Hello Everyone, 
Ive been having this question in my mind for a while now, and then i thought why not ask my brother in arms at GYE? So here goes nothing. 

We all know we have to do tshuva in these times, we ask for forgiveness nonstop for the next 2-3 weeks. We beg and beseech hashem to forgive our terrible sins. The basic idea is that we will be judged soon and therefore we want to clean our slate and promise to become better. OK.

My issue is, Ive been struggling like all of you with all of these issues for years and years. And of course, every year this was what i mainly repented for, this was the most severe sin i did. I keep on promising myself that 1 year i will be clean and this will not be what i have to repent for, felling that it makes me a liar since i keep on promising the same thing. 
Now, this year has been my most successful thing in these areas so far.  I gave it all ive got and i found the way to beat this, hopefully for good,. Of course, i fell a few times, but i dont see how i could've done better. I really really really gave it everything. 
The pain of not looking at every women on the street is excruciating for me. Sometime it mamesh hurts. But i fight the urge and move on.  What im trying to say is that ive never gotten this far and it is a real win for me to be where i am. 
So my problem is that i cant seem to feel so sorry this year for my sins, even thought i know that in the end i always had a choice and i did fail a few times, but i feel like saying ' Hashem, as you and only you know, this year i really improved in a lot of areas and made tremendous progress on a lot of different areas, so you see im serious and im here to stay, i know that i could've done better, i just dont know how, and even if i fell i always asked for you help to not fall, ive struggled with my mental health and i begged you to heal me but i didnt get better, those issues are making it harder for me to succeed so it was even harder for me to do, but i did it anyways because im afraid of you and because i wanted to feel better about myself, now i dont know what i can do better next year or how to keep growing' 

I hope anyone here understand what im trying to express. 

Thanks  

Hi
Wow! You wrote an incredible post which many many people here can relate to because we all go through a similar experience.  

Here is a good article that "Dov" once wrote about Teshuvah:

"The very phrases "Hayom al l'vovecha" and "asher Anochi metzaveh es'chem Hayom" in kriyas sh'ma are both darshened by chazal to mean that His proclamation here is new - today is the first day we have heard of it! Now, to me, this is precisely living one day at a time. It is an approach to life in kriyas sh'ma itself. It reminds me each time I say it that Hashem is concerned with how I do today. Not yesterday, nor tomorrow. Teshuva is only relevant inasmuch as it affects today's avodah. Hashem asks for one day at a time - should we ask for more?

Still, there are times that the way we understand teshuva doesn't work. It weighs us down in today's avodah. That is when I need to say, "I guess I do not understand teshuvah right now". Instead, I need to do what works right now so that I do Hashem's Will for me now. It usually turns out that what I thought was teshuvah, was really tikkun, a later part of the teshuva process that is poorly understood and often jumped into by all us guilty types to relieve the terrible burden of guilt we carry. Quite idiotic in my case. And as Chovos Hal'vavos says (right at the start of sha'ar hateshuvah), the definition of Teshuvah is behaving correctly right now even though I have screwed up badly in the past. It is not about fixing anything. Hashem fixes, or helps me fix."

Thank you for you compliment, I can really use it.. im serious....

So what Dov is saying that i tried to do tikkun because of the guilt and pain burden, and this is not tsuhva, what tshuva is, is just keep on doing good and staying the course and not give an inch? did i understand that? 
Also, where can i see more of Dovs on tshuva? 

It's important to remember the goal of the Yomim Noraim focus on our misdeeds. I used to feel like we only think about our sins because all our good deeds don't matter and how hard we're trying doesn't matter, because the fact that I did this wrong means I'm a bad person. Not that it makes sense, but that's the way I thought. (Depression can do some funny things to a person's thought process.)
But in reality, we're not trying to define ourselves to see if we are good or bad. We're just trying to clean up whatever misdeeds we have. That's why we focus on them and do teshuva for them if we are ready and able. (Though of course this is trickier when battling depression and mental illness, and sometimes certain parts of teshuva must be skipped temporarily or at least limited and used carefully.)
​So remember that teshuva is not about deciding how to view yourself, and seeing whether you should feel sorry about who you are or not. Rather, teshuva is just focusing on any actions you would like to get rid of and getting rid of them. There's a completely separate process of how to view yourself, and for that your successes play a major part, especially that you have done them despite all you are going through. (Though sometimes with mental illness it's better not to focus on that at all.)

I feel like just being at ease and happy for once on Rosh Hashana and saying to myself 'good job this year, keep up the good work and i know you will do better this year' but then i get afraid that in heaven they wont like this as it says in sforim that you should never hold yourself worthy of receiving good in this world, everything is just a gift from Hashem, and the sforim are busy that you need to find and search for any bad things that you did. im afraid to get punished if im not 1,000% with everything. 

chancy wrote on 16 Sep 2020 18:38:

I think you are touching on a very important point. This has actually bothered me for a long time.
There are two aspects here, one is what is says in seforim that no matter how much good we do our life is still a chessed from Hashem and the second is at the end of the day what does Hashem want from us, after all he did create us and he did do this chessed of granting us life so what is it that we need to do. 
The idea is, that even if we do what Hashem wants, we still don't deserve anything, however we must also understand that Hashem chose to bestow upon us good and he created a set of rules. In Hashem's "rule book" there is good and evil. 

The way I understand it is that on Rosh Hashanah, even if we do a complete proper teshuvah and we are the biggest tzadikim in the world, we still have to beg Hashem for life because even after all the good we do we still deserve nothing. Since our very existence is a chessed from Hashem we still have to daven for life even after we do teshuvah.
That being said, showing up and asking for beracha without doing teshuva is not very powerful, tefillah always has power, but we want to give Hashem a good reason to give us good as a chessed. 
Hashem does not expect us to be perfect, just to be on the right track, the track of growth.
The word teshuvah means to return to the path that leads Shleimus (100% good) we don't need to be perfect, but we need to return to the path that leads there. 

If we are in a good place and are doing everything in our power to grow, I believe we are permitted to feel good about ourselves and hopefully this feeling of fulfillment will give us the power to grow even more in the future. This is very healthy, we must be aware of our growth and feel satisfaction from it.
At the same time we must also know that we cannot rely on our good deeds because after all our very existence is undeserving. 

I hope this is clear.

Kesiva v'chasima tovah
Wilnevergiveup

wilnevergiveup wrote on 17 Sep 2020 06:02:

Excellent! But let's make one change. Instead of saying "I believe we are permitted to feel good about ourselves", let's say "I believe we SHOULD feel good about ourselves". Many Rabbonim and psychologists have decried our generation's extremely low feelings of self worth. We have to celebrate our accomplishments, even as we realize that we have a way to go...

i agree with you in principle of course. We should all be happy with our Avodes Hashem, at the end of the day we are serving him. Because otherwise, we wouldnt be having this discussion or this website. We are all serving him in our different paths. So we should be happy. 
However, when i think back on my tshuva after a fall, how i cried my eyes out and really did tshuva, it makes me feel bad that i dont feel like that anymore. That sort of tshuva is the real thing for me. Its enlightening and uplifting. Now, i feel like im just repeating the same thing that i said a lot of times already. it doesnt have the same strength to it. 
Im asking Hashem to please help me do tshuva because i have no idea how to. 
Ksiva Va'Chasima Tova for all Jews everywhere. 

chancy wrote on 16 Sep 2020 18:27:

Here is a list of all posts by 'Dov' 
guardyoureyes.com/authors/item/dov-2