The ACT Matrix: A Map to Awareness and Empowerment for Change

Imagine you wake up in the morning full of energy, looking forward to what you have planned for the day.  As you step into the kitchen to make your coffee, you think of the big presentation you have coming up for work.  Suddenly, you start feeling afraid and nervous as you imagine everything that could go wrong.  Thoughts of insecurity begin to flood your mind: “I can’t do this.  I don’t know enough to give this presentation.  This is going to be a disaster.”

The energy you felt getting out of bed is draining fast.  After pouring yourself a cup of coffee, instead of tackling your emails or the tasks you had planned to complete in the morning, you end up sitting on the couch and scrolling through Instagram.  Maybe you give up on the coffee altogether and go back to bed.  Or you pick a fight with your spouse when they walk into the kitchen to let out some of the stress and anxiety you’re feeling.

Later in the day, you think back and wonder, “How in the world did that happen?  My morning was going great, and then everything fell apart so quickly.  Why does this happen to me?”

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in frustrating patterns of behavior that make us unhappy, but we’re not quite sure how to change them.  Often these concerns lead people to seek out counseling.  They know there’s something wrong, but they just aren’t sure how to fix it.

Luckily, there is a tool for making sense of these thoughts, behaviors, and feelings: the ACT matrix.  It is a guide to seeing your behavior within the framework of what inner and outer experiences move you toward or away from what really matters to you.

The ACT Matrix

The ACT Matrix was developed out of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which emphasizes the balance between acceptance of your current reality (supported by mindfulness and self-soothing strategies) and commitment to change what is within your control (supported by behavior change strategies and skill-building).  The goal of this framework is to move toward change with compassion and self-understanding, integrating nonjudgmental awareness and making peace with challenging emotions and experiences.

The ACT matrix tool was developed as a way to visually represent this framework.  It was created by Kevin Polk, Jerold Hambright, and Mark Webster for use with trauma and addictions.

Credit: Dr. Kevin Polk

The matrix helps you see the function of your behaviors, or how and why they work (or don’t work) for you.  Understanding these foundations can help you take a more holistic, compassionate, and long-lasting approach to change.

The Horizontal Axis: Moving Toward vs. Away

Looking at the diagram above, you’ll notice a horizontal line with the labels “toward” and “away.”  This axis represents how we move in each of these two directions.  We have hard-wired biological responses that move us toward things that feel important to us and away from potential threats or what we do not want.  Consider the instincts of animals in the wild: they move toward things that provide something they need (food, shelter, other animals of their kind) and away from threats (predators, wildfires, humans). 

The Vertical Axis: Inner vs. Outer Experience

As humans, however, we don’t live our lives purely on instinct.  We can observe and respond to stimuli that are outside of ourselves, but we also have a vibrant inner world that influences and shapes our responses.  We can use reason, control impulses, make decisions, and weigh options.

The vertical axis on the diagram represents this shift between our inner and outer worlds.  Our outer experiences are things we do that other people could observe, including behaviors or actions.  Our inner experiences are what happens inside our mind and body: thoughts, feelings, sensations, decisions, etc.

In every moment of our lives, we exist somewhere on this vertical line.  Either we are more connected to our internal world, absorbed by the thoughts and feelings associated with it.  Or we are more connected to the outer experience, what we’re doing or what’s happening around us.

The Matrix as a Road Map

Consider that each of these axes are a continuum.  Rather than living in all-or-nothing, this matrix provides a road map to identify what can move you closer to one side or the other.  There are a range of possibilities to explore along each of these lines.

Creating Your Matrix Map

Now, let’s consider how you can reflect on your personal values to fill out this road map and identify what patterns are keeping you stuck.  We do this through a series of four questions that guide you to identify how you are moving toward or away from your goals, and how your internal experience as well as your behavior play a role in that dynamic.  Let’s start with the bottom right quadrant.

Quadrant 1 (bottom right - moving toward, inner experience)

What matters to me?  What is important to me?  What values do I hold?

Write a list in this quadrant of what is most important to you.  Aim for about 4-5 people, things, concepts, values that are most significant.  Reflect on what they mean for you.  For example, if one of your values is “happiness,” consider what your ideal picture of happiness would look like.

Quadrant 2 (bottom left – moving away, inner experience)

What thoughts, feelings, urges, or other internal experiences get in the way of living into those values?  What limits me from being able to have what is important to me?

Reflect on the internal experience that gets in the way of the full expression of those values.  Perhaps your lack of confidence prevents you from being able to date and pursue marriage, which is valuable to you.  Maybe you feel bouts of intense sadness and grief over the loss of a loved one, which is preventing you from living out your goal to achieve at work or pursue friendships.

Quadrant 3 (top left – moving away, outer experience)

When I have the thoughts and feelings in quadrant 2, what do I do?  How do I respond in observable behaviors?

Now it’s time to see how these thoughts and feelings influence your behaviors and how you respond.  These may include attempts at coping with the troubling internal experience, for better or for worse.  What you’re looking for here is anything that moves you away from what is important to you.  For example, you may find yourself overeating every time you feel lonely.  Or you drink more when you’re dealing with a storm of insecure thoughts. Perhaps you withdraw and isolate from others when you’re feeling lonely or rejected.

