What many men call normal, for me always felt like an addiction. I was introduced to porn at the age of 12 when we found some magazines in the paper waste of a friend’s house.
We soon found out where his father had hidden more magazines and video tapes. We spent hours and hours looking at the pictures and never ever talked about how we felt about them. Each boy would be isolated doing his thing, no communication, no connection.
I remember feeling empty, with a sense of guilt and raciness after those experiences, yet I would crave for more because I didn’t have any intimacy in my life. No cuddles with my parents or friends and I was way too shy to enter a relationship.
So the images of naked skin gave me the illusion of people being close, meeting each other. In truth, I was craving intimacy – meeting people and being met by people – not sex.
When I had my first sexual experience at the age of 19, it was a disaster. I had all these ideas and images disturbing me and setting me up for how to act, what to think, how to sound and the reality didn’t match at all with what I had seen on screen and paper.
I felt lonely and not met, nor could I meet my partner.
My friendships had changed by that time and since we neither had Internet nor cellphones, I didn’t have access to porn for a couple of years. But when I had the opportunity of visiting a big town, I would sneak into a porn movie theatre and this then confirmed to me that I was addicted to watching porn.
On the outside everything seemed fine. I had finished my studies at University and was working as a therapist, my body looked healthy from daily Hatha-Yoga sessions; I was married and had a great, well-functioning social network.
But why was I still watching porn? I had tried countless disciplines to let go of this habit.
By this time, I could already clearly feel that porn was actually looking at people being heavily abused, although I would still fool myself and think it would be less harmful if I didn’t watch aggressive porn.
What struck me most was the fact that I was working as a therapist often with women who had suffered sexual abuse. Although many clients found a momentary release through their sessions with me, they never experienced true healing from the sexual abuse.
Physical symptoms, fears and suicidal thoughts would come back time after time. But how could my clients heal from sexual abuse when I needed to heal this within myself to then be able to truly support their healing?
Sometimes I would have watched porn in my lunch break and then returned to treat clients that had been sexually abused. The images of sex sometimes were so strong in my mind that I had difficulties focusing on what my clients were sharing with me in the sessions.
I felt ashamed to touch my clients because it felt like I was somehow harming them. I couldn’t help it, but even without touching, in the moment when we looked at each other’s eyes, the energy of the pornographic images I had let into my body flooded the room and I could feel that I had absorbed the energy of the porn by watching it and this was actually abusive to my client and myself.
Nobody had ever told me that this was possible, but it was so awkward and real that I didn’t need proof of this other than my lived experience.
I started questioning myself as a therapist and the modalities I practised (which were mainly new age, shaman, spiritual, alternative therapies). If I was neither able to let go of the addiction, nor able to prevent the harm I was causing my clients in an environment that I was responsible for holding – one that is meant to allow healing from abuse – then something was genuinely missing and going wrong in my life.
Soon after this I began to get to know Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. Although porn addiction was never a topic of the Esoteric healing sessions, the addiction just fell off my shoulders within one year.
The more intimate I became with my natural self, the more normal it became to really meet people and be met by them, including other students of Universal Medicine.
I decided to let go of all the new age modalities I had practiced before I had experienced Universal Medicine at once, especially all shamanistic ceremonies and sessions and instead began only to work with the Universal Medicine therapies that I had learned.
After this decision I watched porn two times and both experiences were so disgusting that from that time on I never touched porn again.
It was clear everything had changed. I have experienced that the Universal Medicine modalities don’t work through mental explanations or behavioural regulation or discipline, they simply re-awaken the ability to feel and be energetically aware of everything that one engages with.
I began to realise that the modalities that I had practiced and experienced before I had come across those taught by Universal Medicine, all the new age, spiritual and shamanistic therapies, seem to work with energy in a way that casts a fog around our energetic awareness in the most deceitful and evil way to make us think we are dealing with the energetic root causes of our issues.
This goes on until our bodies show us the truth by displaying symptoms of exhaustion, illness and sometimes chronic disease and mental and emotional ill-health.
