Transforming Pain

By Dann Aungst Founder of Road to Purity

Every person, without exception, has interior pain. An interior pain that tends to define our self-image or self-perception.

At Road to Purity, we follow a saying, “If you don’t transform your pain, you will transmit it.”

We all transmit pain in our lives. In our actions and in what we do. So, what do we do about it?

At Road to Purity, our primary focus is to transform the pains of porn and sex addiction, as well as the underlying roots of the behavior. So many people see the compulsion or addiction of pornography as a stand alone problem. In fact, you will be surprised that porn is not the problem! It is merely a symptom of a deeper issue. Namely pain.

In actuality, this pain is present in some fashion in all of our lives. It is merely a path of how we reveal that pain. All of us reveal pain in some way. Whether it is an addiction or compulsion to porn, alcohol, video games, shopping, food, success, overachieving, underachieving, etc. All of these actions are at their root a self-centered, narcissistic behavior and tendency. All are fueled by pain, an inner unresolved, unhealed pain. This pain transmits, or reveals itself, as a false self-identity and shows up in a behavior pattern. These behavior patterns are often, but not always negative or sinful.

To explain this concept of people revealing an interior pain, here are two powerful stories..

Story 1 – Anger and road rage

Bob was an angry person. His anger was his way of protecting himself, a pattern of behavior resulting from many poor experiences and abuse from his father, growing up. Bob frequently turned to pornography to experience a sense of connection, as well as a release of inner stress caused by the constant anger. (Note that the connection he achieved from viewing porn was a false connection – and thus for only a few minutes the stress was released due to the surge of serotonin after ejaculation, a process that induces the addiction cycle, as learned in earlier lessons.)

Here’s how Bob transmitted his pain: