Danielle: I texted him and I said, wow. Like, dream Nathan is such a jerk. I caught him watching porn, and he started to yell at me about it.
Caitlyn: Woah.
Danielle: So I thought that's really weird. So I called him, and he opened up to admitting to watching porn.
Brandon: Guys, we wanna welcome you back to the Grounded Union podcast in season three. We are talking with real couples going through real things, just like all of us when we got married, where it's like there's stuff we face. Sometimes it's early on. Sometimes it's later on. There's no better time than now.
So, Nathan and Danielle, thank you for hopping on the show with us to talk about what you're going through right now. Danielle, maybe you could kick us off and and kinda give us a little backstory of of what's going on in your relationship right now.
Danielle: Thanks for having us. I guess I'll start. We've been together twelve and a half years and married for seven and a half of those. I don't know. I I feel like I just have to dive right in.
Is that alright?
Yes.
That's perfect.
A month ago yesterday, Nathan had come clean to me about a bunch of things. I had no idea what's going on in our relationship. So we've been working through him opening up and just lots of things coming to the surface that I had no idea were happening. And it really changed who I see Nathan as a person. And just there was so much lies and manipulation over the years.
I I yeah. A lot of things came to light and opened up to me. But as things opened up, it just got harder and harder. I feel through your guys' program, we are making progress. It's just in such a hard, hard crisis spot for us right now, where we're only a month into or me, only a month into learning this all.
Another thing I find so hard is that we've been together for the twelve and a half years, and he's known this the whole time. And I'm just learning it all now. So it feels so so intense for me, and sometimes, like, not so intense for him. So, like, I find that really, really hard.
Caitlyn: Yeah. How did it all come to the surface for you guys?
Danielle: Oh, I had a dream.
Caitlyn: Oh, wow.
Danielle: Yeah. And I woke up, and he hadn't gotten to work yet. It was right before he would arrive to work. I texted him and I said, wow, like dream Nathan is such a jerk. I caught him watching porn and he started to yell at me about it.
Caitlyn: Woah.
Danielle: So I thought that's really weird. So I called him, and he opened up to admitting to watching porn and saying that not admitting how much,
Nathan: but that he had started to admit.
Danielle: Yeah. When we did start dating, I'm a very open person, so we set up some boundaries of what you think cheating is. One of them is born. We are a couple that's together, and they are humans. There are other people.
We're together. It's us. So that one boundary was laid out, and he didn't say anything about it. So I thought we were in agreeance. And then, another one was just that you wouldn't do anything without your spouse there that you would do in front of them.
Nathan: You wouldn't do anything. You wouldn't do anything without your spouse being there that you wouldn't do if she was there.
Caitlyn: That makes complete sense to me.
Danielle: Boundaries we laid, and our whole relationship, it was probably like, could've been same day or the next day that he went and watched porn. So it's literally our whole relationship has been, feels to me, out of a lie.
Caitlyn: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Because you're just now finding out just a month ago after knowing each other for twelve years. And Nathan, if you wanna add a little bit just from your perspective, you could kinda share what's been going on in your world.
Nathan: Yeah. We about couple what was it? Four or six months ago. I'm part of a a band, and I came back from one of the shows one night. And I got a text message the next day from just one of the people who one of the girls who planned a different event, and she sent me a video of her making out or kissing another girl at the bar
Danielle: Through an unsaved number. Through an unsaved number.
Nathan: That was not intentionally malicious. I just don't do don't have things saved on my phone. But regardless, I hid the video, and I lied to her about the fullness of what was on the video. So then we kinda started working through that, and she was very betrayed. And then my father passed away, so she very graciously gave me as much time as I needed to kinda work through that.
But all the while, I was still watching porn and spending all my energy not at home and and and elsewhere. And then, yeah, she she messaged me about dream me watching porn. And and then I just I didn't want to continue down the path been on and to to continue to lie. And even though I still have, I started to come clean and I with good intentions, even though yeah. It's the old saying the the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So I wanted to do want to do better, continuously want to do better, but it's hasn't happened per se, the capacity that either of us would want or the quickness that we would want it to happen in.
Brandon: Thank you for sharing, Nathan. Mhmm. And Danielle. Nathan, you said your your father passed away a few months back?
Nathan: May 14, the day before Danielle's birthday.
Danielle: Wow. We were just getting into therapy, and that literal day, so a month before that, we found out his dad was sick. So, like, we had just started therapy about everything that had happened. Because even three years prior to that, there was a different text
Nathan: Very
Danielle: situation similar. And also when he went out with his band, also a girl that worked at the bar.
Brandon: Yeah. So your father's passing was pretty abrupt, it sounds like.
Danielle: Oh, sorry. That's where I was getting beat. Sort of. Yeah. Yeah.
We started therapy and then stopped because
Brandon: Yeah.
Danielle: We found out that day, dad was sick.
Nathan: Well, it was not I mean, it was abrupt because he had, he has had cancer for quite some time, but a couple months prior to the bad diagnosis, they basically said, Hey man, great news, you're cancer free. We're actually in Hawaii, I believe they were hiking in Hawaii and he said, yes, what went on one day and then the rest of his leg. Then just from there a month and a half later, he was gone. It was a, it was an extremely fast decline. Like we knew he wasn't great.
We knew he was kind of sick, but we thought that he was better. Then it went from, yeah, zero to a 100. His body was just cancer. And then that was, that was it.
Danielle: And Nathan took a lot of time off work because they live about four and a half hours from us. So he took a bunch of time off work and was there helping his mom because they did try to do the at home as much as possible. And he ended up doing the assisted suicide and Nathan pulled his hand and sing him away. So, like, it was a lot.
Nathan: One of the biggest things for me is just, say, watching the man that you've grown up thinking is so strong and and such a tough dude, and just seeing him basically crippled and having to carry him up the stairs to bed. And me being the only one strong enough as my sister and my mom aren't strong enough to carry him up the stairs, I was yeah. Basically, just picking him up from the front door and carrying him to bed and taking him out of bed and yeah.
Caitlyn: Yeah. Wow.
Danielle: That's a lot.
