Hear Him Heal You
This podcast is for those who are looking to experience the Savior more in their lives because of the peace and healing that only He can offer through revelation. Come unto Christ to get out of the mental mire, find meaning in emotion, leave bad behind, and finally, be whole. This is where we hear Him to be healed.
Hear Him Heal You
When Confession Isn’t Enough: Choosing Accountability, Community, And Christ
What if the problem isn’t just the habit, but the silence around it? We sit down with Tyler—creator of Redeemed, Recovered, Restored—who opens up about early exposure to pornography, twenty years outside the church, and the rock-bottom prayer that sent him back to God, off cigarettes and porn, and into a life of service. His story is vulnerable, practical, and full of hope for anyone who feels stuck, ashamed, or convinced they’ve gone too far.
Together we draw a bright line between sobriety and recovery: white-knuckling can keep you “clean” for a while, but real recovery frees your thoughts, shrinks cravings, and rebuilds identity. We talk about why confession is necessary but incomplete on its own, and how accountability—naming your triggers, owning your choices, and reporting your why—restores agency. From leaving your phone outside the bathroom to replacing rituals with better ones, we lay out simple safeguards that compound over time.
We also take on the loneliness-anxiety-relapse loop that so many men face today. Loneliness often drives compulsive behavior, which then distorts self-worth and relationships, feeding even more isolation. Tyler shares practical ways to break that cycle: join a weekly group, text a friend when urges spike, attend addiction recovery meetings, and build routines that actually meet the needs you tried to medicate. Threaded through it all is a steady witness: the Atonement of Jesus Christ is not infinite except for you—it’s infinite, period. Healing is possible. Change is learnable. You can start today.
If this conversation helps, share it with someone who needs it, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one takeaway you’re going to apply this week. Your story could be the nudge someone else needs.
Welcome to Hear Him, Kill You with Morgan and Joel. This podcast is for those who are imperfect and rough around the edges, but are still wanting to come under Christ. Essentially, it's for everyone. So join us to get yourself out of the mental mire, find meaning and emotion, and leave that behind. This is where we hear him to be healed.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome back, little flock. We're here again with another episode of Hear Him Heal You. Today's a special episode. I'm joined by a guest, and it's not our normal guest of Latter-day Avenger, though we wish him well. He is having lots of success on Instagram as he is spreading the message of the gospel. But today we have another great, great creator on Instagram who I'm really excited for you guys and meet. I've really been a fan of his work and found it to be very inspirational, vulnerable, and just real. So, Tyler, go ahead, take it away, and introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, my name is Tyler, and my Instagram page is going to be redeemed, recovered, restored. And basically, my if I give a little 30-second kind of background on myself, I was born in the church. Both of my parents were members. I got exposed to pornography at a very, very young age. Like way younger than I should have been. And younger than anyone should ever be exposed. And really kind of developed my addiction all the way from there. I was active in the church through the age of 16, but really kind of struggled kind of the whole time through that. And then was inactive for about 20 years. Then at the age of 36, I apologize. I uh warned our host here that I uh I wear my my my heart on my sleeve to get a little emotional. But at the age of 36, I I got a little suicidal, actually. I decided to say a prayer to God and ask him what I should do. And the answer that I received was to quit my addiction to pornography, to quit my addiction to cigarettes, and to go and speak to my vision. Which is a really weird thing because again, I've been inactive for twenty years and had no plans of ever returning. It wasn't you know something like, well, how do I you know how do I fix my my standing with the church? Like it wasn't anything like that. It was just what do I do? Because I'm at the end of my rope. And that was the answer. And so I I returned. And ever since then I have been just kind of full steam ahead on making sure that I that I do everything I can to help those around me and to spread the word of God as penance for for my many, many years of sin, and for for the addictions that I carry for so long. And I just want to make sure that I can help others with not having to carry those same addictions and not having to carry the same guilt and shame that I did for many years.
