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Hey guys. As we build up to the Liberating Saints Virtual Summit, I want to make sure I jump on the podcast feed and give you a little teaser of an upcoming presentation in this remarkable virtual summit. Every time I do these and record the sessions, I just get so excited to share the content and it pains me to kind of build it all up and wait for specific data to release it. But the good news is you can actually view all of these presentations for free, no cost. Just go to leading saints.org liberating the links are in the show notes and put your email in to register for this virtual summit for free. All about ministering to individuals who are struggling with pornography. Now, in this, this little clip, we talk or it is Sam Teelmans, who's a bishop down in Las Vegas. He's also a marriage and family therapist, does remarkable work with helping individuals overcome pornography. And he really understands the dynamic of shame and how to overcome the shame. Sometimes we talk all about, like, ah, don't shame them or avoid the shame. But we've, we often fail to give tactics or approaches of how, what does that look like? How do I actually do that? So Sam shares in this tactic, a specific way to do that and to reframe actions and behaviors and especially unwanted actions or sin in a way that gives you a practical response to it. So, so let's jump into it. Here's a quick clip from Sam Teelman's presentation in the Liberating Saints Virtual Summit.
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So your decisions are not who you are. Your values are a reflection of who you are. And your actions are a reflection of your skills. That's the difference between the two things. So your values are a reflection of who you are, how you want to be as a person. And I'm talking like, I'm not talking like it's like the desire of our heart, our values, our desires, that's a reflection of who we are. And when I say desire, I'm not talking about, like, natural man, like, oh, I desire to indulge in whatever habit. Or it's like truly the desire of your heart. If you had no limitations, how would you want to show up as a person? Probably kind, compassionate, honest, somebody who tries, like, all these positive things that most people aspire to. If that's within you, that it is you, if that. If those healthy, productive, positive things are in you and you aspire to that, that's a reflection of who you are. That's why people feel bad when they don't live up to that. Sometimes people think, I made this bad choice or I keep making the same bad choice. It's a habit. It's an addiction. This must be me. Well, how do you feel when you do it? Do you feel really happy about that choice? Most people say no. Well, that tells you that isn't you. Because if you felt happy about it, then, yeah, that would reflect the desire of your heart. But the fact that you feel bad means that your action was out of alignment with who you are. So I think it's so helpful when working with members. In fact, I gave a. There was a workshop. They asked me to do a workshop at our youth conference two weeks ago. And I shared this message with the. The teens, with the youth. It was wild to me how many people said that this was like, so influential to them was understanding what we're talking about here. So this is something that a leader can share with somebody that they're working with to help them understand that their decisions aren't a reflection of them. It's your desires, it's your values. And if you don't act in alignment with those, it's because you lack skills, not because there's something wrong with you. So I want to fill this out a little further. I like to use this, like, skill gap framework whenever I work with people. It's instead of asking, oh, I did it again. What's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out? You're asking, what skill am I missing? I just made this choice. It's not really what I wanted to do in my heart. What skill am I missing that led to that decision? Now when you think about it in those terms, you're separate. You're breaking out of shame. You're externalizing the problem. Instead of the problem being you, shame says it's you. You can externalize the problem into the situation or the skill that you lack. So here's a couple of examples to this. Or one or two. I can't remember how many I written down here. First one, let's say a man is struggling with pornography, okay? That's the situation. What's the root problem? He's escaping from feelings of inadequacy. Let's say that's the root of it. Those unresolved feelings of inadequacy, like we talked about, turn into an urge, and then he struggles. So what's the skill that he's missing? Well, if the problem is feelings of inadequacy, the skill that he doesn't have, or I guess it's not binary, it's like on a continuum but the skill he needs to develop is self, compassion, being vulnerable and connecting with somebody else, getting support. And number three, like a system to solve problems. Let's say again, the work example. If he's falling behind at work, he may need some skills to either, number one, feel like there's more organization in his day or how he's approaching it. He may need more training. He's falling behind because he doesn't know how to solve the problem at work. He might need training, his approach might be wrong, he might be too distracted. There's lots of different reasons why somebody falls behind at work. So he may, if he's feeling inadequate, it has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with his system. So that separation is so key because it not only will help them feel better about them. Number one, it's true, it's not about you as a person in a good way. Number two, it can give you clarity about what steps that you can take to resolve the problem. And number three, you're able to take action instead of just feeling bad and not doing anything about it and then repeating the same scenario. So here's the example. Let me share with you one more situation. A youth scrolls Instagram and then it leads to inappropriate images and it happens at night. We want to analyze, okay, what leads to this. Maybe it's just, maybe he's not escaping. Maybe it's just access to his phone without structure. So this is like my thing, right? It's like if I'm scrolling the news. For me, it's like wasted time. It's like, I don't want to waste 20, 30 minutes. Like, what, it's 10 o', clock, let's go to bed. So for me, it was, I had access to my phone, but my environment wasn't disciplined or structured enough. So the skill might just be, I need to discipline my environment. I need to use my practice the skill of using my phone intentionally because the phone is an amazing tool. We just need to use it with intention. Number three, maybe having a clearer purpose for your time, asking yourself, what brings fulfillment? For me, I like to learn, I like to read. And so I've got my book there because that aligns with how I want to use my time. So those are two examples of how you can apply this idea that it's if your actions are not in alignment with your goals, it's because you lack a skill. It's not because you are a bad person. It's not because you're a failure. And helping the kids understand this, a couple of weeks ago. It was crazy. Like, in fact, there was a testimony meeting that. That took place the next day. And, like, kid after kid after kid got up and said, like, how much this made a difference because they identified themselves with their mistake. So it just made. It just reinforced to me how important this particular message. Message is for people to understand that this has nothing to do with you in a good way. It's just your skills. And when you frame it like that, you can actually start to make progress. Okay, one, yeah, but. Yeah, but some people will come back and say, yeah, but it is me.
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All right, guys, there is the. The clip. So it's so informative. Really excited for you to see this whole presentation. Go to leadingsaints.org liberating the links in the show notes and. And register and share this. Pass this link on to somebody else who needs to be there as well. You can watch it from anywhere in the world. That's the best part about it. So see you at the Liberating Saints Virtual Summit.