Quadrant 4 (top right – moving toward, outer experience)

What can I do to move me toward what is important to me?

The ultimate goal of this guide map is to help you brainstorm and define ways to increase movement toward the things that are important to you.  By reflecting on the first three quadrants, you may be able to clarify for yourself what behaviors support your values and goals.  You might identify initiating a date with your spouse as an action that moves you toward intimacy in your marriage.  Or you might include exercise or getting more sleep if one of your values involves health and fitness.

Feedback Loops

Often where we get stuck is in the interplay between quadrants two and three.  Look at the behaviors you listed in quadrant 3.  When you engage in those behaviors, how do they impact your thoughts, feelings, urges, and inner experience?  Typically, they either reinforce the internal experience that’s already happening, or they create another inner dynamic that moves you away from what you value.

When we have an inner experience that is challenging, distressing, or painful, we respond to that experience with behaviors that reinforce it and send us back into the pain.  No wonder we find ourselves stuck in those loops!  But there’s good news: once you’re aware that this feedback loop is happening, you can change the way you interact with it, often by using the behaviors involved in quadrant 4.

Compassion

One strength of the ACT matrix approach is looking at these behaviors with a nonjudgmental lens.  When you see where they fit on this road map, you can identify how they function. All behaviors have a function and work to serve that function, even if they seem confusing or counterintuitive.  Another way to explain this is that everything you do works for you in some way – otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it.  What you need to ask yourself is what function that behavior is serving in your life.

For example, if you find yourself endlessly scrolling through social media, perhaps that behavior is serving a numbing function.  Maybe it is a way to feel connected when you’re isolated from loved ones.  Or perhaps it’s a springboard for creative ideas.  Each of these potential functions (and sometimes a combination of several) drives and motivates this behavior. 

Seek to offer kindness to yourself and explore where you are on the continuum without judgment, exploring where you might want to go and what steps you can take to get there.

Agency

Some versions of this matrix include a circle at the center that overlaps all quadrants.  This circle represents you as the observer, becoming aware of the system of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that influence you.  Awareness of the system can lead you to reflect on what’s in charge of the systems in place: for example, who is in charge of choosing what’s important to you (quadrant 1)?  Who is having these thoughts and emotional responses (quadrant 2)? Who is acting on these behaviors in response to the thoughts and feelings (quadrant 3)? The answer to all these questions is you.

This demonstrates how much agency you have over these areas of your life, empowering you to change.  If you are the one in charge, then you are the one capable of creating change in your life.  You can become aware of the feedback loops in your life and explore alternative options.  You can learn new skills to move you toward what is important to you.  Even small changes like intentional mindful breathing can shift your experience between your inner and outer world, demonstrating the control you have over your moment-by-moment experience.

Spend a day observing your movement on this ACT matrix: how your thoughts and actions influence how connected you are to your inner or outer experience, or how much you are moving toward what feels important or moving away from it. Become more conscious of the behaviors that move you toward what matters to you and to reduce the intensity of the feedback loops you experience.

If you find yourself noticing these patterns but still feeling stuck or unable to change, that’s where a good therapist can help you work through those stuck points. 

Additional ACT Matrix Resources

• Kevin Polk, one of the creators of the ACT Matrix, has trainings to understand this concept further through his ACT Matrix Academy.

• Mark Webster, another contributor to the matrix, has a three-part YouTube series demonstrating how it works.

• Jacob Martinez, an ACT matrix trainer, has resources at his ACT Naturally website.

A Christian Perspective on Personal Growth and Change: Review of How People Grow by Henry Cloud & John Townsend

In my work as a therapist, I am grateful for the daily opportunities I have to walk with clients through their most challenging seasons of life.  For some, these trials arise from circumstances that spiral out of control or past trauma that has influenced their response.   Or their struggles are caused by their own mistakes or actions, which is particularly true in the case of addiction.

When we face the challenges of addiction, tense marriages, attachment issues, trauma, depression, or anxiety, it’s easy to get caught up in hopelessness.  You may fear that nothing will ever change.  That’s usually what pushes people into therapy – understanding that you’re at the end of your rope.

Normally you’ll understand the what – what you would like to see change.  But the difficulty comes when you ask how: how do I experience freedom from this addictive pattern?  How do I cope with the loneliness that seems ever present?  How do I calm my mind when it’s keeping me up at night racing with anxiety?  How can I find hope in my marriage that feels like it’s on its last legs?

For Christians, these questions can be especially challenging, particularly if you’ve heard messages from the church that the solution to these issues is to “have more faith” or “trust God more.”  Some faith traditions are wary of psychology and therapy, saying that the Bible is all you need for a solution. While there’s always room to grow for every Christian in the areas of faith and trust, and the Bible contains much truth that can be encouraging and challenging, these messages can oversimplify or minimize the process of growth.  There are certainly more steps that can be taken in faith to address the question of how to change. 