SPEAKER_01:Did I really appreciate you? No, dude, you're good, man. I appreciate you being so vulnerable here and um being willing to share that and really put yourself out there uh for people to see who you are and see that you're a real person, you know, who's had a real life and experienced a lot of things. And I mean, I think that's a bit of a motivation for a lot of us these days who have Instagram pages or podcasts or whatever it may be, is a lot of us are doing this because we do feel it is a form of penance. It's a form of us being able to, you know, I think it's like Alma said, you know, he felt like he had he had killed many of his brethren, right? Spiritually speaking, right? Like he had killed them, he had murdered God's children spiritually. And that that was one of his reasons for giving his life over to the ministry, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Um, Alma the Younger, that's who I'm referencing. I guess I should clarify which Alma, but you know, and I think that's very real emotion. A lot of us experience who've struggled with addiction, whether that is pornography or cigarettes or alcohol or any type of drug, anything that you can be severely addicted to that affects your family life, that affects your life and your relationship with our father in heaven. And I think a lot of us at that time, we've become resentful. We become poor examples, and you know, people sadly, that's what they see and they follow sometimes, even though you don't ask for them to, and then you feel bad looking back because you're like, I've misled so many people, I've done so much damage. And something I had to realize from my own experience is that nothing is going to be further than what the atonement can reach.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, no.
SPEAKER_01:And I've seen God heal the lives of people that I personally hurt, and I've seen Heavenly Father work miracles in the lives of those who have fallen away because of me or have been caused to falter because of me. And I've seen him still strengthen them through his infinite mercy and love. And so I think everyone needs to know who feels that way, that they've, you know, done too much damage to really be forgiven, to know that that the damage you've done is not irreparable. Like the atonement really can cover all those things.
SPEAKER_03:So but how can you the atonement isn't isn't infinite except it's infinite.
SPEAKER_01:Except no, it's it's infinite, period. It's it's eternal, period. It's not infinite except you and what you did. Because I I had that view for a long time. We're gonna kind of talk about that at this topic. But today's topic is going to be about um it's gonna be about addiction. It's gonna be about the recovery process, it's gonna be about accountability, we're gonna talk about anxiety, depression, we're gonna talk about a lot of things today. Uh, we're gonna try to keep it with you know, within our normal time frame. But if you know, if we go over it for a good cause, just know we have some good material to talk about and some important things, I think, that's very prevalent in the church today. Uh things that we need to be more open about, things we need to talk about to help further strengthen our ranks within the church, to help let people know that it's okay, that they're struggling, right?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think I'm sure you've seen it. And you, I mean, you're you're you yourself are an example. I'm an example of it, right? Of someone born in the church, someone raised with these standards who fell away, someone who didn't hold on to those standards, who didn't take advantage of the gift of repentance and the gift of, and that's what's funny. I I never caught that before, but in the endowment where it speaks of the gift of the law of sacrifice, right? It's the gift to repent, right? Yeah. And so it's and I talked a little bit about that last week in our podcast, but this week I really want to focus on a few things. And just to get started, let's just let's just hop right into this. So when it comes to addiction, I think there's a bit of a taboo. I mean, could you agree with that?
