For years I had a cyst on my chin that I ignored. It started to slightly increase in size, so I decided to have a local MD remove it. It was B"H benign, but because it looked really gross, and wasn't healing well, I have to keep it covered for another two weeks. in the past, that would have been a trigger-but since I have been here, so far so good, and I am striving to remain Tahor-for the longest period in my life.

Tomorrow is Erev Hoshannah Rabah-but if you work during Chol HaMoed-there is a huge adjustment from the atmosphere of Yom Tov to work. In the past, just a bad work day would have set me down the rabbit hole of porn and masturbation-even if I had been clean during Chodesh Elul and the Yamim Noraim. B"H I was Tahor today and I intend to remain so with the help of the chevra here and my Eshes Chayil.

Awesome, keep up the great work! And of course, KOMT! !

For those of us on the WEast Coast, locales like NYC are shut down. That means lots of time not to just surf the web but to channel surf as well after you have been inundated with the storm coverage. I just flipped the channles and stopped for a second on a "free" cabel station that had a pritzusdik remake of a pritzusdik foreign film, looked at the title and one picture and quickly moved out and zapped the idiot box off. That split second cound have been a trigger but I was able to recognize that for what it was and quickly turned off the TV.

That's awesome! You rock bro! KOMT!

I can´t believe that!
You can not be clean all this time!
Impossible!



What´s your secret?

One Day at a Time!

I look at the 90 day chart and Wall of Honor as very similar to the daf Yomi-something to work on one day at a time within a seder-what you do from when you get up to when you go to sleep with no time to get down about the insignificant things in life. When someone sits down on the subway next to you and is either reading or watching something that is simply obviously inappropriate -get up and walk away. When you go to sleep, train yourself to keep your hands either outside of the blanket or as far as away from your Aver Hazacrus as possible. When you are alone, ask yourself whether you really to go online, and try going to sleep at a normal hour. I don't susbscribe either to social media or have an Ipod except for the Daf which I do on the subway. I was offered and turned down a Kindle, etc and a smartphone-I don't need the toys and I like the feel of a real book or sefer. I also never go online when I get up in the morning-that is a real trigger for me. I am very aware of what is a trigger and avoid them as much as possible. Every day in our shmutz satiated world is a challenge, but with the help of my therapist, my Eshes Chayil and the chrevra here, I feel far more mentally and pyschologically equipped to recognize that I acted out over things in life that were truly insignificant.

A simple idea-if you are like me and enjoy football, you plan on watching the Super Bowl. However, I haven't and don't plan on watching the always pritzusdik halftime "entertainment."

Awesome.
That's a real recovery.
I like what you say to have a Seder.
But leave everything else? Is so expensive the price of recovery?

Recovery is expensive, but acting out is way more expensive, so I think we all get a good bargain here.

a great secular conservative economist once noted that there is no such thing as a free lunch. As in all areas of life, nothing , not even the smallest steps forward , can be achieved without swarting the details and realizing "no pain,no gain."

For me, Seder in all aspects of life is a rule that has to dominate every aspect of my life-the opposite of seder-hefkerus-leads to anrchy in all aspects of life.

I'm all in favour of planning and order. I am working on what I might call insurance...procedures to adopt the next time something unexpected happens. Physically withdrawing from an unexpected trigger, where possible, is an example of what I'm trying to describe.

Last night, unfortunately, I was in a situation where physical withdrawal was possible but undesirable, at least to me: a dinner run by Chabad. Typically, Chabad holds a service followed by dinner, and the majority of students time their arrival to avoid the former but enjoy the latter. Among the students are the few (thank Gd) who dress immodestly. I would rather live in a free society than one with Saudi-style "modesty police", but the price of so doing is working out how to cope with immodesty. Mentally lecturing myself (what a pervert I am! I'm old enough to be her grandfather!) didn't help. What did help was, obviously, averting my gaze, concentrating on slow smooth breathing, and telling myself that the individual was simply a slave to current fashion and to be pitied.

Mentally lecturing yourself that you're a pervert, or anything along those lines aren't going to help very much.

Try to prepare yourself mentally before you go to the event that you are likely to encounter this kind of situation. Decide how you are going to deal with it before you get there.

Thoughts that can help are:
These girls are people just like me. They deserve the same kind of respect that I would like to receive. If I need to interact with them, I will make eye contact and talk politely. If I don't need to interact with them, I will look elsewhere. They are not there for my viewing pleasure, therefore I will not look at them for my enjoyment.