Welcome, friend!
Glad you're interested in the Good & the Free.
Here's what we're all about.
Who We Are
The Good and the Free offers education, coaching, and healing experiences for men's wellness. We specifically use the challenge of unwanted porn use to embark on personal development to end problematic behavior, improve relationships, and cultivate self-leadership.
We are a band of brothers - a group of men who are... well, good and free.
That may conjure up images of the Pope or Sir Galahad. But rest assured, we're pretty ordinary. We are dads, husbands, and single men who:
- Go to work
- Enjoy family time
- Goof off with our buddies
See? Pretty ordinary. Of course, we have our shadow side too. We're men who:
- Cuss while playing pickup basketball
- Play video games too late into the night
- And yes, even watch porn at times
So I suppose our community could be called the Bad and the Bound (don't love that, except as a great title for a Western...). But in our best moments we also:
- Hustle at work so our kids have a better Christmas
- Actually do stop to help the lady with a flat tire
- Hold our lover's hair back while they puke
And it's this final category that's most meaningful and effective to identify with.
What We Do
Ordinary though we may be, one thing we do is the Work. This space is all about men who invest in the project of self-development and crafting better relationships and lives.
- Coaching, course work, therapy, and community are the workshop.
- Awareness, honesty, risk, and discipline are the tools.
- Integrity, love, inner peace, and the Vital Life are the products.
Many of us begin this Work because of deep pain and rupture from unwanted porn use. And sometimes the work starts with confronting the issue head on - getting honest, focusing our environment, habit-breaking. But often the Work becomes more about listening to our lovers, leading our chaotic emotions, and befriending ourselves.
The Good and the Free Values
Autonomy
Every man deserves to choose the details of his life (read: freedom). All options are on the table - you may find it important to consider divorce, a faith transition, or conscious porn and masturbation. Of course, you'll also need to consider the raw work of intimacy, deep belief, and wise restraint.
Support
As a group, we've got each others' backs. You're gonna find a lot of affirmation and encouragement. But also honesty. Your choices are yours but candid feedback goes a long way when you're 80% full of (sh)it. The end goal here is to ensure you have a group of unique yet like-minded men to grow with.
Depth
We're gonna cover the fundamentals and take a direct approach on your challenges. However, for true personal development, you're gonna need more depth than the typical program proffers. We rely heavily on profound principles of mindfulness, nonresistance, integration, and self-leadership. Expect paradigm shifts and challenging practices. That means:
- Bad behavior isn't a problem, it's programming to rewrite
- Porn ain't evil, it's feedback
- Sobriety's great (when not repressive), but it's not the point
- Eroticism is not to be controlled but to be channeled
- You're the authority, no one else
- You're good and free NOW, not later when you've vanquished your demons
My Story
I'm Taylor Chambers. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in men's issues, especially unwanted porn use and it's relational ramifications.
But beyond that, I've spent much of my life questioning my goodness and neglecting my freedom.
The beginning.
Because of my religious upbringing and my heart for righteousness I accidentally slotted sexuality as sinful. That worked until around, y'know, puberty.
My baseball team found out I'd never seen a naked woman; this blew their minds and called my orientation into question. On a tournament trip the guy next to me on the bus read a Playboy while I fixed my gaze out the window. They even threatened to tape my eyes open to force it on me. But follow-through was not their strong suit so... crisis averted.
I had a strong sense of integrity coming out of that season; I had resisted the temptation that every single other guy had fallen to.
But sexual curiosity was a flash flood I could only dam for so long.
The conflict and the Work.
I started shamefully viewing porn and immediately started my arduous path on the track of addiction recovery. This represented years of earnest engagement with hit-and-miss results. It wasn't until my girlfriend broke up with me years later that I dove into the Work, took risks, made investments, and reorganized life in a deeper way.
A lot of good came of that. Behaviors shifted, I developed coping skills and discipline, and it provided a structure for me and my girlfriend (then bride) to operate from.
I pulled together over five years of sobriety from masturbation, porn, and any other form of sexual acting out.
I began my career as a marriage and family therapist, sought training in sexual addiction, pornography addiction, and betrayal trauma, and began to help others in their addiction recovery journeys.
Then... (you thought that was the end of the story, didn't you)
The perfect storm.
All within a few months I had my first baby, my dad unexpectedly died, I lost my job, then my marriage gets rough, and BOOM! I viewed porn.
Looking back it feels funny that a few hours of desperation could mean so much. But this really shattered my sense of worth. My sobriety streak was gone (meaning my core goodness was gone), I felt like a professional fraud, and I wondered if everyone would be better off without me.
My worth had been performance-based, and I couldn't maintain "flawless." After this I built up my recovery again but it felt like I was just rebuilding the sand castle, wishing away future tides.
It felt odd to get back on the path that had set up such a major crash.
The rebuild.
So I began the gradual, painful process of deconstructing all my presuppositions in order to repair my foundations.
- Recovery and I had some real talk. I reevaluated my approach.
- God and I had some real talk. I reformed my theology.
- Sex and I had some real talk. I released my suffocating expectations.
- Self and I had some real talk. I reorganized my inner workings.
- Wife and I had some real talk. We renegotiated our contract.
The result.
It's what I call the Vital Life.
- Growth is more fun. It's a project without a grade, a performance without an audience.
- Spirituality is more mine. I've got a rich worldview that's ever-evolving and meaningful.
- Sex is richer. Without the rigidity and fear, sex is a study in expression and self-revelation.
- My internal experience is more harmonious. I actually like myself and am finding my "voice" in relationships, business, and creative pursuits.
- My marriage has heart. We love, hash it out, and adventure together. We're real and close. I feel lucky to do it all with her!
I'm not problem-free; I'm not even proud of each and every moment. Life is not perfect, but it is profound.
My story has been a crash course in learning that the problem I was most identified with (porn) had never actually been the problem. It had never truly made me bad or bound. My goodness and my freedom weren't built by perfect behavior. They were resources ready to be tapped all along.
I hope your journey is smoother than mine, but more than that, I hope you start to recognize for yourself that...
you are already the Good and the Free.
"May your trails be crooked,
winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view."
- Edward Abbey