When I decided to become an Esoteric practitioner and applied for accreditation through the “Esoteric Practitioner’s Association” (EPA*) I found out that a prerequisite for becoming an Esoteric practitioner is to commit to never watch porn as well as a number of other prerequisites such as not drinking alcohol.
It was the first time in my life I had heard of this or come across an organisation that considered how what the practitioner does will directly impact upon the quality of healing that is offered to a client.
No healing modality that I ever came across, neither at University nor around the world during my studies of alternative medicine, ever asked that I not watch porn, or engage in other activities, because of the harm it would cause me and my clients.
This made sense of my experiences of the Universal Medicine therapies and the power of healing that they brought to me and others. It was the final confirmation for the stupendous quality, care and space that Universal Medicine and the EPA* offer, something that is not seen or matched anywhere else worldwide.
My experience has informed me of how important the quality I live in is to offering healing.
I would want such a safe space for every single person on earth, so that nobody ever again has to suffer unseen energetic abuse through the side effects of their practitioner’s lifestyle choices.
More and more men are starting to talk openly and honestly about porn addiction and the effects they observe it is having on their lives and on their loved ones. This is the way to end the illusion we have allowed the porn industry to abuse us with.
It was the true love I had for my clients and for myself that allowed me to ask the right questions that brought me to meet Serge Benhayon. And it is his enormous love and care for humanity that allowed me to change and create a safe space in my clinic.
The women and men that now come to see me, some of whom may have been sexually abused, can now finally start to truly heal in my clinic because they are never going to be imposed upon by an abusive energy that was there before I understood what my porn addiction was doing and they are offered an environment where they can feel safe and supported through the loving ways I now choose to live every day.
* The EPA (Esoteric Practitioners Association) is a branch of Universal Medicine. It was instigated by Universal Medicine to monitor and accredit the modalities that were founded by Universal Medicine.
By Anonymous, Germany
Further Reading:
Porn addiction – what are we missing out on?
Behind Closed Doors
Our secret medical history
679 Comments
Thank you for sharing anonymous. I can imagine this blog will support many in understanding porn or any addiction for that matter. We think that what we do when no one is watching doesn’t matter, but the energy of it comes with us in what ever we do.
I completely agree that the level of integrity to study with Universal meicine is the highest standard I ever experienced as a massage therapist who studied in many different schools. It asks you to become really honest to what kind of abuse you let into your life as alcohol, drugs, coffee, sugar and porn etc. As everything we do has a quality of energy first and foremost all what what we choose for ourselves is what we offer the other during a session.
I remember that a while ago I was hugging a friend of mine I didn’t see for a while. When i walked away I felt suddenly a very strong sexual energy running the show in my body. Then I realized that this friend always watched a lot of porn and I choose to be not aware on the moment of the hug which made it possible to let those energies play with me. Not really playing with me but hanging around me. When I addressed that it directly disappeared. This is the level where Serge Benhayon offers us to wake up and see what is truly our responsibility to move as humanity.
It is great to know that Esoteric Practitioners Association has set the standard that no accredited practitioner can indulge in porn as how could true healing ever take place when the practitioner indulges in any practice that creates a fog in their awareness. It makes me squirm when I recall the lack of discernment I had when I saw healers and other medical practitioners, due to the fact that I was indulging in substances that also dampened my sensitivities – so I did not trust my feelings of ill-ease some times. It makes sense why I was never able to fully surrender to the treatment – part of me was always on high alert.
What you describe so clearly Anon is the secrecy and emptiness that so often follows after using an activity such as porn to satisfy our need for connection and intimacy. It can feel like such a strong pull that needs to be met but in reality is empty of the love and connection we so miss. Porn addiction like many other addictions can build in intensity with the need for more of it more frequently as well as more graphic images or scenarios. We can develop a tunnel vision where our focus narrows more on this activity and we lose connection with others and work. It is lovely to read how you found your way back to true connection with self and others and how you now understand energetic integrity to be.
