We are fresh out of "D" day (Disclosure/Discovery) about 7 months and are sharing the 1st part of resources which have been the most helpful to us here in Episode 2. You are not alone in pornography addiction recovery & healing from betrayal trauma!

We're learning to connect, to feel safe & confident in marriage. You can too! Listen in on some raw conversations every Friday.

Watch or Listen!


TIME CODES & SHOW NOTES



Date Night HOMEWORK

Watch "Helping Her Heal" from Dr. Doug Weiss together!!!!! and for BONUS healing, implement one thing he suggests!

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Linda:              You are not alone. Welcome to the Clark and Linda show.

Clark:              This is our real relationship experiencing change after addiction and betrayal. We're learning to connect, to feel safe and confident in marriage.

Linda:              And you can too.

Linda:              Hi, welcome to the Clark and Linda Show, today-

Clark:              Brought to you by Fatty and Chubs.

Linda:              Okay. Today we wanted to focus on the resources that have been so helpful to us in this addiction recovery, betrayal trauma recovery journey. Clark has some books and I have some books and we're going to share some podcasts and everything. And this list will also be available on lindaandclark.com so you guys can download the list and just go out and buy it. I remember at the beginning I just went-

Clark:              Buy the list?

Linda:              No. Buy the books.

Clark:              Oh, I thought we were selling the list. I was like oh man, we're going to make some money.

Linda:              No. We're giving that stuff away.

Linda:              I remember at the beginning I wanted to research and find anything that I could get my hands on to help me with all the emotions and feelings that I was feeling. Remember this was just six months ago. So it's really fresh, really raw and we're just coming at you and going to share these things and again we're not editing this. Except for the beginning part. But yeah, we're just going to try and keep it real and this is us.

Linda:              So do you want to start with a book and then I'll share a book?

Clark:              We just going to take turns?

Linda:              Yeah.

Clark:              Well I know you're going to go with the Book of Mormon because I see it on top, so I'll leave that one for you. Even though everybody knows that's the best resource of all. I'm going to go with Like Dragons Did They Fight as my first book. This one is so awesome because I think this is what really helped me start to understand that it wasn't me necessarily. Obviously, I have my free agency and I was making choices. But I think a lot of counselors and therapists and things, they talk about self-sabotage and negative self-talk and things like that. And the truth of the matter is that Satan is working really hard and not just Satan but a third of the hosts of heaven. And we talked in the last episode that we're going to talk about some of our beliefs. But all those spirits who decided to follow Satan and premortal existence, they all want us to be miserable like unto them. And this book not only talks about some of Satan's strategies and how he works, but it has some of the best strategies that I've come across for fighting back.

Clark:              It uses a lot of learnings from the war chapters in the Book of Mormon and it combines scriptures and gospel teachings from someone who's studied a lot of psychology and who went to school to be a counselor.

Linda:              What's his name?

Clark:              This is by Maurice Harker. We talked about life-changing services in the last show. The awesome thing about this, this is what made me decide that I wanted to sign up for life-changing services. I read almost this whole book and was just blown away. I was like this is so great. So much of it was like it was speaking directly to me. And you can get this for free. Not the book, but he has a PDF that you can download if you go to lifechangingservices.org. He just gives away the PDF for free. So I had read most of it for free and now I think we have a couple of copies of the actual book because it's nice to have it and underline and take it with you and stuff.

Clark:              It's awesome. The strategies in here ... I give a lot of credit to the progress that I have made to this book and the stuff that's in here and the Men of Moroni program that kind of goes hand in hand with the Like Dragons Did They Fight book.

Linda:              And if you order one or don't want to read and you're not really convinced yet about the book, go look up Maurice Harker on YouTube. I've found some of his videos and those were amazing. He gives lessons, talks, and talks about how he's trained some young men in these tactics to fight against the adversary. And it's just awesome. I mean it really does, I think, break it down to you like you're an army of Helaman warrior and you're just learning how to combat the enemy.