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I think that I think that ultimately what it comes down to is that the the feeling of guilt and shame is something that is a universal feeling that all people have. And we've all had it since Adam and Eve. I mean, it's the very first feeling that they received after after their sin was was guilt and shame and wanting to hide. And so the just just having that guilt and shame from the addiction, I think, makes it taboo. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to be seen as someone who has those addictions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think the natural instinct, like you said, it is to hide. It is to try to cover it ourselves. And I think the real moral lesson we learn in the garden is that whenever we try to do that, it's a very crude attempt, right?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, we grab what's near us, we try to hide, we try to throw up those guards, but they're not very strong. They're not doing a great job. And then Heavenly Father comes over with a much more perfect and complete covering, right? And that's what he gives to Adam and Eve then. And so I think one of the first things we have to do with when we talk about addiction is explain the importance of confronting it, right? We can't hide, we can't run from it. You have to just confront it. You got to face it head on. And I think that's where accountability first starts. Like for me, personally, I think the first thing that helped me to feel like I could shake the taboo or even like try to um feel like be comfortable sharing that I should have struggled so that I could help other people was just sharing. Well, first was taking accountability by going to my parents as a young man, um, you know, and then going to my bishops, and then, you know, over the years, going, talking mistake, presidents and every person, right? And being able to just face my mistakes and admit that I was wrong. When I got sent home from my mission, which I've spoken about before, it was a fast Sunday. I went up and I faced my home congregation, told them I was home early, not because I was sick or not because of my mental health, but because I was unworthy and it made mistakes. I was just honest. I confronted it. And it was like a burden was just relieved, right? I felt like I didn't have to hide. I didn't have to like stay inside my house during the day and make sure no one saw me and was like, oh, why's Joel home like a year early, right? And so it just lifted that burden. So I think the first thing people have to realize is that accountability is not about just fessing up and taking responsibility for your mistakes, but it's also about lifting the burden from your shoulders, right? Not carrying that weight.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, it's exactly that. It's offloading it from the pack. You've got it hidden in the pack on your back, and you're just carrying it around. And instead of carrying it in that pack, you're unloading it and saying, Here, this is this is what I've been carrying around. And it's it's a huge weight off of your shoulders. And not only that, but it's it's what is necessary for the start of the repentance process, which is what completely takes that load away. It's it's not even something that it's like, well, now I'm showing it to the world and I've I'm kind of getting that weight off of my back. It's now you're you're just getting rid of the load in the tiresome. And that's that's the repentance process. And it's necessary to even start.
SPEAKER_01:I think you hit the nail on the head. That's a big thing for me, is accountability is the first step and I think sign that you are truly repentant, right? It's when you're willing to finally say, This is no one's fault but my own, right? I'm taking accountability for my agency, and I I did not use my agency correctly, right? Right. And now I'm going to use it correctly to fix this. And that's why I think accountability is so big in our repentance, because it's showing, it's taking ownership. You can't take ownership of that healing if you don't take ownership of what caused the damage, right? Exactly. Because then you're bound to repeat those same patterns and habits. So, you know, we wanted to talk about more so not just addiction today, and we wanted to talk a lot about how we measure our recovery. Yeah, we spoke a little bit about this beforehand before we hopped on here and started recording. And you were saying some really cool things. Could we talked about how recovery doesn't just mean like it's not synonymous with sobriety? Sometimes when we think, oh, if someone's recovered, it means they're just sober, right? Like we we equate sobriety with recovery. And you were talking about some of your personal addictions and how that wasn't the case. Do you mind elaborating for our audience now kind of what you shared with me earlier?