Thank you Anonymous your honesty will be healing for the many many people that are hooked into porn without recognising or realising the damage it can do, not only to themselves, but to those around them. By understanding that it is the craving of intimacy and the misunderstanding that porn can somehow take the place of this helps to understand why so many people seek out porn in their lives. The more we build intimacy with ourselves and get to know who we are then porn no longer becomes an option as we can begin to feel how abusive and absolutely unloving it is. Being open and talking about the harm porn does stops it being the elephant in the room that no one talks about. “More and more men are starting to talk openly and honestly about porn addiction and the effects they observe it is having on their lives and on their loved ones. This is the way to end the illusion we have allowed the porn industry to abuse us with.”
Thats amazing anon that even before coming across Universal Medicine you experienced what it was like to bring the quality of how you were living to another person as with the lunchtime porn watching example. Your experience of Universal Medicine I can likewise relate to in that it helps support us in the knowing that we already have within us all that can heal and never is it about bringing something in from the outside to cure what is in our lives. Once we understand this life isn’t about running away from issues that are seemingly with us for life, rather what we can bring out that supports others to bring about their own healing.
Wow anon, thank you for your raw and honest disclosure. I felt the creepiness of you as the practitioner filled with pornographic images to the point you had difficulty in being present with the real person in front of you. This is huge. And from all accounts it is happening with our young boys at an earlier age due to internet access and the availability of segments of soft porn in our mainstream publications, films and TV shows, and music video clips.
An absolutely excellent blog exposing the true harm of pornography! The energy of porn indeed clouds ones thoughts, meeting eyes with another person is too exposing because of this. Thank you for so clearly exposing how Pornography was able to affect your life. Once exposing this for what it is, it is clear to see how it is not only abusive to the people who star in these images/films, but also to everything who views and is in the vicinity of anyone who uses it.
Anonymous there is so much to applaud about this article. Firstly your courage to speak out about such a personal and often hidden topic, secondly the incredible understanding that you bring to the subject and thirdly the beautiful quality that you now live in and practice with. Such an important piece of writing.
Universal Medicine is the only healing organisation I have come across that actually calls people to account on the way that they live. The code of ethics by the EPA outlines clearly the responsibility required in ones personal life if one wants to practice the esoteric modalities taught. And this makes so much sense because as you say, the healing modalities encourage us to feel the energy of everything, therefore you cannot be doing something like porn and think you are healing someone. But ultimately, once you have experienced true intimacy and love and have felt the truth of the energy of porn you will never want to touch it again. So no love is lost in deciding to let it go!
“No healing modality that I ever came across, neither at University nor around the world during my studies of alternative medicine, ever asked that I not watch porn, or engage in other activities, because of the harm it would cause me and my clients”. This is what sets Universal Medicine apart. The utter integrity it operates from has been unknown so far but it comes from the understanding that everything is energy and that the energy we are in can only either harm or heal. It has self care at its root in the awareness that how we are with ourselves impacts directly on all others. It is really paving the way for what it means to live responsibly, not just paying lip service to it.
Wow Anonymous. It was actually very hard to keep reading your blog when you were talking about the effects your porn addiction had on clients. Such a horrible feeling and a horrific energy. It is so important that you share this though, as people need to know the harmful effects that porn has on themselves and everyone around them and how insidious it is.
I really appreciate how you expose that the need for porn is simply a craving for intimacy but that at the same time acknowledge how harmful it is to all, including oneself. As you say when we can talk about it “This is the way to end the illusion we have allowed the porn industry to abuse us with,” as well as the disgust and self loathing that accompanies such activity. As you also say when we can really begin to connect to who we are the addiction can leave naturally with no other intervention needed. We need conversations around this topic along with conversations on sexual abuse, voyeurism and pedophilia all of which I am sure stem from the same lack of disconnection from self and a need for intimacy – not simply to accept they are there and hide away from them. When we have understanding fear and judgement fall by the wayside and we can get to the root cause of these issues without being in reaction to them.
it makes complete sense to me that the drive for watching pornography comes from a desire for intimacy, but the fact is that it does not bring intimacy at all and therefore becomes more addictive as the desire is not fulfilled. It’s no coincidence that watching pornography has increased in recent years as people have less intimacy in their lives. And as you describe here, when you found intimacy through Universal Medicine, the need for pornography melted away, QED.
