yosefthetzadik wrote on 12 Jul 2025 20:45:

Yosef, how’s is going.
What is M?

HI everybody! Some happy news... I made it to day fourteen, two weeks!

I also am starting to feel different, not so much that I don't have the urges, but more in the sense that I have the confidence in myself to manage them. I have written previously about this inyan. Yet as I travel further on this journey to cleanliness I have come to recognize more and more just how important confidence in yourself when it comes to managing the urge is. The biggest problem is when you think your helpless.

Of course I don't mean chas veshalom that the main thing is to fight head on with the YH. Obviously that isn't wise, of course we aren't meant to put ourselves into a matzav of tayva lechatchila, the best way of fighting is by not walking into the YH's lair. However the metzius that we all know too well about is that you can't avoid him completely, eventually an urge will come and and we have to have a strategy for urge management.

What I have discovered from my experience is that ingredient number one is confidence. The second you think you have no shot, your not in a good place. Once you believe in yourself you can say hey I know I have this crazy urge but I'm not a slave to it. I can do what I want and I wanna focus on something else now instead of listening to the urge. The realization itself is tremendously empowering because for most people even if you don't feel it, your inner ratzon is not to act out, its just that you feel helpeless. 

Just wanted to share these thoughts... Here's to confidence in ourselves forever more, and a week of attaining our goals in kedusha! Thanx everyone for all your support and please help me keep chugging on!

                                          signing off with gratitude Hashem, to all you guys, and my mentors, yours truly jwbf

markz wrote on 13 Jul 2025 05:10:

I can't believe you are asking this question, what are you on this forum for?!? 

"M" Stands for Money!

Here on this forum we try to work only purely Lishma. So when we want to write Prizes & Money, we write P&M.

yosefthetzadik wrote on 13 Jul 2025 11:37:


I’m patient. Whenever you’re ready to spell it out, please do so.

It might help 

While you’re waiting, grab some popcorn and checkout some Dov boosts below 

Hi everybody!... 

So... today for a few minutes here and there I felt a little different. The yh made the sin look shiny and tantalizing for me in a different way then I've felt about it since a couple weeks. BH I didn't fall.

looking back I guess that if I had to say how I didn't fall (besides for the obvious hefty dose of sy"d) I would say I used a combination of tactics. I used my favorite tactic of calmly accepting the urge as taught to me by my great gye mentors, plus since tonight it was looking extra hard, I definitely had to throw in some distraction. Right now I'm feeling pretty safe bh.

 Just posting this bc I feel like its healthy for me to engage on the forum when I have a harder day.

                                                                                        yours truly, jwbf

justwannabefree wrote on 16 Jul 2025 04:45:

What a powerful post - thank you for sharing this with us! It's so inspiring to see how you handled a challenging moment with such wisdom and self-awareness.

The way you described your approach really resonates - that combination of calmly accepting the urge (what incredible mentors you must have!) while also knowing when to bring in distraction shows real growth and maturity in your recovery. It's beautiful how you recognized that tonight called for "throwing in some distraction" - that kind of flexibility and responsiveness to what you need in the moment is such a valuable skill.

I love that you're feeling safe right now, and even more, I love that you chose to reach out and share this experience with the forum. You're absolutely right that engaging here after harder days is so healthy - it keeps you connected to this community and reminds you that you're not walking this path alone.

Your honesty about how the yetzer hara was working differently today, making things look "shiny and tantalizing" in a new way, is really helpful for others to hear. It's such a good reminder that our challenges can shift and change, but so can our tools and responses.

Thank you for being vulnerable with us and for showing what it looks like to navigate a difficult moment with both siyata d'shmaya and practical wisdom. Posts like yours strengthen the whole community!

Hello everybody and gut voch! just wanted to say that bh I've reached three weeks clean. Not going to say its easy every day but I guess that's pretty obvious to all of us on here, there's a reason we need this website.
                      