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were talking about, just as you said, that there's a difference between sobriety and recovery and how we can kind of tell the difference between those things. And for me, one of the biggest ones that I struggled with uh again was cigarettes. I mean, I I've had issues with alcohol in the past, but it wasn't, you know, I'm a full-blown alcoholic and needing to go to AA classes. Like I could very easily kind of give that one up. But the one that I could not give up for the life of me was cigarettes. And I I reach a point where it's like, hey, you know, I've I've gone two weeks without a cigarette and I think I'm good. And it's like, well, no, I am I actually recovered because I just had a really good meal. And if anyone out there has been addicted to cigarettes, you know that after a good meal you're gonna want a cigarette. And I would still have those cravings. I would still have those withdrawal symptoms, symptoms like you know, irritability if I you know couldn't get to a cigarette when I was having a craving, or just having kind of a short fuse and a short temper. So it's it's definitely something that we need to to have kind of an awareness of is are we are we still kind of in the fight, really? Um you don't want to let your guard down just because you go, well, hey, I'm you know, I'm sober for for you know six weeks. I'm fine, everything's great. And then you let your guard down and the temptation creeps in and you give into that temptation. That's where I think a lot of the the relapse can kind of come from as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And as you were talking, I was kind of thinking about that. Like, you know, I've had longer bowels of sobriety, I've had shorter bouts of sobriety. And I think even in some of those longer periods of being sober, I was just as addicted, if not more, because that's what entertained my thoughts throughout the day. That's what I was focused on. That's what I couldn't get out of my head, right? And whereas I've had other times where maybe I wasn't as sober as long, but the times in between lapses, I wasn't focused on pornography per se, right? I wasn't thinking about it, I wasn't entertaining it. And I think that was actually something I had to realize, like, wow, like that's way more impressive than just not giving it, just white knuckling it as we like to call it, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:You know, right for a long period of time. But rather being able to not let it be the forefront of your focus on your day-to-day, right? And not be a thing that you think about or entertain very often. And so, with that, the what the conclusion I kind of came to is like recovery is the goal, and sobriety is kind of one of those symptoms of recovery, right? It's something that comes with it, but it doesn't mean that you're recovered. And so, kind of moving on to the another part of this is we wanted to kind of cover like what's the difference now, because now we can kind of separate the difference between recovery and sobriety. I want to we want to talk about the difference between accountability and just confessing. Because we kind of mentioned that with repentance, but what's the difference of taking accountability of your actions and you know, like taking responsibility for what you've done versus simply going to your bishop and confessing? And I mean, what for you, what's what do you think is the difference, but what have you seen that is different in those two things?
SPEAKER_03:Ultimately, I think it's the the level of ownership that you that you take over it. And it really does matter because the that I'm sorry, let me try to organize my thoughts a little bit. That level of ownership really has a big determining relationship with your guilt and your shame. So, as an example, let's say that you go and and you do your confession at uh you know church and you talk to your bishop, and you know, it's it's it's a just between me and him type thing. It's like, yeah, you've you've done your confession and that's great. But are you are you still harboring guilt and shame for that? Are you is this something where you can go up on fast Sunday and bear your testimony and say to the congregation, hey, you know what? I've been I've been struggling with this addiction. Is that something that you're able to do? Because if you're not, I don't I don't know. I mean, and maybe this is between you and and your bishop and you between you and Christ. I can't determine anyone's relationship. But to me, it feels like you're you're not owning it completely because you're still holding that guilt and that shame. And to me, that's the difference between accountability and just making your confession. Being accountable and having that accountability is being able to openly say to anyone, even if it was someone who you've never met before, but has seen you on the internet and comes up and walks up to you and says, Hey, I heard you used to struggle with pornography as an addiction. But you can look at them and squarely in the eye and say, Yeah, it is something that I struggle with, or did struggle with, whatever again, your case of recovered is. But that's to me the difference between accountability and simply confessing.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So let me kind of rephrase and try to kind of condense this. So what I'm getting for you is No, no, no, no. So what I'm I'm trying to rephrase or restate what I'm hearing. So basically your confession is more of a private thing, whereas your accountability is more of your public thing, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's just getting it all off of getting it out into the open so that you don't have to carry that guilt and shame around.