better impact on the people I

interact with, helps me to build my business, my life. Yeah, so

just fits and works better. And I think innately we humans have

empathy and compassion is part of our genes as part of our

brains. So we can either embrace it or try to deny it and suffer

from the consequences. So I embrace it, I recommend everyone

else embrace it as well. In fact, self compassion and self

love, self soothing through self pleasure is not wrong. And porn

use is not wrong. porn addiction is not wrong. People who are

addicted to porn, meaning using it more than they want using it,

instead of creating a sexual partner using it in a way that

is negatively impacting their life or their business of their

purpose, their career, and I've experienced all forms of those,

you know, those people are not wrong. Imagine if we grew up in

a world where everybody was smoking, and smoking was just

normal. And nobody had ever done any studies on the impact of

smoking. And people were dying of lung cancer, it was just

like, this is the thing that happens. Or people were, you

know, getting X, Y and Z illnesses, like it would just be

a commonly accepted fact. So Gary Wilson, and a TED talk

called the Great porn experiment talks about this, how there's an

epidemic of mostly men who are dealing with ADD social anxiety,

an inability to focus all kinds of different symptoms that are

being diagnosed as separate problems. When we look at it.

And we look at hardcore, multiple tabs, streaming

pornography, we can see that so much of those symptoms of those

those problems really could be viewed as symptoms of an under

diagnosed condition, which is just the general use of porn.

People don't even have to be addicts to be impacted

negatively by porn, as it exists currently, are brave enough.

They were designed by evolution, nature, whatever is, you know,

if a man sees a woman, an attractive woman, he gets a

spurt of dopamine. In fact, in the occipital lobe of his brain,

the visual cortex, he ranks her as hot or not, subconsciously,

before his conscious brain before his ethical brain has

anything to do or say about it. So like, by the way, y'all if

you're in a relationship, and your man notices another woman,

that's because it's programming. It's not his fault. He's not a

cheater, he's not wrong. And porn, the way that it works is

where at whereas in the evolutionary theater 100,000

years ago, We would see a woman once in a month or something,

maybe as men, and we'd be like, Oh, my God, and we get this huge

release of dopamine, like, I've got to pay attention to her,

I've got to engage with her. Because if I don't, I won't find

a mate and the species will die. This is this is our gene pushing

us, right, our evolutionary programming pushing us. But when

you put a lot of attractive women naked, on a screen,

engaged in sexual behavior, there is a dopamine overload. So

it becomes an avalanche for the male brain becomes overwhelming,

it becomes impossible to resist at a certain level. Now, I also

have a personal belief spiritually, that those who are

producing pornography, possibly through no fault of their own,

being part of a much larger system are fostering and

encouraging people to exist at the level of component.

Bullshit, which is a very low energy. It's a very like, you

can feel the difference between feeling playful and feeling

excited and curious and joyful, versus feeling like you need

something, there's a tightness, there's a constriction, there's

a contraction. And

so the idea is that there are literally negative energy beings

that latch on to the souls and energy bodies that people who

use porn. And this explains so much of my experience with

addiction, and use of porn, because sometimes I would use

porn. And I'd be like, Alright, I'm done. I'm gonna go

concentrate on something else. And I feel an uncontrollable

need and desire and a distracted attention focused on getting my

next tip. Yeah, and I promise and I pray and I push. And then

within 30 minutes, or 40 minutes, I find myself in front

of the screen, and I feel like crap. And the the reaction, the

self judgment of guilt and shame over not being able to control

myself, would add to that snowball that spiral of that

already constricted feeling in my body. Yeah, yeah. And

sometimes it literally felt like my personality was being taken

over by something else. And so I understand if somebody wanted to

make the argument that demons were involved. Yeah, I don't

actually contend against that. And I literally would walk

around heavy in my body for days, two weeks after, unless I

got energy work done. Hmm. So people are carrying stuff

around. People potentially are carrying beings around, that are

feeding off of their energy and pulling them into behaviors that

are disempowering and detrimental to them. That's one

view. Right? Nobody has to buy the spiritual view. It's just a

great explanation for what I've experienced. Go ahead.

