My dear Friend, Reb IWLR, I appreciate the warm words. It feels good, honestly. And I want to tell you that you have been such an inspiration to me, you amaze me every time we speak, you amaze me with your beautiful posts, I read through them and became really emotional. Especially about your Friday post. My friend, what you see here is the story of so many special Yidden, who have fallen into deep ruts of bad habits, and with work are succeeding in shining forth with such beautiful colors! Keep up the amazing work, and maybe I'll start learning Fridays, too:)
Your friend forever,
Eerie

Hi IWLR, I like this mehalech, to turn around the thought process to think - I want to feel great by overcoming this enriching thing! As opposed to feeling weak and scared from the challenge. Is that it?

About Fri and your decision,  you can call it being smart. Make smart choices before you get into the ring with the YH. Obviously the yh tries to convince us to go there, not to think etc.

Hatzlacha and keep inspiring us!

Thank you for the post about changing deeply inside - it's an incredibly powerful inspiration to see you actually making these critical changes to become a powerful warrior who is motivated and excited by the battle of our generation!! You are my inspiration and proof that it can happen!!! Thanks for the tziyur chai of joyous victory over the YH!!!!

I rolled into BMG at 9:15 this morning and sat down to write some notes before my Chavrusa arrived. Suddenly, and as if out of nowhere I have this incredible urge and desire for the "good old days..." What I would've done (52 days ago) is walk back home, turn on my computer and indulge in the great delight. However these days I don't fall for the old trick without at least some sort of fight, and so sitting there in the Bais Medrash I got about doing some thinking.

First I thought about all the good I'll gain from not giving in, then I thought about what I stand to lose from giving in but nothing doing I was told. The desire severely outweighs everything I've come up with. I stopped and turned towards Hashem and davened why are you putting me through so much pain??? Don't you know how hard this is for me??? I've been struggling for more than half my life, don't you think that's enough!

As these thoughts were crossing my mind I was hit with a realization which I picked up from my favorite book - the battle of the generation. I realized how much I look at my struggles as something bad, and upsetting and painful. I realized that to an extent I have a complaint and a kvetch, and this is the way I have always viewed my struggles that it's really something terrible and bad and painful and that I wish they'd go away and stop bothering me. However I have recently learned how detrimental such thoughts can be, how they fuel the fire so to speak to drag me down. If I'm barely surviving may as well enjoy it as much as I can! If I'm in so much pain may as well alleviate it somehow. If I'm anyways going to live with this extreme desire may as well give in to the desire if that's what the desire is telling me I must do!

I then chazzered over the yesodos I learnt, Hashem gave me these struggles for a reason, and Hashem knows exactly how hard it is for me. Hashem was not trying to make me feel pain. Hashem gave me these struggles for me to grow and grow. Hashem by giving me these tremendous desires has given me the most amazing opportunity in the whole world. Realizing the tremendous potential in each struggle is truly amazing. Because I am fully aware as to how hard it is to overcome, I am also so much more aware as to how great of an accomplishment it is. I used to think that the only way to fulfill the desire is by giving in to it, I now know and have now experienced the true and the real way to fulfill the desire, and that is by overcoming it. The desire does not come from a direct desire to watch porn and masturbation, rather it comes from a deep longing and craving to feel good about myself. Although I can temporarily fulfill this longing and craving with physical pleasure, pretty soon after, the fulfilling feeling is gone. However, by overcoming the desire I fulfill my desire to feel good about myself, because since I recognize how hard it is I feel good about having accomplished an amazing feat. Feeling accomplished by one's actions are the greatest and most fulfilling feeling in the world, but you just gotta recognize how much of an accomplishment it is. I realized then how much of a gift I had just received from Hashem. Hashem by giving me this tremendous urge had given me an opportunity to feel amazing and accomplished yet again.

wow. it is fascinating to watch how changing perspective and awareness can totally reverse a situation from one of negativity to one of growth. keep sharing and inspiring us.

best wishes
vehkam

My dear friend, IWLR, or Should we call  Reb Living Real, you are unreal! You are an unbelievable testimony to the kedusha inside every struggling Jew, and a testimony to your beautiful desire to break free, for real! Keep it up!

Tonight is כ"ג חשון. Tonight is a special day for me as it was 2 months ago - כ"ג אלול which was Shabbos erev slichos that I said goodbye to a number of close friends. I said goodbye; I hope to never see you again, but both me and the friends knew the goodbye wouldn't last long. I needed my friends. I needed the almost daily seeing them and enjoying them to keep me going. I couldn't live life without them, and honestly I didn't want to live life without them. That goodbye was so fake because we both knew how temporary that goodbye would be. We knew from the goodbye I say every year shortly before Rosh Hashana that I would be back at the latest, sometime during the week after Sukkos if even that long.

However, this year we were both wrong. They were wrong as they betted me back extra early this year probably day after Yom Kippur. I was wrong because I knew I still wanted them and would go back to them as soon as I could.

Baruch Shehechiyanu Lazman Hazeh! I am now two months after that goodbye, two months after I yanked myself out so as to make some sort of little effort in honor of the Yamom Noraim. Two months of being happy, two months of being free!

How though were we mistaken? What changed this year that has allowed me to live without what I so badly needed? After all this was not the first goodbye we've done?

