Every Man’s Battle Podcast

Voiceover: 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 Barnes 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 three, 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 Barnes: Happy podcast day. More than you could ever know about today. This is going to be awesome.

JJ West: 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 gets in the way? What are the barriers to experiencing and expressing empathy?

There's kind of 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 and shame and 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.

Then that inhibits our ability to express empathy to others. Whether that 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're going to try to get through all of that in one episode. We'll see how we do, but that's the plan. Let's 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 and sexual integrity lapses. Can you just speak briefly to the definition, if you will, of sexual addiction?

Doug Barnes: We call it acting out. We're misusing our sexuality outside of God's will and design.

JJ West: Trying to meet legitimate needs in illegitimate ways.

Doug Barnes: Right. I'm trying to use a behavior to meet something that only internally inside of me can be met. Now, it doesn't start out that way. A lot of times it starts out innocent. 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 then 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. We don't focus on changing the heart, healing the heart.

If that's the case, this is barrier number one to experiencing and offering empathy to ourselves. I go, "If I would just change my behavior, then my life would be better and I wouldn't be such a [blank]," whatever labels you call yourself, because I'm so focused on the behavior.

Doug Barnes: But you and I both have heard that in our practice. So many folks say, "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 on about our lives. But we're missing where it actually begins. That is part of the barrier of discovering what's happening inside of me that I want to change. 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: Rinse and repeat over and over and over. I just keep doing it and getting the same result. We have to start there with recognizing my addiction, my brokenness is not just about behavior. I have a broken way of dealing with my feelings. I am broken internally in terms of lies that I've believed. I have to be willing to do that work as well, not just behavior modification.

Doug Barnes: Right. It's the first step in that process.

JJ West: Because that's a barrier in my own heart that I have to address, there's also the barrier of sometimes I hear it from others. Sometimes that's a spouse who says, "I don't know why you're doing this. I don't do this. You just need to change your behavior." Sometimes it comes from our churches, our church experience, a small group, a pastor, whatever, where we're being told, "Well, you just need to change your behavior. You just need to stop."

Listen, let me timeout for a second. Are we suggesting that changing the behavior is not important? No, of course not. It's imperative, but we're suggesting that it's not enough just to change the behavior.

It's sad that that's the experience in churches for many. Not all, certainly. There's 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 really horrific experiences where they went for help and they got condemned. They went for healing and they got told just stop acting out, just 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. That God expresses empathy and 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, when we're hurting, that's what we are. We're brokenhearted, we're crushed in spirit, and what does he do? He comes close to us.

He doesn't reject, he doesn't judge. He doesn't say, "Just get these things worked out, just change these behaviors, and then you can come close to me." No, when we're brokenhearted and when we're crushed in spirit, that's where he's close to me.

Doug Barnes: He has set the example of getting in touch with emotion. 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, if he felt anger, if he felt comfort, then how do we then dive into that inside of us so that we can express that in those healthy ways?

JJ West: Exactly. I think about the story in John chapter eight. It highlights this truth. The woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees bring her to Jesus and they say, "This woman was caught in the very act of adultery." Now, 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, not the guy.

They throw her down in front of Jesus at the temple. The law says she should be stoned to death. What do you say? They're trying to trap Jesus. What does Jesus do? He 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." The text tells us that one by one from the oldest to the youngest, they went away.

Then Jesus looks up at the woman and he says, "Where are your accusers? Where are those who condemn you?" She says, "There are none. They're gone." What does Jesus say to her? "Then neither do I condemn you." In other words, I have empathy and compassion for you.

He then goes on to say, "Go and sin no more." There's truth there, there's a call to change behavior, but he starts with meeting, coming close to someone who's brokenhearted and who's crushed in spirit. We want to model that. Not just do we want to model that, we need to experience that.

So many of us haven't. We've experienced being brought before the Pharisees and thrown in front of the temple and being told we should be stoned to death. We've experienced that, but have we experienced Jesus looking up to us? That humble posture, looking up to us and saying, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

Have we experienced him coming close to us when we're brokenhearted and crushed in spirit? When we experience that, when we let ourselves experience that, it's transformative. It actually is part of the fuel that helps us change behavior.

