#66 - Welcome Benjy
“ Life is meant for living, not just existing.” - Anon
The main reason for living is to find our purpose, find that passion, and feel a sense of excitement rather than just living aimlessly. We are living in a world where we are being enslaved mostly by the things around us that we have access to and the environment we belong to: our work, businesses, school, hobbies, or even our addictions.
Pornography is really a huge roadblock for most people and it destroys marriage, relationships, and your life in general. When pornography enters a relationship, it has the potential to break it and ruin it for good.
In this episode, we welcome Benjy, Sammy’s younger brother who will be our new co-host for High Noon. He started his passion as a volunteer, and now, as he experienced the grace and received fulfilling blessings in his life, he would like to also share it with others as well especially those struggling with pornography and reclaiming their sexual integrity.
Let us get to know Benjy more and listen to how he chose to live the life that he has now - a life of peace, fulfilled dreams, passion, and purpose.
Benjy’s journey to developing his passion to help others, particularly to help people receive and experience a fulfilling blessing.
There's nothing more important to us than being able to support people to experience a fulfilling life and a fulfilling marriage.
Focusing on what you can control: your focus on your integrity
Focusing on what you can offer to help the situation
High noon as not just anti-porn or pro-sex movement, but about allowing men and women to experience the family of joy, passion, accountability and openness inside of this organization of family.
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love
Welcome back to Love, Life, and Legacy Podcast dedicated to helping you overcome your limitations and win at life love and in creating your legacy. In today's episode, we have a special guest. We have a new Uyama in the house and you'll understand everything if you just listened to this episode. We're going to lose one Uyama, but we're going to replace him with a fresher Uyama mint right out of the package of Uyama. So please enjoy my interview with my new co-host, Benjy. Everybody, welcome. This is a crazy day, I've officially transitioned one Uyama to another. We're doing something unprecedented due to circumstance and not even like a weird circumstance just like organic circumstance, and let me explain. High Noon has been doing a podcast for over a year now. It started with Sammy and me, and mostly just us talking but then we started interviewing people, and we've gone over 50 episodes already. We're almost at 60 episodes. We've covered a variety of topics and now we're going to transition from Sammy to Benjy. The reason is this, Sammy is in a crazy time zone but he's also really busy on other stuff and we felt it was time for Benjy to step up. And so first of all, let's welcome Benjy to the podcast.
Benjy
Hey, guys.
Andrew Love
Welcome, Benjy. Thank you, Andrew, it's good to be here. And what this is even crazier because you just kind of inserted yourself in an episode, you just like grabbed the mic, and you went off. So it was like that was unprecedented. To me, that was a marker of like, oh, Benji is here, he's ready to go and then from there, I think it wasn't even on our spectrum like we're gonna stop having Sammy but then Sammy just needed a break anyway so it's perfect timing. So what compelled you to pick up the mic? That was like two weeks ago or something? Why? Out of nowhere, like you've never done that before? Why now?
Benjy
Good question. I think the bottom line is that I've been kind of serving, a lot of the work that I do for the last seven, eight years have been a lot of administrative behind the scenes back end work for websites, marketing, etc, working at headquarters in New York, and now I just realized pretty recently, that there's a lot more that I have to offer in regards to sexual integrity and helping people particularly helping people folks prepare for marriage prepare for a relationship. There's a lot to unpack, in my experience for the last 10 years being blessed, but also working with individuals, men, and women to prepare for marriage and start their sex lives and have children, etc. So I just made a conscious decision, especially recently, in the last few months to start turning on the camera or turning on the mic and just start recording randomly. So that was one of those inspiring moments to do that.
Andrew Love
Yeah, it was good. I mean, it was fire. You're definitely on fire. Before we kind of get too into things, let's go back to the beginning. So you are Sammy's older brother or younger brother?
Benjy
Younger brother.
Andrew Love
How many years? Two years? And was he always way bigger than you growing up?
Benjy
He's always been taller, of course, and he's my older brother. We're only two so our dynamic is kind of like I'm the younger and I just kind of follow him and do what he says. I'm afraid to step on his toes and upset and that kind of typical dynamic brother.
