Guarding Yourself While Life is 100% Online

You finally got a handle on your online habits, you even put safeguards in place to help you stay on the straight and narrow. But seemingly overnight, life has drastically changed as we now live in a post-COVID era.

You might find yourself working from home alongside children who you are now homeschooling. Your spouse may still be required to work outside of the home. Or maybe you’re co-parenting and juggling family and work altogether, all the time. Possibly, you may have just been laid off.

Any way you cut it, things are stressful for almost everyone-yourself included. The sooner you can recognize this, take a moment to breathe, and reach out to a trusted friend to support you and keep you accountable, the better.

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Online Safety

If you’re like many Americans with a desk or office job, you might be working from home on a laptop. It may be necessary to retreat to your bedroom or remote location of your home for a video conferencing call.

However, understand that working from a private area may not be ideal. Decide on a public area in your home to set up your home office, such as your living room, dining room, or family room. Working in a communal place within your house serves as a simple check and balance.

Adding accountability software to your home devices is also a powerful way to protect yourself, from yourself, while online. Yes, you might feel that you can do it without these safeguards. But, we know from experience and from others who have gone before you that they do help with recovery. While nearly all of the available options require a paid, monthly subscription, it is honestly a small price to pay when compared to the help it can provide.

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Ad Blocking

Do you share a computer with your wife? Does she shop online? You may start seeing ads popping up here and there from the places she shops. If she has been searching for a bathing suit, suddenly the sidebar ads on ESPN and other sites will display women clad in little to nothing. Consider utilizing ad blocking apps and software that will help cut down on these teasers.

‘Reader’ Or ‘Simplified’ View

Chrome and other browsers can be set to serve up a simplified view while you’re reading or working from a tablet. Go into your system settings and switch to simplified view. This can significantly reduce some of the visual clutter from the websites you access.

Limit Your Time Online

Choose to work for a set period of time. Make sure, however, that you are scheduling breaks. This will help you balance your time both online and offline. While we are all working from home, the hours fly by and there’s a blur between work and family.

The goal is to prevent yourself from working too much using the tools that easily become a vice. We can all agree that technology is helpful for work. It’s also a distraction when you’re fighting the urge to view images that are unhelpful to your journey out of porn addiction.

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Fruits Of The Spirit

During this time where each day looks different based on what the local restrictions are with work and school, it can be challenging to turn our minds towards God. Colossians 3:2 tells us,

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

When we don’t know what to expect from our days and weeks, we can turn to God and set our minds on His ways and His desires for us to love and honor Him in all we do.

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Paul writes in Galatians 5 about the ‘fruit of the spirit,’ which is the work that can happen in and through us, through the power of Jesus Christ, when we live in the power of the Spirit. While most of us feel as if we’re lacking when we hear this list, it can also be comforting to know that we are promised the skills and abilities that go alongside faith in God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:22-26)

Acknowledging Weakness

During times of increased stress or trauma, you may find yourself easily tripped up or tempted to revert back to pornography. But when we belong to Christ, we can embody the self-control granted to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

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It’s okay to acknowledge your weaknesses and to cry out to God for a heaping helping of ‘self-control’. You wouldn’t be the first to do this in stressful situations, and you won’t be the last. The dawn of each day brings a new opportunity to start over.

Many find it impossible to fight back the demons of porn addiction alone. Though you have God fighting on your side, you will still need support. Find a group of men who are walking similar paths. This can prove to be both invaluable and essential to your success.

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The Conquer Series is a 10-week course that combines both biblical and scientific evidence that has helped millions of individuals on their journey to freedom from sexual sin. You will begin to understand how the brain has been changed through the viewing of pornography, and why trying harder will not work.

Through the implementation of various principles and techniques, you will begin to understand where sexual sin may have first taken root in your life. And, maybe most importantly, you’ll begin to find your true identity in Christ, leaving behind the identity found in your past experiences or what others may have said about you.

Now is a great time to dive deeply into discovering more about the freedom that Christ died to offer. Thanks to a new digital streaming platform, SoulRefiner.com, you can get started today!