Ep. 153 - Theme for 2025

·18 min·1 clip

Vern reveals how creating a 'new magnet' of purpose can overpower porn's addictive pull.

Host Vern Tompke opens the 2025 season by inviting listeners to define a personal theme for the year as a tool for growth in recovery. He is the founder of the Finding Traction Podcast, which supports men seeking to move away from problematic porn use. The episode also announces a new year-long support group he will lead starting that week. Tompke details his new "Finding Traction" group, which will meet weekly on Wednesdays to work through his recovery material for an entire year. He argues that meaningful recovery from entrenched habits requires a full year to change behaviors, manage emotions, and build supportive connections. He references a podcast by Matt Dobschuetz discussing Dan Miller's idea of taking a year to evaluate something's benefit, applying it directly to porn recovery. The core tool presented is selecting a single, overarching personal theme for 2025, such as "freedom," "peace," or "contentment," to serve as a guiding focus. Tompke shares examples from his groups, including one man focusing on managing anger with his kids and a couple using the word "undivided." He revisits a concept from Episode 35, "Magnetic Recovery," which describes creating a compelling vision of a desired future to pull oneself forward, rather than just resisting past behaviors. In that "magnet" analogy, porn represents a strong magnet behind a person, while one's "Big Why" and vision for the future form a new magnet ahead. The course includes an exercise to create a punchy personal acronym, like "CIGAR," representing values such as Confidence, Integrity, and Godliness. Tompke then reveals his personal theme for 2025 is "Wide Open Spaces," a phrase he borrows from Eugene Peterson's biblical paraphrase, *The Message*. He explains "Wide Open Spaces" as the opposite of feeling hemmed in, using the geographical imagery of emerging from a narrow mountain pass into an expansive valley. Tompke connects this to how porn can progressively limit a person's life, consuming thoughts and creating guilt. He states his recovery has opened a new vista of possibilities, including core confidence and a new season of travel and speaking. He shares that he and his wife plan to travel more to speak at men's events, to young people, and on recovery topics, seeing this as a direct result of his hard-won freedom. The episode is conversational and instructional, blending personal reflection, teaching of recovery concepts, and direct audience engagement. Its tone is encouraging and pastoral, aimed at motivating listeners to pursue intentional growth. This episode is ideal for listeners in recovery seeking a structured, reflective tool to guide their year and those interested in a supportive, year-long group process. Listeners preferring highly specific, clinical advice or narrative storytelling over motivational coaching might find it less aligned with their tastes.

As heard by us

A practical year-start reset built around a clear theme, a new-magnet metaphor, and a faith-forward recovery focus.

This is a straightforward year-start conversation about choosing a direction for 2025 instead of letting 2024 roll over by default. Vern Tompke treats recovery from porn as something that needs purpose as well as resistance, and the "new magnet" metaphor gives that idea a clear…

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Why you'd press play

Set one theme for 2025 instead of letting the same old pull run the year.

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