Clark:              Yeah. He also talks a lot about brain chemistry in here and that's one of the things I really like is he will talk about some of the science behind the brain chemistry and how we can counteract some of those negative chemical effects. Because pornography addiction is a real addiction. Your brain is releasing chemicals that are just as powerful as taking heroin or other hard narcotics.

Linda:              You can go research that and look it up. We're not going to go through all the details on that.

Clark:              But some of the brain chemistry portions of this I found really helpful and super interesting as well. So highly recommended, Like Dragons Did They Fight by Maurice Harker. On their site they have an audio version of it, it's not the full book. I wish they had a full reading of the book, but it's kind of like a little fireside that Maurice gave where he does kind of an overview of some of the key points of the book.

Linda:              It's nice to have the book because then you could highlight too.

Clark:              Yeah. It's great. Anyway. So that's all for that one. Your turn.

Linda:              Okay. My turn. Book of Mormon. Yeah, you guys knew it was coming. What's crazy about the fact that a book of scripture can bless your life and in so many different ways. We've read the scriptures in our family to help our kids read. We've read them to help us overcome other things besides this. I read the scriptures to help me feel the Lord's love. At the beginning when I first started reading scriptures I didn't know what it meant at all. It was like gibberish. But I was reading it because I knew that I was going to be blessed for reading the scriptures as I am promised by prophets and apostles that if we read the scriptures if we read the Book of Mormon, we will be blessed. That's what they say. And so many times now that I've read the scriptures I've been able to be strengthened to do my duties as a mother, as a wife, and now to overcome and heal from betrayal trauma and even be there for my husband when he needs that extra help. Or if he's trying to be honest with me and it really activates my shame or triggers me in any way I can gain strength from the scriptures.

Linda:              And it's crazy because they're not talking about somebody having betrayal trauma and then knowing exactly what to do after that. They don't ever talk about that in the scriptures. However, it has blessed me immensely just reading from its pages. It talks all about Jesus Christ and it helps to get to know Him. And as we come to know Him we can use His atonement in our life to overcome those things that we think are impossible for us to overcome. So the Book of Mormon. And if you want one send us a message, DM us, whatever. I will get you one personally so you can read one and have access to it. Even if you don't believe it. Just start reading it. I promise that you will find something in there for you. So that's the Book of Mormon.

Clark:              Awesome. Okay, I think we're both going to have to hold up at the same time for this one. Because this is essentially the same book. This is Armed with Righteousness and yours is Putting on the Armor of God. They are both by Steven A. Cramer. This one is also by Donald Curtis.

Linda:              Yes we know Steven A. Cramer was a pen name. Just so you know. Thank you.

Clark:              These two books are pretty much exactly the same except this one has an extra chapter at the end by Donald Curtis that is more about the temple. So this little part here, part four, Temple and Family history, is added on. Other than that they're the same book as far as I know. This one goes really great with the Like Dragons Did They Fight. I feel like it gets into a lot more about how to-

Linda:              And the Book of Mormon.

Clark:              And the Book of Mormon. How to overcome your battles with Satan. It is LDS based again. Lot of scriptures and quotes from Bible, Book of Mormon, LDS scriptures and-

Linda:              Based on the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Clark:              Yes. Thank you. Based on the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But really awesome, eye-opening. I think one of my favorite things that's reiterated in here a lot is that which holds your attention holds you. But just some great insights and strategies on putting on your armor to be able to resist the temptations of Satan and being able to recognize and discern those whispers. Just really good stuff. I know we can't spend too much time on any of these.

Linda:              I know. It's sad that we can't talk about each one. We could do a show on each one of these of our favorite things. But I did want to read this one part because I think this totally changed my perspective on my thoughts. Because I always thought it was just like me and evil me and good me. So there's real me, then there's evil me and good me. And while that's hilarious, it's not true. But that's legit what I thought. But he talks about here, it says "Thoughts originate from three sources." See, so I thought three sources. "From within us, from the promptings of the holy spirit, and from the evil sources around us provided by Satan and his hosts as they whisper in our ears. We must, therefore, learn to recognize the source of our thoughts and control them accordingly."