The answer to this question is that I've changed internally. I've changed my mindset and I've changed how I look at my struggles. I used to look at my struggles as a crushing desire that I was too weak to fight against, and I've now learnt (from the battle of the generation book ofc) that Hashem doesn't come to crush us with the desire he built in to us. Hashem is not trying to make us feel pain, and he's not trying to destroy us. Hashem by giving us this strong desire has given us the wonderful opportunity to grow. Hashem by giving us these intense urges has given us the opportunity to feel an accomplishment not known to mankind since brias haolam. I know have 2 months under my belt (that I will never lose as long as I live - and past that as well!!!) of overcoming the strongest desires and urges that exist in creation.

I've been zoche to shmooz over the phone and make relationships with eerie, vehkam, and chaim oigen. Getting to know you guys and being able to share my struggles and thoughts has been one of the most exciting part of my journey. You guys are the greatest!!!

May Hashem help you continue, and may you be a source of inspiration for many others!!!

iwannalivereal wrote on 07 Nov 2023 04:55:

You're pretty awesome yourself based on what I see.
just saying

Getting to know you, and watching you grow and Shteig, has been a real inspiration. 
Keep it up! With Siyata Dishmaya you’ll help many others (in between saying Shiur Klali)  

Wow! I just lived through the strongest urge that I remember having in the past 75 days. The guy just doesn't give up... And what made the urge so interesting was that I don't even know what the guy wanted from me. I mean I know he wanted me to watch porn, and I would've loved to just listen to him, but these days I have a filter on. Plus I have eerie watching every move I make on my computer... (I guess he never met eerie!!!)

Either way what was so fascinating about this urge was that I was reminded how when that urge hits it's not like there's some external something trying to convince me to watch stuff. When that urge hits, in about a split second my whole being strongly wanted to watch. How could I want something that I know is bad for me, and that I said goodbye to 75 days ago? That YH guy has his ways of totally taking over my mind and really convincing me of what I want to do.

Luckily I didn't listen. And that was the second fascinating thing I discovered about myself. Over the past 75 days I've been pounding through the battle of the generation book (on round 2 by now) and it's really changed my life. To my excitement I noticed that although when I first started I really had to think and chazer over the yesodos and ideas in the book in order to properly combat the YH, now it has become almost automatic by me that as soon as the YH starts making me feel that I want x, y, or z I right away switch into full gear thinking about how if I want it so badly this is going to make feel real good when I say no!

Being able to really use this mindset has terrifically enhanced my shmiras einayim as well. Often a nisayon in shmiras einayim lasts for only a few seconds. I'm in the store and a lady is walking towards me, from the time I see her till she passes is 5 to 10 seconds. If I take that first look and linger there for a few, the nisayon has already ended and... on to the next one. However now that I am able to stay focused on how each nisayon is an opportunity to grow and feel good about myself, as soon as I even sense a lady coming towards me, I am able to look away and not focus on her from that first second.

It's been real!

Today was a grey day. 
your post is a golden shaft of light 
that warms me. 

thank you 

My friend, I'm at a loss for words! To see your gevurah, your chiyus, your simcha shel mitzvah, your unreal realness! The growth you have shown us all, and especially those that have been zoche to speak to you, you are such a real inspiration, I really don't have enough words. It's hard to believe how amazingly you have grown! Of course, the YH has not and will not forget about you, or me, (and yes, he has met me..too many times, I'm afraid), but you are full of life, full of geshmak, full of simcha, full of strength, and with the tools you have acquired, you go to battle with a song on your lips. My friend, I'm gonna have to write a poem about you one of these days. 
Keep trucking, my holy friend, and keep letting us know about it

iwannalivereal wrote on 24 Nov 2023 04:41:

This post is an awesome chizuk for everyone - especially for new guys that are joining. BH there IS a way out of this that is rational and that works. The best part about staying clean after an overwhelming urge (which usually causes panic), is that the next time the "tsunami" hits you can confidently say "This happened before and BH it passed, so no need to panic."

Hey there friends - just a little nachas report I wanted to share with you...

Being that my wife is a first class yenta, she always likes to keep her finger on the pulse of who's getting engaged in Lakewood and seems to manage to get "chosson kallah" pictures of every neighbor, relative, friend, and friend's friend. In my previous "life" I would always check out each and every picture, making sure to really take in the "sight". In my new life, I have b'ezras hashem been quite matzliach at not looking at any of them.

Last night, I was sitting next to my wife and she suddenly stuck her phone in front of my face and said look at this guy - pointing to a pic of her friend with her husband standing and posing at a wedding - do you know him? I surprised even myself... instead of looking I jumped almost as if scared from what had just been plopped in front of me, and I just didn't look. I am quite proud of that moment, as to jump instinctively means that deep down it was something I didn't wand to do. Your instincts don't kick in unless they themselves know the danger. I didn't look at the wife, and I didn't look at the husband... I just said hhmm no never seen that guy. For all I know the guy sits right near me in bmg but I wouldn't know. I didn't see the pic!

Being that today was 82 I just realized that day 90 for me will be next Thursday erev chanuka. That means that shortly after I complete day 90 at shkiah I will be lighting the menora... making a shehechiyanu... I'm gonna be thinking about a whole lot more in that bracha than usual! Hope my wife doesn't ask me why I'm getting so emotional!