How People Grow

Henry Cloud and John Townsend address the foundations of this how question in their book, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth.  They take a Christian, Biblical approach to understanding the mechanisms behind change.  They emphasize that spiritual growth and emotional/relational growth are essentially the same process.  In their words, they state that spiritual growth can and should affect your “real life.” 

This book integrates the concepts of Biblical theology and psychology together in a way that offers hope and help for those who feel lost in the quagmire of their current challenges.  They focus on specific components of theology that have a direct bearing on our daily lives or response to life’s struggles.

In reading this book, I found several of the principles helpful for bridging the gap between Christian teaching and concepts involved in counseling. At the end of each chapter, the authors offer reflection questions, both for personal growth and for growth as a leader.  If you challenge yourself to work through this book, I’d recommend journaling through these questions or discussing them with a group. You can also purchase their companion workbook to have more space for reflection.

Addressing the How

The authors seek to answer the question, “How does a Christ-following person experience change?” Below are a few areas they point out as essential to facilitate change.

The Role of the Trinity

With three distinct chapters that address all three members of the Triune God, the authors remind us of the place of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the process of healing.

• The Father God offers grace through revealing the law, which illustrates that we cannot be perfect and that we need Him and His grace.

• Jesus provides an example for life because He has experienced suffering, temptation, and pain in ways that allow him to relate more deeply to us.

• The Holy Spirit offers empowerment, guidance, strength, and wisdom to change within us through transforming our hearts.

Acceptance

In 12 Step groups, the most important, foundational step (Step One) requires accepting your own powerlessness.  We need to recognize that only when we are at the end of ourselves can we begin to change, truly accepting and experiencing God’s grace.  Experiencing those rock-bottom moments actually lead us to good, in that they point us toward God and away from prideful independence and attempting to fix ourselves on our own.

Acceptance involves recognizing our sin and knowing that we have been given a new standing before God.  If we can’t see our own failures and shortcomings, we can’t receive God’s grace through the love of Christ.  We need to accept the reality of our pain and our own role in it so we can experience hope. Yet because we are already loved by God, we do not need to prove ourselves or make ourselves good enough through sheer willpower.

Practicing acceptance is necessary for patience with the process of change.  We often try to rush change, wanting it to happen on our timeline and within our control.  But patience involves waiting on God’s timing for healing.  This doesn’t mean, however, that you are passive in the healing process: rather, you often take an active role of participating in what God is already doing. 

The Importance of Support

I appreciated the authors highlighting the reality that God often works through people to push along the process of change.  In relationships, we can experience grace in practice through forgiveness, and we can be encouraged and validated.  In grief or hurt, we often don’t feel we have courage or strength, but we can draw upon that of others to help us along.  Others can offer mentorship, modeling the life you desire, such as a 12 Step sponsor who is further along in the recovery process.  Choosing transparency and honesty with friends offers accountability and structure outside of your own faulty self-discipline.  Good friends can challenge you toward growth.

Find people in your life who can offer some or all of these components with a mindset of both truth and grace.  You need people who will encourage and build you up, but you also need people who can help you to grow in discipline.  If you’re part of a Bible study or small group, seek to make that group a context for growth.  Within recovery, social support like this is key to achieving sobriety and living a recovered life.

Guilt vs. Conviction

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone where you express feelings of hurt, but they feel so guilty about how they’ve wronged you that they shut down, become consumed by their grief, and then withdraw from relationship with you? Or perhaps you see yourself here.  This has the opposite effect of what the hurt partner truly desires: reconciliation and connection.

“If you have ever been in a relationship with someone who fails you and is overly concerned with how bad she feels as opposed to how she is affecting you, you understand how God feels.”

— Cloud & Townsend, How People Grow

Cloud and Townsend make an interesting argument that the feeling of guilt as we understand it tends to lead to more selfishness and hopelessness than it does to change.  It quickly becomes tied to shame, or negative beliefs about our identity.  This shame and self-pity leads us to feel bad about ourselves or the rejection we experience from others, keeping us caught in our own heads.  We miss the opportunity for grace here, that we are already forgiven for those mistakes.

They suggest, first, to recognize the areas where you tend toward guilt feelings.  These could be “shoulds”, family background and influence, cognitive distortions, harshness with self, or masking a deeper hurt or responsibility.  Then, instead of descending into a pit of shame or self-pity, imagine a response of grace and love from God in that area, knowing that He has already forgiven you and will do the work of transforming you if you let Him.

Taking Action

I appreciate the author’s choice to address some of the limiting messages that can be portrayed by churches by reminding us of the importance of taking action in response to these truths.  Reading the Bible is good, but without taking action in response to what is being taught, you cannot expect to see miracles of change.  James 1:22-25 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” 

With the support of others, practice responses of obedience to the Holy Spirit’s leading.  Read Scripture and reflect on how it can influence your actions and lead you toward healing.  Recognize the ways God might be calling you to change your behavior.  Incorporating both reflection and action is an essential component of change.