Doug Barnes: Listen, we know there's a lot of you out there who have experienced that condemnation, who've experienced that judgment, and who've experienced 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, that role, and that authority that you have. Continue to pursue empathy from the divine. Continue to pursue that compassion from Jesus that then transforms you.

Sometimes that's going to come through others. We hope that that comes through others. We hope that it 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: "Yeah, we're all broken here, dude. We're all a mess here. None of us—look, we pull out our empty pockets and go, I ain't got no stones to throw here."

But we do have arms that we can embrace them with love and compassion and empathy. We drop the stones, but we really come alongside. That's part of the beauty of our intensive.

JJ West: Exactly. We want you to experience that, and especially so if you've not experienced that in your own experience of church or in your journey of recovery. We really want you to have that experience of knowing that I'm not alone and I'm not rejected; I'm accepted here and it's safe for me to be here.

Guest (Male): Five years ago, I had been in porn addiction and I had had a sexual relationship out of marriage.

Voiceover: Every day, men struggle with sexual integrity: impure thoughts, strip clubs, affairs, pornography. For over 20 years, New Life Ministries has been helping men regain their integrity through their one-of-a-kind Every Man's Battle intensive, and it's coming to a city near you. To find out more, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE or go to newlife.com. 1-800-N-E-W-L-I-F-E.

JJ West: Okay, so can you help us, Doug, delineate between empathy and sympathy? Because I think that gets really conflated for a lot of guys and they think that if I'm offering sympathy, that's me being empathetic. Can you just help us understand that a little better?

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

Empathy is a little different. Empathy is: can I, with curiosity, try to really understand what are they experiencing in that moment of that loss? Maybe of the job or the relationship or a parent or sibling. Can I really look at them and through my compassionate eye say, "I wonder what that emotion is that they're experiencing?" And can I go there inside of me so that I am feeling with them, not just for them? Does that make sense?

JJ West: Oh, it makes perfect sense. That's so well said. Sympathy is feeling for you; empathy is feeling with you. I see it so often. 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, "I'm sorry you're having to go through it," something like that. What she was really needing was empathy from me. For me to pause and go, "Man, if I was in her shoes, if I was 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 Barnes: Therein lies part of the difficulty because so many of us were taught, "Oh, I'm so sorry," and then put a period and walk away. Instead of taking that extra time to really be attuned, we're paying attention to what's going on in them.

Because 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, what's the phrase? I can't give what I don't have.

JJ West: That's right. 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. He was so frustrated if she would just stop this, our relationship would be better.

I asked her, "Can you express the emotion that you're feeling when you're offering these corrections to his driving?" She said that she felt scared. His immediate response was, "Why are you scared? I'm a safe driver. You shouldn't be scared."

But I said, "Can you tell me a time when you were scared?" He went back to when he was a kid and his dad would rage and how scary that was for him. I said, "So tell me, Tom," I'll just call him Tom. I said, "Tom, tell me when you were 14 or 12 or 10 and your father would rage and you felt terrified. What did you feel inside?" I got him to tap into what was the experience like.

I said, "Can you now take that experience, what you just felt and what you were just aware of when you were terrified, and can you come alongside your wife and feel with her, not for her, what she's feeling?"

You could just see the expression on his face. "That's what you're feeling?" Suddenly he's experiencing empathy for his wife who's terrified when he's driving rather than fighting her: "Stop telling me what to do. I'm a good driver. You don't need to correct me." Now he's going, "Oh my gosh, you are feeling that same fear that I felt when I was a kid." He's experiencing empathy.

Doug Barnes: There's a connection. There's a heart relational connection that he made. That's really, really good, especially when the person makes the connection themselves. When they go, "Oh my gosh!" it's just like the angels come out. It's awesome.

Then it forms a bond. There's a link now for the two of them. That's what we're talking about, is experiencing that kind of bond. Again, I'll go back to: 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 of that, 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. Like Lazarus when Mary and Martha said Jesus wept with them. He already knew that Lazarus was dead. He already knew what he was going to do. But he was with them in that moment when they were going, "He's dead, he's dead!" and Jesus wept with them in much the same way that you just said.

JJ West: So good. All right, 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.

Guys, 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 just what we talked about: 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.

Voiceover: 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.

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