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. So glad to have you join us today. We're back in studio. I'm JJ West.

Doug Barnes: And I'm Doug Barnes. We are in the California studio and it is once again a happy podcast day. All these days are happy podcast days.

JJ West: For sure. Really just enjoying this discussion we've been having for the last couple of weeks on the key elements of transformation and we're going to hopefully wrap up today this subject and continue the discussion of what does it look like? Practically, what is involved in actual transformation, not just behavior change? We'll talk quite a bit more about that later today in this episode.

But I want to start off by reviewing. We talked about how it has to be saturated with grace and there needs to be this move to surrender, coming from Gerald May's work in Addiction and Grace. It has to be saturated in grace, and there needs to be this move to surrender. We talked about needing to look at our story. What's actually in our story of brokenness? Let the actual details of our broken story take us to the past, which as we do that, can we have compassion to be curious about our brokenness, to be curious about the pain that we're trying to soothe? Which then leads us into where we want to pick up today, which is really the importance, the need for community as we're doing this work. We can't do this solely on our own. We weren't made to do this solely on our own.

Doug Barnes: We were actually designed for community. We were designed to be in relationship because we're made in God's image. God is a relational being: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He says, "Let us make man in our image," so we are made as relational beings to be in community with others. Larry Crabb's book Connecting is a fantastic book. He talks about that belonging. If you break the word belonging down, it's a longing to be. It's a longing to be connected, to be known, to be loved, to be seen. So we want to talk about what that looks like to be in a community that helps me transform and how does the community help me transform?

JJ West: If change happens in relationship, then how do you address guys—and I know you've had them in your world and we see them at the intensives—how do you address, "I've been on my own all my life. I know how to do this. I don't need anybody. I can do this by myself." How would you address that in this area of community where our wounds are made in community, yet they're also healed in community?

Doug Barnes: Two ways. One being just the very simple, "How's that working for you?" You've been on your own all your life and yet your life is a train wreck.

JJ West: But successfully! I'm in a good house, I've got a great bank account, I play golf every week, all those great things.

Doug Barnes: All those great things none of which I take with me, none of which are eternal, and none of which actually bring satisfaction. They can bring a modicum of happiness, for sure, enjoyment, for sure, but they don't bring that lasting satisfaction where I feel complete. So often if I'm living this life of isolation, that makes me really an easy target for the enemy.

JJ West: But I've been hurt by other people in my life, other men, other women, whatever it is. So I find it easier that if I just stay away from you and you leave me alone, I'll be good.

Doug Barnes: But here's the thing: we all have blind spots. When I live in isolation, I can't see my blind spots. I can't.

JJ West: Say more about that.

Doug Barnes: Blind spots when I'm driving: there are just some things I can't see. In my life, I have blind spots. There are things about me that I can't see from the inside. I need someone who's outside of me to point it out to me. The easiest example I can think of is a pastor I heard once talking about how he got this new pair of pants and he was feeling so excited about this new pair of pants. They fit great, he thought he looked good in them.

He noticed as he was walking around that everybody was staring at him, noticing him. He was feeling really, really good until the end of the day when he realized he had a big size sticker down the back of the leg. He needed somebody outside of him to say, "Hey, you got a big sticker on your butt." That's why everybody's looking at you. I need people in my life that are outside my forest enough that can point out the trees that I can't see on my own.

JJ West: Good metaphor. The spinach in our teeth.

Doug Barnes: I need other people that can come alongside me and with compassion, just like we talked about last week, with compassion say, "Hey, you may not be aware of this, but you got a big hunk of spinach in your teeth." I need that. And that's loving to do that. It's loving to come alongside and say, "Hey, I don't know if you realize this, but..." hey, I don't know if you realize, but when you're checking every woman out that walks by, one, it makes them uncomfortable, two, it's breaking your wife's heart, three, it's impacting the way you interact in the world because you're objectifying every woman instead of personifying them. There's some stuff that's going on for you. But if I live in isolation, I don't need anyone, and no one has that role in my life.

So it goes back to Nate Larkin's book Samson and the Pirate Monks. He's doing the character study between David and Samson. Both Old Testament heroes, both larger than life, also both struggle with sexual integrity. David had men in his life who could speak to him, who could say, "You are the man! You're the one who slaughtered your neighbor's sheep." And Samson didn't. Samson was the lone wolf. David was restored, but Samson wasn't. That's the reality. You may be really successful and larger than life, but you're not going to experience restoration—transformation like we're talking about—because that happens in community. It doesn't happen in isolation.