Willingness in Recovery: What To Do When You Don’t Want to Stop Acting Out in Sex and Love Addiction

In recovery circles, willingness to change is a necessary part of leaving behind destructive patterns of sex and love addiction to experience freedom.  Sometimes willingness comes easily.  For example, if you are married and your spouse discovers your addiction, that often creates a push to change as you work to heal your relationship.  You may be experiencing real consequences of your addiction, like an arrest or the dissolution of friendships.  Or you’re early in the process of recovery and motivated to put in the hard work of change.

But as time goes on, you might notice your willingness fading.  You might miss the dopamine rush you got when you were acting out.  Or you’ve ended your relationship with your partner, which removes that motivation to change.  Perhaps you’re feeling shame about your behaviors, and the easiest way you know how to self-medicate shame is with more acting out.

Maybe you relapse, getting caught back up in the cycle of acting out.  Perhaps the boundaries you know you need to put in place to help you along the path to recovery seem way too hard to implement. 

You could be struggling with the cost of recovery, recognizing the extent to which your life may have to change.  Sometimes the work involved in the process recovery leads to a feeling of weariness and a desire to just give up. 

Regardless of reason, it is common to see willingness ebb and flow in the process of recovery.  Instead of viewing your lack of willingness or motivation to change as a death knell to your recovery work, use this opportunity to learn more about yourself and lean in to practices that will help you stick with recovery even when it becomes challenging.

As a note: these recommendations are specific to sex and love addiction.  There are likely different, more targeted recommendations for addictions that involve a substance, such as alcohol or drugs.  If you are dealing with those addictions, reach out to 12 Step resources and specialized counseling or treatment centers to get guidance on how to address willingness in that area. 

What to Do

Remind yourself of your vision for your future.

It can be a challenge to find hope when you’re stuck in the (often devastating) consequences of your acting out behaviors.  Define for yourself what a recovered life could look like.  Even if you never achieve this, what would be the ideal?  Why did you choose recovery in the first place?  What could life be like when you are free of your addictive behaviors? 

Use this vision to help you identify what you’d like your life to look like in 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year.  Breaking down those goals into more manageable time frames can help you make concrete goals or plans for what’s right in front of you.

Target your denial.

Your unwillingness to change often finds support from denying the impact of your behaviors.  This denial often comes in the form of distorted thinking patterns.  I often call this process “addict thinking” versus “rational thinking.”  When you’re acting out in addiction, the rational, healthy component of your brain goes offline. Instead, the addict part of you is at work trying to persuade you that your addictive behaviors are not only okay, but good for you.

Identify the “voice” of your addict part of yourself by writing down the statements of denial that are most common for you.  They might include words such as:

• “It’s not hurting anyone.”

• “I only do it because my spouse isn’t meeting my sexual needs.”

• “I deserve this.”

Then, when you have some space from your acting out behaviors, sit down and write responses from the point of view of your rational brain to address those denial statements with facts.  Come back to these responses when you’re tempted to act out and remind yourself of truth about your behaviors.  To the above comments, you might respond:

• “Addiction hurts my spouse, my children, and most importantly, myself.  I lose control over myself and expose myself to further and more dangerous consequences.”

• “My addiction is how I shortcut my way to a dissatisfying false intimacy instead of pursuing true intimacy with my spouse.”

• “I am not entitled to harm myself or others by my actions.  My behavior promises that it will feel good, but I consistently end up feeling miserable afterward.”

Be patient with yourself.

Acknowledge that this process takes time.  Consider climbing a mountain: when you begin at the bottom, it is obvious that you have a long way to go to get to the top.  As you climb and begin to grow weary, it can be easy to get distracted by how much further you have to go.  You might look up at the summit and get discouraged by the time it will take you to reach the top.  Instead, focus on the step right in front of you.  In 12 Step terminology, this is taking “one day at a time.”

Recognize that recovery is a lifestyle change, not a one-time experience; a marathon, not a sprint. But the rewards of a recovered life will make every step worth it.

Stay committed to your recovery plan.

If you’ve been in recovery for any length of time, you probably have been participating in some recovery-related activities and have potentially even made a plan for how to best address your addiction.  Even if you’re currently acting out, continue to engage in these recovery behaviors. 

If your plan was to go to 12 Step meetings regularly, keep going to your meetings.  Meet with your sponsor.  Make calls to others in recovery.  Keep attending therapy or support group.  Use the principle of “fake it til you make it” until your recovery behaviors begin to shape and mold your thoughts and emotions.  This will eventually create motivation to change if you give it time.

Do the bare minimum.

If you’ve already gotten out of the routine of your recovery plan, it might seem challenging to get back into the habit.  When commitment to recovery feels overwhelming and too much, focus instead on one practical step you can take right now.  (Remember the mountain metaphor.) 

Make one call to a supportive friend.  Schedule an appointment with your therapist or sponsor.  Read a chapter in a recovery-related book.  Practice a small act of self-care – eating a healthy meal, going to sleep early, getting outside for a walk.  Any of these small steps can have a huge impact over the long haul. 

Focus on recovery, not sobriety.

It’s common early in recovery to find yourself focusing only on sobriety and “white-knuckling”, attempting to force yourself to stop by your own willpower.  This usually is accompanied by a lack of commitment to the whole-life change required in recovery.

