What an inspirational fall

Ok, Ok, Let me explain, Give me a few minutes and I think you will agree with the title.

I just had my first real fall since joining GYE, and I have a few truly inspiring points to make.

I think it will benefit greatly for all those that are in the first couple of hundred days of staying clean and have falls here and there, likewise, It will be a tremendous chizuk and help, if you could comment, what you think is true, false, ideas tips and so on.

I apologize if it’s a little long, but a couple of minutes of your time, will perhaps change my life, so let’s give it a shot.

I would want to write about two topics, #1 what is the meaning of the title? Why am I so positive of this past day although I fell? An interesting gedank, that I had!

#2 A very interesting thought I had about why I fell (although life is good, and I was clean for 104 days) and How I think I can improve to decrease my chances of falling, connecting it to last week’s parsha!

In regards to the fall!

This is the first time I fell since I found GYE for the first time, In the past when I used to fall, I used to feel terrible, I felt like I deserve to be destroyed, I was scared hashem will take “revenge” on me (c”v), I was sure that I will never ever be able to get out of this and grow, because I had just recently promised myself “Never Again” and here I just fell again etc.

It’s a tremendous bad and lost feeling like many of you relate to, and even more than that, it always felt like I am starting from scratch! Although I knew in my head that every time we don’t fall, we become stronger and even with a fall, we still grew, it was very hard to actually feel it, I did not have any actionable data, to prove it and simply by thinking about it did not to much.

But this time around was different, VERY different, let me first explain the hours leading up to my fall.

When I joined GYE, the first thing I did (and highly recommend it), is I did the Taphsic Method, I made a shevua, the shevua was as follows, - If I don’t do anything before my fall, I need to give $1200 to GYE, Go to a certain place and say the entire tehilim & be out of my office for 6 hours (It’s a hard one!) – however If I do the following things, 1) I spend a few minutes on GYE 2) I talk to my wife for a couple of minutes 3) I listen to dovi shiurim for 15 minutes outside of the office 4) I go to a certain shul, and spend 45 minutes there, while learning gemoro for 15 minutes, - If I do all of those than I need to only pay $200 for GYE (It hurts my pockets!!), spend 2 hours out of the office, and go for a walk for an hour.

Ok, so that’s my shveua, it was and is a real-life saver, every time I had a hard day or some strong urges came up, this is what stopped me!

Leading up to my fall, obviously I had to implement all of these things, likewise I also did some thinking, and realized that the main reason I have such strong urges is because I am not feeling fulfilled, and having heard on one of dovi’s shiurim a great point, that setting small and achievable goals, will results in more fulfillment and more simcha, while setting large goals will result in depression and lack of fulfillment, and after hearing it, I immediately realized that this is my problem, I am a “large” person and set huge goals, in ruchniyos, learning, davening, shalom bayis, simcha and in business, and that is one of my main reason I felt a lack of fulfillment {More on this soon! Very important! So keep on reading}

So, Here is the event leading up to my fall at around 10:00pm at night, I first started with a series of small goals that I set for myself, to be able to feel more fulfilled, and I set a new one as I finished the last one, first was about doing something big for my shalom bayis, I told myself, you could do whatever you want after it, all I ask you is to say this and that to your wife and do this and that, it will take 3 minutes, THAT’S IT! – I did it! And felt fulfilled, then I decided I am going to learn for 10 minutes, THAT’S IT!, I did it and felt good and fulfilled, Then I told my wife I have 10 Minutes to help her, what should I do!, I did it! And Felt good, Then I Went to the office and set myself two small goals to get done, and I did it!

Point is, by the time an hour and a half went by, my desire to fall decreased dramatically!!! Because I felt much more fulfilled simply from the few small things I did and those tasks were set in advance to fulfill me once done!

But, I still had a desire to fall, but I had to apply my shevua, There was no way I am going to be pay $1200, it will break my bank! – So I started the process. I went out of the office and listened to 2 shiurim of Dovi’s recordings, WOW!! Is all I can say, Everyone MUST be on those, I am literally addicted to them for the last 18 hours! Truly inspiring, positive, pleasant, to the point and who knows what.

Then I spoke to my wife, and had a nice conversation, which made me feel even better – Lastly I sat down to learn for 20+ minutes gemoro rashi! Isn’t that ironic! I was learning as a hachana to sin… - but this is exactly my point!

By the time the 4 hours of “preparation were over” my desire had decreased so much that I was nearly sure I will not fall! {In the back of my mind I was worried that If I don’t fall, I wont renew my shevua that expires tomorrow, but If I will then I will renew it…. It’s a twisted thought…}

And then I fell!!

But here is what my point is – Unlike falling in the past, now I fell with a tremendous hachana! It sounds ironic, but I think its true and important, Falling is part of the cycle, שבע יפול צדיק וקם"  “ However a fall that has no impact, that leaves us with no lessons and no plans is a shame, a fall that makes us grow is something else!

