** This was a really fun post to write. I thought I’d share it again with you. – Jeff
Recently I got hooked watching a show on one of our satellite channels called Ninja Warrior. It’s a Japanese show where 100 men and women compete in incredible physical challenges that a ninja might have to endure. Sounds cool, huh? Very manly! The challenges require incredible strength, agility, stamina, quickness and accuracy.
Ninjas of old exemplify many admirable traits that we can apply to our sexual addiction recovery, and two traits that can get you killed in recovery.
NINJA TRAITS WE CAN LEARN FROM
Discipline
Sexual strugglers have long histories of doing whatever we want to and pursuing whatever we desire. We have to cut away from that in a radical way. We need to strengthen our self-discipline muscles. We need to learn to say “no” and deny ourselves. We need to learn to set up new boundaries and stay within them. We need to be disciplined to pursue God and others in our recovery.
Skilled With Many Weapons
We need to learn to work on our addiction in many different directions. Building offensive and defensive strategies is critical. Setting up road blocks. Learning the value of prayer and the word of God in a struggle. Learning the power of skilled hands and accountability in the face of battle.
Endurance
Endurance is a derivative of discipline. We have to learn to hang in there long-term. It took us a long time to get where we are, it will take time to pull away from our old way of living and develop a new one.
The person who endures has weathered many struggles. He has gone through a lot of pain and persevered. Those who are doing well in recovery continue to stay engaged in the battle and keep doing the things that they’ve learned during the process.
Aware of His Surroundings
Part of our recovery process is being able to identify situations that are trigger and designing strategies to help. As you grow in your recovery, you are becoming proactive rather than reactive. You start anticipating problems. You are learning the things to do when you are alone, on a business trip, or at the beach.
Centered and Balanced
Recovery is also learning as much as we can about ourselves, what has made us who we are, and what causes us to react the way we do to sexual stimuli. We take sexual inventories. We learn all we can about our past, hurts, wounds, and our unmet expectations.
We cultivate an intimate relationship with God. We learn to surrender ourselves to Him, be centered in Him, and live for His glory.
The person learns the importance of reflection and meditation.
Respect For Teachers
A person doesn’t get good at sexual addiction recovery alone. He needs a whole support team to help him through the journey. The smart person in recovery seeks out wise and experienced people. He’s not afraid to ask for help from sponsors, mentors, pastors, counselors, or his own spouse. In fact, he actively seeks the wisdom of others.
A wise person in recovery learns to talk less and listen more.
TWO NINJA TRAITS THAT WILL KILL YOUR RECOVERY
Stealth
Secrecy is a killer to sexual purity. It doesn’t take long to become a master at hiding yourself from others, even your accountability partners. Sexual addiction thrives in hidden, dark environments. We have to walk in the Light. We have to be seen and be known by other men. We have to be very intentional and build new patterns of exposing ourselves.
Silence
When you go quiet and don’t talk about your sexual struggles with someone else, you are in danger. We have to get in the habit and stay in the habit of breaking the silence. Talking about our temptations, triggers, struggles, and slips is a key component to freedom from sexual sin. There is power that comes from speaking out your struggles. It’s part of walking in the Light. Keeping quiet will only give power to the bondage sin has over you.
When it comes to my sexual purity I want to be a ninja – strong, disciplined and skilled.