Now, I totally understand what you mean. It's like a total

vicious cycle that people are caught up in? How can you step

out of it? Is it with very like baby steps? Or do you have to? I

mean, I guess every person is different. You can go cold

turkey with one person and not with the other. But how was it

for you? How did you get out of it is the awareness that you had

that it made you feel? Good, but it made you feel very bad and

kept like made you feel captured? At the same time? How

did you move out of this, this negative, vicious cycle?

Excellent question. So I failed a lot. Mm hmm. I would take 90

days off of hardcore porn and outsource the control of my

phone and the management of parental controls on my computer

and my phone to do friends of mine. And then I would go for 90

days without orgasm without sex without relationship. And yet, I

would still be looking at softcore porn, which kept those

neural pathways alive and then when I started having sex again,

everything would break down and I would get cravings and I would

get overcome and I would just return to the same like a dog to

its vomit as the New Testament says. And I tried tapping the

Emotional Freedom Technique. I tried hypnosis. I spent really

good money. I tried Mastery Systems and landmark and

accountability partners and I even looked into sex and love

Addicts Anonymous. None of it work. Not they helped ultimately

to resolve the problem perfectly. Suddenly, all of it

helped me cope in the moment and gave me a good feeling for a

certain period of time, really. The solution for me, and this

only came very recently is a combination of three things.

purpose, connection, and cleverness with technology.

Yeah, so I can say that most people who are dulling their

edge, or numbing out using porn, and drinking and drugs, and TV

and Netflix and all kinds of things, because we're here to

live a purpose, we're here to make a difference. We're here to

give our gifts, we're here to create something in the world.

If we see that something is missing in the world, we're

meant to either become it or bring it. And, you know, it's

about distinguishing that for yourself, clarifying and

aligning with something that makes use of you to where you're

a force of nature, you are, you are impacting the world. For me,

it grew is this little five years ago, as well, I think my

purpose is to give my unique and creative gifts and talents and

service to others. I don't know what those are yet, but I'll

figure that out. That was right before I started my coaching

business. And then, during my coaching business, I eventually

realized, well, one of my gifts is events, one of my gifts is

conversations and workshops, I'm just going to keep doing this,

but here's the thing, every month I would get I would get to

a plateau of purposiveness, I would get really excited three

or four days before the event, I get super focused I I clean up,

I turn off all the porn and I you know, make sure that I take

lots of cold showers to rebuild my testosterone and my energy

and my focus. So I'd be available for my people, my 20

to 50 people I'd fill the events with. And then afterwards, I

would either have sex with my girlfriend, and then the porn

would get retriggered or I would go for a week, floating in this

plateau of energy, of enthusiasm and charisma and joy and

creativity. And then eventually I would self sabotage. And I

would hit up the porn again. And this cycle happened over and

over and over again. So that purpose though, was my anchor,

it was pulling me out, kept pulling me out over and over.

But yet, I noticed the impact of my relationships. It made me

less connected it made me feel numb in my body, it made me less

able to concentrate less fluid and fluid and capable and clever

with my words, and and creative an expression. It left a less

available for tuning into my intuition get literally left me

making less money than I would make when I wasn't choosing both

to use foreign or to have lots of sex. So the energy of

prosperity, the energy of purpose, the energy of

abundance, and the energy of sexual connection are all one in

the same in the body. They're all related to this

artist I have a supply of energy and we have the ability to use

it for what we're here for or we can squander inch, throw it and

cast it to the four winds through sex and, and random

activities that are not aligned with us. We align with the will.

When we align with our purpose, when we surrender into what

we're meant to do on this planet, prosperity follows. And,

and the fulfillment also follows. fulfillment comes from

us doing our purpose, not from trying to get happy not from

trying to get a relationship not from trying to get sex. So all

of those fall into place. Once we're living our purpose first.

Now, strategically, you may be clear on what your purpose is,

you may be focused on living your purpose and I was for years

and yet I would still use porn on occasion. And I would notice

the drop in my energy the numbing in my body, the

constriction. Eventually I came to the point where I no longer

judged myself for it. And that's one layer to remove all the

judgment, all the shame, the blame the guilt, the like I'm

wrong for this, there's something wrong with me just let

go of all those stories. And that then you can be because at

that point, you're like, Alright, I've got something more

important that I'm moving towards that will keep me on

course, that will pull me through whatever zigzags it

takes to get this behavior change. And then, you know,

number two, connection and cleverness with technology.

