i dont exactly understand, either you LOOK in her eyes, or you DONT look in her eyes?

Your eyes are pointing right at her, but they are unfocused, so you are not seeing detail. It takes some practice. If you wear glasses try to concentrate on focusing on the surface of the lens.

I've heard of people looking over her shoulder, so it appears as if you are looking at her, but you are not.  I read about a talmid chochom who'se wife taught girls and so they had them as shabbos guests.  He trained himself to do this.

That said. Better to look down or away unless you have no choice.

when i used to work in the retail outlet, i used to imagine as if the "shem havayeh" in red firey letters, are burning in front of my eyes

Have you tried imagining that she is a real person, is not interested in you in the least because she has a real life, and that Hashem loves her as much as He loves you?

Thanks, all great advice, I don't know how practical....I ended up looking down and away and I think she was offended.
dov wrote on 13 Sep 2011 16:07:

I did, I did...I went behind a corner and prayed that Hashem should bless this child of His, similar to what we've discussed before...
It's not so much the face, or that I get an idea that we may get it on....I am slightly more mature than to think a person shopping would look into my beautiful eyes and run into the back room with me for a nooner...It's what they are not wearing, and the general appearance that is a powerful trigger, the one that makes me run into a backroom by myself....  When Gevura shby is in shul and looking at people's faces it has a lesser effect I think than when he is in the mikve. Where I live, people's faces are secondary to their exposed bodies, and when they make a small talk, and a little posing, and slight flirtation is what gets me to loose my mind.
The next step is, of course, to find a similar looking person on a video doing something I want to do, and then it's just matter of seconds till I fall.
So NOT looking at all is where it's at for me. I cannot have a person like this anywhere in my line of sight. Not focused, not out of focus, not looking at their shoulder, or above it, because I take in an entire image and then my poor head runs with it.
I did OK yesterday - as soon as I saw a silhouette I went in the back, and davened, and posted on this thread, and then avoided looking in her general direction even as she stood right in front of me.
But I was shaking in my boots (and above) because I knew what I was missing out on seeing, and it was very hard. I was afraid I would look and set myself up for a fall.
I can't function like this, I can't do business like this, I can't live this. A vision like this would be a welcome break from the routine and a great fantasy to pleasure myself to later in the day or immediately afterwords, depending on circumstances. That's not how I want to live.
I read today that "kin'a koshe k'sh'oil" which I loosely translated as "lust is living hell".
I've been living in hell for too long, now I want to get out, but I'm still in hell. I am a dry drunk. I don't act out (41 days today, I think I'm at my all time high or close to it) but I completely melt down when faced with a challenging sight.
I pray that Hashem takes away this battle....but He is taking His sweet time.

mottel- GEVALDIKKK...

Dont think long term- you did it yesterday and you can do it today again with hashems help.

I hope it will get easier as you get further away from the old routine.

You are correct SHmiras einayim is the key because once you cross that its a matter of time.

Hold strong, you did it once you can do it once more.

--hm

mottel, we are in the same boat truck. It's not just shul, it's not just faces.....It's everywhere, for me it's both genders (one much stronger than the other though). It can be a face , just the smile or the eyes or the hair, it could be the clothes and the way they fit, or just the general shape....I think clothed is actually worse than not sometimes, because it's all fantasy, and we can imagine perfection even whan it's not really there. And then it's a really short jump to want to BE him, to want to have his youth, his vitality, his good looks, his easygoing friendship with his peers, all the things I never had and still long for. And then it's all downhill from there.......
The only solution is to not look, when I have to see I have to tell myself that the past is gone and I have to be happy with what I am and not try to connect to impossible dreams. But sometimes it's so hard......

sometimes the customer stands just 6 inches from your eyes, its not shiyech not to see, then i used to look on the floor, and, THE HACK, if i loose that customer, zol zein a kaporo, my neshomo is far more important.
its tough, bitter, hard, because i knew her, she was all i imagined
then i had a customer who purposly did movements to attract, then i fell and fell and fell, into p***
i ask hashem to please not to test me

Shmeichel wrote on 13 Sep 2011 21:27:

that's what I'm afraid off, of falling, falling, falling. PLEASE DON'T TEST ME LIKE THIS, RIBAYNEI SHEL EYLOM!

Who says that shmiras eynayim is the key? Ok, it's necessary, yeah, and it is one of the only ways to actually walk the walk and not just talk the talk....and there are many ways to do that, as well.

But to me it seems poshut that the problem is lusting, not shmiras eynayim.

I know what it is like to go nuts over a perfect-looking woman that walks by. I know what seeing porn does to me and how it makes my entire mind change into a sick one, where porn and sex seem truly to be in my very best, bets interest - and Hashem seems awfully crazy to suggest (demand) otherwise.

I know all that from the inside, like you.

And yet it still boils down to lust. If I am wanting it, wishing for it, and often ready to fantasize over it, then I am going to flop practically whenever I see a triggering thing, as you describe. If I am still lusting, then I do not truly believe that orgasm (and sex) is optional. I believe I deserve it, that it is natural, and that I must do it. That it is ultimately my right, as a man with hormones and the right body parts.