What’s the difference?  Recovery is a holistic process - much of your life must change.  Sobriety is one part of that, but it is not all of it.  Attempting to keep your life exactly the same and get sober is a recipe for failure, because likely some of what you were doing in daily life contributed to your desire to act out.  Focusing on sobriety involves only focusing on what you can’t do, while recovery shifts that focus to what you can do. 

Focusing only on sobriety leads to beating yourself up about failing when you inevitably slip or relapse.  Rather than placing so much of your identity and hope on sobriety, place that relapse or slip under the context of recovery and see what you can learn from it.  Sobriety is categorized by shame; recovery is categorized by hope.

Ask God for willingness.

The 12 Steps are built around reliance on a Higher Power to do the work of creating change in you, recognizing you are incapable of creating that willingness to change on your own.  Speaking from a Christian worldview, we are told in the Bible that it is God who works in us to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:13).  Ask God to help you with this process. Invite the Holy Spirit to do a transforming work in your heart.

Remember the message of grace here: that if you are in Christ, you are no longer condemned (Romans 8:1) and you are set free (Galatians 5:1), and if you invite God in, He will do a healing work in you and transform your willingness.

Know that you can’t do this alone.

In addition to having the support and help of God, it is essential to have the support of other people to help you make these changes.  Social support is one of the most important factors in any addiction recovery.

Reach out to the people you know who are in recovery circles or who you trust are safe for you.  If you don’t know who those people are, now is a good time to find them.  Start by attending a 12 Step meeting, support group, or counseling session and connect with supportive people who can help you along your path to recovery.

Why You Do What You Do: Using the Tree Model to Understand Your Behaviors

If you’re ever noticed yourself caught in destructive cycles of behavior or dysfunctional thought patterns and not understood how to stop, you’re probably like most of us.  Maybe you’ve found yourself in one of these situations:

• You’re noticing negative and critical thoughts about yourself and wondering where they’re coming from.

• You wonder why you can’t seem to maintain a solid friendship or romantic relationship.

• The intense pressure and fear you feel around being perfect plagues you.

• You find yourself struggling with eating and body image, no matter what solution you try.

• You’re constantly feeling taken advantage of by others.

• You’re dealing with an addiction that feels impossible to understand.

When you don’t have a framework to understand why you do what you do, it can feel like you’re flailing in search of an answer.  You might have tried solution after solution, finding that none of them seem to stick.  Or instead, you put your head in the sand and pretend like you don’t have any problems.  Often, we blame other people or circumstances for these behaviors or thoughts, which only keeps us trapped in the vicious cycle that got us there in the first place.

There’s a reason you do what you do, even if you haven’t fully uncovered it yet.  Often our behaviors stem from unconscious forces at work within us that are influenced by experiences in our early life, like trauma in our family-of-origin or experiences growing up that taught us certain lessons in life.  These can be positive or negative behaviors that were modeled or experienced.  They seem “normal” at the time, because you don’t know any different until you’re in a situation where someone has a different perspective.

Let’s use the image of a tree as a reference point to help us make sense out of these destructive cycles.  (I am indebted to the Harvest USA Tree Model outlined in their book Sexual Sanity for Women for inspiring this imagery).

The Tree Model

Imagine an image of an apple tree.  Your eyes are drawn to the red, plump fruit hanging from the branches. But what distinguishes a tree that produces good, healthy fruit from one that produces sickly or diseased fruit?  Much of that has to do with the health of the soil, the roots, and the inside of the tree itself: things that we cannot see or touch, but that have essential roles in the growth of a tree.

The Fruit

Let’s start with the fruit.  The fruit of the tree represents the results we see in our lives.  These are visible and external.  Good or healthy fruit may signify areas that are going well in our lives.  But fruit can also be negative: problems or issues we can’t seem to shake.  These are hard to miss when they cause us distress or pain.  Any of the situations mentioned at the beginning of this article would be categorized as fruit.

What results are you seeing in your life with which you are dissatisfied?  What do you want to be different?

The Branches

The branches that produce the fruit are the actions we take in our lives that contribute to the results we like or don’t like.  Leaves or other branches may obscure some of these, signifying that you might not be aware of some of these behaviors.  At the very least, you may not know why you do these behaviors until we explore more deeply. 

Which of your behaviors make this problem or issue worse?  Are there behaviors that you’ve tried to use to solve the problem, but they’ve failed?

The Trunk

Tree trunks include a core with rings showing layers that have grown over the course of time.  In our model, the trunk represents the core beliefs and emotions that motivate the actions that spill out onto the branches.  These might be beliefs you have about yourself, others, God, or the world around you that influence your behavior.  Paying attention to the thoughts going through your mind when you’re engaging in your “branches” behaviors might shed some light on these core beliefs.

What do you believe about yourself when you’re dealing with this problem?  What is the narrative you make up as to why your attempts to change haven’t worked?