Brandon: So, Nathan, that loss is is a massive loss. And this definitely the like you talked about the the progressive loss of seeing him weakening and, that whole process is is very difficult on the soul. As it pertains to your relationship, it sounds like as you're able to cry and express emotion, you have access to emotion. It seems like you can feel some. Like, there's you're alive.
Yeah. So you're feeling. What I want to illuminate is I'm gonna guess that the porn, we'll call it the communication that has been concealed with other women from time to time. I wanna learn more about your relationship to pain or processing difficult emotion, because I'm wondering if if you're able to kinda look back on your life and see, like, has porn been the medicine to try to work through difficulty? I just wanted you to kinda reflect what you've thought on that before.
Nathan: I don't know about that, like, per se, but absolutely with, like, the dopamine. Not saying, like, I used like, I I used porn as a tool to disassociate. Absolutely. But, like Yeah.
Danielle: We did a trial separation for a month in August and ramped it up.
Nathan: Way more porn than I've have in the last seeable history. So yeah.
Brandon: What was the trial separations? What was the goal for that?
Nathan: It was just everything came to a head with all of my My lies and fighting. Yeah. And we were just
Danielle: It wasn't about the life then. The separation I didn't know about everything yet then. It's true. The separation was just I didn't know if I wanted to be with you anymore. Everything had gotten so intense.
Everything was horrible, and you didn't take me seriously. So I finally said separation, and, like, there were a couple of things that you had been holding off doing for years, and you did them that night. I told you. I communicated. The things weren't good.
But until I, like, say I'm getting out. Right. He just even mentioned in through all of this that he's just always seen me being there for him. Mhmm. Because I have been.
Nathan: It was comfortable. I didn't have to work at it.
Danielle: He's such an honest, open person. I just believe everything he said. I feel it's, like, changed me to my core. I don't want that. So it's been somebody that, like, I trust you until you, like, prove me otherwise.
But honestly, like, you've proven me so many times and, like, still trust you, I don't understand why I do.
Caitlyn: So it sounds like some of the issues you guys have been having, you were having issues before you even knew he was addicted to pornography. Is that right?
Danielle: Well, yeah. I felt the push away. Yes. Definitely. But I just assumed it was motherhood.
When things started getting bad, I just assumed it was normal. Motherhood.
Caitlyn: Gotcha. You. Okay.
Danielle: Definitely. I would have never thought of anything like this. Every time he went out without me when he was in the band, he would flirt chat with all the women. He stopped his band in the spring because he actually thought he was going to go home with someone and sleep with them.
Caitlyn: Okay. And so right now
Danielle: It was because I found that video.
Caitlyn: So you found that video, then later you found out about the porn. And so one thing I wanna create a full picture with here, because I think this is a this is an example of, oftentimes, when there's so much conflict in the relationship, and a lot of couples will come to us and they're like, oh, we just keep arguing. We have all this conflict. This, this, this, and this. And it's always what we always like to teach is let's let's look underneath.
Right? Because you guys probably in your seven and a half years have tried a lot of different ways of trying to heal through all this conflict, the disagreeing, the disconnection. And at the root level, there's this massive secret. Right? And there's actually, I'm gonna guess, a lot more because you're very, very fresh in this.
Right? You're only a month into actually having this moment of confession, which incredible that you took that moment, something literally sparked inside of you, Nathan, and you're like, I'm done. Like, you had a dream. Like, you could have kept going. You've done seven and a half years of lying and hiding it.
Right? You're 12, actually. So it's like, you could have kept going in that moment, and something broke inside of you. Could have even been linked to your father's passing of like, woah. Sometimes when we have those moments where we see death, we're like, woah, this is a moment that marks me and transforms me.
Like, you realize the the fragileness of life, you know? And it's like, do I actually which maybe you've had time to ponder this and maybe you haven't. You maybe even at a sub conscious or conscious level had been reflecting like, do I actually wanna go out as a man who has had all of these secrets? Or do I actually want to be seen and known and experience intimacy? And so at the root level underneath the surface, you guys had what I like to call the true areas of disconnect.
Right? I said this in another another interview. I always equate it to nature when I'm giving examples. So like if we think of a weed, there's the weed that we see sprouting up above the soil. Right?
And then there's the actual root system of the weed underneath. And so when you guys see all the conflict, that's like the the weed that we see above soil. Right? And you kept trying to pluck up the weed. You're just kinda scraping off by trying to address communication, disconnection from the top.
Until you actually literally get your hands into the foundation, into the earth, and grab that weed up by the root, that's the only way you never get that weed to grow back. Right? And so what you've done now by saying, I'm gonna actually tell you about the pornography. I'm gonna actually tell you about these women that I'm texting with, flirting with, you know, entertaining ideas of sleeping with. That's when you pluck the whole thing out and you can actually see it and you can actually live a life then where there is no more weed sprouting out.
So you guys are in the the foundational step, which you know a lot of this that we teach inside the app. You're in the foundational step where you're actually beginning to see everything. And Nathan, what we always teach and will say is in this process right now, become aware of the fact that you have become a very talented and skillful storyteller to yourself. Right? Mhmm.
You've told yourself a lot of stories so that you don't have to tell Danielle the true stories. Right? So you gave a couple examples of maybe a video comes in, and I'm sure you had a whole story you could spin and tell to make that look, it's called minimizing, to make that look lesser than maybe what it actually was. And you have these stories you tell yourself when you look at pornography, when you masturbate, whatever it is, so that you don't have to come clean to Danielle. So in this time right now, there's a level of truth that you can see about history, your entire life's history, and especially the time that you spent together.
What we always like to bring awareness to, especially in these first days, weeks, and you're in this initial month is there is most likely a lot more that you don't see yet. Can you see it? Absolutely, you can see it. The key element here is that you have to be willing to choose to see it. So you have to posture yourself in a place that goes, woah, I'm a good storyteller.
I've told myself and Danielle and maybe others some really good stories that are not true. Right? And now I wanna understand the true story. I like to call it reality. What is real?
What really took place? Not the stories that were made up, not the stories that were conjured, that were twisted, manipulated, minimized, little missing details here and there. The actual full authentic story. That is your pathway to healing. And I'm so glad you guys found us.