Right So, the antidote to all addiction is connection. And for

me living my purpose means connecting with people in

service of them, or in potential service of them showing up for

delivering podcasts or workshops or public speaking engagements.

I did a workshop called becoming conscious with polyamory just a

couple days ago, and it lit me up. And I was massively in

service. And I felt aligned with my purpose. I got another one

coming up in Austin called becoming pornography. Because

this is a common topic, a lot of people are dealing with this

right. And yet, if you're suffering in silence, your your

mind your brain, neighborhood, and there are neural pathways

that you built, you become unconsciously competent. As an

on autopilot, it's easy for you to float and drift back down to

using things and doing things that don't work for you that are

unhealthy for you. If someone like speaking to someone who's

an addict, right. But what it takes, You're the son, you're

the average of the five people you spend the most time around.

So I started to spend more and more time once I knew my purpose

around people who are also living their purpose around

people who are as committed or more committed than I was to

their purpose expressed as prosperity. And those people

didn't have these problems, those people had their attention

on other things. So as I started to get into connection,

community and conversation with these people, I started to focus

my attention to my energy, my energy on those other things, I

started to become more like those people. And you know,

finding people who don't have problems with porn, who are

living their purpose that can only help you and being in

communication, when you slip up. And you're in a space of self

judgment. And you want somebody like on a previous podcast, to

just sit with you and listen to you like letting go or clearing.

And I recommend the previous podcast for details on how to do

that with your a team and all of that. But really, I kept using

porn, up until a couple months ago, actually, I would use it

once every month or something, and I would always feel the

difference. And I'd always have to go get an energy clearing.

And I'd have to rebuild my testosterone using SAP

supplements. And I could tell that I wasn't fully present or

available for my clients, I could see a drop in my income

being a solopreneur. If it has, if it is to be it depends on me

that I'm going to just show up from me sitting on my ass and

not taking action. And especially if I'm not taking

action from an energetic receptive inflow space and state

porn is really great completely just destroying dismantling a

disfiguring any good steak and somebody feeling it like whether

through pulling sexual energy out, or, you know, just leaving

somebody in a whirling spiral of guilt and shame. So, you know,

there were a couple things that I did during this period of

intermittent use. And I'm about to give you the last piece, the

last piece is the most critical piece of what's put put it over

the top. But before I get there, you know, as men speaking to

because most is mostly men who have porn addictions. I've heard

of women as well.

Speaking as men, our purpose and our drive and our focus and our

ability to engage powerfully with real women, in sex and in

romance and in relationships depends on us cultivating such

orgasms to porn. It's not available for any of those

things. And we become diminished, we become less

available for our life, for the vitality and the vibrancy of our

life. There's a numbing out to everything that happens for

someone who uses porn at all, to any extent. And there are lots

of men suffering in silence, assuming that it's normal, using

and overusing even to the level of six and seven figures, CEOs

of large companies, who could be massively successful, but still

feeling misaligned. And we wonder what percent of marriages

end in divorce? Well, men are over and over activating their

dopamine reward system that encourages them to seek new

partners is biology trained us rather than their oxytocin

orgasm reward system through Taoist and Tantra sex sexual

practices with their primary or their perfect partner going

deeper and deeper in intimacy and connection with that person?

Right so porn has definitely contributed to infidelity has

definitely contributed to relationship dissatisfaction is

definitely contributing to divorce and the epidemic of

destroyed relationships and careers. So in that time, how

would I build myself back up into purpose meditation, I take

up maka ash wood garden And gokshura, which are Ayurvedic

herbs that you can get from different botanical companies, I

might recommend I have videos on creating aphrodisiac smoothies

that are also great for replenishing gene which is the

energy of purpose and the energy of action in men. So like, you

don't have to sit in silence and suffer, even if you're going to

continue using, right even if it's a thing that you don't feel

100% confident and comfortable with saying, All right, I'm done

with it. Because I did that so many times, I gave my word and

then I failed. And then I felt shitty. And then I felt

shameful. And then it made me use more. I don't want that what

steps for every level of the journey. The last piece is

obviously cleverness. One of my meditation teachers, he said, If

you can't be disciplined, be clever. So his his story about

this, as he says, Well, you know, I really wanted to go

ahead and do a long meditative journey like six or seven days.