If there is not a backdrop of readiness produced by lust, then what else praytell is the answer to your riddle?

So shmiras einayim is a great tool - to help us live without lusting. We are dry drunks if we are still lusting. And what you describe sounds to me just like that. Lust and fantasy alive and well, behind a scenery filled with shmiras einayim and sincerely good, decent behavior. In the end, it will not work.

The tachlis of my shiras einayim needs to be only to help me live real life today and that means free of the tyranny of lust today, and not chas veshilom as an end in and of itself: "I am shomer my eyes!" Big deal. Between the lines:"But I still see many women as sweet (witheld) sex candy; that their greatest value is in being 'hot';  that their body parts are above all, pleasure sources; and the temptations are crawling all over me, nebach." No. This is not going to work, and will not allow simcha even when it does work for a while. Many here and elsewhere seem to feel like "guarding your eyes" is what it is all about. Gevalt, gevalt. Lo sereid b'ni imochem.

Sorry for going on and on again.

obormottel wrote on 13 Sep 2011 18:04:

dov wrote on 14 Sep 2011 23:00:

So you reiterated my point. Now what?
The battle I pray to Hashem to take away is not shmiras ayinaim battle, is the lusting battle.
Seriously. I don't wanna come off as disagreeable, and I know you have a lot of posts to read and reply, but I am crying out for a personalized dose of Dov.
Instead of repeating what I said in different words and berating me in the process, is there no way you can actually offer help? 

I was not "talking to you" and certainly not berating you. You do not know me at all, if you think I am like a crusty old headmaster with a ruler somewhere up where the sun don't shine.

OK, so I may have been too emphatic and surely wrote too much, sorry. But hey, what's new?

So you ask for help on the forum and do a good bit of disclosure here. If we all did that, this world would be a better place for us guys. You may indeed be walking the path of the answer you seek right this very second (and I think you are) though you are unaware of it. Awareness of our success is not me'akeiv, at all. And sometimes, our being aware of our 'method' or progress ruins everything! The only thing that really matters in the end is that we take the right steps. The right thinking and feelings will follow, eventually.

You asked me for something. All I can really offer you is what is working for me so far. And that's the steps, in the fellowship of other successfully recovering perverts. Early on, being in the presence of other frummies was of no help whatsoever. Honesty about my inability to win and admitting my obvious need for Supernatural assistance has nothing to do with Yiddishkeit. It's just honesty. Goyim and Jews Share the need for honesty. And as I have seen, frum addicts have no more honesty than do goy addicts. And honesty is the real 'schoirah', here.

So it seems plain to me that being in GYE would not have been a real advantage to me early on. The fact that what I was doing was assur was actually irrelevant to stopping. And it is irrelevant to staying stopped. In fact, an emphasis on Torah and Teshuvah would certainly have distracted me so much that I doubt I could have made any real progress. Over the past few years, close friendship with other Torah-yidden who are recovering perverts like me has been a great help in my avodas Hashem and even in my recovery.

So if you are vexed by your chronic messing up, then all I can do is share what I have with you. That is all I have really got.

As far as "melting down when faced with this sight" is concerned, the answer to that is shimush talmidei chachomim. By that, I mean getting familiar with and spending time with other guys who are getting freer and freer from lust. Hearing or reading wisdom just does not do the trick, typically. We tend not to 'get it' cuz 'it' doesn't fit with our inner mentality, and often enough, we cannot see our own sick thinking! The only way I know to 'get it' in a way that really works, is by hanging around with recovering addicts, watching them talk, and hearing their struggles and pain, watching them fail and succeed, and sharing that stuff with them, too. Not to hear their wisdom - but to be together with them. The sanity has a way of 'rubbing off' on us.

So what am I saying? I am not advising you what is right for you. Just saying that what is helping me is

1- opening up with other recovering addicts in person (I go to the same SA meetings regularly and have a home group) and being open to follow in their footsteps;

2- working these 12 steps even though I will not and do not do that perfectly; and

3- staying sober at all costs.

If you have read Chapter 5 of AA, then all this will make perfect sense to you. If there is anything in there that seems ludicrous, then you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But I go with simple faith in the personal experience - not in the wisdom or opinions, but in the personal experience - of successfully recovering addicts, of any stripe. And I follow their footsteps. If it does not work for me, I blame it immediately on my mistaken use of these steps, and ask questions or observe until I get it right, be"H. If it works for them, it must work for me, I figure.

So far, so good.

Is that personal enough?

Love, for a fellow suffering person.

Dov

thank you. i was nodding in agreement most of the time.
it was personal enough.

Now we have some work to do, thankfully it's only in bite-size pieces. Let's roll up our sleeves (I am right now)..... OK. There. Onward. Never backward (cuz there is no such thing as backwards whether we'd like to imagine that or not).

Seeya.