Literally, did you find us at the same time of hearing about all of this? The pornography addiction?
Danielle: Our therapist recommended Brandon. Yeah.
Nathan: So we started following Brandon on Instagram about one of his posts that mentioned the app. Yeah. I was like, well and I
Danielle: think right after you started opening up, then you were like, hey. I'm gonna get the app.
Caitlyn: Amazing. I've never heard of a therapist recommending us. That's, like, incredible to hear.
Brandon: That's cool. I like putting myself back when I was right after Caitlin and I had kinda started exploring. I think what Nathan, I want you to really root yourself into is just acknowledging what you feel internally right now, whether it feels like, like, say when we start talking about the porn, like what your body feels like, if it goes blank, if you feel scared, if it goes anxious, it's clear Danielle is feeling very torn up about this. I remember Caitlin weeping in my face, asking questions, wanting to go further, wanting to explore. And I just had nothing.
Like, I actually want I I couldn't see my own thoughts. I couldn't feel. I just was locked up and shut down. I see you guys looking at, is that what you experienced or what do you experience?
Nathan: Well, like we, we started talking and then she says, okay, well, what, what else? Tell me more. What else have you done? What else? And I was like, I I'm not trying to actively hide anything, but I just can't think of anything else.
Then she'll cry and ask why something else comes out.
Brandon: That process is common because right now, like we've, like, Caitlin already said, like you've hid your life from yourself. And here's the good news. Even if you can't feel it right now, if you step into a daily curiosity to your own story, you will fall out and you will begin to see clearly. What I didn't realize at that season is it was crucial that I did embodiment work. I didn't find that until a little bit later.
There were nights where, like, Caitlin was, like, trying to, like, get through to me, and I couldn't feel anything. I just, like, sat outside my underwear in, like, twenty twenty degree. Are you guys in Canada?
Nathan: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: So in, in Fahrenheit, not, not Celsius, but in Fahrenheit, it was like 20 degrees, which I think is colder than 20 degrees Celsius, but it was really, really cold. Like, and I would just, because my nervous system was so. It was so sensitive. So I would just shake because I was so afraid of feeling anything. And I'll just, like, shake and feel this sense of panic in my body, but it was, the only thing I could feel.
And that's what Caitlin was feeling because of the reality that she had just woken up to. And I would take, like, a cold shower, and that's the only time I could actually feel something. I went on a run a couple times, I hadn't been running. And it was, my body was, like, trying to keep me from feeling. So what I would focus in on Nathan is not like, don't go try to like suffer your body through this, but the embodiment routine inside of the app, the breath work, the cold exposure, being in your body is the only way that you're going to start seeing this yourself.
Mhmm. Because right now, anything beyond like, for me, it was like anything beyond me laying on the couch, scrolling on my phone, I didn't have capacity for. So, like, the moment Caitlin's feeling something, it's like, mind goes blank. And it was all like a a subconscious strategy. I just call it a strategy.
It was like, this is my way of, like, making it through life. And so what you're gonna have to do is so that Danielle doesn't have to do it for you, is really leaning into the embodiment work. I would do it at like, you can do it ten minutes on every hour. Like, instead of taking a smoke break, you take a you take a breath work break every hour and you take five to ten minutes and you breathe and you slow down, you shake your body and you will be shocked at what begins to open up to you. So I just wanted to ask, have you had any experience doing any of that embodiment piece?
Nathan: I have. Yes. Not as consistently as as I would like to, but I have all the the little practices written down, and I try to at least do the shake it out in the morning and the the heel drops and the box breathing. I've been at least doing those, and I've been starting to to put the other ones to mirror talk, the, like, the fight the bear.
Danielle: I'd have to do it in front of the kid during bath time yesterday because he was having a hard time. And I said, this isn't a bad thing to do in front of them.
Caitlyn: Right.
Nathan: I stood up and and told myself in the mirror that I I am a good father, and I am trying to I'm not I am moving forward.
Brandon: Yes. Hey. There you go. That whatever that that little internal shift you made to do that, with that what you just felt, that's what will that knob you're turning, you're basically going into, like, a dark warehouse in your heart and mind, and you're just going and flipping on all the lights now. With that comes the responsibility of saying, hey, Danielle.
My porn addiction was way worse than I thought. These girls I texted, this was actually way more frequent than I than I realized. The we'll call it the ego or whatever. The going to play a show was very arousing for you because you knew all the women. Like, just getting radically honest with the the behavior helps you see it.
Danielle can see it. That's why she's petrified. She sees straight through it. She knows at your core that she loves you and that you're the person she wants to be with. Mhmm.
So when she says when she describes, even in some women will, you know, they'll speak about how awful the person is. I haven't heard her even do that yet. And she she would have the right to like, horrible.
Danielle: Here. And that's all I go back to is I know you're a good person at your core if you just really, really, really do this and stick with it forever. It can't just be a band aid for now. I've just been comfortable ignoring the feelings and just going on
Nathan: my phone or playing video games or drinking or smoking weed or or whatever or porn.
Brandon: What's your new operating system you want? Like, who's Nathan two point o? What is he like? Tell me about him.
Danielle: I wanna call him a late instead of Nathan if this, like, really works.
Brandon: What's Nate like? What's the Nate that we're that's to come?
Nathan: I'm I'm not sure. Hopefully, a a more calm person,
Brandon: but here, wait, let's pause for a second. Let's pause for a second. Don't use any, like not hopefully, like just tell me about him. You can slow down. Just make it really take your time.
Just tell me about him who you want him to be.
Nathan: He's strong. He's assertive. He doesn't just go with the flow and just let things happen to him. Takes initiative when things need to be done. He goes out of his way to care for his wife and kids.
And he's he's thoughtful. He wants to spend time with his kids. He wants to be with his family.
Brandon: That sounds like a man worth working toward. Doesn't it? It sounds like you know him a lot better than you thought too.
Nathan: No. He wants to be wants to look like at least hopefully. Yes. It's that is who I want him to be.