It's called a session. It's like Samurai boot camp. He calls it

in Zen Buddhist monasteries over there in either China or Japan,

some Southeast Asia or something. And he says, well,

the way that I did this was I got myself from a rude being in

Southeast Asia. And the only place I had to live within the

monastery. So I knew that I wasn't disciplined enough to

take that that amount of time on my own and focus and do a

meditation retreat. But if it was my only option, then then

that made it easy. So you want to be firing on all cylinders,

you want all hands on deck, you want everything in service, and

supporting you to get things done. So in my case, I

discovered a couple things, I discovered an app called habit

share. And this was through my digital habits coach, by the

way, I had almost completed the work when I met my digital

habits coach, I had gone for long periods without using porn

before, but not to the point where I felt absolutely

grounded, comfortable, clear and confident that, hey, this is

done, this is over, this is not a problem anymore. Like it's not

going to happen again, there's no chance. So this app called

habit share is basically something that you declare what

you're going to do, and then you're accountable to a partner.

And every day you click the little

check mark, if you did the thing, or the x, if you didn't,

or if you're like, in some days, you you choose to do other

things or whatever, you can leave it blank, and then your

partner will notice. So you're holding yourself accountable to

doing or not doing the new behavior. Number one, number

two, there's an app called free. Freedom do. What freedom does is

it manages when, and if you have access to certain websites, to

certain activities. And you can basically create what's called a

session that regulates on your computer blocking all porn

sites. And then you start it and you set it to repeat every day

to start at 1201 because Originally, it was a

productivity app. Originally, it was like, I don't want to be

distracted by certain websites for a certain amount of time.

Then you schedule that time and it starts and then it stops and

you're like, Alright, I can go back to my aimless, mindless,

purposeless scrolling on Facebook, and Instagram, which

cancel clear, I don't do that anymore. I used to and I know

what that's like. But the way to use the app freedom net to is

just schedule it to where it starts the session blocking

those sites at 12:01am. At 11:59pm, so it's all day. Unless

for some reason you are really on a self sabotage, tear, and

you really don't know your purpose. And you really aren't

surrounded by a community of people who can help you. And

you're like, Oh, I can't wait till 12 o'clock in those 60

seconds. I'm gonna fuck this up and change things so that I can

get get around the system I created. Like, I mean, here's

what Claire don't do that. Obviously, that would be silly.

Oh, and then there were a couple self orientations that I took on

that helped me to recover and to manage whenever I had the urge

or the desire. So freedom that to works really well. Habit

share has worked really well. But there were a couple points

of orientation. So like, whenever I was feeling bored,

lonely, anxious, stressed or tired. Blast isn't bored,

lonely, anxious, stressed or tired, I would take note. And I

would take notice. And I would immediately say, Oh wait, I'm in

a low willpower state. I am distractible, I may do something

that I'm not looking forward to doing. I need to take extra care

to manage my behavior and to put resources in place. One of which

is, by the way, in. In the love languages, they talk about a

love tech, where if your partner's Love Languages touch

your you can choose to always be filling that love tank by giving

them more and more touch. And if your tank is quality time, well,

then they're more encouraged to want to fill your tank as well.