Linda:              In the Gospel of Jesus Christ we believe that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ can send us messages through the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost talks to our minds and then our minds, and our hearts ... And we can make good decisions based on those good promptings that we get from the holy ghost. And we're taught that we need to discern those good messages from the spirit to choose the right and to choose the right thing for us at the moment that the spirit is testifying to us about something or telling us something that we need to do. But we never talk about how to discern the adversaries whisperings. Nobody has told me that the adversary is whispering all these things to my spirit, to my subconscious mind, to my mind, and I'm just here trying to discern the spirit. But I didn't know that those thoughts that I was thinking, evil me was thinking when actually, they were whispers from the adversary. So I'm not the crazy person thinking all these bad thoughts. They're actually being leaked to me and whispered to me into my ears. And that's where those ideas are coming from.

Linda:              So I am a good person. Those are not my original thoughts. But the adversary is on one side. And we're going to put the adversary on the left. We're going to put him on the left.

Clark:              Because that's where I'm sitting?

Linda:              Whoops. Sure. No, I'm just kidding.

Linda:              And we'll say the holy ghost is on the right. So you're trying to listen to these voices and originally I thought it was just me being the bad person and then the spirit. So it was like the spirit against me. Spirit should always win right? I'm the evil person. But now I can know that that's the difference.

Clark:              And it's super empowering once you realize that the fight isn't against yourself. When you're trying to fight yourself, how do you win?

Linda:              Yeah, you can't.

Clark:              But when you realize the fight is not with yourself, it's against Satan, all of a sudden your eyes are open and you start to recognize those evil influences where they came from and it's easier to defeat them. When you feel like you're trying to fight against yourself it's super discouraging, but when you know the true source of some of those evil influences it's easier to recognize them for what they are and overcome those. And defend against them as well.

Linda:              It's definitely helped me separate my husband and the addict. I don't know if that's a good tactic from a counselor's point of view or anything but for me personally I felt that it is better for us when I can do that and I can hold a space and be empathetic towards him when he's trying to share something with me or when we're just going through a hard spot.

Clark:              Before we found some of these resources I remember feeling super ... Like I used to describe myself as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And I was like I don't know what happens. It's like this evil me comes out and takes over and I feel powerless against him. And then he goes away and I'm filled with shame. Like all of a sudden, I'm myself self again and I just want to crawl under a rock and hide. Once I realized, no it's not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it's me versus Satan, all of a sudden that switched my mindset and I was able to start winning those battles instead of just helplessly giving in to Mr. Hyde.

Linda:              Yeah. And during the conference I remember a talk, I can't remember who said it so maybe we'll put it in the notes if we can find it, but it was about comparison and as women, I think we compare ourselves a lot to each other. Or even on social media, we compare other people's strengths to our weaknesses. And she talked about how the "comparison is the thief of joy." That's from Hank Smith or maybe he got it from somewhere else but we really like Hank Smith so shout out to him. Elder Jeffery R Holland said that the race in life isn't against each other but the race is against sin {QUOTE: "the race is against sin, not against each other"} and that really put that into perspective for me because I was like you know that's so true. I'm not racing my sister next to me to any specific destination, to perfect family, or to awesome put together self, or matchy matchy everybody at church. I wish. But our race is against sin and that helps me to know that we're all in this fight together and that it's not just a single person individually trying to go out there and beat Satan on his own.

Linda:              Anyway, really good book. So go get that.

Clark:              How we doing on time?

Linda:              Okay. We got about seven to eight minutes left. We still got a lot of resources to-

Clark:              We might have to have a resources part two.

Linda:              Yes. Or this could just be our resources books and then we'll have resources digital.

Clark:              I still have a lot of other books.

Linda:              Okay. Go ahead. Or was it my turn.

Clark:              I don't know. We kind of went at the same time with that one because we were both talking about it. It can be your turn. Go ahead.