Brandon: So there's a few elements you get to, to shed in this process. I know your father just passed. The second step of the the seven steps we talk about in the app is the unhinging from your family of origin.
Nathan: Yeah. We just watched that video and That was old man. Was there a lot of real real emotions and real thoughts Yeah, that came out before one of we had a very good chat about our childhood and kind of realized that I don't have a lot of childhood memories. It's really hard for me to remember my childhood. And I don't know if that's just because I've been pushing it down and and using booze and and weed to numb my brain and and not think about those things since I was 14.
Danielle: Constant disassociation.
Caitlyn: It sounds like it. Like, you've almost kind of entered for a lot amount of years, entered in a state of not feeling. And I wonder, maybe, can you remember back when this all initially started? Kind of the when did you start wanting to we could call it numb out. So for a lot of people, I have them trace back their first sexual exposure.
That might have been when you first started numbing out. Maybe it was through weed. Maybe it was drinking. Maybe it was a combo of all of it. Can you remember kind of when you went from feeling like maybe a vibrant, alive child to fully numb?
Or do you just remember feeling like escaping your emotions your whole childhood? Do you have any thoughts, memories around that?
Nathan: I think it was around my, like, preteen years because my sister was very much the golden child, the straight A student, and then I was not that. So I pictured myself as the black sheep of the family and I didn't really hang out with my family through those years. I would always be at a friend's house. I said, started to smoke weed at grade six, I believe, so quite a young age. And, yeah, I would always just disassociate through being numb, then I didn't have to think about my family being disappointed in me or not being a yeah.
Not having to worry about disappointing people because I couldn't feel it.
Brandon: Did your family tell you they were disappointed in you?
Nathan: I don't know if they said use those exact words, but I've been told my mom has told me I'm I'm ruining Christmas. I don't know if those that's the right words, but yeah.
Caitlyn: Yeah. In some way, they had kinda told you that. Were you close with your parents growing up?
Nathan: I was. Yeah. Mhmm. Not, like, insanely close, but we were I do think I have a a fairly good had a good relationship with my my dad and my mom. Still think I do have a fairly good relationship with my mom.
Like
Danielle: Like, spent? Like, did you guys
Nathan: Time spent? Probably not, though.
Danielle: Like Did you guys do meal like, dinner together?
Nathan: We did. We did always do dinners together. But then yeah. Yeah. We would always try and do dinners together.
And I say my my early, early childhood, we were always Camping. Camping, and we would always go to our cabin in BC and spend our time together that way. Yeah. I think in my preteen years, I kind of moved away from my family-
Danielle: To numbing.
Nathan: Into numbing, because I don't know, I kind of pictured myself as a, as a mama's boy and kind of a pussy, if you will. And, and that just kind of snowballed into, well, if I'm getting bullied, I'm gonna be the bully. And I just became an asshole instead of
Brandon: So do you have memories being being bullied then?
Nathan: Oh, yeah. I had to switch schools because of bullying at one point, and that did help, I think.
Brandon: But What did they pick on? Your personality, how you dress, you weren't strong enough? What what was it about Nathan that they picked on?
Nathan: Definitely, like, I was a very small, small person. I've always been very petite. I'm kinda tall and lanky, but I was always ten pounds soaking wet growing up and just never like a physically intimidating presence. I think that Yeah, I remember getting bullied because I didn't have leg hair in grade six. Everyone was starting to grow mustaches and had dark, dark hair.
And I'm a very, very blonde person, and I had leg hair.
Danielle: I was bullied because I was yeah.
Nathan: It was blonde, and he couldn't see it, so I wasn't a man yet.
Brandon: Wow. Well, those kids suck. That's insane.
Caitlyn: That's a
Brandon: lot. That is a lot.
Nathan: And, yeah, there was lots of things. My dad was never the, call it the most level headed person. And, he caused some issues, which the start of the issues weren't him, but he absolutely finished them by going above and beyond. Like, there was problems with the neighbors and stuff and neighbors cats in our yard and talking didn't work to them. He took it upon himself.
And that just created big tensions in the neighborhood. And I just remember coming home and basically the entire neighborhood standing on our lawns screaming at my mom. Wow. And me being this tiny, whatever, I don't know how old I was, but this tiny little kid just thinking, man, I wish I could go beat that adult up or protect my mom and somehow, but I I was always too small and and too scared. That's a memory I've I've always kept with me is just seeing all these men and women and their children standing on our lawn, just berating my mother and screaming at my mother because what my father had done.
And my dad was at work, there was nothing he could do about it. Like, I remember, oh, we were so adamant with locking our doors because we were just so scared.
Caitlyn: Wow.
Danielle: We also we live in his childhood home.
Brandon: Oh, wow.
Caitlyn: Oh, wow.
Danielle: So that is something we've decided we need to change.
Caitlyn: Yeah. That's a good idea.
Brandon: This was in your front yard? Yeah. In the house we're sitting in yeah.
Danielle: Wow. I think Drives in this driveway every day.
Caitlyn: Wow. Something I've even hearing coming up a lot that maybe you've identified is it seems like a core fear of yours is being weak. Because if we look at a lot of these childhood memories, you either felt weak or were being bullied for being weak. And then as you were describing your dad's passing, one of the core things that really impacted you was that he looked and felt very weak to you. Right?
And so I'm wondering even the I'm not able to fully put together the correlation here. I'm wondering though, sometimes people will act out in addiction or coping mechanisms to make themselves feel powerful.
Nathan: Mhmm.
Caitlyn: Or to feel strong. And especially, I'm not sure the exact type of pornography you looked at. I know there is a whole facet of categories of pornography that would definitely be maybe a more dominant, strong type of a sexual experience. And so you don't have to necessarily share what type of you looked at on here. And that's definitely something that I would want you guys to explore is that the possible correlations between this fear of being weak and even the the reality of the fact that you really were bullied and called weak.
And people were trying to throw that persona and that identity on you, right?
Nathan: Yeah.