The Roots

Roots reach down into the soil to get nourishment and strength, which in turn, feed the trunk.  Our roots represent legitimate desires or needs that were either met or not met and have influenced our core beliefs.  These legitimate desires become problematic when they take primary importance over everything else in your life or when you seek to meet them through unhealthy practices.  False intimacy experienced through sex and love addiction rather than fostering healthy (and often more difficulty) intimacy with a spouse or friend is one example of this. 

You might struggle to see your desires as legitimate, particularly when they feel self-focused or destructive. But I believe all desires are legitimate when they get down to their core.  Let’s say you desire to be rich.  When we explore the “why” behind that desire, we may find that growing up in poverty, you associated wealth with security and safety.  Being rich represents an experience of feeling safe.  Therefore, the true desire underneath is the desire for security and safety.

What core desire or desires underly your behaviors and results?  What are you hoping for, at your core?

The Soil

Finally, the soil, which provides nourishment for the tree, represents circumstances or people in your past that have answered your desires in healthy or unhealthy ways.  Often these are things you cannot control, as in other people, your inborn personality or body type, influences from media or the church, trauma, or other cultural messages.  This soil formulates the lens through which you view yourself, others, and the world.

While we cannot blame these external factors for our current behaviors, it is important to acknowledge their influence and normalize where our core beliefs were solidified by these experiences.

What experiences and perspectives from your past inform the problem you’re dealing with today?  What messages have you received that have impacted your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world?

Making it Personal

How do I apply this tree model to my own life?

First, take something that is going well in your life and trace it backwards, starting with the fruit.  Identify what actions contribute to that particular circumstance or experience.  Notice what thoughts or emotions led you to those actions.  Identify the desires you are meeting.  Pay attention to what circumstance or person taught you to meet your desire in that way.

Now repeat the same process with a problem or issue.  Here are a few examples to help you get started:

Positive Example

• Fruit: A good friendship

• Branches: Spending time with one another regularly, having fun together

• Trunk: Friendships are important to my well-being.  I’m capable of making friends.  I feel love and comfort when I’m around my friend.

• Roots: desires for connection and closeness

• Soil: I always saw my mother relying on her friends when she was stressed or having a hard time.  I learned that habit from her.

Problem Example

• Fruit: I can’t stay in a romantic relationship.  I find myself getting bored quickly.

• Branches: I seek out dating and the rush or the beginning of the relationship.  But after we’ve been dating for a while, I get bored and then end the relationship.

• Trunk: I’m no good at relationships.  I’m incapable of making a healthy relationship work.  I feel shame and guilt.

• Roots: desire to be loved and wanted

• Soil: My father was an alcoholic and often chose the drama of his addiction over loving his family.  I learned that I wasn’t worth quitting and addiction for, no matter how hard I tried to make him love me.

Remember, just as is the case with actual trees, you might find several different branches, roots, and influences from the soil that create the fruit you’re producing in this area.  Often I bring in a second metaphor here: the spiral staircase of healing.  You might come across the same issue from multiple angles, just like you would if you were climbing a spiral staircase.  But you have a different perspective on it each time you move forward.

As you explore these roots, this forms the foundation of change: change in your thinking patterns, releasing old trauma, and diagnosing the issue so you know how best to address what’s at the core.  This is significantly better than just attempting to fix the fruit.  If you get at the roots and trunk and change what’s happening there, the fruit will follow.

Letting Go of Shame as Essential to Sex Addiction Recovery

Addiction is thorny.  Every addict knows this.  Once it has its claws in you, it can feel impossible to disentangle yourself from it.  The relief that comes from being discovered and/or finally taking the first step to get help is tangible.  Finally, you don’t have to be dealing with this by yourself anymore.  Finally, you have an excuse to make it stop and the motivation or resolve to do so.

But what happens when that motivation fades?  Sure, you’ll be committed early on, attending meetings or support groups, meeting regularly with your therapist, following the program…until it starts to get too hard.  Maybe the motivation you had to quit goes away, in the form of a separation from a spouse or consequences fading in intensity.  Maybe you lose sight of your reasons why for stopping.  Or maybe the pain of the recovery process becomes too great and you have to escape back into something that is self-soothing, comforting, familiar.

So you relapse.  And upon relapse, the shame you’ve been holding at bay with recovery work comes crashing down on you again.  And to avoid or self-medicate away from that shame (because it is impossibly painful) you act out again, continue to go back to your addiction because it’s what feeds you.  Maybe there’s a part of you that desperately wants to get out, that knows the destruction your addiction can cause, that it already has caused.  But then there’s another part of you that says you can’t live without your addiction.  That it’s the only thing keeping you sane, keeping you holding on, keeping you alive.

And so these two sides are at war.  Pulling back and forth, hoping to motivate you on one side, hoping to destroy you on the other.

“There’s another part of you that says you can’t live without your addiction. That it’s the only thing keeping you sane, keeping you holding on, keeping you alive.”