Linda:              Okay. And then this one, Moving Beyond Betrayal, The Five-Step Boundary Solution For Partners and Sex Addicts by Vicki Tidwell Palmer. Now let me just tell you this book is awesome and it validates every feeling that you get as a wife who's been betrayed. I know that there's husbands out there that have been betrayed to so I'm not excluding you but for the purposes of this show since I'm the wife that's where I'm going to be coming from. And she talks about boundaries and when you start getting into betrayal trauma and people start talking about these terms. They talk about boundaries. We'll end up talking about some of those later but just know that this book is really helpful. In our worth group I was recommended to read this book and so far it's been really awesome. Again I have not gone through the entire thing but I highlight like crazy. So really helpful validating your feelings and figuring out who you need to be and who you need to be to show up.

Linda:              So anyway, Vicki Tidwell Palmer also has a podcast. Look that up.

Clark:              This one's kind of a cheat I guess.

Linda:              Uh-oh, two for ones?

Clark:              Well, not really. This is the Men of Moroni Man Power Journal. And I'm just using this as an example of any journal. They've got some questions and guided exercises and stuff in here but-

Linda:              I have my journal too. But it's clear over there so I'm just going to-

Clark:              It's clear over there. I'm just going to say I think one of the most helpful things for me has been starting a journal. This is the first time in my life that I've kept a daily journal.

Linda:              Besides when you were on your mission.

Clark:              You know, I thought that I did a really great job of keeping a daily journal on my mission and recently I went back and started looking through my journal. It was not as daily as it should have been. There was a lot of missed days. And it's really sad because I'll go through it and I'll be like I don't remember my mission as well as I would like to now and there's so much that's not in there. And I know I was busy and tired and working really hard.

Linda:              And you were young.

Clark:              And I was young. But I don't even know if it's weekly for certain sections. There's good times and bad times on my mission.

Linda:              When you go on those missionaries write your parents every week.

Clark:              I wrote my parents every week. And that was probably the most consistent I had been at keeping a journal on my mission compared to any other time in my life.

Linda:              So that was good.

Clark:              But for the last six months I've done a pretty great job of writing in my journal every day. And I'll admit there are some days where I'm just checking boxes and it's not super useful. But there's a lot of other days where I sit down at the end of the day and reflect on what I've learned, what I've felt, what I've struggled with, and just the act of writing it out and getting it there really helps me clarify my feelings. Like we talked about, it helps discern where some of those thoughts come from. Sometimes just seeing it out in front of you, all of a sudden it becomes plain and clear. When you're feeling those feelings they get so confused and it's hard to interpret them and then you sit down to make sense of them and as it comes out onto the page for some reason it becomes clear a lot of times. And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I'm still really confused. I'll go back a couple days and read it and be like man I was in victim mode that day. I'm almost kind of embarrassed of what I wrote in my journal.

Clark:              But I can see it then a couple days later and all of the sudden it's clear and I can recognize changes that I need to make. So I would say a journal is a huge resource in your recovery and your healing.

Linda:              I would agree with this.

Clark:              It's a big help.

Linda:              For me.

Clark:              One thing that we've done is we've both said hey, my journal is transparent and if you want to open it up and read it ... I can't stand to write. I like to type.

Linda:              And I can't stand to type. I like to write.

Clark:              So she has a whole bunch of composition books that she uses as journals.

Linda:              50 cent.

Clark:              And mine is a Google doc that I have shared with Linda and with Linda only. But she can pull it up whenever she wants and she has told me that I'm welcome to go and open her journals and read her thoughts. And I don't think that either of us take advantage of that all the time.

Linda:              No. I think at the beginning I did. Closer to D-day I needed that for safety and as we've been connecting more and as we've been having those moments where we can talk it out, I've had more confidence and have felt safer, which then means I didn't need to check up on all of the different things that I am able to check up on, which I was grateful for because let's be honest trying to check up on somebody else's journal is going to take extra time out of your day. But if you do need it for that safety, husbands just know that your wives might be doing this every day for a while. And it depends on who it is and it depends on what they need. I mean some wives need a couple weeks, some wives need a couple years. I don't know. It just really depends on your recovery and where you're at. So give her that space so that she can feel safe.