Caitlyn: And then move forward to seeing and watching your dad's passing and experiencing him almost becoming your greatest fear, you know, and becoming weak. And then looking at the correlations of was your acting out or your we could call it numbing, an escape into a different reality where you didn't need to be weak, where you could maybe be strong or be dominant. Even you know that list you gave yourself of who you are and who you're becoming. I think that porn and alcohol and weed and we could call it any sort of dissociating is almost the counter fit of that in society. It's like, you know, if I have if I have these really big strong like if I go and I play a really cool like show and all these girls love me and are fawning over me and texting me and everything, like it's like, it's this counterfeit.
It's this movie scene, right? Of like, look at me, I'm on this stage, I'm in power, I'm strong, everyone likes me. It's almost you kind of had created this counterfeit expression of power. And so what I think would be exercise for you guys to move into even as this call ends is, what does being strong mean to you? Because we've been through what being weak looks like to you, right?
And you've even lived through real traumas. Like those are very valid tangible traumas if being told you're weak or feeling weak. And so then it's almost like, okay, what am I moving into? What does Nathan and his power look like Yeah. As a strong man?
Like, what does that feel like in your body? How is that expressed? And making that really, really tangible. Like, that might be that you are a certain size and a certain weight, or it might have nothing to do with that. It might be that strong me is fully this is what I think of as strength, is like, I'm fully embodied.
I know what I'm feeling at all times. I know where it's stemming from, and I know what I can do with that emotion. Emotion. So it's like, I'm feeling really overwhelmed about the situation in life. The old version of me would have turned to pornography, to alcohol, to girls, to weed.
The version of me, the the true me, I'll call it. The true me now in my power is able to feel what I'm feeling and go for a walk, connect with my spouse, play with my kids, put my eyes in the sun and my feet in the grass, like do something like music might be really energizing to you. So it's like that might be sitting and playing your guitar, a song with the kids, like whatever it is, sometimes when we're trying to heal, we know what we're trying to run away from, but that will only give you energy for so long. Right. You actually have to know what it is you're wanting to create.
So you need to know, okay, I don't wanna be weak. Okay, that's awesome. What do you wanna be? And what does that look like? Because then when you have these memories come up, when you feel the real tangible like feelings and emotions in your body, you know as you guys are learning the four r's, you know how to go through the four r's with your sexual experiences and also with these very valid traumatic experiences from your childhood growing up, you can go through and you're releasing those and replacing those.
And you have to know what am I replacing it with? Oh, this is what strength looks like. This is what being in my body feels like and looks like. This is what I'm moving and stepping into. This is the life that I'm building into healing.
Brandon: Sometimes I'll work out for a couple days and I'll be like, babe, can you see how much stronger I look? She's like, I don't see any changes. But I feel it internally. And there'll be also times when I first started doing the embodiment work a couple of years ago, we had a group of friends be like, did you, did you gain a couple inches? Like, are you taller?
Like what happened? And I'm I'm six two. I think I was like six one. So I don't know if I did actually gain an inch, but like the way you will hold your body will feel different to you.
Nathan: And then finally get to the six foot. I've always wanted to be six feet tall.
Brandon: Yeah. I can't make any guarantees, so don't quote me, but you will feel tall and it's more of an internal, you will feel like you are occupying your body. And so all of what you're like, Caitlin was talking about, your life pursuit has been to feel a feeling. That's why we see a lot of ultra wealthy or successful people. They're still chasing a feeling, and that's why fame doesn't necessarily give you a feeling, or a lot of money doesn't give you the feeling.
But then you also see people doing great things in the world that feel really connected to what they're doing. And they're full of joy because they're, they're in the feeling. And so why that's so important is the currency like money of, or like how you transact in a relationship is what you feel. Danielle expresses how she feels towards you. You receive her feeling and you express feeling back to her.
Why pornography is painful? Why addiction's painful is because you're essentially trying to exchange this currency of feeling with someone who not, who's not your spouse, who can't reciprocate it. And there's like, basically it's as if there was like a hole in your bank account and the money's just disappearing. You're like, where's it all going? That's what the relationship feels like.
There's a hole in the boat. Where's all the love? Where's all the intimacy? So as shameful as it feels to think about the porn, think about the texting, to think about the fantasies, to think about the lies, to think about every time you were checked out or too drunk to put your kids to bed, whatever it is, that's just that was the leak. That was you saying, I was chasing this feeling.
And the new Nate, Nate two point o that you already described to us, that man's capable of looking at his past and saying, that was me. That is the the strongest posture of healing is being able to look at your past and say, I did each of those things because I was pursuing a feeling. I found out it didn't work. I have had a moment of clarity. Thank God.
My wife had a dream and she helped me see, start to see. And so all you're doing is flexing the muscle of seeing clearly, seeing clearly. And I like calling it removing the debris. And I think you guys had shared off air and through email that addiction has been pretty much up to date. So what I want to offer you, Nathan, is the path you're on.
You still need to jump off of the train you're on. It still sounds like there's a discomfort with your, your everyday reality that you don't know what to do with all that energy. So I want you to walk through when the energy starts getting pent up and you, you feel trapped in yourself. What's what's going on in those moments?
Nathan: Like when I want to engage in my addiction, you mean?
Brandon: Yeah. Like you're left, you're home alone. What's the feeling?
Nathan: I'm not we're just yeah. I've got time. Just not feeling that.
Danielle: Haven't had happiness
Nathan: or my dopamine hit. Well, that's how I get it. Now that Danielle and the kids are gone,
Danielle: I'll go in the shower, and I'll I'll masturbate or or just check out and just try and get
Nathan: a million things done all at once.
Brandon: That sounds exhausting.
Nathan: You said about, like, being true
Danielle: to yourself is even the last couple days, I've still had internal thoughts of, well, maybe I wouldn't have a porn addiction if Danielle did this, blah blah blah. Blaming her. There's been a lot of blame our whole relationship. And then Even before this all came out. And I've really taken a second and say, well, no.
You've been watching porn since you were 14.
Nathan: Mhmm. It wasn't a new thing that she made you do. Yep. It might have gotten more severe, but
Danielle: it's it's not her fault.
Brandon: Great noticing.
Caitlyn: Yep.