JJ West: As long as I have "yes men" in my life, that's still not about transformation. That's only mirroring the lie that I still continue to believe about myself.

Doug Barnes: Because the emperor walks around with no clothes.

JJ West: Great metaphor. So I need men in my life who get me, who I trust. In terms of this process and the value of the community is that I only learn what it's like to be a man in the company of men. So I need those guys around me who mirror the truth as opposed to just tell me what I want to hear.

There's a place for grace. We have a colleague who says, "Make space for grace," and I love that. And we also need men to say, "Dude, you don't have your pants on. Put your pants on. I see your eyes darting around. Are you okay? Are you really going to go there with that joke? Don't tell that joke again." To really do it lovingly, but do it from a place of "I care about you enough. I love you enough as my friend, as my colleague, as my accountability, that I just want to point this out." But we all have agency, so the decision ultimately becomes yours. I'm not doing this to offend you or to hurt you; I'm doing this out of my love for you. Like Jonathan and David: "Dude, my dad's going to kill you. You need to run." Because he could have easily said nothing.

Doug Barnes: It makes me think of Seinfeld in the 90s, Big Bang Theory in the 2000s and 2010s. Kramer in Seinfeld, Sheldon in Big Bang Theory: someone who wasn't afraid to tell people the truth, many times without tact. But we do need people in our lives who aren't so polite with us that they won't tell us the truth. Politeness is not the same as love.

JJ West: Yes. Not a "but," yes. That's true. In the interest of what we're talking about here, in the voice of transformation, it's the groups and the coaches and counselors and mentors and our groups. My experience has been that sometimes—not always, this is not all or nothing—but sometimes we don't want to offend somebody. So it's hard for me to say, "You got that little piece of spinach there," without thinking I'm going to offend you.

Doug Barnes: But we gotta take the risk. I think back to when I was in seminary and my good friend Jeffrey. Jeffrey sits me down. I was getting ready to leave; I was leaving seminary early and I was going to go work for a campus ministry full-time. So Jeffrey sits me down and he says, "Listen, I don't know if I have enough money in my account to make this big of a withdrawal, but I need to make a withdrawal."

JJ West: Wow, what's coming?

Doug Barnes: He prefaced it with, "I don't know how you're going to respond to this, I don't know if this is going to be too painful," but "I need to tell you the truth" is what he was saying. He said, "I think it's a bad idea for you to leave. I think you should stay. I think you should finish your degree. I don't think you should leave." I ultimately did leave. I didn't take his advice, but I was so grateful that he was willing to share that with me.

He didn't know how I would—I could have been like, "Blank you, this is my life, you don't get to tell me what to do." But I knew he wasn't trying to control me, he wasn't trying to communicate that I didn't know what to do, that I was an idiot or anything. He was simply saying, "I love you too much to keep quiet. I need to tell you this." We have to have people in our lives that do that for us.

What we're talking about here is Proverbs: "As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another." That's what this looks like. When I have men in my life who are willing to say, "Hey, JJ, it hurts when you do blank." I'll give you another example. For years my wife and I led a small group Bible study in our home, and then sometimes we would rotate and it would be at other people's homes. But I was the leader. I frequently showed up right at or just maybe a little bit after start time. One of the guys in the group called me up: "Hey, can we talk?" He said, "Listen, I love you, thank you for leading the group. When you show up late, it communicates that this isn't important to you and we're not important to you."

JJ West: That's big. That's really convicting. But the things that you bring up: what the possibilities of what I could think when I'm confronted by the truth. So if I'm thinking about "You idiot, what do you think you're doing? Who are you to tell me blah blah blah?" That is an invitation to go back to listen to last week's episode about compassion for that wounded child because that's where that's coming from. It's all attached together, it's all interrelated, so that as we are working on our own way of getting out of isolation and getting into community, there's also an aspect of there's a greater than zero chance that wounded kid is going to show up.

Not because people do people things; he's not doing it to hurt me, he's doing it out of his love for me. But the little kid who was hurt 30 years before sees it from a punitive perspective: "There I screwed up again and everybody's mad at me." So it's hard sometimes to have the vision of my life to see: can I see this as a wound or is he just pissing me off? Or is he just out to—does he want to be leader? We think about those things.