Linda:              Yeah, that's good. I use a journal as well. Sorry, we're just making sure we don't run out of time here. I use a journal as well and I have told him sometimes, I'm like "Today was a really rough day and I don't know if you're going to want to read this journal entry but you can, just you need to put on your armor more." I remember saying that specifically some days. Like you're going to need some serious armor to be able to read what I just wrote.

Clark:              And some days I just skip those. It's like you know what, I'm not ready for that.

Linda:              Yeah, because it's true. We have raw feelings. If you listen to Dr. Weiss, this is another one-

Clark:              Oh, hey I was going to get to that as one of my resources. That's okay. That was actually the next one on my list.

Linda:              He has a video out and we totally recommend it. But he pretty much gives an analogy that we just ... Like the wives, or the betrayed just got shot with an Uzi and we're just bleeding on the floor. So please expect that it's going to be chaos for us for a while and it just depends on everyone's healing process. But anyway I guess I kind of chewed this like an extra resource.

Clark:              All right. I think that's probably enough to say about it. He has a series, a DVD, called Helping Her Heal.

Linda:              Oh yeah. Go find that. It's on his website actually. You can purchase it.

Clark:              Yeah. Dr. Weiss ... I don't know his website off the top of my head.

Linda:              We're going to make sure that we find the resource and it'll be in the show notes on clarknlinda.com.

Clark:              Guys, again, this is one that maybe we need to warn you about. I would recommend watching it with your wife. But just be prepared it's going to be hard for you to watch.

Linda:              And it's really validating for the betrayed.

Clark:              Yeah. He's pretty brutal and honest. He's going to help you recognize just how much you've hurt your wife and how painful that is for her. But I think it is very helpful to hear him and-

Linda:              You've tried some of the things and it totally works even though it's cheesy.

Clark:              Yeah, I was about to say he has some great exercises and it was funny I started putting them in practice right after watching it and we both chuckled because she watched it with me, she knew exactly what I was doing and yet it was still effective. He has some communication tactics and some things to say and some steps to follow and I used some of them word for word because I was just new to learning some of those steps and she looked at me and kind of just smirked a little bit because she knew what I was doing but it was still very effective. So even though it's hard to hear some of those things, you need to hear them and you need to understand that it's not about you and if you want to heal your marriage and help your wife heal, you need to listen to some of those things.

Clark:              Anyway, great resource. Check it out. Helping Her Heal by Dr. Weiss. And we'll make sure that we've got a link to his website where you can get those DVDs.

Linda:              Okay. We are ...

Clark:              Out of time?

Linda:              I don't even know if we're out of time yet. Hold on. Sorry. I think we're out of time.

Clark:              Okay. Part one of resources.

Linda:              This is part one of our resources.

Clark:              We're going to have a bunch more.

Linda:              I know. So thanks for watching and listening and you can find us on YouTube or any of your podcasts and just look for Clark and Linda Show or on Instagram @clarknlinda and send us some DMs, questions, or resources that maybe have helped you, we could show those as well. We love resources. So anyways, til part two.

SUBSCRIBE & SHARE

Feeling alone was the WORST, share this with someone you think will benefit. Share the Video from Youtube or Podcast on iTunes or Google Play or your fave podcast player & listen in on some raw conversations every Friday night. Share the  Video, iTunes Podcast or Google Podcasts

Need Support? Submit a Question! 

Connect w/ us @clarknlinda

❤️ INSTAGRAM || ❤️ Linda's INSTAGRAM || 👍🏼 FACEBOOK || 🐦 TWITTER || 🎧 PODCAST


Disclaimer: The Clark N Linda Show includes thoughts, opinions, experiences, and testimonies of hosts Clark & Linda Winegar. The information shared is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional sexual addiction therapy, betrayal trauma therapy, marriage counseling/therapy or legal advice. Please seek professional help for recovery & healing. You know, like from people who actually went to school or have had more than just 1st hand experience with this. Also, said thoughts, opinions, experiences, and testimonies represent those of two individual members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BUT we do not claim to represent or speak for The Church in any official capacity. Expressed views and opinions should not be construed as official church doctrine—though we’ll certainly try not to stray far from it and hope someone calls us out if we do.