Brandon: That feeling of I need my dopamine. Mhmm. You're right now in a place where you haven't experienced the so abstinence, I that that word just makes everybody feel like, like, I'm gonna die. What's happening is you're gonna you're at a low right now because your brain's trying to to recalibrate itself without highly addictive or stimulating substances or screens and experiences. You might wake up feeling a little low.
That's why this is probably only for like two weeks. Anna Limbic who wrote, she wrote dopamine nation. She's a psychologist. Phenomenal book. If you want to understand the psychology.
Yeah, we could, we'll send you a link to it. The psychology of what's going on in your brain right now, it's like, well, I don't actually wanna look at porn, but that's the only time I feel slightly normal.
Nathan: And that's something I've told Danielle. And I know you might not believe me, but every time I watch porn when I'm done, I just have this overwhelming sense of just shame and Oh, I believe you. Like, why do I have to do this? Like, don't I didn't don't feel any better.
Brandon: Yeah. The whole point is your brain is just trying to tell you, you've told me this is how we regulate. Mhmm. So if you make it, not if you make it. As you choose into the first two weeks, you're going to feel more discomfort.
That's why the embodiment is not optional. Like you should be doing that again. Like I said, do it every hour for ten minutes and your brain will get the dopamine from that. Take the cold, like go take a cold shower. It's like, well, the cold shower doesn't sound as easy as like jerking off in the shower.
It's like, you actually will feel, you will feel the same rush that your body's craving. And then guess what? You'll have opt peak energy for the next couple hours. And so you might feel this lull at the beginning, but once you make it two weeks to a month, that ache of like, don't feel normal, something's off.
Caitlyn: Mhmm.
Brandon: That will dissipate. So you just have to trust that that that will not exist with you forever. It sounds like weed, alcohol, other substances. Has that when when was the last time you drank? Is that still what's walk me through that.
Nathan: We had a couple of beers on the weekend, but normally we get 24 packer or more, and we only got a couple beers this weekend instead of having six beers a night. I only had two beers a day.
Brandon: Okay. And Danielle, do you drink do you drink with Nathan? Is that something you guys do together?
Nathan: Yep. Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah. I would say say and again, this is zero. This has nothing to do with shame at all. I would just cut alcohol.
Caitlyn: Mhmm.
Brandon: I'd cut nicotine. I'd cut weed. The reason is the life here's why I don't here's why I wanna encourage you guys. You're not trying to live a slightly better life.
Caitlyn: Mhmm.
Nathan: And it was something you said in the app. You're not trying to survive today.
Brandon: You guys I want you guys to be the happiest people in Canada. Yep. I asked people at our at our Maui intensive. I'm like, if you knew that if you stopped consuming entertainment, you stopped numbing out that you could travel the world, make as much money as you want, enjoy connection with your kids, who would choose that? And everybody's like, I would.
And it's like, well, that's every that's that's available to anybody. That's not for the select few. Your experience of life will get so much sweeter, so much clearer. Yep. The Canada grays will go away, and you'll be you'll be lighting candles and playing a card game before bed, and you'll be laughing together, and you'll feel alive for the look at they got the candles going.
That's what you're moving towards. It's not that we're, like, anti alcohol. We don't drink. I've only had wine a couple of times in my life. I think the first time I had alcohol.
Caitlyn: You just don't like the taste.
Brandon: I just don't like the taste. And I was afraid of getting in trouble. And I I was I played sports and then I was a missionary and I I just never chose to drink. And I'm my body's just really sensitive to anything. So I don't think I just wouldn't enjoy it.
Danielle: We've considered dropping it.
Nathan: The hurt is too new
Danielle: for her, so obviously she still wants to numb out
Nathan: a little bit. I'm obviously, I'll admit, a little bit step ahead of her because I'm not the one feeling the pain.
Danielle: Yeah, I said to him, I was like, you've known this for twelve and a half years. I still don't know it. One point to him, I said, it feels like there's a waterfall that's nonstop pouring and I can't breathe because he's telling me these things and promising so much. It feels like he's walking by and grabbing for my hands or like spitting my hands and letting them slip away anyways. Just there's so many lies still coming out.
Caitlyn: That was a great analogy. My
Danielle: nervous system is so, so shot. Like I've been sick for a month and I've lost like 20 pounds. Our therapist recommended that like, I should go away for a wellness trip to reset reset my nervous system. But I just I feel like I can't I don't trust him. Yeah.
And that that might be the end of us if I do that. But I need some kind of something to stop.
Caitlyn: You guys have been so brave and and very authentic in this, and I just wanna say thank you. And I think what we wanna invite you to, which even sometimes, I just actually made a post about this. Sometimes when I go to talk, I'm like, I recognize I sound like batshit crazy. Like, I recognize it. I will own it, and I will go down in history as the absolutely wild woman.
And I'm okay with that because I know what real good life feels like. And that's all I ever wanna recommend to anybody, is what real true authentic life feels like and what it feels like to feel alive because Nathan, you probably haven't felt alive. Right? You've been numbing out your whole life. And if you called me a year from now and you said it makes me so emotional because I know it's so real and you said, woah, I'm alive.
Like I feel alive. I feel joy and happiness and peace and I look at my wife's eyes and I'm in love and I look at my kids and we're thriving. Like, that is the beauty of life and so call me crazy and it's fine, but coming back to ourselves does in the moment, it almost feels like it costs something. And I think therapists, I love I love therapists, I'm not against them. They recommend a lot of times like this, get away.
And you can do that if you want. And there's a way to live a wellness retreat within your soul and with your day to day life that you don't have to escape from. And you know, I teach this in the the betrayal and trust videos inside the app. But if you, as you're feeling this, this almost like as you're describing, it's like kinda like a waterboarding experience, which is graphic. But when your spouse is telling you all this stuff, it's like, you can breathe, but you don't feel like you can.
Right? It feels like, oh my gosh, if I don't breathe the right way, I might suffocate. The pain is so real. And going away, like you said, that's not necessarily providing any resolve to the relationship, right? Going deep into getting all of it out, you will get to the other side and to maintain health within yourself, there's absolutely no shame that you've needed alcohol up into this point.