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I think that's really good. Because I've I've had in my own experience, I've had once I kind of opened up about my own struggles, I I found that it was easier for people to approach me in the ward, whether it was other young men who are my age, versus once I was in, you know, YFA, being able just to talk to guys and openly invite them to addiction recovery and be like, and they would have not even shared that they may be struggling with me, but I would just assume, right? I was like, hey, man, have you ever been to addiction recovery? And like, what? I'm like, yeah, as you know, it's like a lot of us guys, we either have struggles with pornography, drinking, or other word of wisdom issues, and we get together because it's really a great way to learn about the atonement and how to apply it into our lives. And that's really the main purpose of it. I don't know if you want to be able to apply the atonement in your life more, but like personally, I've helped it seen it help me overcome addictions uh with my personal addictions with pornography, right? And even if they're not able to do it, yeah. But like even it, and then I found probably about eight times out of ten, they were struggling with something, right? Whether that's word of wisdom or pornography or even law of chastity. Some, you know, actually, you know, you meet people who are truly addicted to sex and other things like that. And I think that's another thing that we like to lump lump together pornography with the law of chastity, but that's two different things, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And uh, but sorry, I'm kind of getting off track. We might edit that out later. We might not. You guys might just get that little uh tidbit from me. But regardless, what I'm trying to get at is that you know, just being open opens up opportunities to share the atonement with others who are struggling. And I just saw like some guys that they were just like shocked that I was so open about it. And it's like, dude, did are you like you're inviting me to do this? And like, you know, it's like, I mean, you struggle with this too. And like, I saw you, you know, passing the sacrament last week. You're allowed to do that? It's like, yeah, yeah. It's like you're not completely unworthy just because you've struggled with addiction. Like, it's about your openness, your honesty, working with your bishop actively, right? I was like, and they will help you to know what your what worthiness really is. And so that that is a huge thing, I think, is being more public so that the taboo's lifted. You can see more people coming and feeling like they're safe and able to start their own healing journey, which I think is great. And then the other thing that popped into my head as we were talking about accountability versus confession. I think it's really easy for me to text Morgan after a relapse and be like, hey, dude, I had a lapse, right?
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:I made a mistake, right? It's a whole nother thing for me to tell him why. Right. It's a whole nother thing for me to be like, this is why. And not saying, oh, I was just really depressed. I was just really sad or frustrated or angry or stressed with school. Work, it's a lot harder for me to say I was stressed and I ignored the safeguards I had put up when I didn't stick to my plan. And so I relapsed because I ignored those. Not because I was stressed, but because I ignored my plan. I think that's accountability.
SPEAKER_03:100%. 100%, yeah. And it's I think where where we're also coming to or where we can kind of condense it is it comes down to your level of awareness. Because if you are if you're aware that hey, I screwed up, I had my relapse, that sucks. I I you know I'm not gonna beat myself up, I'm gonna start over, I'm gonna keep on going. But if you don't address the why, if you don't take responsibility for the why, and the the deeper why, not just because I was stressed, but also because I didn't do A B or C that deeper that deeper awareness is what allows us to be able to make the proper changes later on down the road. It allows us to avoid those same pitfalls next time. And so going into that deeper awareness is something that we need to that we need to have practice at doing. Um and again, having that open accountability is going to kind of facilitate that. And it's just the the more open you are, the deeper you can get into it. Uh again, if you just have that that private only confession and you hide it away from the rest of the world, how much of that deeper healing and deeper addressing are you actually doing? Because I think a lot of it requires an openness to even start diving that deep into it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think that is a huge integral part of your recovery is being able to diagnose the source of your uh what I guess what causes you to need to need to cope, right? What's the cost? Yeah, what's the triggers? And so, and being able to take accountability that those triggers don't just cause you, your agency ultimately acts to act on that, right? And it's it's a failure on your part to stick to your plan, right? And when you can like say, when you can admit that, right, I think there's something also freeing about that, where it's like, wow, nothing does control me. Like I control myself, and truly, like I made a bad decision right there. If you just take accountability for that rather than trying to say, oh, it's because of something else that I relapsed, or it's because of this that I had a slip-up, right? I think it's so much more empowering if you're able to say, I messed up because I made a bad decision and I used my agency wrongly, right? But now I'm more aware and I know I can use my agency the right way to avoid that next time.