And looking back, I'm sure initially it was like, "Oh, that hurts so much! Where's that jacket? Where's that jacket I can go hide?" It hurts and then I have to go, "Okay, but I'm not that little kid. I'm not stuck there. I can change my perspective, have that whole timeline vision and say, 'Okay, this guy loves me, he cares about me, he wants the Bible study to go well, he wants the group to go well.'" He was sharing that with me because he loves me. I can now reinterpret, I can reframe what I'm hearing, less from that defensive "Oh, this hurts" or "You're just trying to control me" and more into "You're actually offering this to help me."

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

JJ West: That takes us to our next topic, which is heartfelt change. Am I really thinking this through in my heart or am I just thinking it through the data, the content? Because content-wise, you could be thinking all those things. And practicing through that compassion for what's happened with me because we need to know ourselves in recovery. So many of us don't. Really, we don't know ourselves. We know about ourselves and we know about our story, but do we really know our story?

Doug Barnes: Yes. I can know about a celebrity, a politician, somebody famous, but I don't know them. I don't know what it's like to be with them. But I know the men in my life; I don't just know about them, I know them. Do I have that level of intimacy with myself, with my own story, or do I just have a list of facts about me?

JJ West: Because when I'm intimately connected to my story, the way that I share that changes because I could hear it at face value and go, "They're out for my job! What are they doing?" and all those circular conversations that we get into, that rotisserie grill of our brain. Instead, it's like, "Wait a minute. Okay, there's something bigger, greater going on here and not just about me." You can make it about you or you can make it about the process of where am I interacting with these people, which comes from where you want to serve.

Doug Barnes: And to take that concept a step further when we're talking about the difference between transactional transformation versus behavior change, or heartfelt change versus behavior change: the last example with, "This is what happens when you show up late." Behavior change: "I'll be on time, I'll show you that I'm never late again," but I haven't addressed what's going on in my heart.

But if instead, heart change is, "What's going on in me that I have not taken this that seriously? I haven't examined the impact of my role as the leader showing up late. What is that communicating?" I'm not doing any of that; I'm just, "I've got to leave right now because I can't be late because I'm not going to give them the satisfaction." That's just behavior change.

JJ West: Behavioral change says, "I've done 180 degrees. I've turned around. I'm not doing something." This whole process of recovery is not about what we're not doing. Nobody cares what we're not doing: our spouses, our families, our girlfriends, our church. They want to see what we are doing. If I only take this as "Well, I'm doing it because you're telling me to do it. Some long-haired guy on Monday night's telling me to do it," it's going to fall apart because pretty soon I'm going to be the point of resentment and bitterness and it's my fault or some long-haired woman is telling me to do it or else I'm out the door.

Same thing, it'll still lead to that resentment. When I internalize this—and what does that mean? That means I need to run it through my heart, my vision over my life. Am I willing to look at how this impacts others? Not from a people-pleasing perspective because people-pleasing borders on performance and behavior and that goes a completely different direction. But can I look at this as: how has this affected those around me from an experiential point of view, internally? The courage it took this guy to come to you and say, "Hey, can I?"

Like Jeffrey: "I don’t know how much I got in the bank, but man, I’m going to blow it all right here on black." But he took the courage to dive into the risk, and the risk is always rejection. It's always about the rejection of the relationship. "I am putting our relationship on the line and I'm saying, 'Hey, this is so important to me, I'm ready to risk all my chips on this one hand.'" That's an internal piece. It's my experiential piece. It's what's happening internally to me which, for so many of us—myself included—it took me a long time to get out of my performance and into "Hey, what's happening internally in me?" knowing my story. I can hear this in a different way.

He's asking me to address me being late. First of all, it's not about time. This is about—he's noticed week after week after week. Can I go into my story? Not for him to tell me. I need to be the one to go back and examine. For the reason is irrelevant, the point is I was late. So can I take that into consideration? There's something going on here. Can I examine that internally? What's my experience? We have a tendency to go to excuses and rationalizations and judgments and all those acting-in behaviors rather than addressing what's going on internally, my experience as it affects someone else or a group of people.

Doug Barnes: The difference for me between the transactional or behavior change versus heart change has so much to do with community because behavior first: checking boxes, externally motivated in the sense of that mindset of "I'll show you here, I've given you what you want." But it's very short-term and there isn't that—I haven't dug deep, there's no depth to it. I haven't looked inward, I haven't dealt with what's going on inside of me; it's all about behavior.

Heartfelt change is motivated by a desire for wholeness, not performance. Behavioral, transactional is performance: I want to be seen as doing well rather than actually being well. So I want to make that shift from "I'll show you" to "I want to change." This is good for me. And then there's a, again, rooted in grace, it's aware of my story, it's proceeding with compassion, diving in with compassion, and it's communal.

