Circuit Breakers for Unwanted Sexual Thoughts

Thinking about sex is definitely not bad. The problem for me has been that I have had a lot of sexual thoughts that weren’t by choice. They came to me by habit.

I call them circuit breakers. That’s because I think of these habitual thoughts as bad brain circuits (mind you, it’s not my brain that’s defective, it’s the habits that have been programmed into it).

Consider this scenario: I see a person who fits a character type in my library of sexual fantasies and I essentially own that person while I imagine them in my fantasy scenario. Can we agree that that’s not always a thought you want to have?

Consider another scenario: You’re flipping through channels and see a movie advertised. It’s a sex comedy and just that fact makes you ponder things about sex comedies and how far one on a particular network might go.

Here’s the circuit breakers:

• If you see a person that requires a second glance, that makes you curious, that makes your heart beat faster, Look away and then pray for them.
• If you have an unexpected sexual thought that invites you to into one of your problem behaviors, picture someone or some activity that is very important to you. Breathe deeply 3 or 4 times as you meditate on that image. Then say to yourself (out loud, if at all possible) the thought you just had. Then tell yourself why you think you had that thought and the truth about why that behavior would not be helpful. (Credit goes to Candeo for this idea.) I explore this more in depth here.