Every Man’s Battle Podcast

New Life: Welcome to the Every Man’s Battle podcast brought to you by New Life Ministries. In this podcast, you’ll hear honest conversations and encouragement for living a life of sexual integrity. In every episode, licensed marriage and family therapist JJ West and licensed professional counselor Doug Barns break the silence around sexual integrity struggles that millions of men face but rarely discuss openly. Each episode offers practical strategies and genuine hope to dissolve the shame and isolation that keeps men trapped in destructive cycles. Let’s get to today’s episode.

JJ West: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Every Man's Battle podcast. We are so glad that you're listening. We are continuing on Season 3, excited to talk with you about today. We're going to be talking about the role of empathy in recovery. Doug, great to be on with you. Happy podcast day.

Doug Barns: Happy podcast day. More than you could ever know about today. This is going to be awesome.

JJ West: I can't wait to dive in. This is such a crucial topic because empathy does play a vital role in recovery. We're going to talk about why and how. We're also going to talk about some of the reasons why it's difficult. What are the barriers to experiencing and expressing empathy?

There's a progression with this because it starts with an understanding of the divine, that God shows us empathy and compassion. Because he does that, we then learn to experience and offer empathy to ourselves, which is really difficult. A lot of times we're so stuck in our brokenness, shame, anger, and self-hatred that we're not able to experience empathy for ourselves.

We sometimes reject empathy offered from others because we haven't fully experienced that empathy from God. That inhibits our ability to express empathy to others. Whether the other is somebody else who's also struggling, or even more often, it's hard for us to express empathy to a spouse that we've harmed by our acting out behavior. She's struggling, being triggered, hurting, and grieving, and we haven't learned to offer empathy to her. We want to talk about all of that today. We'll see how we do, but that's the plan.

It's important to start with reminding people what we're talking about. When we're talking about recovery, specifically on our podcast, we're talking about recovery from sexual addiction or sexual integrity lapses. Doug, can you speak briefly to the definition of sexual addiction?

Doug Barns: Surely. Our acting out, we call it acting out, is misusing our sexuality outside of God's will and design, trying to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate ways. I'm trying to use a behavior to meet something that only internally inside of me can be met.

It doesn't start out that way. A lot of times it starts out innocent, and a lot of times it starts out as just the feeling of how the behavior makes me feel. However, what we're trying to do is change the way that we feel through a behavior without realizing that it started internally.

If I'm feeling something negative on the inside, I'm trying to behave my way out of something that can only be connected to some other power source, which is relationship and connection.

JJ West: If we fail to understand that connection between the behavior and the internal feeling state that prompted it, we will also very likely in our recovery focus only on behavior. I have to change this behavior, and we don't focus on changing the heart or healing the heart.

If that's the case, this is barrier number one to experiencing and offering empathy to ourselves. I tell myself that if I would just change my behavior, then my life would be better and I wouldn't be such a failure. I am so focused on the behavior.

Doug Barns: We have both heard that in our practice. So many folks say to just stop the behavior. I don't deal with that, why do you? If you just stop it, then you will be good, we will be good, and we can go about our lives. But we're missing where it actually begins. Part of the barrier is discovering what's happening inside of me that I want to change, but I don't know that I want to change because I'm doing a behavior trying to change it, and it doesn't change.

JJ West: We have to start there with recognizing that my addiction and my brokenness is not just about behavior. I have a broken way of dealing with my feelings. I'm broken internally in terms of lies that I've believed, and I have to be willing to do that work as well, not just behavior modification.

Because that's a barrier in my own heart that I have to address, there's also the barrier of sometimes hearing it from others. Sometimes that's a spouse who says they don't know why you're doing this or that you just need to change your behavior. Sometimes it comes from our church experience. A small group, a church, or a pastor tells us that we just need to stop.

Are we suggesting that changing the behavior is not important? No, of course not. It's imperative. But we are suggesting that it's not enough just to change the behavior. It's the first step in that process.