I will say however that a little over a month ago I wrote this. " I feel like a certain dryness as if I'm almost just joking around because I cant be serious about stopping and deep down a certain voice that says u don't really have the self control". I was coming from a place of no hope, a feeling of inevitable doom to a life of lust. That feeling was based on years of trying and except for one actually pretty long tekufa of success only failure after failure. I had no vision for the future. I can't say yet that I have completely broken that mindset. However I am seeing cracks in the wall.

Did you ever wake up in middle of the night to realize that there is absolutely no feeling in your arm because you cut off circulation by sleeping on it? That is what my ruchniyisdike heart felt like a month ago no circulation, no juice. However, going back to the hand mashal for a second, about a minute after you wake up, you've started to move your fingers and do stuff to get the blood running again. You start to feel just the tiniest drop of feeling almost reminding you that your hand exists, despite mostly not feeling it. I'd say that's where I am now, I have reminded myself that my bikush for kedusha, my innermost uplifted retzoinis are still alive, albeit not yet vibrant. To me that's wort a million dollars. Even if i were ch"v to fall tommrrow, i know that i am alive. ( not my credit at all my friends, its all hashem, his shluchim my great mentors, and this great forum.

                                                                              yours truly jwbf

Wow. The raw beauty of this post.
JWBF, it's amazing to watch you grow and discover your inner self!

This is the problem of not being 'so active on the forums', I totally missed this thread, I'm having FOMO limafrea:)

Reb JWBF, Unbelievable stuff!! 

I loved the fact that you quoted from your earlier posts, I find it so helpful to once in a while go back and read what I journaled here, whether good or bad. It helps me realize where I am holding and how I grew.

KOMT!!

Well hello everybody! 

Unfortunately I had a fall this evening. Obviously that's a disappointment I'm not gonna pretend its not. On the other hand, there's really no time to waste being disappointed, I have a job to do. I need to speak out a few points about the proper outlook I must have and steps I must take. Some of what I'll say is basic and possibly cliché, but that's no reason not to say it, on the contrary it most probably became cliché due to its commonsense.
                                                                   
Here goes: My fall tonight is not a stira to my journey its part of my journey. Real growth has ups and downs that's natural and normal. Streaks are cool but so are fireworks, and life is not about fireworks.

Not only that, if I look back I would notice that my last fall came after two weeks clean, this one came after more than three. So obviously I have made progress, which further proves the point that I am still on a journey of growth despite the fall.

I will add that just a couple days ago I wrote the following :"I have reminded myself that my bikush for kedusha, my innermost uplifted retzoinis are still alive, albeit not yet vibrant. To me that's worth a million dollars. Even if I were ch"v to fall tomorrow, I know that I am alive.  Really I am very happy now that I wrote that. Because I know that whenever there is a fall the YH has a second trick that comes along with it. He blocks the ability to have vision. He makes you see only darkness, not how far you made it, the perspectives you have gained. So it's really helpful that I can look back to my post from a stronger time, when my vision was complete, to give myself the ability to see even now what I have gained.

So going forward? I know now that I'm on the way up, I know all the positive things I just wrote but what must I work on? I think I know the answer. I was working really hard on managing my urges for M. However I was neglecting working on the things that trigger the urges. You see, even the best batters in baseball bat at most in the 300's. No matter how good I get, If I give the YH too many opportunities to trigger me, and more importantly, if I keep feeding him with lust, eventually I'll strike out. I gotta be careful with lusting in the street and in the store. It is integral to the fight and I believe its what caused my last downfall. So the battle with that starts now.  

 There are lot of hard parts to getting up after a fall. mainly your own feelings, number one like I said the YH clouds my vision after a fall. But more then that he tries to scare me. If I fell now and I'm in a weak state who knows how long ill last yada yada yada, and all different types of thoughts to demoralize me. However I have realized that sometimes the avoida isn't to answer him back. It's not about getting into an argument with him and weighing my chances. Its about throwing myself back into the fight without fear and without hesitating. This fight takes bravery and the ability to SAY DAM* THE TORPEDOES FULL SPEAD AHEAD!!! 