Andrew Love
I see, like grumpy and ornery.
Benjy
He's kind. He was a gentle, older brother, honestly, he's always conscious about not wanting to hurt me or to be kind to me, but I think my character is observant. I'm a really kind of naturally introverted person. Maybe that doesn't come off that way but I'm observant so I tried to take the backseat a lot of our relationship. So I'm happy to support him and he was like, can you do the podcast? and I'm like, okay.
Andrew Love
I find it pretty crazy that you and your brother are obviously working for high noon, but even before that, that you're both working within our movement that you're both all in especially on families, that's very specific. You guys could be doing anything. Usually, one guy's like a techie guy and other guys like an all heart guy but you guys are both taking care of people and so you used to work for the BFM. When did that start?
Benjy
Yeah. So that's a good point. I think for both of us, for me, at least, my whole journey with developing this passion to help people particularly to help people receive the blessing and also experience a fulfilling blessing most of all, really starts with the fact that I and blessing marriage for since 2010. So that's just over 10 years now and I mean, it's like my ability or passion to help people has nothing to do with my personality or even my passion. It's really to do with that I feel blessed in my life and that's it. I've been blessed with a wife who helps me grow and helps me see things from a bigger perspective, helps me, experience love, in my life, and because I experienced that grace and love that I want I help other people experience the same thing. That's it, that's it.
Andrew Love
But I mean, you could just feel like, Hey, I'm blessed, I want to help other people and be a volunteer or something but you made it your full-time job like, it's your obsession. So it seems like a little bit more than that. Right?
Benjy
Well, it's like a coincidence or chance by God's design. After I was blessed for about a year in marriage, I decided to become a matching advisor matching supporter to be trained to help other people find a spouse and eventually go to receive the blessing and get married and that was pretty early on. So I've been doing that for about nine years now and I jumped fall into that, like, of course, it's a volunteer job, just put yourself on a website as like somebody open to supporting. I posted on Facebook, I was like, let me know if you guys need any support in this area. I was young, and then people came to me because I'm a young guy, I've been through a lot of experiences people go through, and I know how to kind of navigate them because I've been there myself. Especially regarding pornography, which is a huge roadblock for most people.
So the opportunity came about seven years ago, when my wife and I were living in Japan out of nowhere, Chris, who is the director of the BFM at the time contacted me because I was involved with the BFM and the team and I knew the team because I was volunteering. She was like, do you want to move to New York and work full time for headquarters., and of course, I was like, that's scary because there's a lot implied in that decision. That means I have to leave Japan, I had a job at the time, I had a job set up to work full time at a hospital doing some random management position and so everything was like, we're gonna live in Japan full time, or the rest of our lives. That was a plan, raise our kids there, my wife was pregnant at the time and so it was a really tough decision to say. Yeah, like, we're going to take this opportunity, but without a question for both of us because there's nothing more important to us than being able to support people to experience a fulfilling life and a fulfilling marriage and help if we can do anything to help them get there, then that's what I wanted to do.
So we put aside all the practical things and we had to get a green card for my wife because we were living in Japan at the time, and that whole process, and then the baby was born in Japan so I had to kind of go back and forth to for the birth tough time. But at the end of the day, I was thinking long term, that this is something that I can do with all my heart and pour my entire life work into doing this, then it's an opportunity I want to take. But it started because of me out there as a matching supporter to volunteer and I promoted myself as like, I just want to help you guys if you need some support, just let me know and we'll work together.
Andrew Love
And what's the difference in your mind between like, could have been a relationship counselor, a marriage counselor, I don't know, a guidance counselor in high school or something. But the language you use and the emphasis is you like to help couples get to the blessing and have strong blessings. Like what's the difference between just caring about people having a good marriage and people having a thriving blessing? What's the difference in your mind?
Benjy
So I guess we're getting into the territory of what's the difference between the blessing?
Andrew Love
Well, I mean, for you, because it was a big deal that you got asked to go to headquarters. There’s something there that's meaningful about the blessing, in particular, not just couples having good marriages, I'm guessing, maybe not wrong.