It's sad that that's the experience in churches for many. Not everyone, certainly. There are lots and lots of good churches. But there have been people we've had at the workshop, in our small groups, and in our offices who have had these horrific experiences where they went for help and they got condemned. They went for healing and they got told just to stop acting out and stop behaving.

It's sad because the church should be the place where guys are being told and shown the truth of this divine empathy. God expresses empathy to us. God expresses compassion to us. Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." When we're struggling and hurting, that's what we are. We're brokenhearted and crushed in spirit. What does he do? He comes close to us.

He doesn't reject, judge, or say to just get these things worked out and change these behaviors and then you can come close to me. When we're brokenhearted and when we're crushed in spirit, that's where he's close to me.

Doug Barns: He has set the example of getting in touch with emotion because he got in touch with his own emotion and expressed it in all kinds of ways. I'm not saying it was all good or bad, but he set the example for us to do that hard work. If he felt compassion, anger, or comfort, then how do we then dive into that inside of ourselves so that we can express that in those healthy ways?

JJ West: I think about the story in John chapter 8. It so highlights this truth. In the story of the woman caught in adultery, the Pharisees bring her to Jesus. They say this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. It's interesting that they don't bring the man, because if she was caught in the very act of adultery, it takes two to tango.

They only bring her and throw her down in front of Jesus at the temple. They say the law says she should be stoned to death and ask what he says. They're trying to trap Jesus. Jesus stoops down and starts drawing or writing in the dirt. We don't really know what, but he says to them, "Whoever is without sin, cast the first stone." One by one, from the oldest to the youngest, they went away.

Then Jesus looks up at the woman and asks where her accusers are and who condemns her. She says there are none and that they are gone. Jesus tells her that neither does he condemn her. In other words, he has empathy and compassion for her. He does go on to say to go and sin no more. There's truth there and a call to change behavior, but he starts with meeting her where she is. He comes close to someone who's brokenhearted and crushed in spirit.

We want to model that and experience that. So many of us haven't. We're told about behavior. We've experienced being brought before the Pharisees and thrown in front of the temple and being told we should be stoned to death. But have we experienced Jesus looking up to us? That humble posture of looking up to us and saying that neither does he condemn us? Have we experienced him coming close to us when we're brokenhearted and crushed in spirit? When we experience that and let ourselves experience that, it's transformative. It actually is part of the fuel that helps us change behavior.

We know there's a lot of you out there who have experienced that condemnation and judgment, the opposite of what God models for us. If that's the case, don't let their sin against you keep you from your own healing. Don't give them that power. Don't abdicate that reality, role, and authority that you have. Continue to pursue empathy from the divine and continue to pursue that compassion from Jesus that then transforms you.

Sometimes that's going to come through others. We hope that comes through your church and your small group. If not, let it come through the Every Man's Battle workshop and your brothers in your breakout group and your sustained victory group that follows up. Let it come through those people who understand that we're all broken and we're all a mess. We pull out our empty pockets and say we have no stones to throw here. I'm not without sin, but we do have arms that we can embrace them with love, compassion, and empathy. We drop the stones and really come alongside, and that's part of the beauty of our intensive.

Exactly. We want you to experience that, especially so if you've not experienced that in your own experience of church or in your own journey of recovery in your church setting. We really want you to have that experience of knowing that you're not alone and you're not rejected. You're accepted here, and it's safe for you to be here.

Can you help us, Doug, delineate between empathy and sympathy? I think that gets really conflated for a lot of guys. They think that if they are offering sympathy, that's them being empathetic. Can you help us understand that a little better?

Doug Barns: I will do my best. Sympathy is a little bit easier to explain. Sympathy is saying that I'm sorry that you experienced that situation. I'm sorry that your father passed away, that your job didn't work out, or that you had a flat tire on the way home. I can come alongside them in a way that says I feel for the situation that you're dealing with.

Empathy is a little different. Empathy is when I, with curiosity, try to really understand what they are experiencing in that moment of that loss. I really look at them and through my compassionate eyes wonder what that emotion is that they're experiencing. I can go there inside of me so that I am feeling with them, not just for them.