It is absolutely true Anonymous that each and everyone of us has a great responsibility to be aware of energetic integrity and what that actually means, and even more so if we are healing or counselling others, especially when those others may be recovering from sexual abuse.
Porn has become the norm but as you so clearly share, it is at odds with our true normal.
Thank you so much for writing this blog. To be writing about this topic in this way is super powerful. When we lack clarity and insight into our ill behaviours there is often so much shame and confusion especially when it comes to anything relating to sex or intimacy. What a beautiful inspiration you are to others who may still be caught up in the hooking effects of porn or indeed any other activity that we know is harmful but simply can’t shake. Thank you for being so honest and for the clarity in which you write and for the healing this offers.
True Rachel, to address and look at the reasons for this addiction and speak openly about it – offers the opportunity to heal it and make others aware where they stand with this theme. The harm and exhaustion and shame the author experienced, is not something a lot are getting aware of or relate to. This is important to underline as it is a normal way in our society. So the way out is actually to face it and start working with it. The teachings and therapies of Universal Medicine are absolutely supporting in developing more self-love and intimacy with oneself and actually healing addiction behaviour without any judgement.
It is quite astounding how it is commonly accepted and believed that those in the caring professions can leave the energy of their private lives outside the treatment room/work place as they pass through the door. When it is brought to one’s awareness it seems so obvious that this not possible. The EPA Code of Ethics, which clearly delineates this, is unlike any other professional code of ethics in the world, and one can be assured that every practitioner member endeavours to live by its principles to the best of their ability.
I also remember my first introduction to porn that at the time was called soft porn, which was less revealing than what is now acceptable on standard TV. Today anything and everything imaginable and unimaginable is available to you on your phone 247. These images are destroying the way boys see and treat women and porn is just promoting a forceful physical act on another. By watching pornography, we deny ourselves and others the tenderness that lies within us from this addiction.
Thank you anonymous for being so frank about the effects of porn and how it was affecting your ability to truly help people who had suffered sexual abuse. It makes sense that by having the energy of porn running through your body you would not then be able to assist someone else to release that energy from their bodies, and hence no true healing can occur. So this does bring to the forefront how may therapists there are who have not truly healed their own hurts but are under the illusion that they can help to heal someone else, when in actual fact they could be harming another.
Wow anonymous, thank you for sharing your story of porn addiction so openly and honestly, it is very interesting to read this;’ In truth, I was craving intimacy – meeting people and being met by people – not sex.’ reading this I can feel that growing up when I would become sexually involved with men what I was actually craving was love and intimacy and not sex.
Thank you Rebecca Wingrave for your honesty from a woman’s perspective. This is so often the case in many relationships where sexual activity occurs immediately in the initial stages of meeting someone as the craving for connection and being met is so evident.
Thank you for sharing so honestly. Your honesty is a light for others to also express truly what is going on for them.
Internet porn is so strong and so ubiquitous that it is difficult to find men at a university for a scientific study that haven’t used internet porn. It is as if, in reaction to the Catholic dicta against masturbation, society has gone to the extreme opposite with it being absolutely everywhere with only Apple not allowing it in its app store.
The level of responsibility and integrity required to be an EPA practitioner are unique and unparalleled in this world. It makes sense that the quality in which we live our lives is going to be the quality we bring to everything we do – including our healing room if we are a practitioner. We cannot heal an issue in another until we have healed it in our own bodies – and this goes for anything – sexual abuse, porn, anger, frustration etc. For me today, I will only seek counsel and healing from an EPA practitioner as I know they have all made the commitment to live this level of responsibility.
Thank you Anonymous, this is a powerful and honest sharing of your experience of being addicted to pornography to bringing true healing through Esoteric Healing Modalities.
