"I feel so completely ignored, attacked, criticized, lonely, abandoned and am hurting I need to find relief or I am going to lose it!".  This is a common message we can get that will lead us to a level of desperation we can't seem to ignore it or make it go away other than through watching pornography or some other unhealthy and unwanted sexual behavior.  This is what is a common feeling when dealing with a core emotional trigger.

In his book Going Deeper, Dr Capparucci lays out two techniques to combat and arrest these overwhelming feelings.  First and foremost be aware of your own levels of distress.  Throughout the day check in to see if you are emotionally (angry, stressed, frustrated), mentally (financial or work distress), spiritually (not in study, fellowship or the word), or physical (tired, feeling over weight, ache and pains, health issues).  Any of these can be an early warning sign.  Learn to check in, journal, talk others daily about life's stressors.  

The second aspect is building emotional resilience when core emotional triggers arise, the following illustrates the recommended steps.

In his book 'Going Deeper', Dr Capparucci describes core emotional triggers which are those emotional sensations, urges or pain points that cause the greatest amount of discomfort.  A few examples are feelings of being ignored, lonely, abandoned, unheard, dismissed, criticized, unworthy.  They create such inner turmoil that you feel like your insides are going to explode and can be the tipping point(s) for escaping to unhealthy and destructive behaviors like porn, alcohol or drugs.  

Each individual adopts different ways to cope, and these emotions are a key part of turning away from the urges and towards a healthy thought, activity or behavior.  Going Deeper describes an approach of how to begin to uncover these triggers.  First complete this survey of possible triggers, then identify those that you scored highest.  Begin to journal about those feelings you rated highest; where they show up most often, who or what are the activators (e.g. 'I feel so invisible at work', 'I feel completely unseen by my spouse', 'my parents make me feel so belittled').  

The next step is to explore the profile of your inner child.  Dr Capparucci has developed a profile of 9 little boys that are the most common.  Review the list below and see which are most familiar.  Journal about your thoughts and possibly come up with your own.

Bored Child

• Low-key, quest existence as children and teenagers
• Felt isolated and alone
• Learn to entertain themselves (lived in fantasy)
• Sex offered a high level stimulation
• Became user-focused on new-found outlet for stimulation
• As adults, programmed to fill quiet moments with quest to obtain chemical rush
• Desires to be stimulated

Un-affirmed child 

• Grows up receiving little in the way of praise or received continuous criticism
• Result is low self-worth and insecurity 
• Learn sex can be a way of achieving admiration even if only a fantasy
• May become selfish sex partner
• In extreme cases, believe they're God's gift to women
• Desire to be valued

Unnoticed child

• Never felt they belonged; rarely chased
• Learn to use sex to receive attention (flirting, tolling, sexting)
• Desire for attention is so strong, what the may receive from their spouse is not enough
• Seeks additional attention from other to satisfy their emotional needs
• Even if they're not seeking attention, its difficult to walk away from those expressing it
• Desire to be seen

Emotionally voided child

• The #1 resin men act out
• Struggle to emotionally connect
• Message: feelings not important/unsafe
• Uncomfortable in social or family settings
• See physical intimacy as emotional intimacy 
• Partners feel unfulfilled, lonely an used
• Desires to experience emotional connection

Lack of control child

• Raised in a hectic and chaotic environment they seek to control their surroundings
• Past proved when a situation was out of control they suffered consequences
• Control Prevents bad things from occurring 
• The quest is seeking order to reduce anxiety
• Sex is a distraction to events in which they have no control 
• Pseudo control
• Desires stability 

Entitled child

• Made to feel de-valued as child/teenager
• Lack of voice; their desires and needs did not mattter
• Falsely accused
• Turned to sex as reward
• Their worldview is "I deserve this"
• Things not going their way may cause them to act out
• Desire to be treated fairly
  

Sexually stimulated or abused child

• Stimulation at early age (porn shock/awe), molested (shame)
• Create irrational beliefs about sex/themselves 
• (sex is a physical act, women are objects, sex is dirty/bad, they are dirty/bad)
• In some cases, may utilize sex to punish themselves or to hurt others
• Desire to feel safe

Weak inferior child

• Conditioned to believe they are weak/inferior
• Suffer tremendous shame
• Quest is to use sex to reinforce sense of inferiority or break away from it
• Use sex to feel empowered
• Engage in sex to reinforce sense of weakness
• Worldview: "I deserve to be used" or "I must use others"
• Desire to feel empowered
  

Stressed child

• Grew up in stressful/anxious enviornments
• Some de-sensitized to their anxiety; may not even be aware if it exists
• Discovered sex soothers anxiety 
• As adults, still use sex as stress buster
• However, their on-going quest for sex silly adds another stressor to their lives
• Desires to feel relaxed
  

Religiously abused an confused

• Confused by hypocritical theme's 
• Feelings of helplessness
• Learn to hide and stuff feelings out of guilt / shame
• Uninformed by those held up to be trusted advisors in life
• Hid all sexual notions, urges, fantasies as they were sin
• So confused they experimented unprotected and without knowledge or consequences
• Wanted to be understand

The next step is to begin to learn how to manage the triggers as they arise in daily life.  There is no getting away from stress, distress, emotional pain and discomfort in our fallen world, and these steps will help you address those most troubling issues when they arise.  Click here for the discussion on the six steps to managing your core emotional triggers.

It is especially important for men who have fallen into the trap of problematic sexual behavior, intimacy disorders and pornography addiction to understand many new things in life that they never learned as a child.  Due to early childhood abuse and neglect from family, friends, church or school the adult finds ways to soothe the unresolved pain that is activated by life's struggles.  

Dr Eddie Capparuucci book "Going Deeper" chronicles his work with hundreds of addicts and answers the question everyone who falls into the unhealthy destructive behavior: 'why'.   His book outlines a series of steps that describes the connection to early childhood trauma, how this trauma manifests itself in our inner child that remains present throughout our life and to become familiar with how our 'inner child's' core emotional triggers influence our adult behavior.  

The steps outlined in the book are 1) Childhood wounds - reveal and discuss the negative and traumatic events from childhood (e.g. neglect, abuse, modeling, access, death), 2) Core Emotional triggers - identify the core emotional triggers (use this survey to help) which are a specific set that are the most potent that tend to cause the greatest discomfort, 3) Inner Child profile - craft a profile of your inner child (Going Deeper describes the nine most common) to gain a deeper understanding of your kid and why he mis-behaves, 4) Find the patterns - connect the past to the present by learning mindfulness techniques to recognize when your kid is being triggered today, 5) Notice - manage your core emotional triggers (click here for that process), and 6) practice these techniques and integrate the insights and lessons into your life.

Past work has focused primarily on arresting the behavior, Dr Capparucci's work answers a question for both those committed to recovery as well as the spouse.  .  Though stopping the behavior in the short term is critically important, the true freedom comes through continually investigating the root cause, learning to understand learn how to soothe your special unique inner child.  The book then goes one step further and identifies the key ingredients for becoming intimately familiar with your inner child, and how to help him though the struggles of life.