thank you for all the posts and tefillos.
the truth is this shabbos i really had feelings towards my wife which means if it is there now it just needs to be worked on. the posts were amazing! it is so true the secon we all become less of five sense prisoners we will truely become holy and close to hashem. we have such a tough mission in life and sometimes i wonder why others  aren't tested the way we are. i want to thank all of you helping myself and everyone here that we are all together and have one an other to turn to when we need help. lets try and make an advance on the y''h this week. the y''h confuses us and never gives us a moments rest -as did paroah and all of our other enemies. if we would stop and think about acting out for a second or looking at things we shouldn't= we would truely realize it is a waste of time and completely futile. the y"h traps us by not thinking. let us all grow this week and just say no for a couple days. may our prayers be united and our souls guarded by our father in heaven.

Be Holy, you have so much wisdom in you!

Kol Hagadol Mechaveiro... You are a HUGE soul, fighting against a HUGE beast. We can only watch in awe and cheer you on!

we are wed to the rbs"o!! our father who understands our every thought and desire in the world.think about this when we daven and walk in the street .we will no longer be a slave  to our y"h but he ,in time will become our slave. hashem is on our side we just have to realize it is hashem pushing the buttons and pulling the stings- next time we fall, how ever big or small it may be don't get down- cry out to hashem that we want to serve him and he needs to help us serve him by strengthening us. g-d is the true master of puppets and the hester panim is the heaviest it ever has been since the creation of the world- but if we watch our eyes hashem will watch us and we will be able to see through the haster panim- in our times...

By uncovering the concealed within ourselves and feeling the inner soul we can see Hashem through the concealment that he created.  Lets all be zoche to dgi deep in ourselves realize our beautiful Neshama buried deep within and let it shine forth.  And with that we can recognize Hashem and bring his light out and let it shine forth.

be holy, your malbish arumim/ matir assurim chidush was just awesome and inspiring.
Let me share a thought that I had also regarding the morning brachos: ozer yisrael bigvura as said before oter yisrael be'tifarah. 
"Bigvura" refers to our battle with the Y'H (as it says is Pirkee Avos ch. 4 "eizehu GIBOR? who is a GIBOR? one who conquers his yetzer"). This fight against the yetzer will result in Hashem crowning us with  His Tiferes, i.e. oter Yisrael be'tifarah".

Incidentaly, the word "ozer", girds, is related to battle (see Tehilim 18:40).

Powerful words, beHoly!!

(YetzerTov is refering to the malbish arumim/ matir assurim chidush in reply #59 on this page).

Welcome YetzerTov to the forum and thank you for the vort! We need a LOT of Yetzer Tov here!

sorry everybody that i haven't been posting lately.
  b"h i am still holding strong and hope everyone is gaining on their mission to be free. things have been up and down recently. things are getting easier, but i still feel the y"h turning inside of me. be it as it may, i get down when this happens and even more so when i am not so into my learning( which by definition means i am into something else).
  i was shopping at ikea  last night with my wife and there were a lot of non religious women there and honestly i was lusting. on the drive back it was bothering me and i felt this battle and contradiction inside of me. what i want and what i have, yearning for that nice body,- and it got me a bit down. then it came to me, that contradiction within us is the sand that grinds away in the clam, to make a beautiful pearl. meaning that if we never feel down and are ALWAYS up we never really are being pushed to grow, and those feelings shouldn't be used to get us down but rather to make us aware of our present state of being and where we need to continue to work on.
  i truly believe with all my heart that the only way that we will ultimately be happy when this is all said and done, is to fill that void constantly with ahavas hashem and avodas hashem, every moment of the day. we feel bad and the only way we will feel good is not only from the sur m' rah ,because that will wear off  in time.but to make every moment of our lives a connection to hashem. every seder,davening and a constant awareness that we can and are in a specific avod of the rbs"o- on the street, in the house 24/7. as i am writing this some may think that this is way beyond us,right? thing of it this way- aren't we always on the look-out for that girl on the street or more of the filth of the internet 24/7? this addiction is all about constant awareness, we can turn it on it's head and use it for the good. we are wired to be aware and stare- yet we are never satisfied, this is the y"h who's soul purpose is to destroy us! our souls are great and the y"h knows that we can be in constant awareness mode of the rbs"o. we are fighting a mighty warrior who has the arsenal of knowing our nature better than we know ourselves- the only advice there is , is to cling to the rbs"o, pour our hearts our to him, and constantly find new ways to bring our ovodah to greater heights. this is the only true ,time tested answer to all of our problems.
i write this; wishing i could internalize, live it and not just spell it out. with a heavy heart wishing things were easier and yearning for feelings of comfort. with all my prays and admiration to my fellow warriors, may tomorrow shine a new light on tzion, and all of our yearning souls to "be holy".

be holy wrote on 22 Mar 2009 21:43:

I Could not agree with you any more.  I think all those who already feel free should truly focus on this.  It is crucial we take this to the next level.  I think we should begin sharing with each other ideas on how to do this and what each one of us had been doing.  This will encourage each one of us for further growth.  This is only the beginning.

Below is an excerpt of what I wrote to pashut yid, from whom I got positive feedback.  This is from a personal experience.

When a person begins freeing himself he becomes spiritually free.  It is worthwhile to take advantage of this new spirituality and begin growing in avodas hashem.  How does one do this?  take Baby Steps.  Begin with small things in your life that make a big difference.  Like, coming to shul on time.  Having kavana on the first pasuk of krias shema.  Begin to appreciate hashem in an even more real way.  be strict with smiras eynayim.  Buy your wife a present and begin showing more love.  Even if you have been a loving husband until now, become more loving.  Show more love.  Write her a love letter.  Write her a chizuk letter if she had even a small challenge in her day.  Show her that you care.  Show her that you love her and why you love her so dearly.  Show love to your kids by talking to them more and showing them that you care for them.  Show love to your friends.

