124. Why Isn't Everyone Using Their Pleasure Consciously? with Jeremy Lipkowitz

Why Isn't Everyone Doing This? with Emily Fletcher

Emily Fletcher

Education

4.9 • 529 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why Isn't Everyone Using Their Pleasure Consciously? with Jeremy Lipkowitz What if the thing quietly hijacking your focus, your relationships, and your capacity for joy isn't a character flaw, but a billion-dollar industry deliberately engineering your addiction? In this episode, Emily Fletcher sits down with Jeremy Lipkowitz, Duke-trained researcher, former Buddhist monk, and founder of Unhooked Academy, where he helps men break free from porn addiction and reclaim their inner freedom. Jeremy's story begins at age six and escalates through the rise of high-speed internet until, by college, the habit had become a one-to-two-hour nightly ritual - despite him being a high-achieving student with what looked, from the outside, like a genuinely good life. That gap between the outer and the inner is exactly what this conversation explores. They trace the neurological pathway from innocent curiosity to compulsive behavior, unpack the precise distinction between lust and desire, and name the Viktor Frankl principle at the heart of all addiction recovery. Emily offers the Ziva lens: why you cannot manifest from a nervous system still running on craving and lack, and how meditation is the prerequisite for desire that is truly intuitive rather than compulsive. In this episode, they explore: – The three A's of porn addiction: affordability, accessibility, and anonymity – How repeated porn use hardwires dissatisfaction and chronic lack into the brain – Lust vs. desire — and why you need a spiritual practice to tell them apart – "Pleasure is inevitable. Happiness is optional." What that reframe changes – The Viktor Frankl principle: between stimulus and response is where freedom lives – Why porn addiction is a microcosm of every modern addiction – The two-step exercise Jeremy uses with clients: default future vs. dream future – How the porn industry became bigger than all U.S. professional sports combined Key Moments: 02:08 — Introducing Jeremy Lipkowitz 09:00 — High-speed internet and the moment a habit became an addiction 12:20 — The walk that changed Jeremy's life 14:00 — Lust vs. desire: the distinction that changes everything 26:25 — Between stimulus and response lies your freedom 33:54 — Pleasure vs. happiness: the most important distinction Jeremy has ever learned 43:47 — Bliss is any feeling fully felt 57:00 — The two-step exercise for any addiction 01:00:00 — The billion-dollar industry engineering your addiction About Jeremy Lipkowitz Jeremy Lipkowitz is a Duke-trained researcher, former Buddhist monk, and founder of Unhooked Academy. After completing 20 Vipassana retreats and a monastic ordination in Myanmar, he built a platform to help men break free from compulsive behavior and reclaim their inner freedom. His work bridges neuroscience, Buddhist psychology, and practical recovery tools. Podcast: Unhooked Breaking Porn Addiction PodcastWebsite: unhookedacademy.com This episode is a perfect window into the work we've been building toward at Ziva. The craving, the longing, the thing pulling you toward what doesn't actually fill you — Jeremy calls it lust. We have a different name for it. And we have a practice for transmuting it into something that does. Something new is forming this summer. Get on the list to hear about it first. 👉 zivameditation.com/pages/magicmaker-priority 🔗 MORE FROM EMILY & ZIVA: Join Ziva Magic: zivameditation.com/pages/zivamagic Learn Ziva Meditation: preview.zivameditation.com Free masterclass: learn.zivameditation.com Get 15% off with promo code WHYTHIS: whythis.zivameditation.com Follow us on Instagram: @zivameditation

Transcript

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0:00.0	I recently had a conversation that completely changed the way I think about energy at a cellular
0:07.9	level. And this is something that I think about a lot. Because most of us have been taught to
0:13.4	approach energy by trying to save it or to make more of it, more discipline, more caffeine,
0:19.6	more doing. But what I've been learning is that so much
0:22.7	of how we feel is in fact created at the cellular level. And this is certainly how it works
0:27.8	at Ziva. We heal at the cellular level by removing stress. So when I learned about urolithin
0:32.3	A and how it helps to create energy at the cellular level, I got really excited. So there's literally billions
0:38.5	of mitochondria inside of your body right now, creating energy for your muscles, your brain,
0:43.7	your recovery, your resilience, all of it. And for most of us around age 30, mitochondrial function
0:49.6	starts to decline, which honestly explains a lot. It's why recovery starts to feel different. My muscle
0:54.8	tone can change, while your energy can feel inconsistent, even if you're doing all the quote
1:00.0	unquote right things. So I just found a supplement called mitopure that is like a superstar
1:05.1	that gives your body uralithin A. Now, this supports something called mitophagy, which is like your body's ability to
1:12.7	recycle damaged mitochondria and then support healthier cellular energy. Now, what kind of blew my
1:18.6	mind is that in one of their clinical trials, of which they've spent $50 million doing
1:24.4	clinical trials, their participants saw a 12% improvement in muscle strength in four
1:29.6	months with no change to their exercise routine. So imagine taking a supplement for four months
1:35.4	and your muscle tone improving, but you did not change your exercise routine. Now, I've been taking
1:40.1	these for a few months now and they're gummies and I genuinely love them. They are soft.
1:45.8	They don't get hard after a while. They're sugar-free so they don't rot your teeth. They're easy to
1:49.4	travel with. And I recently had this shaman come to my house and he saw them in the cabinet and he
1:53.7	was like, oh, that stuff is the shit. What I appreciate about timelines approach is that it's not
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