Benjy
Yeah. Well, I think primarily, it's been my experience. First of all, I feel blessed, blessed as in it's not an obligation to be blessed, or it's not it's more of a privilege, I feel. Like I've been given something and with a privilege like that, I just feel like I can't do what I can to help others experienced the same thing because if I'm not, then I'm not fulfilling what the blessing is. So to me, personally, the blessing is something that's given from God and True Parents, first and foremost. Without that relationship with true parents, and without that understanding of what your parents give, that vision that your parents have to create these dynamic and interesting and beautiful families that are diverse and full of love, and have all the qualities of God's characteristics male, female, and raise children in that dynamic.
That vision is what caught me from an early age, when I was even 16, 15 years old, deciding what the blessing is something for me, it's something I want to do because I could relate to and resonate with that vision that your parents have and that God has for families. Then not only that, but also the sexual intimacy between a man and woman, that vision is so much on a higher tier than anything that I was seeing, or I've ever seen in the world and anywhere I go it's like there's nothing that resembles that level of vision, that level of purpose between a sexual relationship and that's like really, truly eye-opening and eye-catching for me.
Andrew Love
You are at the set free summit, we shared a room. Now let's get into that. Why did you go to the set free summit? You were working for the BFM, why did you go? Other than it was in your home state?
Benjy
Yeah, that's true. It was in North Carolina. So like I mentioned, basically my work with particularly young men and a growing number of young women who are preparing for marriage, this is by far one of the biggest roadblocks and that's what I thought at the time. Meaning what? Pornography. The unwanted sexual cycle and mind minefield of psychological battle that people go through when they have an addiction or just unwanted relationship with pornography, masturbation, and what that implication means for their future relationship, their current relationship, their matching process, or their blessing.
I just saw so many young folks who come to our workshops, we have these discussions, one on one or in groups who are just feeling incapable of being in a relationship, unconfident, and just like a piece of garbage, right? I'm just like, I'm unworthy to be blessed, because which is not true. They feel I'm unworthy to be blessed, I'm unworthy to be in a relationship. I'm unworthy to have a sexual relationship because of this habit that I have this addiction that I have. And so seeing that and recognizing that and so I wanted to set a free summit because I was like, I want to figure out if this porn thing is as big of a deal as people are saying it is or is it just like a soccer mom-ish? I don't know the right.
Andrew Love
No, no. Yeah, religious freak out. Well, the walls are closing in the devil is coming.
Benjy
Yeah, like the Simpsons mom. So I want to figure that out and I mean, if you look at any of the stats, the hard facts, which are not publicized, and I know the podcast is kind of gone into them a bit, it's so disturbing, to see and to hear. Not only that, it's the way that it affects people right now in our lives, the way that it's affecting men, women, all of us right now, our culture, our relationships, our families, our children is mind-boggling. I just want to do everything I can to not help people take control. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to stimulate minds and spirits so that you can recognize like, it doesn't matter what the world is doing, it doesn't matter how big the industry gets. The most effective way to navigate this is just to focus on what you can control. You focus on your integrity, focus on what you bring to the table, and focus on what you can offer and help the situation and that's putting the control and in the hands of us of individuals and then naturally the demand over time, hopefully, the demand for pornography dies down.
Andrew Love
Shout out to you, by the way, I never really thought about it but when the Wolfenbergers wanted to go to the set free summit, they didn't have a voice, they didn't know who to talk to. Nobody knew who they were and they contacted you right at the BFM, and then you spread the word, you helped to make that possible. From what I remember, you're kind of like the liaison, you're working together with them and then working with headquarters to make sure the invitations got out but like, that's how I found out about it. So like High Noon probably wouldn't have existed if you didn't care about this, right? If you're like, Oh, these guys are just being annoying, they're being self-righteous, they want to force everybody to go to this thing or whatever. If you had a bad attitude, then it definitely wouldn't have happened the way it did, right. But you help to spread the word and we got 40 people at the set free summit, which is pretty awesome. After the set free summit like what was the most impactful thing that made you care or convinced you, like what shocked you the most at this every summit that made you feel like Oh, crap, we got to do something about this.