Absolutely, I have no shame to cast. And I have an invitation of what if you took that pain? And I wanna I wanna invite you guys both. You've especially Nathan, you've had these dopamine fixes through all these different outlets you've described. Nature actually provides you the experience of getting a dopamine hit through the authentic ways we were meant to, right?
So if you're feeling this like, oh, they're gone. I need a dopamine fix. Go outside and just start running. I don't care if it's snowing sideways and literally like negative degrees outside, like put on a parka coat and just go start sprinting. That that center within yourself that needs like a hit, it's gonna get it.
Right? And if you're feeling like overwhelmed with the sensation, I remember I would just go lay a blanket out outside and I would go lay in the backyard crying with the sun. My kids are running around. I feel numb and barely alive. Right?
I had no idea if we were making it out. I had no idea. I thought maybe he was a pathological liar and this is ending in divorce. Right? And I'm just laying there under the sun and I'm letting the sun heal me and soothe my wounds and not I'm not going to my phone.
I'm not trying to essentially put back in numbing agents that have collapsed the whole relationship. Yeah. Which it sounds so easy coming from my end now on the other side. And why it's why we do what we do is because I remember the days when I didn't feel like I was gonna be able to survive. And I read some of my journal entries in the app.
And now sitting on the other side, I know what it looks like and what it feels like to be thriving. And so I'm passing the baton, the invitation of instead of turning to these things, like it's radical to sit here and be like, yeah, don't drink, don't turn to weed, don't turn to any drugs, don't turn on your TVs, like that's pretty radical to throw. And next year, like I said, if your relationship is alive and you feel alive and you have this thriving family, you are not gonna regret that you don't drink. You're not gonna regret that the TV's not on. You're not gonna regret that you don't look at porn and consume weed because you're alive for the very first time.
Because you can answer this, adding in the porn, the girls, the alcohol, the weed, do you feel alive, Nathan? With all of that in there, does that make you feel alive? No. Right?
Nathan: Absolutely not.
Caitlyn: It doesn't. It's not working, right? So although what we're saying is so it seems so extreme. Once you experience it, you're like, woah, this isn't extreme at all. Like, look at all those categories of things you're trying to do, right?
You've been trying to do your whole life to make you come alive, like, that's actually extreme, right? That's a lot of that's like, I think we just listed five things that you've got to try to daily manage on top of adding in there lying and hiding and living a life of deception. That's a lot to manage. Like going outside hand in hand with your kids behind you and walking, enjoying nature, in love, fully singing, knowing each other, that's actually not really that hard. Yeah.
That's not that crazy to manage. It just feels like it because it's so unfamiliar and it's really counter cultural. And yet, the more you step into that, the more you realize that most of the world is craving that. Mhmm. Because most of us have tried all of these options to come alive, and then we realize we feel so dead.
We feel the opposite of life, and we want to have this returning. So it's like, I'm gonna state a couple things that could be really obvious, and I just wanna state them in case they're not. And that's that, obviously, the the consumption of pornography, that's gonna go. And the texting, we haven't addressed this much, but it sounds like you guys are aware of this. The texting with other women and having those relationships with them, that's something that that gets severed right now.
Right? And it sounds like you said you're kind of taking a break from the band. Is that accurate?
Nathan: Yeah. I've I've told them I'm I can no longer be a part of the band because of my my past actions and and the way I I want to move forward and and heal my life and
Caitlyn: Amazing. Yep. You're gonna create something
Brandon: I know.
Caitlyn: Yeah. Incredibly beautiful having paused that and recreating something.
Brandon: I wanted to touch on that. I want to talk about music for a second. And then I wanted to talk about the breath. So I watched Caitlin basically like suffocate as she would fall asleep some nights where she could not catch her breath and she was gasping and couldn't breathe. And I watched that happen and it sounds so cruel and it's not like, oh, I'm glad I did that to her at all.
I also think in our modern era, we, we see pain as this thing. We should not feel like if I'm feeling pain, there's something wrong with me. And obviously I don't want you guys missing sleep to a degree where you're not stable and like, you're not safe. We don't want that. But ultimately, my body's feeling the pain, giving it permission to feel it all the way through and cycle it out.
And I think the, we, we didn't have the breath work at the beginning, but so for example, the box breathing, it's one of the exercises in the app, like you guys have, have touched on. If you take time and Daniel, this will, this will just be for the healing's different for you, but it's also a gift you give yourself. The act of like counting your breath. I've found that after I'm done box breathing, my breath is still in this very regulated place where I'm like, oh, okay. I'm, I'm back at, at a homeostasis, same with the six twelve breathing.
So you basically, for those of you listening to, like you would breathe in through one nostril for six seconds and then you switch and exhale and on the for twelve seconds, go. If you're not sleeping, just doing that back and forth, it will help you fall asleep. So there's so many things that we can do that like, they cost nothing and you guys are always going to have air around you thankfully. And it actually like gives our body this like, wait a second. Like there's been so many, like our little ones wake up sometimes.
I'm like, I'm laying there wide awake. I'm like, oh yeah, I can just snort my own air. It's just like, it's so powerful. It sounds insane, but it, that's what you're tapping back into. And then everybody, and then your relationships, like, there's no residue from what you have to do to maintain that.
It's just like, you're brief today? Me too. And it's like, oh, you're connected. The other piece with music is Nate, I don't know if this will be the case, but I just feel like with music, it might not be immediate. Like, you might use, if you play guitar or the keys or bass, whatever it is, drums.
That might be your way of, like, therapy for yourself in this time. But I see you almost coming out with, like, music as, a solo artist in the future that's rooted in the healing process you've been through that actually evokes joy in other families and other homes?
Nathan: I have tried writing music in the past, and it's always been extremely, extremely difficult. And that's something that Danielle has mentioned is maybe you'll be able to to write music. So I don't know. I always whenever I would write a song, I would think about, oh, well,
Danielle: I can't say that because that'll make Danielle think this, or I can't say that because that'll portray this
Nathan: or And now it's totally open to guess. Never really thought about telling him make music about it. Me perpetrating the lies and continuing that and not being able to push through my passion. And and that's another place where I've I've blamed Danielle. And I've been trying to come have been coming to terms with that.
