Mike Posner Speaks About Letting Go Of Sexual Distractions And Embracing Real Emotional Growth
Mike Posner has recently spoken out about his struggles and personal growth, describing how this personal journey has shaped him. This pop star, known for the hits I Took a Pill in Ibiza and Cooler Than Me, talked about his latest single, Beautiful Day, and how it is really a reflection of his current life.
Mike says he’s reinvented himself on every one of his albums, reflecting his ever-changing personal and spiritual inspirations. He is proud of these “real snapshots” of his life that have marked his personal growth.
“Every album, I’ve just completely switched my entire being based on what felt true to me and what inspired me both musically and spiritually, and it’s been totally worth it. So I’m proud that I have these really honest, real snapshots of my life. They’re markers of growth,” he said.
Mike survived a rattlesnake bite on a cross-country walk in 2019, an incident which he says at the time felt very much like dying. Two years later, he had another close call climbing Mount Everest. But according to him, both were deeply transformative experiences. He said for him, the real reward is in the growth from being pushed outside his comfort zone.
In his words: “I like goals that you know are going to change who you are. The trophy isn’t the accomplishment. It’s actually the transformation along the way. So both those things were so out of the comfort zone of what I was capable of when I set them, and that’s going to change me. That through line of transformation in those larger goals is really exciting.”
Mike’s evolution includes more private challenges-quitting weed and alcohol, for example, substances he hasn’t touched in years. He says those were distractions from emotions that numbed him; once he quit, he could feel his feelings head-on. Over time, he has worked to shed layers of distraction, including relying on sex and pornography to avoid emotional pain.
As he explained, “I stopped smoking weed, gosh, probably 13 years ago and stopped drinking not too long after that. And you just take more and more layers off. Those things for me, it was a distraction. Those things numbed me to what I was feeling.”
“I would use women. I would use sex to distract myself from how I was feeling. I would masturbate, I would use porn. That’s something maybe people say, ‘Well, is that scary to talk about?’ It’s like, yeah, but every man deals with these things — every single one. And so I think that it gives me an impetus to learn as much as I can in my life,” he added.
Last year, Mike committed to several months of celibacy, during which time he began to work through the lingering pain of a breakup. He said he was determined to learn from his emotions rather than self-soothing with casual sex or masturbation. He’s in a new relationship now and feels he’s grown as a man.
His song Beautiful Day is a reflection of this healing process that continuously goes on. “It’s the song I used and still use because after all this meditation and these crazy trips and all this deep work, my old habits are waiting for me every morning…This is a song I put on in the morning, and it invokes, for me, gratitude and points to a rainbow without claiming that the sun always shines and it makes it feel fun to be alive because it is,” he stated.