Benjy
I would say at the time, I was already shocked, I was already aware because I had been through it myself and I've been talking with people who are going through that. So the shocking element wasn't made me want to join high noon and go full force into it was the people I met at that work with high noon, particularly the Wolfenbergers at the time. When you meet someone who is just a genuine leader and just leads from their heart and doesn't care about status or bureaucracy or anything like that, and just wants to support at least for me that's so attractive and that's so appealing, and I want to do everything I can to support those people. If they can ask me to do anything, I'll do it and that's why Uncle David was like, can you try to help get these leaders, district pastors and leaders and pastors to go this summit? I was like, yeah, because I wanted to help.
So I think when I met uncle David, it's really rare to find an older man and woman like that who will genuinely share their struggles. When I went to the set free summit in North Carolina, and the first conversation that we had one on one with him when I met him, the first thing he said was, yeah, Benji, I wanted to come here. I want to come here, and basically, he admitted his past struggles with pornography, and that's something that shook me because not shocked me but inspired me because I'd never heard someone especially like, my dad's generation speak so authentically about their struggles. That was like, really, wow, this guy's so genuine, so real, and inspired me so.
Andrew Love
And then after that, you helped to organize the High Noon summit a year later, I remember you're in the picture. Remember we took a picture outside of (AIPAC) with the whole team, you're there. John Williams just sat into a bunch of folks, your big shiny face was there and so it was like a journey of about four years, maybe three years where you're doing double duty. You are working for BFM and High Noon, what caused you to jump from BFM to High Noon?
Benjy
Why think because like I mentioned alluded to before, I used to think that pornography was the biggest thing that people are dealing with and that's like the main roadblock. But, through working with High Noon, over the years, kind of on a part-time volunteer basis, I realized that and also, because of the groups that I've been leading of young men who are going through this is that pornography is not the root of the issue. It's not the reason that people are struggling and it's actually way deeper, and underneath that was appealing and I see now that high noon is not just an anti-porn, it's not even a pro-sex movement. It's going underneath that and allowing men and women to experience the family of joy, passion, accountability, openness, all of that, inside of this organization of the family. That's so much more exciting to me than just fighting off pornography, because unfortunately, no matter how much we wish porn or pray porn, or didn't exist, or do have okay or hope to God, that it would disappear, the reality is that people will always come back to high noon because it is more than just overcoming a porn habit.
It's more than just not consuming or controlling our eyes or controlling our mind-body, it's way more than that. So I guess what I'm getting to in the end is that I'm realizing that it's not the biggest issue, I think I used to think that was the biggest issue and I used to say things like, if you just focus on your porn habit, then you will be an extremely marriageable person, which is true. If you can overcome and have sexual integrity and mind on you, you will be a very, very marriageable and very good spouse or parent but that's not enough. What I realized is through working with high noon, for the last five years, or four years, or whatever, is something way deeper than that. Rather than just focusing on porn as an issue, but realizing that porn is an extremely unhealthy crutch, and I like to use that word, or it's a kind of a nice visual, it's an unhealthy crutch that we lean on, to fill a void in our lives, something that's missing, and something that we're longing for a sense of excitement and thrill and passion and love that we're looking for, but is very, very temporarily filling that need with something that's so instant as pornography and masturbation. It's just taking away everything really important and just focusing on something, it's like a perfect storm.
This is what I talked about in our groups is that pornography is a perfect storm. I mean, it's a lot of things. I think there are a lot of reasons that people use porn, I don't want to get into all those right now but to me, it's like it's a perfect storm. It's taking something that innately we need, which is intimacy, love, joy, excitement, passion, sexual fulfillment, and temporarily trying to fix that, or fill that need with something instant, as basically just things on a screen, which is nothing to do with sex is has very little to do with true sex and true intimacy. It's just things, videos or images on a screen. It's nothing to do with sex. But the act of masturbating or connecting that it's like the porn industry has created this perfect storm of linking this innate need, we have desire we have with something that is highly addictive and just destroying for the soul, but at the same time, very addictive. So that's part of the equation in my mind is that it's just a perfect storm. It's somehow whatever it may be the devil, Satan, the universe, whatever it is, created this perfect storm and we're just in the middle of this minefield right now, this war zone where we are trying to figure out how to use our phones use our computers use the internet in a way that's productive and gives value to the world and ourselves and our families without taking away from those and porn is just managed to figure out a way to slip into the cracks and just destroy us. So that's the other thing.
