yosefms wrote on 07 Nov 2024 16:04:

Reb Yosef,

Its really great to hear that you are feeling better about yourself. There’s nothing like a good dose of chicken soup for the soul, served by our dear eerie  !!

That being said, I would encourage you to think about your situation, the proclivity to numb using porn and masturbation, and, specifically, its alarming progression. Making sad feelings feel better (chizuk bl’’az) will probably not help much in the long run. There’s a good chance that there’s a lot of deeper emotional work that needs to happen. A guy doesn’t just pick himself up and visit a prostitute for no reason.

Discovering the underlying triggers that make us do stupid sh*t is sooooo important…I hope I am not sounding like I'm preaching on the proverbial soapbox, I need loads of help with this too. I’m working on it. It takes a lot of effort.

I hope you have tons of hatzlacha!

I totally agree there is a huge amount of deep emotional issues that will need exploring and unravelling and then fixing but I am sharing my wins and getting a filter on the computer is going to help massively, step 1 has to be remove the temptation.  

Hello people,

I thought I'd give you an update of where I'm at.  It's day 12 on the count and it feels like millions of years since I wrote my first post.  Since that post I have spoken with HHM a couple of times which shook me into action and with Eerie every day which has been a huge source of help and inspiration.  The filter on my phone was already in place and working perfectly, a big issue I had was access to my wife's computer which now has a proper filter so the ability of looking where I shouldn't on the computer has been removed.  Obviously the problem goes far deeper than that but No 1 has to be sort out the filter. I'd like to share some great Eitzas that my new friends at GYE shared with me that have been life changing;

1) Benhashem BH said "Work on shemiras einayim. Every time you didn't look or looked away or committed to not look an additional time, send up a quick tefilla asking Hashem for something. Anything. It doesn't matter what you say, just that you are talking to Hashem and that connects Him to your actions." This is a beautiful peace of advice as you're connecting your challenges with Hashem in a seriously meaningful way.  In your zchis I've raised up many teffilos!
2) iwantlife encouraged me to buy and read the book Battle of the generation which I'm in the middle of and would definitely recommend to all. 
3) HHM has given me practical eitzas firstly, put a filter on the internet! He asked me if I would have treif chocolate in the house and if not why do you have treif internet with no filter? No good answer to that question.  Also practical eitzas of relieving stress like going for a walk and plenty of other stuff to calm the body down.
4) Eerie basically anything and everything he says helps me to understand myself and be a better yid and human being in general.  

Joining GYE is definitely the best thing I could have done and I do plan to keep updating this page regularly with other practical eitzas because this entire process has got me thinking completely differently about working on myself/self exploration/discovery  in a much more general way.

yosefms wrote on 13 Nov 2024 11:30:

Beautiful post, Yosef EMES!
That's a beautiful thought from Ben H. If I may add another benefit of doing so. When we struggle with these things, we receive much more negative feedback than positive feedback. Meaning, when we walk in the street, for example, and we looked once for 30 seconds where we shouldn't, but we spent 10 minutes guarding our eyes properly, we still feel like losers. Why? Because the thing we did wrong gives us emotional feedback. We FEEL the negativity. On the other hand, the thing we did right, the not-looking, doesn't give us any feedback, as that doesn't affect our emotions. So, how do we combat that? How do we keep positive, how do we get our wins to process through our emotions? One way is through thinking (what's that? ) Spend time reinforcing how special you are! Another way is keeping track of it, be it with a clicker, a paper with checks, whatever works for you.
And here's is where BenH's idea comes in as well. If we use the opportunity to daven, we can reinforce in our own minds the power of what we are doing, that we are not just not looking, we are doing something positive! We are accomplishing! We have zechusim up on high for this!

Yosef, keep k'nocking, soaring, smiling...and trucking!

yosefms wrote on 13 Nov 2024 11:30:

KEEP ON HOLDING UP THE WORLD!! KOHOTW

Welcome brother. All I can say is, if you got Eerie and HHM on the phone, a kick in the pants from YKW, tips from BH, and IWL, you have a recipe for success. Now begins the real work. Hatzlacha on your journey!