Fighting Addiction Through Fertility Awareness | Magdala Testimony
When I first began to actively fight my pornography and masturbation addiction I'd go weeks without falling back into it. The fight even felt easy sometimes... and then out of no where an overpowering temptation would hit, leading me to fall right back into it. This constant cycle of temporary success and what felt like inevitable failure lead to a pretty hopeless mindset as the thought of complete freedom seemed impossible. I felt powerless to my body and didn't understand why these "random" moments of extreme temptation came out of nowhere.
Then at work I heard a coworker make a joke about how she was feeling "particularly horny" because she was ovulating. That comment that I would normally ignore as an overshare, brought about one of the biggest revelations within my pornography battle. All these moments that felt like random spouts of extreme temptation were no longer random at all. I started looking through my recent falls noted in my Victory app and compared them to when I should have been ovulating and almost all of them lined up with those times. It wasn't that my fight was hopeless or that I was weak - I just didn't understand the changing hormones of my body and therefore didn't know how I needed to change my fight throughout the month. Armed with this knowledge, it felt like complete healing was possible for the first time.
I immediately started researching more on the female body and it's cycle and I realized there was so, sooo much I didn't understand. I learned that the female body goes through four phases within her monthly cycle: the menstrual phase, the follicular phase, the ovulatory phase, and luteal phase. And, with each phase comes a different swing in hormones. The most applicable research was this - women are more likely to feel their sex drive is at its peak during ovulation which is in the middle of their menstrual cycle, about 14ish days before your period.
Growing up in a Catholic community I always thought tracking one's menstrual cycle was just for married women doing Natural Family Planning. I never saw the purpose of putting in the time to track where I was at in my cycle when I wasn't sexually active, but this helped me realized how wrong I was. I started actively tracking my cycle and was able to use this knowledge to predict when my temptation would be at its highest.
So - what can you do with this knowledge?
When you know ovulation is coming, alert your accountability partners and ask them to pray for you and check in on you.
Try actively working out everyday or every other day as a healthy release of energy.
Avoid romantic comedy movies, youtube, Instagram, or other things you know to be triggers within your personal battle.
Schedule in a lot of nightly hangouts or phone calls with girlfriends and be intentional with your time to prevent feelings of loneliness.
Make sure to go to bed early (we’re talking like 9:30 ladies) and pray every morning to help you keep a healthy sleep schedule so that your mind is alert and ready to fight any temptation that may come.
Through understanding the gift that is my body and the natural changes of my hormones I was able to transform my battle with lust from defense to offense. What was once a fight AGAINST my body became an appreciation and love for my body and all the ways its serves me.
If you're interested in learning more about tracking your cycle look into the Femme app or research Natural Family Planning (NFP) methods.