Your imagination is not bad. Learn the 4 main types of fantasies, how to evaluate the healthiness of a fantasy, and what to do with your healthy/unhealthy fantasies!
Related episodes:
Take the Husband Material Journey...
Thanks for listening!
Your imagination is not bad. Learn the 4 main types of fantasies, how to evaluate the healthiness of a fantasy, and what to do with your healthy/unhealthy fantasies!
Related episodes:
Take the Husband Material Journey...
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the Husband Material podcast, where we help Christian men outgrow porn. Why? So you can change your brain, heal your heart and save your relationship. My name is Drew Boa and I'm here to show you how let's go. Today, we are talking about fantasy, because the ability to fantasize, to dream and to imagine something better is good. Fantasy is not all bad. Your God-given imagination and your God-given sexual imagination is a powerful, important part of who you are, and although we can't choose our sexual attractions any more than we can choose our emotions, we can choose what to do with them and we can choose what we fantasize about. In this episode, you're going to hear four types of fantasies, not just sexual fantasies, but other types as well, why this matters for men outgrowing porn, and how to determine whether a fantasy is healthy or unhealthy, and what to do with your fantasies. Now, these are not the only types of fantasies, but they are the main ones that I most often see with the men of Husband Material and the ones that I feel like are most important for this conversation Erotic fantasies, relational fantasies, recovery fantasies and redemptive fantasies.
Speaker 1:An erotic fantasy might relate to sexual intercourse, but it could also be much more innocent, like holding hands with someone or kissing, and that's typically what we think of as a sexual fantasy. However, there are also relational fantasies, like a fantasy about getting married someday or being a father, or even a relational fantasy about having a best friend. Some of us have had that deep longing and ache for a deep, good friend, and that is what I would call a relational fantasy. And there might be some crossover between erotic fantasies and relational fantasies. But you see how there's a different type of draw to each one. The erotic one is much more about the sexual energy and attraction and pleasure, whereas our relational fantasies are much more about a sense of connection with other people and maybe even with God. Maybe you have a fantasy about what you wish your relationship with God could be, but right now it's not. Many of us also have recovery fantasies In the sense of one day I want to reach that level of sobriety that has been so elusive, or one day I want to get that deeper healing for this wound or this trauma that I've carried for so long and I want to really get to a place of healing with that. And the last type of fantasy I want to highlight is a redemptive fantasy of fulfilling a sense of purpose and passion. It could be through career or ministry or some other calling, like just being a great dad or something like that.
Speaker 1:All of these types of fantasies are not necessarily bad. We're talking about them because men outgrowing porn need to be able to answer the question what do you want to be free for? Not just what do you want to be free from? What is the bigger, better, porn-free life that you want to pursue? This is so important because as long as you're just focused on avoiding the unwanted behaviors, then you're still fighting an endless battle. This concept of outgrowing means you're graduating from what you used to be doing into something more mature. So what is that for you? What is that life? What is that relational recovery, focus, redemptive fantasy and maybe even an erotic fantasy that you see as more valuable and worth pursuing.
Speaker 1:But as you are developing that vision, it can be helpful to ask how healthy is it? Not in the sense of shaming yourself or evaluating or grading yourself, but in the sense of just considering whether this fantasy is truly worthy of who you are and who God is and the story that he's telling in your life. Here are some questions you can ask to determine whether a fantasy, sexual or not, is healthy or unhealthy. Question number one is this fantasy aligned with my values or against my values? Does it support what I believe or does it violate what I believe? So this is just a very basic question. I mean, is it moral or immoral? So, as we consider some of our erotic fantasies, whether that's in singleness or dating or marriage, just considering, do I believe that this is appropriate, is important, maybe that seems obvious, and it's a good place to start. Now, if you have a fantasy that does fit within your values and what you believe, then you can ask the question in this fantasy, is it about creating or is it about consuming? Let me explain what I mean.
Speaker 1:In some fantasies, sexual or not, we are loving God and others, giving and receiving, co-creating something beautiful and good, and in other fantasies, it's really not about that. It's just about getting what I want. It's not about giving or receiving, it's about taking and instead of loving God and others, it's a form of idolatry. This can apply to things that are right and good, like getting married or Finally achieving sobriety. Those are good things, yet we can pursue them for selfish reasons as a way of just getting, getting, getting what I want. In this case, even sobriety can become an idol. Even a really great ministry or really great career can become an idol.
Speaker 1:If it's not about loving God, if it's not about loving other people, then it is a lustful type of fantasy and I think that is really important for us to realize that there are good, beautiful desires that we have that can become twisted and self-absorbed. For example, that relational fantasy about having a best friend. If that's about mutual giving and receiving, then great. If it's just about consuming and having some kind of itch scratched for me selfishly, then it's a form of idolatry. And I have been really guilty of that and in some of my friendships I have treated them as a replacement for God in my life. And a huge truth that I keep coming back to is that Jesus is my first truest friend, he is my first truest lover, he is my first and primary purpose, and so as we engage in, hopefully, some healthy visioning and imagining and fantasizing that's actually God-honoring, then he is at the center of it, not us. So when you're considering if a fantasy is healthy or not, ask yourself is this about creating and co-creating or is this about consuming?