The idea is not to make yourself overwhelmed with new obligations that you threw upon yourself that you cannot keep up.  The idea is to begin growing in areas that you could not properly grow because the menuval has closed your heart.  You know what your soul needs.  So provide that nourishment for your soul.  [By the way one of the greatest nourishmentf or the soul is by providing it with the oppurtunity to express love.  But not for now] But these new additions should be easy to do and should have a major impact on creating the NEW YID within yourself.

As one begins to grow he realizes how much he truly yearns avodas hashem and can barely keep up with himself.  This is a great feeling.  All feelings of lust just die down in a second. 

i agree ykw. all avodas hashem has to start with what we are already doing...only doing it better. let's perhaps try focusing on this. because i think some of us are at the point were we have broken free at least a little bit but need chizzuk in other areas as well. that will keep our mind free and strong to serve hashem. without this forward enhancement the chance of relapse i would assume is a lot higher because the y"h will tell us we haven't REALLY achieved, or changed anything. i guess this is the stage after the sur mey rah .... now improving the ase tov!

What a beautiful post from be-holy! What you are saying is similar (Le'havdil) to this excerpt from an article i posted yesterday on the forum:

For the full article, see here.

What the original AAs were shooting for - and what they aimed their program at - was not mere sobriety. That
would have been the "common-sense" approach, the way of worldly wisdom, the reasonable-level-of-aspiration
gambit. But the founders of AA were men moved by inspiration. They were coming at the problem with the
uncommon sense of men under guidance.

The common-sense approach had already been tried and it had failed. If you set a drunk's level of aspiration at
mere abstinence - "'Why don't you be a good fellow, use your will power; and give the stuff up” - it did not work.
The poor candidate for reform was back drinking again in short order. The discovery that launched AA in the first
place was that if an alcoholic were somehow to be rocketed into a state way beyond abstinence, if he were to
achieve a real spiritual conversion, an utterly new relationship with God, then permanent abstinence would
automatically occur as a blessed and life-saving by-product. That was how it happened with Bill. That was how it
happened with Dr. Bob. That was how it happened with most of the first hundred members.

We see how they understood that simply "Sur Me'ra" won't last for the long term. It needs to be filled with a NEW AWARENESS of Hashem. We need to let Hashem into our lives to the point of Tzama Lecha Nafshi, Kama Lecha Besari, and all else will fade away like the flame of a match before the sun!

just checking in- keeping stri=ong and i am davening for everyone. remember every crumb we have in mind for pesach preparations is precious to the rbs"o!!!

Thanks for checking in Be-Holy, we love your posts!

hey everyone. things are good. i'm still holding strong b"h and it has been about 5 months now. the urge to act out has really lessened and i feel free. but i must be honest that my mind is still occupied with the opposite sex, and thinking that i would be happy if i had the stuff that is in our heads. this is the hard battle because for us to fight THIS battle we are fighting ourselves from with in. what does help me is thinking that if i could just get free from these thoughts how much more i would be able to acheive in life... we must realize that hashem gives us every battle and it is only he who can help us and that is what pesach is all about-realizing and internalizing that it is only us and hashem.

i was thinking this morning how unfair it is for me to post on this forum and how my issues shouldn't be posted because my issues are not your issues but then i was thinking just the opposite. everyone here, is here for the same reason, we are trying to get out of an addiction. everyone has fallen because of different reasons but we are all here to break free. Therefore you guys have helped me get this far and are truly the only people i can turn to to help. i am still in therapy with my wife and i can't bring the internet thing up with her. i am to ashamed, and really don't want to go that road. we have kosher internet rimon and my temptation is getting lighter. my issue is that i can't look my wife in the eye because i wish she looked better, and in my mind i want her to dress sexier- while at the same time knowing that she can't and as a kollel yungerliegth it is totally inappropriate. additionally it is demeaning because a man has his torah, and a women has her tznius. seeing other women on the street still is hard for me to control that double take. i know it is lust, but for some reason i just can't let go of it. this obviously is not what this forum is about but you guys have always been there for me in the past and we are not at 5 monthes!! it is the summer and my imagination goes wild when i am on the street..i hope we can get to the bottom of this and i can be the person i can be and give of myself to my wife- a wondering soul.

Be Holy:

You have before you the most appropiate time to make this final change. You are doing great, but you need to hurry up and work on the shoresh. You are still fighting the lusting. Now is the time to leave the lusting alone, and change yourself to a person that no longer lusts. That no longer has the "need" to lust. To a  person that has many many more imporant things in his life than lusting.
  As we know, lusting is only temporary. When we go out to grab it.....it was only air, i.e. nothing to hold on to. It was all imagination......it wasn't really REAL. This is the entire difference between lechem and Matzoh. THey are both made of flour and water, but....the lechem (chometz) has the air added which inflates it. THe lust is pure air, pure chometz...nothing to hold on to. THis image walking down the street, is pure chometz...all inflated-not really REAL. Remove the air, and it all disappears and we are left with something tangible...matzoh.
  If you were to use the rest of Pesach, zman cheruseinu to really beseach the Ribbono Shel Olam, and tell him:

RBNO Shel Olam, I have completely removed all of the chometz from my home, from my ownership, but I still have some non phyical chometz left in my mind. PLEASE, PLEASE help me to remove this also, and let me taste the real taste of Cheirus-Freedom. If you beg from hashem, plead from him for this, and during Pesach, the zman that is mesugal to remove ALL chometz, and come to REAL Cheirus, then how can Hashem possiblly not answer you?