But we get to do this for ourselves. There are self

soothing and self loving behaviors, if you fill your day

with behaviors that are aligned with your purpose that you love

to do for themselves. For me, it's reading

and other habits that allow you to feel good in your life about

what you're up to where you don't need to seek compulsively

hits of dopamine through outside stimulation, then, porn won't

really be a problem. Of course, one of these habits of self love

is going to bed on time. between nine and 10pm is when our

nervous system most of us depending on your chronotype,

which is something you can look up and take a test to figure

out. Depending on your your nervous system, generally people

get the best rest, if they're asleep by 10 o'clock, and waking

up before 7am. This is just looking at neuroscience. And I

can speak a lot from personal experience. So like if you're

staying up late, if you're drinking, if you're doing

alcohol or drugs of any kind, you are literally setting

yourself up for failure and self sabotage. If you are hanging out

with people who use pornography, you're setting yourself up for

self sabotage, you're set if you're hanging out with people

who casually like say, oh, porn is just a thing. It's not a

problem. And maybe it's for them. But it is a problem for

you. So hanging around with somebody who can, who has it in

in their life can be a trigger, cognitively into rethinking

like, oh, maybe I can use it. And then you creep back into Oh,

shit. Now I'm compulsively using six times a day or something. So

notice the conditions in your life and which ones are

productive of you being a user and which ones are not set up,

set the game so that you can win, create a game that you can

win, get enlist the help of your technology, through habit, share

and freedom to notice when you're on blast when you're

bored, lonely, anxious, stressed and tired. and manage that

manage yourself with extra care. Fill up your own love tank by

doing things that you absolutely love, so that you're distracted

by stuff that's that's actually enhancing and uplifting you and

empower you in your life. And then finally, there's a little

practice called urge surfing, urge Surfing is noticing when

you have the urge to do something that you don't want to

do. And we can build vigilance through neuroplasticity in our

brains where we notice, hey, I'm having this desire to do this

thing. Maybe I, you maybe I should take extra care in this

moment, because the desire is here. Because anything and

everything might queue and trigger those neural pathways of

craving for porn. And, by the way, for a lot of men, the

desire for craving for porn is is very much confused with the

desire for craving for touch, or intimacy or sex or partnership.

So having a coach working with a coach to release all of those

things, to manage that subtlety and unlock all that intricacy so

that you're fully able, like I did with a client a couple days

ago, you're fully able to express without shame from your

sexual desires, and your desire for connection short circuiting

into porn because you feel like you can't get it out here in the

world. And that's something that happens to men that's part of

what retains their use of porn is they're just like, oh my god,

I Well, I women treat me like shit and reject me and I believe

I'm not beautiful because they've told me so I'm here in

the world. So I need to use porn because otherwise I'm not going

to get my quote unquote needs met. Right when it when really

we don't have sexual needs as much as a need for the flow of

sexual energy, which is the energy of purpose and abundance

through us as gifts out into the world primarily and then into

our partners and intimate relationships. Right. So anyway,

getting back to Earth surfing, what I would do is Either I

would add, you can choose something that's a lot of fun

for you. For me, it was playing the song breezed by electro

knowmia. I had it as a link on my Google Chrome. And anytime I

got the urge in those first like, three or four days when I

was working, anytime I got the urge, I would get up immediately

go to my computer, hit the button to play the song and

dance in my kitchen. So I was creating a new neural pathway.

Yes. Whereas later there was a an autopilot response. Yeah, of

like, oh, let's go look at some soft for pictures. Yeah. Oh,

instead, I'm dancing in the kitchen. And And boy, I don't

really want to use porn anymore. urge surfing can look like this,

it can look like you just noticing that you have the

desire and being with it.

not reacting to it, not responding to it, noticing it

like a bug bite or an edge on your skin. and choosing not to

scratch. Super simple, we're able to do it with small things,

we're able to deal with huge things like this. Yeah. So

that's it, pretty much. That's how I, you know, conquered porn

addiction. It took a lot, it took accountability. So hiring a

coach, really, a digital habits coach finally was the one to tie

it all together in a beautiful bow. And it took a lot of deep

energetic work, healing traumas, from the pool of poison and pain

called the past that people all carry around relating to sex and

intimacy and my ability to be a user on on user porn, because

limiting beliefs also impact all of this because you could do

everything I just told you, but still have limiting beliefs and

self sabotage patterns, which is why recommend coats and of

course, I'm a coach, I help people with this. So if you're

interested, Aurora will share information about me in the show

notes. But yeah, was was that what you were looking for my

friends.

This was Beyond Good and informative. Like I feel I

learned so much personally. And you can really apply your tools

that you provided us on every addiction to help. Yeah, create

new habits and get out of that vicious cycle. And sexual energy

is just the most strongest feelings and energy that roams

inside of us. And to suppress it, of course is going to create

illness or weirdness in your head. And we just have to all

learn to channel it into like you said, purpose and and

something productive for society and for the people around us.

And then for ourselves. And yeah, no, this was so awesome.

Thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing all your

secrets with us. I'm sure it will have a lot of people out

there who are struggling at the moment. Thank you so much.

You're so welcome. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We

hope we brought you value and make you feel less alone with

it. It is possible to get out of that vicious cycle and to enjoy

intimate relationships again, on a deeper level. Thank you so

much. And please don't forget to write me a review or rate my

podcast on Apple podcast. When you scroll all the way down. You

will see you can leave me a couple of stars here. Thank you