I’m working on these changes because of the impact on my life and the lives of those around me. I have a responsibility. I don’t want people to be waiting on me. I don’t want to be the cause of someone’s resentment because I care about these people rather than "I’ll show you, I’m never going to be late again and then you can’t hold that over me anymore." That’s not communal, that’s reaction.

JJ West: Which is about changing behavior, which makes it about you, not about the thing, which is what's happening on the inside. It's not about long-term transformation, it's about behavior. If I fix that behavior—I'll never be late again to Bible study, but I'll just replace it with something else. I'm kicking the can down the road where I'm not addressing something that could be internally changing in me that everybody else—that's the thing about recovery.

Everybody gets to benefit from the changes and the work that we do. Every life that we touch, whether it’s at the store or at the church or some guy at the gas station or helping somebody on the street. The ones that are closest to us, yes, but I mean every life that we touch gets to benefit from my heart being closer to wholeness. To becoming more whole and more Christ-like because we answer the question: what kind of man is God calling me to be today? And I take me into all those relationships.

Am I going to take the resentful, behavior-oriented, short-term performance-driven me into all those relationships, all those interactions? Or am I going to take the compassionate, long-term heart-change me into all those interactions and relationships? And the world is much better when I take that me into those interactions.

Doug Barnes: JJ, that's hard. Behavior checklists are so much easier. So much simpler. Yes, change is hard.

JJ West: Well, I've got four kids, one wife, a job where I work 16 hours a day and then I'm on call for those other eight. I serve at my church, I'm in four groups, I see my therapist. I don't have time to do this. You get where I'm going with this? This work is hard. And what kind of man is God calling me to be today? Is he calling me to be chasing after his heart or checking lots of boxes, crossing things off my to-do list, completing lots of projects? Because all those people get to benefit from the internal change I make.

Doug Barnes: And maybe you are too busy to do that hard work, so you maybe need to look at your life and change some things about your life so you're not so busy. It's like the story of the guy who goes to the pastor. He's very wealthy and they just started attending this church and they were doing a series on giving. So he sets up a meeting with the pastor and he's like, "Look, listen, I make a lot of money and giving 10% would be huge. There's just no way I'm going to give that much money to your church. So I just need you to know that upfront."

The pastor's like, "No problem. I'm going to pray that God will reduce your income so that giving 10% will not be such a hardship for you." Can I reframe the way I'm looking at that? Because I may feel like, "Oh, I'm just so important, I've got all these things going on, there's no way I can give the time to this work." Maybe you are too busy. Maybe you need to change the way you're living so that—yes, you're really important, you're getting a lot of stuff done, but you're leaving a train wreck in your wake relationally.

JJ West: What does our legacy say? All right, this was good. It was a fun discussion. I know it's taken us a few weeks to get through it. I apologize for the length of time, but I'm so glad that we were able to. We want to continue to examine this because this is not just a three-week discussion; this is a lifetime of learning about ourselves, learning ourselves, not just facts, but really identifying, knowing ourselves, knowing ourselves in relationship with others. All of that is vital.

Doug Barnes: As we've said, you can't do it alone. So you need to have some people in your life. You need to have mentors, you need to have a group, you need to have a community that is helping you walk this out. You need some men in your life who can say, "Hey, I don't know if I have enough coin in the bank, but I gotta make a major withdrawal here." You need to have people in your life who can do that.

And if you don’t—if you sit down and go, "I don’t have anybody in my life who knows me that way, who loves me that way, who would be willing to risk rejection in order to tell me the truth"—you gotta get to a workshop. You gotta get to the Every Man’s Battle Intensive because that’s where you find guys like this. That’s where you experience this level of transforming community.

If you've never been, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE, go on the website and sign up. If you use the code EMBPOD in your registration, you get $100 off your registration fee. We want you to take advantage of that because you need this community. You need this kind of transformation in your life if you want actual transformation and not just behavior change. Thanks for being a part of our discussion. Doug, thank you as always.

JJ West: Thanks, Doug. Good to be with you all. Let's keep walking in integrity.

Next week, we're going to continue our discussion where we are introducing the facilitators from the Every Man’s Battle Intensive. And so we're going to have a discussion with Jim Phyllis, one of the OGs of the Every Man’s Battle Intensive. We're going to have an interview with Jim Phyllis, a discussion with him, get to know his story. Can't wait for that. I know you guys are going to be blessed by that. Thanks again for listening.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening. This podcast is one of many ways we 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 it. See you next week.