Andrew Love
I remember hearing somebody describing porn as like even the devil doesn't claim responsibility the devil looks at it was like man, that's messed up. You, humans, are messed up even stuff like that, you guys crazy, you guys went too far. Yeah, because it's the intention to devour like the insatiable appetite of selfishness. Like if you know a lot of people honestly, even in our movement, like we have such an intellectual understanding of God and spirit world and the devil or darkness and all this stuff that it's hard to imagine like what's actually at play, but if you just see it as one force compelling you towards harmony with everything around you, and the other an insatiable unquenchable thirst for self-centered desire at the behest or the like, to the detriment of anything around you the total disharmony and chaos that ensues. Those are two different forces, right? And porn. If you were to put porn on one of those categories, it's very clear which one that fits. There's no harmony. What's the thing that you're most excited about the future in the next year 2021?
Benjy
Well, there's practical but also the more internal, I really want to address the question, and maybe this is something you can answer is in our groups, we've been going into the question of what is porn trying to fill in our lives? Why do people seek out porn apart from it being addicting which is an obvious thing, but what else is it? And it's a question that I asked all the guys, and they have a very hard time answering this question actually can't because they say things like, Oh, it's maybe because of my upbringing, or because of this experience I had when I was a kid but it's not like a true answer. So I want to get an answer to that and help people realize that if you address this one area of your life, then the pornography aspect will just become irrelevant to you, it'll just become an afterthought more and more.
Andrew Love
I just feel its resonance. I know Dr. Yang scratching at this from what I hear but it's also in my studies, I was trying to talk about this with my group the other day, I don't know if it made sense but when you hear a song that you love, and then you start singing with the song and then you find the resonance of the song and get into it, like takes over your body like in that song. You don't notice any other sounds outside of that you're in that song. It's like it takes over all of your senses, and that's the same thing with your life. When you're resonating with your life in such a way that you're so immersed in it. You don't hear anything outside of that there's no need for it, it just feels good, right? When you don't have that when it's just a bunch of static and all that your life is messy and unenjoyable. So porn is really in the absence when people have a lot of dissonance and discord and their life right just like a lot of static and your parents don't make sense, or you're so frustrated and you have all these feelings going all over the place then porn just numbs everything. It's like valium, to your soul just numbs everything else.
Then you start to resonate at the level of porn, which is chaos, like emotional chaos. It's somebody dominating another person and so if you resonate at the level of porn, then it's valued for a while but then you start to realize that you're in a hellish place. Right? I'm just trying to find a way to get people to understand how to create their resit. Like, what do you want to resonate? If you're tuning for don't tune yourself to porn, tune yourself to your hopes and dreams but most people have no idea what their hopes and dreams are. They're just like trying to get by. It's really hard. I don't know if you've tried this Northstar goal, Benji, but a lot of people are struggling with I mean, some people get it and other people are like, I don't get it. What do you mean like happiness? You want me to define happiness? What do you mean? Like, if you could have a day, that was amazing, where you were engaged, and you are filled up? What would you be doing? What would you be doing that day? And it's so hard for people to answer that question because they're so used to just living, I don't know, stress that lives in it.
Benjy
Yeah, that's something that comes across very strongly with folks in the groups is that as a general society, we have very little control over our lives and our time. Meaning that we are kind of from a young age, most people are going to school, through grade school going to work and then it's like, our whole lives are dictated by an agenda, I should be this or I should do this, and by the time we're adults and have free time in the evenings after work, it's like we have no idea even how to tap into our passions. And this is something that I am trying so hard to do with my kids because I have two young kids now is I'm dreading the idea of them being led down that path that I see constantly men and women going down is that life is so boring and typical, that as soon as the day is done, as soon as I close the computer after I'm done working, the only thing I want to do is go on YouTube, watch porn, or whatever. Be alone be isolated, and I'm trying to instill passion and excitement into my kids in my own life. I play Legos, every day. I go jump on the trampoline every day, I go biking several times a week because it's exciting and I try to fill my days in my life with things like things that are just so exciting and passionate.