I also came to the work of Universal Medicine from a background of various alternative therapies and remember being completely blown away by the depth of love and care in the EPA code of conduct when applying for accreditation. The EPA (Esoteric Practitioners Association) is second to none worldwide with its profound code of conduct – something I had never experienced with any other therapy.
I remember when first reading it, it brought tears to my eyes from feeling the words energetically in my body. Never before had I seen such an all-encompassing, supportive document asking for a commitment to the quality of how practitioners live their lives on a daily basis, so as not to cause harm or impose on anyone energetically.
For me, the EPA code of conduct is a blessing and a healing in itself.
“It was the first time in my life I had heard of this or come across an organisation that considered how what the practitioner does will directly impact upon the quality of healing that is offered to a client”.
This is why Stephanie we feel safe, met and held when we go to any Universal Medicine practitioner. Just being in their presence is healing in itself before they apply any modality.
For me it make sense that all that we do in our private lives affects how we are at our workplace but before I came across Universal Medicine it was not something I wanted to consciously know because that would mean I had to take a close look at all my behaviours and take responsibility for my way of living. Now I know that doing just that is true medicine. The EPA is so far I know the first practitioners association that have set this high standards for its members and I would say they are a perfect example for any other association because in order to truly heal mankind from the misery where we are in we need energetic integrity and take full responsibility how all our actions affect the whole.
Serge Benhayon presents the fact that the energy we choose to live in has an effect on every relationship we have with ourselves and others and this article is a clear demonstration of this. The integrity and true way of living that is required of every accredited practitioner of the Universal Medicine therapies ensures that no client is harmed by the destructive energy that comes through porn.
There is a huge pressure specially on our youth that we allow to influence us by not expressing who we naturally are. Every point of intimacy lessens this pressure.
Its great to see a really honest blog about this subject, I hope lots of people get to read this – I’m sure a lot of people are ‘poisoned’ by this energy. I once had a boss who used to watch it at his desk at work and ‘mates’ would come around and watch as well in his office. I quit my job, I was 19 at the time but it felt way too creepy and foul for me.
It was very interesting to read how your interpretation of what sex is and was like had been greatly distorted by pornography. How many other young people have also been fed a lie? What is a very beautiful and deeply intimate experience, one that is a joy and respectful experience to share with another then becomes so far away from and a harming distortion of what is possible. Experiences like this leaving life long emotional scares.
Thank you anonymous for your honest writing about how you have lived with porn and the effect it had on your treatments and your entire life. How porn has its influence on humanity as a whole is very underestimated, we all can feel its abusive nature and how it adds to the denigrating of women but also there is a denigrating of men, as sexual obsessed creatures. Pornography has a very destructive energy and internet is full of it, exposing this by telling your own story and how Esoteric Healing has supported you to come back to your natural self and how porn was no longer possible is what is needed as there is so much shame and guilt around this subject and we have to open our eyes to what extent it is abusive.
I would like to see children being met by their parents and supporting them to understand themselves on a deep level so that these behaviours do not become the norm.
Porn is a huge business in the world and there are companies that would never want these truths to be printed, however if we are to really get to the bottom of what is happening in our world then this needs to be addressed.
It is a big business and not only one of our days. Porn or exactly said this sexual energy has been and still is found in our daily interactions. If someone is lacking intimacy or the connection to oneself – this energy can creep in if the person uses this as a compensation for their feeling of emptiness. Meaning not only watching porn but also a certain kind of flirting, one night stands, daydreams, speaking with a certain undertone etc. Can be like an addiction and a contributing to that pool. As stated in the article, it makes you even feel more isolated and has actually a counter effect, and offers everyone you meet the same isolation.
Very true Amina, and by Anonymous writing of his journey that led to his addiction to porn and how this adversely affected his life, is a start in bringing the truth to the table of the evils of pornography.
If we were to speak more of this disconnection with ourselves which creates this emptiness and therefore develop our way back in connection to ourselves we could easily off set these ways of living that do not support us in anyway.
