I am again posting! I feel in a rut.... When I found this sight post pesach I was so happy after so many so many years Hashem finally gave me this sight so many doors opened I did the 90 days I read the big book I joined this forum and I was finally opening up to the ssa issue I have. I even got a life coach to help me deal with this issues. Then three weeks ago on a Saturday night I fell, and I know I need to get up again but I don't know why I can feel the chizuk that I felt the first time I found this sight. I am having such a hard time moving up the ladder again an I know that don't worry about the past move away..I just don't get why I am not moving up and I really want to, buy why am I stuck in the mud? Any advice? Any practical tips?

The first thing is to keep moving.
I once heard a moshol like this.
Life sometimes vis-a-vis falling is like crossing a marshland.
You find yourself in Mud and you think
'Why lift up my foot if im anyway going to put it back in mud'
Yes, its almost inevitable but the only way you will reach the other side is to keep walking!!!
Hatzlocha!

Evedofhashem25 wrote on 23 Aug 2012 17:49:


First of all, congratulations on going ninety days. Don't minimize it. It's a cognitive distortion called "disqualifying the positive". See the book Feeling Good, by David Burns for a complete list of cognitive distortions, misinterpretations of reality that get people depressed.

You clearly feel powerless over lust. If you were in the 12-step program you could have called your sponsor. So I am guessing you are not in that program, but you are using some of the methods they use, mainly surrendering. Surrendering works, but if you study cognitive therapy you will learn that feelings do not perfectly reflect reality. Rather, they are side effects of automatic thoughts. You have trained yourself to feel powerless when you have an opportunity to lust. When you surrender you don't lust but you also reinforce the belief that you are powerless, because you are behaving as if you are powerless. This belief eventually causes you to relapse.

I see maybe three options:

A. Make up your mind that sometimes you will fall, and then get up again. I find this a tremendous roller coaster and I don't advocate it.

B. Do the surrender thing. Keep the belief that you are powerless. Go to 12-step meetings and get a sponsor. You can go years between relapses doing this. I am not too fond of this approach because it strengthens an unfounded belief of powerlessness. But it has a lot of advantages too. The meetings are great, for example.

C. Try the cognitive therapy approach. Once a day think about how bad it feels after you act out, to motivate yourself. You only want good feelings, not bad feelings. When you have the opportunity to lust think to yourself "I cannot get more aroused unless I choose to lust. The arousal does not grow by itself. If I start doing something engaging before I know it I will turn around and the feeling will be gone." Then have some engaging activity ready. As you do this it gets easier.

I am partial to approach C. The best way to try this approach is to read Feeling Good because it shows you lots of small practical applications of cognitive theHrapy. Once you understand how to apply it you can use it to actually change.

But I think number one is to go out and celebrate. Reward yourself for going ninety days. If you act as if you value it you will start viewing it as a bit of an achievement, and that just might get you back on the horse.

I am not an expert but having gone through this many (and I mean MANY) times I can guess that the reason you feel helpless is because you failed after having acheived so much chizuk so now you feel that if after that much chizuk you still failed what else is there to do.
the answer is to look at what you did as an accomplishment not as a failure. if you realize just how great of an accomplishment you achieved you should be able to go out there and accomplish the same thing again And maybe this time you will accomplish even more.
But don't get discouraged if you don't accomplish as much, its a kind of up and down battle untill the end you just have to keep chiping away at the problem.

Hatzlachah rabbaah