Add in additional shame because you can’t stop, further consequences to your behavior that result from your relapse, and the dopamine and adrenaline rush that feel more intense because you haven’t acted out in a long time, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

In early recovery, I often hear vestiges of the war: wanting so desperately to stop but feeling completely unable to.  The addict part of you convincing that it isn’t all that bad, or that you’re hopeless and without strength to stop.  Or the reality that you really just don’t want to stop because it feels good and offers relief from the pain of daily living.  These admissions are often then followed with shame-based beliefs about yourself: I’m a horrible person, I’m never going to get better, There’s something wrong with me, I’m disgusting, I’m worthless, I’m weak.

What’s the quickest remedy for shame?  Escaping into addiction.

Addiction feeds off of shame. So before we can truly bring addiction to an end, live in recovery and achieve sobriety, the shame needs to be addressed as well.  Otherwise you just end up as a dry drunk.

Here’s where acceptance comes in.

Acceptance?  What?  So I’m just supposed to accept that I’m a lost cause and act out as much as I want to?  The addict part of me really likes that, but the healthy part knows that’s not good.

“Before we can truly bring addiction to an end, live in recovery and achieve sobriety, the shame needs to be addressed.”

True, if you look at acceptance as a free license to do whatever you want, that’s a problem.  That’s typically where addicts get entrenched in self-aggrandizement and self-deception as a way of denying and avoiding the reality of their addiction.

Acceptance is an important step in releasing yourself from shame, but it doesn’t stop there.  We’ll get to the next part in a moment, but for now, let’s start with acceptance.

How does it feel to say to yourself: I’m a horrible, disgusting person who doesn’t deserve good things?  If this is the language you use to describe yourself, no wonder you want to run away into addiction, into something that helps you feel better.

But what if, instead of beating yourself up for your addiction, you sought to make sense of it?

Hear me out: addiction doesn’t develop out of nowhere.  Research has shown that sex addicts often carry stories of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse or neglect.  Neglect, in particular, is hard to see because it’s the absence of something good in our upbringing.  Because we consider our own upbringings to be “normal”, we don’t see it as neglect. 

Even if you don’t have abuse or neglect in your story, the world we live in offers pornography at the ready with the few clicks of a button.  Pornography is designed to draw you in, flood your brain with dopamine and keep you coming back for more.  It’s an industry, after all, and they want to make sure you continue to “buy” their product.  Never mind the fact that regular use affects the neurocircuitry of your brain to make real-life partners less attractive, sexual desire harder to drum up, and creates a pattern of dependency on the images for sexual release.

Examine the origins of your addiction story.  Where did it start?  What was going on in your life at the time?  Were you experiencing pain or distress?  Even what you might consider “normal” pain like a breakup, a parental divorce, teasing at school, feelings of loneliness – what did the sexual behavior help you avoid?

When you pick up a habit that helps you cope, you tend to repeat it in adult life even if it’s not working anymore or its hurting you.  Sexual behavior, beyond just a habit for coping, is self-reinforcing as it alters your brain to offer such a potent rush of feel-good neurochemicals every time you engage in it.   

No wonder you keep going back to something that feels that good.  You learned it worked, and so you’ll repeat it. 

“When you pick up a habit that helps you cope, you tend to repeat it in adult life even if it’s not working anymore or its hurting you.”

And you aren’t the only one who’s had this experience.  There wouldn’t be books written about sex addiction, research articles on the effects of porn on the brain, and 12 Step and support groups about this issue if you were the only one who struggled with it.

Allowing the addictive behavior to “make sense” releases the stigma of shame.  It’s not that you’re a horrible person – you’ve (in essence) conditioned your brain such that you go to sex to give you relief from stress or pain.   

So now what?  Sure, it makes sense, but does that give me free license to do it whenever I want?

Not exactly.  See, realizing that it makes sense and acknowledging that for yourself is freeing.  It means that you’re not alone and that others have found a way out of this, even when they’ve been in the midst of an intense relapse or full-on addiction.

Remember earlier when I said there would be a next step beyond acceptance?  That step is commitment.

Commitment to change.  Commitment to recovery.  Commitment to carry out the life values that are important to you.  Commitment to people.  Commitment to yourself.

Understanding commitment requires a vision for your future.  Shame destroys any hope for the future, so it follows that vision is only established when you accept that you aren’t hopeless or a lost cause, because it makes sense why you would choose addiction. Knowing others have been able to get out of it bolsters that hope.

Why do you want to stop?  What has it cost you to stay addicted?  What have you lost?  What are you at risk of losing if you don’t stop?

Imagine your future if you don’t stop acting out.  What would that look like?  How does that make you feel?  Imagine your current or future marriage or relationships falling apart, your addiction escalating into behaviors that are illegal, your body ravaged by disease, the impacts on the women or men you objectify and treat as sex objects instead of people.  The addict part of yourself might say, “well that’ll never happen to me,” but anecdotal evidence says otherwise. 

Pause: do I need to remind you of the acceptance piece again to release some of the shame of recognizing the impact of your addiction?  It makes sense why you’re acting out, and there is hope for you to change.  Got it? 

Now envision your life without the addiction.  What matters to you?  What feels important to you?  What would you spend your time doing?  This may be morbid but - what do you want to be remembered for after you die?