I had a very interesting thought and I am truly interested to hear feedback on this – I once heard from one of the Ruzhiner rebbes, why is hachana to a mitzvah so important, we see by chasidim we make a big trusk about it, so far that we know “ the hachana to the mitzvah is even bigger then the mitzvah alone” why is that so.

So he explained, that is a mashal to someone that wants to light a fire to warm up his body, he knows that even with a fire he wont get warmed up unless the fire burns for a longer period, and he can get warm over time, that’s why before lighting the fire he prepares some thick and strong pieces of wood, that will burn for a long time once lit, however if he only prepares a few thin twigs the fire will be out in no time.

The nimshal is, the mitzvah is the fire itself, when a person does a mitzvah he starts a fire, however the thickness of the wood, will depend on his hachana, if he will prepare himself well, במחשבה דיבור ומעשה then once the fire hits when he performs the mitzvah the fire will stay on for a long time and keep him warm at all time, however without a hachana its like a few little twigs that caught fire, and after some time it will be gone. – It’s a strong and thoughtful point.

As I was “preparing” myself last night I had this thought, that by an averia it’s the opposite, when someone just does an averia without thinking anything before hand, with out at least trying to stop it, then his body which is a big chunk of chomriyos, will catch fire of the averia and keep burning with all of its after effects, like depression, averia gorreres averia etc. – however if we work on ourselves before an averia, we try to stay strong and not fall for it, the חומריות  of the body will decrease, with every effort we make to stop, the thick piece of wood, becomes smaller and smaller, our חומריות  becomes like twigs that even if c”v they catch fire, they will quickly diminish, and turn off, so the hachana helps on both ways.

And this is exactly what I felt, Although I had strong urges and I fell for them, the fire only lit up some small twigs, by the time I fell, I was pretty much uninterested at least in comparison to a couple of hours ago.

So, What do I want to say about all of this – First, It’s a tremendous zechus to be part of GYE, It does not guarantee that you wont fall, but if you implement and use the tools, what will happen is that the fire wont light up much in you.

Second, I want to point out, that this time around my fall was 104 floors higher then last time – last time I felt I am at ground zero, now I feel I fell but I am still on floor #104 – in the past I could never feel it, now I truly feel it!

Therefore I encourage to use and implement as much tools as possible, simply because your fall will have such a smaller impact and with each “הכנה דרבה” before a fall, the חומריות שבגוף  will become smaller, thinner and eventually be easily defeat able!

Now I want to quickly move on to the next point – Why I think I fell, and What I am going to do to prevent it.

To keep it short as possible, After some thought, I think that in order to continue this fight well, we need to focus on 3 different fronts:

1)    Create a shield, gedroim, we need fences in place to stay clean in hard times
2)    We need to work to prevent the urges taking us over, have the kochos to fight it when it comes up
3)    Continuously proactive inner growth to connect to higher spirits and increase our level of connection to hashem to have a proactive defense system.

Thinking about it, before going in to detail, I realized that it connects with last weeks parsha, parshas vayishlach, yakov was afraid of eisov, we all know that eisov is the mekor hatuma and all the “good deeds” he did, and us yakov which is yisroal need to fight this.

So yakov fought with 3 fronts
1)    He prepared a war, he sharpened his knifes, he built shields to protect himself from the incoming missiles, he built fences and and different gedroim to make sure that he wins
2)    He then worked on preventing the enemy, how can he prevent the enemy of attacking, he sent presents, but the core point is the prevention, he did things to prevent the enemy from attacking,
3)    Lastly, he davened, he grew his inner soul and strength and became closer to hashem, and that’s what calmed him down and he no longer feared שמא יגרום החטא

I think these 3 points are exactly how we need to fight our own eisov, and in a little more detail.

#1 : First thing we must have gedorim, we must build our shield and do what we can to stay safe, in my case doing the taphsic method, counting to 90 days etc was one of my most powerful tools, but everyone should find the things that work for them.

#2 : Next, we must prevent the eisov from attacking, yakov did this through sending matonos, in my case I know that the main reason why I fell is because the last week or so, I had little success in many areas in life, and the main reason being, because I set my goals to high, I had to little satisfaction, My simcha level was low, and I was not fulfilled, but there will always be ups and downs, however just through simply setting smaller goals and more achievable goals, I can easily feel fulfilled once I have done it, I proved it last night and I know that this will help me prevent the eisov from coming again.

#3 : Daven more, connect more to hashem and grow internally, - The last few weeks, although I updated the chart, I still did not spend enough time daily on growing and staying clean, Joining the call of dovi is something I will be doing moving forward, Spending more time, listening to divrei chizuk on a daily basis, and davening on these things will def improve the probability for staying strong.

So, to conclude, I think I did very well with #1 – not so with #2 and #3, therefore moving forward I will continue to work on preventing the urges, mainly through feeling more besimcha with setting smaller goals in everything in life and feeling more positive, and also spend more time daily on growing, listening and being a more connected person.

If you made it till here, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and would LOVE to hear anything you have to say

Thank you and may you have a great day!!