So the first thing I do think of when I have downtime is I wonder if I can make that thing with Lego with my kids and that's exciting. I'm trying to instill that in my kids so that by the time they're teenagers grown up getting blessed, they have that sense of like excitement rather than life is just taking me by the collar and shoving pulling me around, right? So that's like, kind of what you're saying, I feel like when I asked the guys in my groups when was the last time you felt that resonance that you were just like in the groove and you just wanted to like, like dance and just like enjoy the moment. It always seems to be times where they felt connected with people like really connected with their parents, or with their spouse or with friends like going to GPA or connecting with people or they just didn't feel isolated. Seems to me that the current societal trajectory that we're on is that we're isolating ourselves more and more and that's just fueling the need or desire for things like pornography, things like YouTube and Instagram, and things that lead us down this rabbit hole to eventually pornography. And just wasting time in general. So what I'm seeing is that, how do you fill your lives up more with that guys, like, fill your life with connection with love with passion, excitement doesn't have to be as complicated as being the pastor of a church or creating a fitness app or starting a business or whatever. It is simple. I don't know, getting a ukulele and learn how to play it or I don't know, I keep a ukulele on my wall and I just grab it whenever I feel like singing, playing and that's it.
Andrew Love
No, that's, that's very good advice. I wholeheartedly agree. When you're leading a boring life, you tend to want to be voyeuristic, you want to watch other people's lives. That's why reality television and all that. It's even worse because it's like watching other people's boring lives. Like that's how poor you are. So instead, yeah, creating your fun. The creator versus the consumer because when you're the consumer, you just inherit other people's ideas and inspirations instead of letting God work through you and having your ideas and inspirations. It's exciting to have a new idea, a new inspiration, but we don't even make room for it. There's like no room in our mind because we're just distracted with all sorts of nonsense, stupid crap. So that's great, I think that's wonderful and we're happy to have you, Benjy.
On the podcast, everybody Benjy and I, what we're going to be doing, we're restructuring things a little bit. We're going to have Benji and I talking, once a month we're gonna have a woman's episode, and Carina is going to be heading that up down in South America and we're going to have more interviews for you. We have a whole already recorded so many for this year, we have a lot of really cool special guests, from psychologists, people working in human trafficking from theologians, all sorts of people. We're trying to get a bunch of different perspectives because we want to help you find that resonance, figure out what you want out of life and pursue that and move any obstacles in the way that's all we want to help you to do. So welcome to the podcast, Benjy, everybody, send them emails of love and adoration and give them your support and your Legos. We will talk to you next time, we will be tackling one issue at a time, Benjy and I. If you guys ever have any questions or topics that you want us to tackle, we do requests, we just wait for you to tell us what you want. So Benjy, why don't you say goodbye, and then we'll wrap it up.
Benjy
Yeah, Goodbye, everyone. Keep at it, keep listening, keep doing something every day, you'll be there.
Andrew Love
See ya.
Andrew Love
Hey, Andrew love here, and I wanted to plant a seed in your mind before you go. You see a lot of people when they start to consume our content, they listen to our podcasts, they watch our videos, they read our blogs, they start to believe in the idea of freedom as a possibility for them in their lives, and it is. You can break free from porn, you can build amazing, eternal relationships but it requires you to make the jump. It requires you to commit to transformation and that only happens when you invite other people into your journey. You see, a lot of people think that because I got into porn by myself, I can get out of it by myself and that's the wrong thinking. It's not about simply removing a negative force from your life, it's about creating fulfillment, and connection, and intimacy with other people. So we recommend first and foremost that you build a team of accountability partners, facilitators, group members, and we can do that we have all that waiting for you but you need to first reach out to us. If you already have people in your life that you think can help you, we have online courses that will teach you both how to create a dynamic that works in terms of accountability. But if you don't have an accountability partner, we already have volunteers who are waiting for somebody to help. We have groups that are waiting for somebody like you, but your role and your job are to merely reach out to us and we can work together with you to create a powerhouse team so that you can build the life of your dreams. We look forward to hearing from you.