Once you have that vision in mind, recognize that the vision you have will not happen overnight.  You can’t scale Everest in a day, and you’d almost certainly die without training.  Instead, you need to take each day at a time, each step at a time.  You need to “train” for your recovery journey by doing small, concentrated tasks that move you closer to your goals of sobriety and recovery.

Join a 12 Step group.  Choose to spend one day without acting out.  Start to exercise more or pick up a hobby that you’ve been meaning to do.  Reach out to a friend or 12 Step member when you’re feeling triggered.  Go to a therapy session.  Work on a workbook or book related to treating sex addiction.   

“You need to “train” for your recovery journey by doing small, concentrated tasks that move you closer to your goals of sobriety and recovery.”

And most important, don’t expect that you’ll be able to do this all at once.  Take it one step at a time: but be sure to take that step. 

And when you find yourself beating yourself up for not accomplishing your vision RIGHT NOW, take a step back and remind yourself of acceptance.

“My name is _______.  I am a sex addict.  I am in recovery.  I have ___ days/years/minutes/ hours of sobriety, and I choose to be sober in this moment.  I know the addiction comes from my story, and I know I am not alone.  I will focus on this task to support my recovery today: (going for a walk, reading my 12 Step literature, sending a text to my sponsor, staying focused on my work, installing a filter on my computer).  My addiction does not define me: it is not who I am.”  

One Simple Phrase to Change How You Prepare for Marriage

Have you ever been to see the ocean?  Walked out into the salt water and felt the waves pushing against you? 

Growing up in Michigan, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to go to lakes nearby.  Because of that, I’ve only been to the ocean a few times.  I’m always struck by the size of the waves and the force of the current, so much so that I’ve avoided going in the water higher than my waist.

I can see how dangerous the ocean is when swimmers get caught in the undertow of the waves.  One second they’re swimming and having fun.  The next moment, the sea is sweeping them further and further out, and they’re struggling to swim back against the current.  

You might ask: what does this have to do with marriage?

Amidst all the wedding planning that comes with engagement, preparation for the marriage itself often isn’t as high of a priority.  Premarital counseling classes are commonly offered at churches, but often they are teaching general principles on managing the household and finances, or they’re a prerequisite for using a church venue.

Instead of preparation for the realities of marriage, there are plenty of messages distorted by our culture’s obsession with romance that lead to expectations of perfection from your partner and a “happily ever after” story.  We expect that our spouses will fulfill our every need, sex will be easy and fun, and we’ll never have serious arguments.  These faulty expectations set us up for disappointment.

How do you protect yourself against that possibility?  How do you prepare for this? By reminding yourself of this:

Marriage will be hard. 

I believe this one small phrase, if both partners walk into marriage believing it, can create a buffer against the difficulties that will come.  It doesn’t mean that it’ll reduce how often you fight or feel hurt.  Instead, the acceptance of this truth and the willingness to look it full in the face helps to prepare you for the inevitable arguments, loneliness, and disappointment you will face.

Let’s go back to the ocean for a moment.  Imagine yourself standing in the water and facing the horizon.  You’re able to see the waves coming.  When a massive one crests and falls over you, you’ll brace your body in preparation for the impact.  You might lose your footing for a moment, but you’ve already set up a foundation that won’t be hard to re-establish.

Now imagine that you have your back to the waves and you’re looking at the shoreline.  You have no idea the wave is coming: you’re completely blind to it.  How much harder do you think that wave will hit you?  It will knock you off your feet, pull you under, and take much more effort to stand up again.  The wave may be large and powerful enough to pull you back into the undertow, making it feel impossible to make it back to shore.

In his book The Meaning of Marriage*, Timothy Keller warns against the faulty view of marriage in our culture, saying we expect too much from marriage.  In the search for a spouse, we’re looking for the perfect person who fits all of our lengthy list of requirements and expectations.  One flaw immediately rules a potential mate out.

Once married, couples may see the purpose of marriage as satisfying our personal desires and needs, rather than seeking the best for the other person.  Often our distorted beliefs lead to expectations that our partner will make us complete.  We think marriage is the relationship that provides ultimate satisfaction.  And when we are disappointed by our spouses, we blame them instead of acknowledging that our own faulty expectations set ourselves and our partners up for failure.

At the same time, Keller says we expect too little from marriage.  But how can that be? 

Marriage has the potential to be the most significant, life-altering, and rewarding relationship you have.

I’m sure you know couples who have walked through the difficulties of marriage and come out bitter, resentful, and angry at their spouses for disappointing them.  But facing these difficulties with openness to change will impact you if you let them. 

You will have to learn new ways to see the world through your partner’s eyes.  You will have to work at the aspects of marriage that do not come easy to you.  Just as you are likely not the same person you were 10 years ago, Tim Keller acknowledges that your spouse will change over time, and you need to be ready to get to know these new aspects of who they are.

Being aware of both the difficulty of being married as well as the potential for growth prepares you well for the reality of marriage.  It allows you to look with a far-reaching view at the waves that are coming into shore and prepare for the impacts that will come.   They will still be painful, but being prepared and accepting the reality that your marriage will be hard will help you move through those difficulties and grow closer as a result.