                                with love and appreciation, and hoping for yeshuas Hashem for myself and all of us on here,  jwbf

P.S  Another feeling: I'm at war my friends. The enemy struck me a blow. There's no way in purgatory I'm gonna let him beat me and keep me down especially with you guys behind me.

What a beautiful post!

I've got your back, gonna help defend the common battleships against the enemy. 

Now, damn those frickin torpedoes! Full speed ahead!!!

"Aye, aye, Admiral JEBF"

Hello my dear friends.   

I have had a rough week or so. To be honest I've been scuffling. I have not been able to make it more than a few days. I feel lost, just weeks ago I was flying high, now I feel like I have lost my way. When I read some of my posts from earlier, I do not recognize the confidence in which I then spoke. I feel myself slipping back into my old mindset of despair and inevitableness of failure, a most damaging mindset to be sure.

What is my point you may ask? Just to show despair is that the reason I'm here? I have two answers. Number one, I will say that even if I was just here to voice anguish and despair, I ask you to think about what one would do if chas veshalom  faced with a "typical tzara"? Would that person not voice his anguish and despair to his most intimate people, his family?

Of course he would, even if his sharing of his pain would only bring them grief and not help him at all, that's what family is for. Well listen up my friends, you are my family leinyan this struggle. And you know what they say you can choose your friends but not your family, so you guys don't got a choice. So I'm here to share my pain, my burden with you. I do not like it down here in the gutter. It's quite smelly I must say, and nowhere near as nice as it is to be soaring on high. Feel my pain my dear friends, my family, my bewilderment and  confusion as I wonder: will I ever just be free? Free from this degrading behavior, free from the pits of tumah, and most importantly free to soar to the potential madriegos I know I have? Have me in mind my friends, daven for me, you can say I'm davening for justwannabefree, have no fear hashem knows who that is. 

 But I'm not done, all that was my hashkafa rishosoina. At first I was thinking along those lines, that even without a clear toieles I will lean on my family.

But then I realized that there is a toieles. I have come to see that most of this fight is in the mind and based on mindset. Obviously there are actions one must do to be careful but the fight starts in the head. Which means a lot and I will explain. Its true that right now i am feeling lost and in despair. But I have felt like that before and not just in this inyan in other things also and I have seen that with time one can gain back his positive feelings, his sense of determination. So since this fight is based on in the mind, so too can the tide turn just like the mind has ups and downs in its emotions and mindsets.

I know now that the YH has me feeling down, even more down than I should be. I firmly believe that he has an extra power that besides making you fall, after your fall he blocks your vision and makes you not be able to see your struggle in positive light. I will not pretend that I don't feel the despair, I really do. However, even a soldier in retreat should not give up his weapon. Why? Because a retreat is not giving up, dropping your weapon is. So a much more important reason for me to post is because this forum is my weapon or at least one of my biggest ones.

In the past when I fell back into this mindset I would give up my weapon, i would lose touch with my gye mentor, a full blown surrender to the YH. Not this time, this time I will hold on to connection, one of my biggest guns, whether connection with you guys or connection with my mentor. Do I see the way forward right now? Admittedly not. But I know that if I keep up my connection, if I don't dropout, the day will yet come that I will see the way forward shining like a bright light in the sky, I trust that if I don't forsake the fight, Hashem will eventually not forsake me and he will give me the strength. But only if I don't drop my weapons, which is you guys.

General Douglas MacArthur once said after evacuating with us army from the the Philippines to escape the invading Japanese “I shall return”. Despite having just ran for his life and having no clear way forward he promised he will do his duty and return, and return he did. I too, see no way back to my positive feelings of mere weeks ago, to my determination and strength, yet I promise bli'n, I shall return.
                
                                                                                 yours truly, jwbf
                                                                                         

"Yes, sir!"

"We shall return!"

Lieutenant General YT Tzadik
⭐️⭐️⭐️

justwannabefree wrote on 30 Jul 2025 05:32:

Keep you chin up, buddy! I have faith in you - you should too!

Muttel