​The F.E.E.L. Method is the current culmination of all the years of counseling and doing group intensives to help men overcome their problematic sexual behaviors. One night at an intensive, I was seeking a new direction to take my small group.  This concept was made to clear to me, using the acronym FEEL. Feel the pain, Evaluate the pain, Emerge from the pain, and Let It Go. This intensive is not about surface-level change. ​It’s about addressing the deeper wounds that keep the cycle going.  

To be more specific:

F-Feel The Pain.  The typical building blocks of addiction start when we try to escape emotional discomfort or pain early in our lives.  The individual must navigate through the pain to a place where they can fully function and manage their life moving forward in a healthy way. There are a number of avenues by which we can be affected.  Using the 9-letter acronym S.T.RA.N.G.L.E.D. (Stress/Shame, Trauma, Rejection, Abandonment, Neglect, Grief, Loss, Expectations, Disappointments) and various offshoots of these, we can usually find specific ways in which a soul received pain.

E- Evaluate The Pain.  To know when the emotional discomfort or pain began, a thorough search into one's childhood, family of origin and other circumstances must take place.  This is sometimes a scary proposition for many who have spent their whole life trying to distance themselves from traumatic experience(s). One of the ways we do this is to talk through FEELINGS, NEEDS, TRUTH and ACTION. Feelings are like symptoms that show us where our true need(s) lie. When needs are exposed it helps us understand what has been driving and dictating our behaviors for so long. We apply truth to the pain - Truth allows us to compare what narrative or emotional construct we have erected causing us to see ourselves, others and most importantly, God through a filter of pain. Action gives us steps to follow that will back up the internal work we are doing to achieve healing and freedom.

E - Emerge From The Pain. Just like a baby bird fighting through its shell or the butterfly fighting to remove itself from its cocoon, there is a necessary part played by you but in joint effort with God. If the bird or butterfly is not allowed to fight for its survival it will not have the strength to survive.  Likewise this is an inherent trait of these creatures given to them by God.  What is it that the individual must do according to how God has created them and what is it that God must be allowed to do in order to bring one to a place of healing and freedom?

L - Let Go of the Pain.  Letting go is not careless, It is not forgetting. It is a proactive stance against that which has wreaked havoc in one's soul for a very long time. It involves three main elements.  FORGIVENESS, RELEASING, BLESSING.  We need to forgive the individual who hurt us. We must release them, holding no offense toward them and allow God to deal with them instead of us. We must also bless them,  taking a stance that longs to see them find their place and purpose in life as well as their own healing from what has caused them to hurt us in the first place. Then we must forgive ourselves and no longer allow shame to dictate our behaviors, emotions or thoughts.

This is an intensive, not a book study.  You will have homework to accomplish each week as far as exercises in the workbook,  journaling and partner connection (assigned at the time of the first session.