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, exactly. That's exactly it. I couldn't say it better myself.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Well, something else we kind of wanted to go over with this is diving in a little bit more how addiction and recovery and these things tie into the issues of anxiety and depression, because a lot of these are triggers. And a lot of these are things that a lot of people struggle with today, right? Because a lot of things make us anxious. A lot of things make us feel depressed and hopeless, right? We live in a really tough time where it is very hard to look at the future with a bright and happy mentality, right? There's a lot of times where I feel like we look very, it's very, we're very pessimistic right now. And in a way, we kind of have a right to be, right? It is a rough time. There is a lot going on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I know you have some good words of what's to talk about and share with us, Tyler. I know you have experience with battling through depression and anxiety. And um, I would I would love to hear more of your stories and your insights about this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Let's just open the box. We might not get in the box tonight, right? Let's open that box and then we'll leave it up to our viewers if they want us to really get in there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. Just like you were saying, it really does come down to that a lot of the a lot of the addictions that people have are from you know, coping mechanisms. Whether it be you know overall anxiety and you know, overall depression, or we can get into some of the you know finer details where, you know, as an example, I know that most of the time, most men are turning to pornography, at least in the very beginnings, you know, sometimes due to loneliness, or at least a lot of times due to loneliness. And especially more and more so nowadays, with you know, men not being able to find a compatible companion. It's it's really become kind of a pandemic. I I see it more and more everywhere I look. There's you know different web pages, different Instagram accounts, all talking about you know, this this men uh I'm sorry, this male loneliness pandemic. And really I think that it's something that like I said, we just need to be as deeply aware as we can on what our triggers are. Is it because we're lonely? Well, what can we do to combat that loneliness? Can we you know make a friend that we can text and just say, hey, I'm feeling kind of lonely. Can you talk can you talk to me for a little bit? Or maybe find uh uh men's group that plays basketball, you know, after work or whatever the case may be. Finding something that you can do to occupy your time and replace that that loneliness is really what we need to do to combat it. We need to find replacements uh is is really the best way that I can say it. And in even also with our coping mechanisms, as an example. With cigarettes, it's like, well, you know, we could have cigarettes or I saw the funniest thing, it was this video of these guys who were trying to quit smoking, but they had this oral fixation and hand, you know, mouth movement. It's a it's this habit that you'd got. So what they did was they they simply replaced their cigarettes with bubbles, and they went outside and started blowing bubbles. Just blowing bubbles. And I'm like, yeah, that's great. Like is anything that you can do to replace it. You know, if you if you have struggles with pornography because you take your phone into the bathroom with you, that's something that men do, but I just own it. Um leave your phone outside and take a book in with you. And you've replaced it. You don't have that option anymore. You know, we're just replacing whatever we can. And that goes along with the the triggers as well. If our trigger is loneliness, how can we replace that loneliness? How can we fill that in? And it doesn't necessarily have to be with a romantic partner or a romantic companion, it can be just with a friend, it can be with a group of guys that are playing basketball after work. There's all different kinds of things that we can do, and I think that that's again where we need to have that level of awareness. If we don't have that awareness, we're just kind of flowing with life and letting life take us where it where it wants to take us instead of being in control ourselves. Yeah, no, I think that's really way off on a tangent.