JJ West: That's so well said. Sympathy is feeling for you; empathy is feeling with you. I see it so often and I do it all the time. I was just on the phone with my wife yesterday and she's telling me about a situation at work that's frustrating to her. My response is that I'm sorry she's having to go through it.

I'm not saying never be sympathetic, but what she was really needing was empathy from me. She needed me to pause and think about what I would be feeling if I was in her shoes and experiencing what she's experiencing. If I was dealing with the level of frustration that she's dealing with, what would I be feeling? To express that is for me to feel with her, not feel for her.

Doug Barns: Therein lies part of the difficulty because so many of us were taught to just say we are sorry and then walk away. Instead of taking that extra time to really be attuned, we're not paying attention to what's going on in them. A lot of us, and I'll just be perfectly honest here, it scares us. That emotion that that other person is experiencing is scary to us on some level because most of us haven't had the freedom to have those emotions, much less see them in somebody else. If I haven't had it in myself, I can't give what I don't have.

JJ West: I was working with this couple and the husband's complaint was that whenever he and his wife were driving together, she was constantly correcting his driving, commenting on his driving, and getting freaked out when he would drive too fast or take more risks than she was comfortable with. He was so angry and frustrated. He thought that if she would just stop this, their life and relationship would be better.

I asked her if she could express the emotion that she's feeling when she's offering these corrections to his driving, and she said that she felt scared. His immediate response was to ask why she was scared because he was a safe driver and she shouldn't be scared.

I asked him if he could tell me a time when he was scared. He went back to when he was a kid and his dad would rage and how scary that was for him. I asked him when he was 14 or 12 or 10 and his father would rage and he felt terrified, what did he feel inside? I got him to go into his body and tap into what the experience was like.

I asked him if he could now take that experience and what he just felt and was just aware of when he was terrified and when he was scared and come alongside his wife and feel with her, not for her, but feel with her what she's feeling. You could just see the expression on his face. He realized that's what she was feeling. Suddenly he's experiencing empathy for his wife who's terrified when he's driving rather than fighting her and telling her to stop telling him what to do because he was a good driver. Now he's realizing she's feeling that same fear that he felt when he was a kid. He's experiencing empathy.

Doug Barns: There's a heart relational connection that he made. That's really good, especially when the person makes the connection themselves. When they do that, it's like the angels come out. It's awesome.

JJ West: Then it forms a bond. There's a link now for the two of them. That's what we're talking about, experiencing that kind of bond. Again, it starts with experiencing it from God. Why? Hebrews 4:15 tells us, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but instead we have a high priest who was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin."

Because Jesus was fully God and fully man and has experienced every temptation that we have, he can empathize with our weakness. He doesn't feel for us; he feels with us.

Doug Barns: Like Lazarus. When Mary and Martha said Jesus wept with them, he already knew that Lazarus was dead and he already knew what he was going to do. But he was with them in that moment when they were saying he was dead. Jesus wept with them in much the same way that you just said.

JJ West: So far this has been a great conversation. We've got so much more to talk about. We're going to take a break here and we're going to leave the rest of our discussion on the role of empathy in recovery for next week's episode.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for continuing to grow and change and let God show you empathy and compassion. Let him, as he does that, transform you into who he wants you to be so that you're experiencing more freedom.

If this is a new concept for you, this whole idea of empathy, I'm going to invite you to dig deeper. One of the ways I want you to dig deeper is looking at scripture. The second thing I want you to do is consider going to the Every Man's Battle intensive. Go to the website newlife.com, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, and get more information about the workshop because that's really a great place for you to practice and learn more about empathy. We want you to do that. We want you to continue to grow and join us next week as we continue our conversation on the role of empathy in recovery. Until then, let's keep walking in integrity.

New Life: Thanks for listening. This podcast is one of many ways we can encourage and help you. If you're looking for more help, visit us at newlife.com or call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. To receive bonus content exclusive to EMB podcast email subscribers, send an email to embpodcast@newlife.com with the words "bonus content" in the subject line. If you have a comment about this podcast, we'd love to hear from you too. Drop us a line at embpodcast@newlife.com. And please remember to review, like, and share the podcast as it helps others find us. See you next week.