Course Topic Breakdown

Introduction: Welcome to the Journey

This episode will give you a brief tour of the journey and why it’s structured the way it is. You will learn how to make the most of your time with this material, plan your journey, and clarify your goals, in order to set yourself up well to pursue the freedom you desire.

Wholeness and Sexuality

At the height of our sexual brokenness, we often conclude that all God wants from us is to just stop misbehaving. This episode shows that God wants something much more beautiful and dynamic than we could ever imagine. God wants to shower our life with wholeness – delight, belonging, and justice.

Engaging Your Story with Honor & Honesty

The families and communities we grew up in profoundly shaped us. This episode will explore how to honor those we love while also being honest about the heartache they introduced to our life. The ability to engage our story with honor and honesty is central to all future growth.

Evil

We tend to think too much or too little about the role of evil in our lives. This episode suggests that as image bearers of God, evil intentionally plots against our sexuality. Learning to recognize the harm of evil and co-creating a new sexual story with God is central to our healing journey.

Family Systems

While there are many systems that impact our sexual brokenness, our families are one of the most foundational. The seeds of unwanted sexual behavior are often planted in rigid and/or disengaged family systems. This episode will help you identify the unique heartache of your family and its connection to your current unwanted sexual behavior.

Triangulation

Triangulation occurs when there is a breakdown in a marriage and a child is brought in to play a role that compensates for that breakdown. This episode shows how some parents become too close to their children, leading to unhealthy outcomes. Addressing triangulation present in your story will guide you to the emotional freedom you desire in your day-to-day and romantic life.

Sexual Abuse

The spectrum of abuse spans a wide range of traumatic experiences, from the introduction to pornography by a peer, all the way to those who have endured repeated and horrific harm. This episode will prepare you to engage the holistic impact of trauma – body, mind, and heart – and the ways that your present sexual brokenness may be an attempt to re-enact or reverse your childhood trauma or abuse.

Listening to Your Lust (Part 1)

If we are willing to listen, our sexual brokenness has so much to teach us. This episode will invite you the critical task of making meaning of your unwanted sexual behavior. You might be surprised to learn how your unwanted sexual behavior may actually be revealing specific clues about why you make the choices that you do.

Listening to Your Lust (Part 2)

This episode will continue our exploration about what our sexual fantasies might be saying about us. Rather than trying to militantly fight sexual brokenness, you will be invited to listen to the very precise messages your lust is sending about the origins of your unwanted sexual behavior.

Deprivation & Dissociation

Although we desire freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, it is critical that we understand what experiences keep us bound to it. This episode will help you identify areas that you deprive yourself of, such as rest and beauty. When deprived of important emotional and physical needs, we begin to lean on unwanted sexual behavior as a counterfeit form of the real need.

Futility

Whether it’s a lack of purpose in life, an inability to make a desired change in our marriage or unwanted sexual behavior, futility can corner each of us. This episode will guide you to identify and transform the reasons why unwanted sexual behavior is appealing to you in the midst of the difficulties in your life.

Lust & Anger

To be sure, lust is one of the primary drivers of sexual brokenness. But in our focus in lust, we’ve lost sight of another interrelated factor: anger. This episode will guide you to see the high interdependence of lust and anger, therefore preparing you to aim your recovery efforts at their partnership.

Resignation, Perversion and Degradation: Three Hijackers of Our Soul

Resignation, perversion and degradation impact each of our lives the longer we remain in unwanted sexual behavior. This episode will invite you to name the forms of denial and self-deception that weaken your conviction to change. Although seeing these areas of our life is often accompanied with shame, facing the truth of our choices helps set us free.

Shame: Disarming Its Paralyzing Power

Shame is the painful feeling that we are unwanted and unworthy of love. While it may be intuitive to understand that shame is a feeling that results from indulging in unwanted sexual behavior, this episode will also show you that it is something that also drives you to it. In learning to be vulnerable with our sexual story, we see that our sexual shame is not a barrier, but a bridge to love.

Self-Care

Recovery isn’t about trying to pull weeds for the rest of your life. It’s about planting a beautiful garden whose fruits you and many others will enjoy. This episode will guide you to develop self-care through pursuing daily delight and filling your life with activities and people that awaken gratitude.

Healthy Relationships

Although unwanted sexual behavior may have led to hiding and conflict with those closest to you, sexual brokenness can actually invite you to a new and vibrant relational life. This episode will show you how vulnerability and mutuality can become the foundation of your most significant relationships.

Transformative Community

The most profound form of community is not just having others see us at our worst moments, but allowing our lives to be fully shaped by those closest to us, and to participate in shaping theirs. This episode will guide you to see community as a source of structure and accountability, an invitation to develop empathy, and finally, a context to discover a deep sense of purpose.

Conclusion

Like any good story, some of the chapters ahead will be painful and some will be glorious. This episode will invite you to ponder where you want to go with this one, beautiful life you’ve been given.