This is very true Amina, so many of our behaviours and activities come from this need to numb and avoid the pain of the disconnection from ourselves.
As an older woman I have never understood pornography and the whole concept frightens me. It is alarming to know that nowadays children can easily access it.
Anonymous’s story confirms once more that when one reconnects with oneself all types of addictions fall off, discarded, never to be revisited again. Such is the power of Universal Medicine’s teachings.
Yes Amina Tumi. This is what is offered so lovingly from Universal Medicine. Not a judgement but a look at what we are not appreciating and missing in our connection with ourselves and others that leads to us seeking forms of intimacy that are far from loving and supporting us to be this way with others.
Thank you anonymous for not holding back your experience and detailing it as you have done, it is very exposing on many levels. Learning to be yourself and deeply connect to and with your essence is not something we are made aware of at anytime of our lives and yet this is the missing ingredient that we are yearning and seeking.
Thank you for bringing this to humanity’s awareness. Often these behaviours are kept secret and their perverse effects can be harming to everyone as we all feel energy. As you say the lack of intimacy from our parents as children leaves us wondering and looking for it without realising that true intimacy is found within.
This blog is much needed as pornography is now seen as the norm for our young in setting up ideas and beliefs on what intimacy is all about and a form of fun and entertainment for couples. I have heard many friends use pornography in a light hearted banter that is often showing a much deeper level of concern in how we communicate between the sexes. A harming tool that is having a devastating effect on all.
It is extraordinary the way Esoteric Healing works on our bodies energetically, but it leaves no space for any falsities in life such as pornography. Although I was not addicted to porn, I was heavily obsessed by needing sex – as at that time I thought that it was normal for a man to have that tension in them. I was not aware of the harm that pornography and this way of being was causing to men, women and to society as a whole before I met Universal Medicine. Through its healing and way of presenting, based on the fact that we are all from love and that we have to reconnect to that inner spark that is in each of us, I have filled my emptiness and with that the need for sex in my life. Now I can see what pornography is doing to our society, and my need for having sex is as I can see it now, was a direct result of the luring energy that pornography holds over mankind.
“I would want such a safe space for every single person on earth, so that nobody ever again has to suffer unseen energetic abuse through the side effects of their practitioner’s lifestyle choices.” and this can extend to everyone we meet, everyday. As it is not only practitioners that carry their lifestyle choices with them when seeing another. we all do it everyday, and can either harm or heal when we walk down the street. Thank you for sharing this anonymous it was so great and brought something tangible for everyone.
Well said Emily this is so true the way we live ” heals ” or ” harms “
Thank you Anonymous for honestly sharing the many sinister ways pornography seeps into our lives and affects ourselves and everyone around us. It shows that there is something very wrong with how we are connecting with each other as a whole by the rise in pornography…and being watched by children in primary school. This needs to be talked about in our schools, in our homes, work places, associations and definitely in any and all healing modalities! Really bottom line, many organizations and workplaces do not want to know the level of responsibility in how we live, either heals or harms another. The EPA is a first I’ve ever heard of or seen in the world that completely put people first… seems a no brainer… but this is definitely not the norm. Thank you EPA for leading the way in full transparency and integrity.
Porn is a reaction to the lack of intimacy in the world. Every time somebody walks past us looking at their smartphone a moment of intimacy was missed. When that need becomes big, and for most of us it could be all the time, the desire for porn grows.
I love how you became gradually aware of how porn was affecting not only you, but your clients too, and you were willing to address it in order to not harm others- a huge step up in responsibility which is very pleasing to read about.
Well done! You truly met the requirements to join the EPA.
Yes, it is quite shocking how many activities affect us hours and days later and how our ability to be of service and to understand people is affected.
Everything is energy therefore we have a responsibility in all that we do. We can not compartmentalize any part of our lives thinking that we are getting away with it. What we do in one area affects all others. When practitioners of all sorts truly understand this there will be a call to step up in our energetic integrity and how we live before offering a service.