BEAUTIFUL!!!  Ashrecha!

WOW!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!! 

Gibor!

Amazingly breathtaking glorious!!!
The first half of the story, | relate to well  , it's the grand finale that I find fascinating!!!   

May be hope for me too....

Gosh!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a real Yosef HaTzadik story. No question.

Wow thank you so much for sharing this story. So much inner connection, so in tune to yourself. The thinking, the determination (which went both ways).

Wow wow! I’ll be the first to give you a kvittal. You’re a real Tzadik!

I’m so inspired.

My dear friend, IWLR, you take my breath away, time and again. Literally unreal!

Veru special! This is a message that we can all learn and take inspiration from. Sometimes we wonder how we can get away from ourselves when we want what we shouldn't, truly and deeply. Scares me, I do sometimes. 
You are showing us how we can get in touch and connect to a deeper part of ourselves, and find motivation and deeper desire... This is special and inspiring. I work on this too, getting down to the bottom of what I want, and then deeper.

Have you thought about maybe what caused you to drift in the direction of the negative in the first place? Triggers? Fatigue? exposure? Negative thought patterns? There may things there that are good to understand. 

I am wishing you my heartfelt, deepest Brocha to keep climbing higher

לחיים!!

Been lookin' high and low for an excuse to have a long awaited L'chayim.
Gentleman Jack is now fair game.
Brother, you're a hero in more ways than you know

Although less than a week ago I was just a few clicks away from watching pornography, I find myself this week many miles away. I keep replaying the thoughts that passed through my brain last week and I'm truly amazed at what I was able to accomplish. I have learned (the hard way) how easy it is to get sucked right back in, yet the fact that I was able to overcome the temptation blows my mind. I'm the guy (amongst many of us) who honestly thought there was no way out of the struggle. I'm the guy who pretty much gave up hope on ever living life without being pulled in all directions, and yet I had an opportunity to watch some good stuff, and I was ready, and about to... and then I didn't. And I didn't just put up a firm NO, I actually changed my mind and decision. I decided that I WANT to not watch the porn. And that's what happened. This was probably the first time in my life that I had such a close call, and yet I pulled out of it with happiness. A few months ago, had I held out and not watched porn, it was a lost opportunity to enjoy myself and it was not the greatest feeling. Now after having internalized the many lessons from the battle of the generation book, I have learned how to look at a nisayon as an opportunity to feel great about myself. And great I feel!

The quality of my life this week has changed dramatically from last week. Last week I was a total wreck. Crazy lustful thoughts were constantly swirling through my head leaving me no peace. I had no peace when I was learning, and I had no peace when I was davening. I had no peace when I was trying to spend some quality time with my wife, and I had no peace when trying to fall asleep at night. Life became awful and nasty and yet I was "innocently" chugging down the road closer and closer. It's amazing how I was actually going for such garbage...

Here's to 150 days clean - and more importantly - 5 plus months with many amazing and joyous moments (some way harder than the others...) of overcoming the urges, the desires, and the pull to indulge...

#backtotheyoshon

As an update on this past week...

Although I'm still kinda flying high from two weeks ago, the YH had new plans for me this week...

In all my years that I've struggled, I've always gone straight for the porn and youtube was never my thing. This week the YH decided to give me a grand tour of it. It all started with my wife's work laptop coming home way too much this week. Although it's pretty heavily filtered, for whatever reason youtube is completely open. Late one night when all were sleeping the YH convinced me to check it out cuz hey it's not porn and what's the worst you can see on there. Deep down I knew that the one and only goal of this beautiful tour was to find something close to porn, yet I kept going for the ride. The tour went on for way too many nights this week and I think it would've still been going had I not done anything about it.

These "gray" type of things are hard, because there's this thing in my head saying if it's not porn it can't be that bad... Sometimes it's true that what I'm looking at is taka not anywhere near what porn is, however it's definitely coming from that same lusting desire and can't continue. I decided to use the mehalech that has helped me with pornography and b"h I was quite successful. I recognized that I have a deep desire within me to spend hours on youtube trying to find something, and realized therefore how hard it would be to not watch. I thought about what it would feel like if I'd overcome the desire and use that hour for learning instead of youtube. The feeling felt like something I wanted pretty badly. I chazzered this (out loud actually - when no one was listening) over and over dozens of times. Recognizing how badly I wanted it, realizing how hard it would be to not give in, and imagining how good it would feel to overcome the desire. As an extra incentive I decided to stop by a store to buy a little treat to eat while I learned during those late night hours.

B'chasdei Hashem the plan worked amazing! One night some ice cream, another a thing of candies and for an extra late thursday night seder I bought some chulent.

Bottom line - the YH never sleeps, always cooking up something new to keep me on my toes.

#משכהו לבית המדרש (or feed him some chulent)

I hope the cholent at least tasted like catered cholent. Although if you feed it chicken cutlets with the cholent, the YH will be in 7th heaven or at least your stomach will be

Ah! Our realest friend at his best!!! keep it up! You are my inspiration!

Keep up the good, real work, my friend. 
And yes, the Heilige Torah helps, when harnessed (with cholent). (It probably could have been Kidai to muster up the Koach to discuss what you were going through, online or off, with a chaver , during the week, if you could…)
Keep trucking, you’re an inspiration. 

I mentioned in a recent post the burning, red-hot hatred I’ve developed for YouTube, or more accurately for myself on YouTube. I’m going to take this opportunity to rant for a minute on your thread. 

I pride myself on being a person of thought and ideas,  of emotional conviction and of spiritual aspirations. And I am, BH. Most of the time. And yet, when I “need” to look up something on YouTube, this is what inevitably happens:

The site so helpfully offers a feed of related interesting videos on the side, and I feel a desire to click and watch them. And I, towering paragon of ideas and virtue that I am, inevitably begin to create convoluted chains of reasoning to justify watching clips that will show various flashes of female skin. All of a sudden, i become a person who would consider it a great accomplishment to actually see a random woman’s cleavage or more of her body. Hurray - some breasts- yay! Now what?!? So I saw, so stinking what?!?! It’s completely pathetic, from the perspective I was standing in 3 minutes earlier. 
This experience is sickening, and it stinks. 

Yup, I know I’m human. I have a Yetzer Hora, that longs for fleshy pleasures, including dumb lusting over random semi-revealing video clips. It’s a fact of life. And an opportunity for growth etc etc etc. So I avoid it. BH successfully for a long time now. I am happy about this. (And I know what TBOTG says about Nisyonos and their reward, and I agree). 

But I hate to feel how easily I can be reduced to mewling organism, pathetically pulled by his gonads to gawk at stupid clips just because they show a flash of skin. It diminishes me in every way.

So I stay the hell away from YouTube. 
Haven’t browsed it for about 9 months, praise God, (except for a few clicks). Because even seeing the links to suggested videos in the sidebar will remind me of how weak I can be. I don’t want to meet that side of myself. And he’s getting weaker, as time goes by. I am growing and I don’t often meet that guy. BH! 

So, I hate YouTube. 
You should too.
הרחמן הוא יצילנו מן היצר הרע 

אנא, תן לנו באור פניך רחמים וחיים ושלום

I am, now and always,
a man whose eyes are searching yearningly for the real Chaim.

I have found 613tube to be very helpful. No links, nothing innapropriate, only what you need. (This message was sponsored by 613tube)

bright wrote on 20 Feb 2024 14:04:

Techloq also offers to take away all of the suggested thumbnails and the home page thumbnails.
Did this to my wife's computer for myself. (She was maskim even though it's a little annoying, but it's good for her too, honestly)