SPEAKER_01:No, dude, that's right. Like, I think that's cool because like as I'm thinking about it, as I'm hearing you talk, uh, as we kind of said we're gonna open up this box about anxiety and depression, I was like, yeah, I was like, you know, my most anxious times, my most depressed times were times that I was most lonely. And, you know, it's because I thought I needed like the female companionship where I needed, you know, to be in and felt feel included and wanted. But really, it came down to just finding good people to surround yourself with, right? Absolutely. And finding good support groups, finding people who are spiritually in a good place or who are striving to do so, right? And, you know, being around people who are, you know, every Sunday is like, hey man, what time are we going to church? Are you coming? It's hey, what time are we going? What time are we getting there? Right. And friends who you're hanging out with Saturday night, like, all right, I'll see you in the morning. Um, you know, and as you do that, I think as that loneliness goes away, I think you also you're you're not as anxious, right? When you're alone, it's easy to become anxious. When it's easy to become depressed. And so when you, like you said, replace that with something else. I think one, it's it makes it where you're naturally happier. You know, you're gonna have more dopamine as you're hanging out with friends, good people who are encouraging you, right? And in turn, it's gonna lead you to be more happy and to be a more desirable person to be around. And so I think it can lead to you finding a good companion, right? And I think one of the vicious cycles is men feel lonely, so they turn to pornography. Uh, they after turning to pornography, it warps their brain into viewing women differently and making them less approachable, right? Because of the unrealistic standard. So then you keep avoiding women and then you keep feeling lonely, and then you go back to pornography. And it's a vicious cycle, right? Where you keep going back through this. And if you're willing to just break that cycle, and next time you're feeling that her say, when you're really just lonely, go out with your friends, right? You started to break that cycle. And then usually that opens up a way for you to meet and new people and talk to people in real life and realize it's not quite as bad as you think sometimes, you know. And I think that's a good way to help escape that feeling of constant depression and anxiety and loneliness is being able to break that chain of addiction, right? And so, I mean, and this can be for anything, right? This that same cycle can be for anything, whether it is we I know we've kind of talked a lot about pornography because that's kind of the most pernicious sin, I think, currently in the in the world that's being pushed and pedaled to us every day. And I think it's important that we fight back, but I think it's important people know that this this applies to to any addiction that you have, right? And anything that separates you from the love of our Father in heaven. And so I think we're we are gonna kind of wrap it up now tonight. And, you know, I would love to do a part two and kind of dive more into this idea of uh how our loneliness can actually increase our anxiety, depression, and how it cycles, and how we can break that in other ways. Um, and how we can prevent ourselves from falling back into that and what to do if we do. So, but do you have any closing thoughts that you want to kind of talk about? Anything else on your mind tonight you want to kind of just wrap up with?
SPEAKER_03:Really, I mean, the the the best thing that I can say again is just is just taking ownership is the number one thing that you can do to break the cycle of guilt and shame. Because just like you had said before about it being a cycle, is is that there's also not only just the cycle of how we view women, but there's also the cycle of how we view ourselves. So, you know, we go through and we we you know commit the sin, we we view the pornography, and then the cycle starts with the guilt and the shame and we want to hide, just like we had said at the beginning, we we feel that need to hide. And we don't want to be exposed to someone or have someone find out that we have that you know that addiction. And so it can make even like you were saying, approaching a a partner or approaching a a a potential companion that much harder because we have that much lower self-esteem or that much lower view of ourselves because of our own guilt and our own shame and our own urge to hide. So it's it's there's there's multiple facets to this, and it's important that we just try to be as aware of all of them as we can, because the more aware of them that we are, the more that we can affect change. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Well, in closing, I just want to say ultimately the most important thing that any of us can do is to pray to our Father in heaven, to study the scriptures, to heed the counsel of the prophets and apostles. I promise they are receiving revelation, right? They are receiving inspiration to lead and guide us and help us. And we see that every day. Many people don't like that. They don't like that God keeps revealing new things. They say it's God changing his mind. I say it's us finally hearing what he's saying. And, you know, I think as we continue to place our trust and our faith in our Father and in the, you know, in the institution of the church that he has established, right? That's the other thing we have to remember. The church is established by Jesus Christ, founded on the priesthood keys, right? And as we rely on those keys, I mean, I I felt the freeing power of the atonement. And I feel it more and more each day that I rely on it. And every time I get to talk about this, I just feel so much more uplifted. And so I just encourage anyone who may be struggling with addiction to go talk to a bishop, go talk to a friend or a family member. And, you know, if you're too nervous to go to the bishop by yourself, take them with you. There's nothing against that. You can do that, okay? You know, you're not alone. There people want to see you succeed. And almost everyone has had some kind of struggle, whether they've struggled, a child, a friend, a brother, a sister, they are aware of addiction. And there are more people out there who want to love you than there are who want to judge you. And so, with that in closing, little flock, fear not, build upon the rock, do good, and always remember to hear him.