Hi everyone,
I visited this site years ago, and after finally (after decades) seeing some success in my struggles, I promised myself I'd come back and firstly give you all some hope that it is indeed possible to tackle and win, and secondly tell you what finally worked so maybe if you're a bit younger, it might work for you.
So here goes:
1. This worked from the beginning - Shabbat seemed to be really easy to overcome desires. It helped that you can't use electricity, but the whole environment makes it easy to get through Shabbat without much serious failures. Maybe an inspiration here is to derive some fulfilment that there's one day a week where you're really living the hope. Sort of like with cigarettes - there are people who succeed not smoking every shabbat.
2. Fast forward at least 20 years with not much success in any attempt. Days on days off forever. Super duper frustrating. The inspiration here is never ever to give up the struggle. Don't ever ever kid yourself that it can't be done or that it's "ok". It's not OK and the fact that I couldn't control myself for more than a week - for years and years - doesn't mean a thing. I'm proud that I retained the faith and kept talking to G-d and telling him at the very least the following: "G-d - I know I keep falling, but never for one tiny second have I lost faith or thought that it was ok" and things like that. During this period - talking to G-d, keeping busy, taking up more and more commitments always helps.
3. Nedarim - the learning stage. Of course it's like fire. It's not something you can take lightly in anyway. And of course you can't say an outright neder about things you're not supposed to be doing anyway. But when I started, it helped me get through a week here and a week there. So it seems that there was a lot of power in them, but you can't make a Neder for your whole life, it's scary, it can go out of control and you might forget.
4. Nedarim that worked: Since about a year ago. I started a Neder scheme as follows:
a) I plan to make a neder that lasts a week, every two weeks. So for a year in advance, I know that one week I'll have the backing of the neder and one week I'm on my own. Advantages:
- That way I trick my Yetzer into thinking that I'm going to submit the minute my neder is over.
- I have an improved worst case scenario. My original worst case scenario was that the year would be a mess. Now I know at least I'll have 26 weeks of quiet (and success!) under my belt
- I don't lose respect and caution with Nedarim.
- And I still have to wage full out war on the yetzer once every two weeks for a week.
b) The neder is ingenious: "I hereby vow not to delete any history of what I view from any app, device or website."
c) Later I added that anything I view during the neder week, I wouldn't delete the week later.
d) A further sophistication is that "... Neither will I browse in "private mode" or will I change the search history or browse history settings on any app, device or website"
e) The beautiful thing about it is that it forces you to recognize that just like H' sees everything you do, so do you have these history trackers, so all these neders do is sharpen your awareness that your can't simply delete your history with H'
5. This finally worked for me. The neder weeks went by relatively easily and the non-neder ones were tough, but I succeeded through those as well. I should add that my work load grew, I've taken on a ton of commitment to hesed and other voluntary activity and I'm sure that helps also. And of course don't even think of stopping to pray. Apart from the regular tfilot, I talk to H' a lot and also have added Likutey Tfilot to my daily diet - a number of times a day, including Shabbat.
6. Of course everyone can think of variations to the theme. But the neder created a state that wasn't all or nothing. I would have been satisfied - even if I had been able to point only to 26 clean weeks in the year and the plan would have been to grow those clean weeks to 40, 45 etc.
7. Sometimes I'm really busy and strong in the beginning of the week, so I only make the neder on Tuesday, say - but then I also make it for a week so that way the full out war is only Wed. Thurs, Fri - of the next week. Hope that's clear.
Wishing Everyone an awesome and pure shabbos
