B'H, Yesterday went well.

Even though, I'm not posting as much as I used too or the posts are very short and straight to the point, I really do appreciate the thanks you as that demonstrate people are reading my "check ins" which helps provide the needed chizuks. 

Yesterday was a good day B'H

you are an amazing person. just read thru your thread now i believe I can do this too... keep it up Tzaddik!!!

joetyh wrote on 19 Jan 2022 16:02:

Thanks for your feedback!  It looks like your new here.  Spent some time going through the forum and begin establishing connections with some of the other amazing members in GYE.  Hazlacha in your journey, I know you can do it. 

Overall, week went well B'H.  Looking forward to Shabbos. 

So as much as it hurt to write this, I had to reset my count to zero...I debated if I really had a fall or not, but felt that this slip was bad enough to constitute as a fall, so I reset my clock.  Given that I had such a long streak, this is was a painful decision.  Now the real battle begins.  See after a fall, a person may think, I might as well just keep giving in since I'm anyway at zero.  But now when in my "after fall" mode and I'm thinking clearly, I know that I am a different person today than I was more than three years ago.  I have re-drawn my red lines and need to be careful not to breach them again.  Tomorrow, when the "after fall" feeling wears off, is when the battle really begins.  I just pray to Hashem, to give me the strength to stay strong and clean.  I'm extremely disappointed in myself, but in the next few weeks, we'll see what type of person I am.  If I can brush this off and keep moving forward, then this will have just been a blip on the radar....

Sorry for your pain and disappointment.

Make sure to read the appropriate chapters from the book the battle of the generation.

You can propel yourself from this fall to reach even greater heights.

Hatzlocha!

So as I try to pick myself after this disappointing fall, I'm stumbling out of the gate...I've had some bad slips since.  Just need to figure out how to get past this roadblock in my journey....IM'H, I'll try post daily for the rest of this week.  not just some one liner or quick check in, but something more substantial. 

I posted these in my thread.. I figured I’ll copy a few here that may be helpful. This should really be internalized.  

There’s often a big struggle that guys fall into after falling.. when they lose they’re streak. Wether they were on day 10,100, or, 1000 if they fall suddenly often they’re hit with a strong blow afterwords of feeling like they’re back to square one. I think this is because in our minds our goal is to reach perfection in this area and the day we’re on would represent how perfect we are in this struggle.. so once we fall and we realize DAY 1 that’s a stab in the chest! I think it’s important to modify and understand our goal! Even if we were on day 10,000 we were never perfect! We might be just like the guy who’s on day 1 who has a tremendous amount of yiras shamayim! Days represents how well our plan is working that’s about it! NOT where we’re holding spiritually! And not how well we’re keeping the Torah in totality! We need to remember not to confuse the two! And therefore if you slipped up and your back to day 1 then you gotta tweak your plan a bit but your not on day 1 spiritually. Your still on the same exact day. And it’s important to remember if your plan worked for many days then perhaps continue the same plan we have to realize we’re never perfect to begin with and if it worked for a long time that’s whats important! Keep that up! we can’t obsess to stop every tiny future thing. Do we do that with other mitzvos?! Take Lashon hara, if your aiming for a plan that’s gonna hold out for the next 100 years then you’ll never be happy with yourself. And you’ll probably shoot yourself after 2 years if you consider yourself on day 1 after slipping once. Unfortunately we do the same in this area cuz we confuse the spirituality goal with the “how long did I not do xyz” goal! Our goal is to keep the Torah to the fullest and this is part of the Torah! And if we fall after 100 days or after 1000 days it makes no difference in regards to that real goal!

Furthermore, we have to be careful not to confuse with day 1 and back to square 1! It’s the farthest thing from the truth! look at the guys that are on day 3,000.. they all had a day 1 on the exact streak that reached to where they’ll holding today! Now take a guy that falls every other day he also is on day 1.. yet his streak cant last to day 3.. how can we say they’re both back to square one once they’re on day 1? They’re totally in different stages! The guy who reached 3,000 days now obviously on day 1 had a whole lot of experience! Of skills that he developed through years of fighting. Lots of insight etc. we’re never back to square one regardless of our day number.

In fact I would suggest to say after a fall if you learn from it and reflect on it, we should add 10 days to our original number because we’re so ahead- we have a whole fall we learnt from.

post #2 
Let’s get rid of the fake goal! And realize our real goal.
Many guys often feel they lost everything after a fall. Think about it this way.. next year will I feel this day has effected my growth? Truth is often no, It won’t. Yet we just drill into the fall and make it feel like we lost everything. Its important to get right back up and continue the consistency! And we won’t even remember this day! However if we break ourselves now and make this a huge event.. surely next year we’ll feel this has impacted our growth.. it stopped our consistency. Our passion to succeed. Etc. I like to often say.. “the fall itself doesn’t REALLY mess up our streak—What we do AFTER the fall messes it up!”

post #3 
Just read this post from davidT I think this should be stressed upon as much as possible!
The truest test of an eved Hashem is davka when Hashem takes everything away from him, such as when he falls and feels no inspiration, no emotion and no Hislavus. That's the moment of truth where a person can ask himself honestly, “am I an eved Hashem because it's my nature and/or because it keeps me emotionally happy, or do I serve the Almighty because that's His will and nothing else?”

The Be’er Mayim Chayim says that in the army, when they would want to test a great soldier to see if he's fit to be a general, they would put him on a wild horse that was impossible not be thrown off of. Although no one could stay on that horse, the test was only to see how fast he would get back up after he was brutally thrown down and wounded! 

Shtarkandemotional wrote on 09 Mar 2022 05:46:

Thank you so much for posting this here!  This really gives great perspective.  When reflecting where I am vs 3+ years ago, There are two major improvements:  1. I no longer "have to" MZ"L when I look at inappropriate contents.  They are two separate issues and two separate battles.  2.  Just because I had a fall or a slip doesn't mean it gives me the license to binge and get it all in before I start my next "streak".

I've stated here many times that this is a long journey that will have many bumps along the road.  And just like a General who goes to war and has to fine-tune his battle strategy when encountering an ever-evolving enemy, so too, in this battle of Kedusha we have to always re-evaluate our strategies from time to time. 

Thanks again for your amazing post.  

I just had a big urge to look.  but then I screamed internally No! and took a brief walk.  Then came back and texted my wife I love you. 

Dave M wrote on 09 Mar 2022 18:59:

Did you take this advice from Yosef Hatzadik?
!וימאן

B'H yesterday was a good day.  I had a couple of urges that I was able to overcome.  It was a great feeling as the day came to a close, knowing that I fought and won the battles that day.  It was my first truly clean day since my fall.  Thanks again to the chevra here for providing much needed chizuk. 

Dave M wrote on 10 Mar 2022 15:46:

The biggest chizuk is when someone like you writes that he fought and won the battles that day so others can follow your lead and keep clean as well. Besides the chizuk, you also get big schar (reward) for being a mezake es harabim!

B'H at 5 days, with the last two days being totally clean.  Still having urges as the images of what I've looked at continues to float around in my head.  It's been awhile since I've listened to "The Fight" by R' Shafier.  But I started listening again.  In my opinion, I still believe this series is a must listen to for anybody struggling in these areas.  Of all the shiurim I've listen too, "the Fight" is the one that speaks the most to me.