I haven't been trying. I've been moving forward and and saying, well, no. Like, Danielle's not the one that's been holding you back from this. It's you sitting there and scrolling and being so consumed with lies and and hiding, hiding that don't have the energy to
Brandon: there's happy songs coming out and that's that again, like they'll let that become your, not like your new addiction, but like, don't worry about trying to get that to come out of you. This is your time to heal and reflect and to sit with that. Would more just recognize that music's not being taken. Like you've, you're having to fight a lot. Like, oh, Danielle's making me feel guilty about this.
And she took this for me. Danielle's illuminating who you really want to be and you're having to fight. Do I want to go do I want to go this way or do I want to go this way? And you're going to find that that conflict in you is going to wear off as you get really honest about who you really want to be and you align your actions towards your values as a couple. That's going to be the the North Star.
Caitlyn: Yeah. You guys know this as we're this month doing the the dopamine detox in there. And step five is create rather than consume is what you guys will get to in the app is when you put away the the consumptions, what bubbles out and comes forth is creativity. So I'm not surprised that you couldn't write music because you had you'd been numbing out your creative parts, right, with all of the over consuming. So now that the consumption is is going out and you're cutting ties with all creativity will automatically come forth and come out from both of you, especially that's just the result of coming alive is, oh, this is my creative, my true creative self able to express because I'm not pushing myself down and pushing myself away and numbing the true me out of the picture.
I'm fully embodied and able to be my authentic self. And my last note that I wanna add on the concept of you freshly coming clean, we could call it, is this kind of this epiphany kind of set in the other day after we were interviewing with another couple. The guy had said that, you know, he's been living this whole life of addiction. He said that it haunts him. It had haunted him every single day.
And I think oftentimes when we we go traditional routes with betrayal or with broken trust, pornography, you go to counselors, therapist, whatever it is. There's oftentimes this belief system of like, okay, just get enough of the truth out. Right? Like, just tell her like, okay, for your instance, you could just say, I looked at a lot of pornography. I masturbated when you were gone.
I flirted with girls on trips. Right? We keep it pretty general. And it's like, that was honest. And what we found and what we believe and what I know to be true is that the way to authentic true intimacy and freedom is through sharing in everything.
And the first thought is always, well, I don't know everything. And I guarantee you do know everything. Like you've already shared memories from when you were a child, clear as day you said you can see them and feel them. All of our memories are stored in there. We just have to be able to almost rewind the tape of those stories that we told ourselves to get back to the true actual story.
And what kind of dropped in for me is, you know, the weight that you feel even in the tension right now of like, oh, could I act out of my addiction or not? Could I look at pornography or not? A lot of that is still there. This is why we talk about why we believe relapse still happens. That's still there because until you clear out everything, like this other man is saying and like most men that live in addiction are saying is there's still the day to day recognizing of what you have done.
If you think about it logically, if you wake up every day with a daily recognition of a specific topic, that's forefront of mind every single day. How can you not be tempted or think about acting out on that thing that's literally in your mind all day long? So it makes no logical sense to me that we'd be like, oh, just share some things, not everything. It's like, then those things you didn't share, they're still looping in your mind forever. Therefore, you're still tempted to relapse because it's still at the forefront of your mind.
Where what we are recommending, what you're going through in the grounded intimacy is you're bringing up everything so it can be seen. You can take it through the four hours and actually release it and let go of it and replace it with act with what you want to truly experience. And so as you guys are diving deep into that, just know that paired with the the dopamine piece that Brandon's talk about, like with the two weeks of you kind of getting into your body, with you actually getting everything out and clearing that with the four r's with releasing and replacing specifically the last two pieces, you're going to rewire your entire brain. So the tension or the pull or the people call it all different kinds of words, the attraction, the lure to go into your addiction again, all power gets cut from that. It's like right now, what you're doing is every time a memory comes up, every time the truth is told, you're taking the cord and you're pulling it out of the, you know, the power source.
So it's like, oh, I'm gonna unplug this. I'm gonna unplug this. I'm gonna unplug this. And when you don't tell the truth about something, you're leaving it plugged in. So then you have a little bit of power that's still surging to the addiction.
So when you take the memory and you bring it out into the open, you pull out all power. So now it has no more power. You're gonna live a day very, very soon where you don't even have to think about, do I wanna look at pornography or not? Like, that's not freedom. That's what a lot of people try to lead others into is as long as you think about it but don't do it, you're free.
That sounds terrible. Who wants to exist thinking about something and then not actually doing it? That's not freedom. You're gonna literally unplug all power to the source and you are going to live a life where you don't have to fight the urge to look at pornography. And it starts with getting in your body and actually bringing out the full honest truth.
And a lot of it could be even new to you. You could be like, woah, I didn't realize I did that. Woah, I didn't realize I did that that often. Oh, I'd been hiding and lying this for my self. And even as Danielle's asking you questions, if your automatic response is, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, you could say, I can't remember right now.
I want to. So I'm gonna go take a cold shower. I'm gonna go do ten minutes of bodyment. I'm gonna go journal for five minutes. And then I'm gonna come back and we're gonna do this conversation again because I wanna see clearly because this matters to me.
See, you've already corrected your language a lot in here and I love that. The more you open, I said this I think every episode, the more your language says, I can't see and I'm going to see, I want to see, I wanna remember, your subconscious brain goes, okay, Nathan, that's amazing. Here's everything you've been hiding, I'll give it to you. If you go, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, your brain goes, oh, he doesn't know. That it's like code word, he means he wants to keep it back tucked away.
And so when you say, I wanna know, I wanna see, I'm gonna go take a cold shower. Your brain, your body go, perfect. He feels safe and comfortable at home with himself. He's ready for this to surface and for it to be seen. And that is your direct path to healing.
Brandon: You guys are inspiring. You're in a very tender place right now. And so I'm glad you guys are inside of the app, and we look forward to continuing to support you. And I wanna thank everybody listening to this episode. If you'd like to join Nathan and Danielle on the healing journey as well inside of our app, feel free to click the show notes to learn more about the Grounded Union app.
We'd love to support you, and we'll see you next week on the Grounded Union podcast.