Speaker 1:The last question I invite you to ask about any fantasy is this Is the fantasy hopeful or hopeless? Does this fantasy inspire me to take action? That would be hopeful or does this fantasy deaden me into despair? A good and healthy fantasy gives us energy to take action and take redemptive risks and actually do something with it, whereas an unhealthy fantasy, it is more rooted in despair of like. Well, I know I'm never gonna get to experience that in real life, so I guess I'll settle for it in a fantasy world. This is often the type of pornographic fantasy that hooks us into unwanted sexual behavior. If you're engaged to be married, lying awake at night dreaming and imagining what it will be like to be naked and unashamed with your future wife, that's very different from somebody who just went through a breakup, lying awake at night thinking about his ex-girlfriend and all the things that could have been. That's one example of a fantasy that's moving toward hope, and also a fantasy that's moving away from hope and wallowing in despair.
Speaker 1:Dan Allender says addiction is an attempt to slay hope. That quote has resonated with me so much. A lot of times we settle for the certainty and the relief of staying in this hopeless place rather than the pain and risk of entertaining the possibility that life really could be better. I mean, hope is painful, hope is risky, hope is brave and I believe recovery is an adventure of hope. So if you have a healthy, hopeful fantasy, what should you do? Share it. This is what we do in our husband material groups and in HMA.
Speaker 1:If you go far enough in the course, we write what we call a sacred screenplay, which is a very important part of our life. We write a sacred screenplay, which is a chance for you to create a healthy, hopeful fantasy, a vision of what your life could be whether that's an erotic fantasy or a recovery fantasy, a redemptive fantasy, a relational fantasy and to narrate that story that you want to pursue and live into. Men often say this is the most difficult assignment because it takes a lot of bravery to choose hope instead of to settle for despair. If you're up for a challenge, I dare you to write out a healthy, hopeful fantasy and share it with someone. This will not only challenge you to choose hope instead of despair. It will also give you some accountability and extra motivation to pursue your dream.
Speaker 1:Right now, I have this fantasy about writing a book. I'm going to be taking the month of April off to pursue this dream, and it scares me tremendously, and I'm pursuing it. It's painful, it's risky, it brings up all kinds of insecurity, and yet this is what I believe God is calling me to do. I have some other deeply difficult fantasies about more intimacy with my wife, and that's also something I'm leaning into. These dreams take me deeper into reality, instead of drifting off into a dream world or a digital world, and so these are the fantasies that I want to fuel, that I want to pursue.
Speaker 1:What about you? What is your creative, healthy, hopeful vision that you see as superior to unwanted sexual behavior? Get specific about it, go into the details. The power is in the particularity and share it with someone you trust. And finally, what can you do with an unhealthy fantasy? We've got a lot of episodes on this and I'll put links to them in the show notes. I'm going to simplify it into three simple steps for you. Number one understand the arousal of the fantasy. Number two bless the backstory behind the fantasy. And number three direct the deeper desire. Number one understand the arousal. This is so important. Our fantasies are not random. There's always a reason, in fact, multiple reasons. There's always a story behind it and when you can figure out okay where is this fantasy coming from and you see the story behind it, you can bless yourself and, specifically, you can bless the desire underneath your arousal. I want to give you a very practical example so you can understand what this looks like.
Speaker 1:A couple years ago, I was often having dreams about cheating on my wife. These dreams were disturbing to me. I didn't know where they came from. I had never experienced them before. When I did what I'm telling you to do right now, it started to make a lot more sense. I realized that I was having these dreams about cheating on my wife during times when we were emotionally disconnected For months. We were focused on the kids, we were focused on work and we weren't really investing in our relationship. But oftentimes, during those vacancies, I would have a dream about another woman at my church who I was having a fun conversation with or playing within the worship band, and that made so much sense. By engaging that sexual dream with curiosity, I was able to understand my arousal and bless the backstory, because the truth is, there was a very important message that those sexual dreams were trying to tell me the message that I'm disconnected from the most important person in my life and I need to pursue her. This is what I mean by directing the deeper desire. At the surface level, I was having these dreams that were very arousing about infidelity. But at the soul level, at a much deeper level, my desire was not to cheat on Rebecca. It was to connect with Rebecca and to have the emotional and romantic joy that we've had in the past. So this actually motivated me to reprioritize our relationship and not settle for a mediocre marriage. So see, that unhealthy fantasy actually helped me identify a much healthier fantasy that I could pursue.
Speaker 1:So my encouragement to you with whatever fantasies you may have erotic, relational recovery or some other type of redemption don't dampen your desires. Deepen your desires, dream big and choose hope. Addiction is an attempt to slay hope. Recovery is an adventure of choosing hope. Yes, hope is painful. Yes, hope is risky. Yes, hope is brave. It's worth it. Our God-given imaginations are not bad. They are engines of hope that can drive us into the kind of life that we were created for. Thanks for listening and always remember you are God's beloved Son and you, he is well pleased.