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Tcholent for the Soul (the Group)

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Scientific studies show that it takes 90 days to break an addictive pattern in the mind. Start your own Log of your journey to 90 days! Post here to update us on your status and to give each other chizuk to stay strong!

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TOPIC: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 19816 Views

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 07 Jun 2013 19:11 #208611

zvi OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 224 Karma: 11	Don't worry Elias! You're doing amazing! I wish I had your levels of motivation and emunah! KOMT!
	Life’s a mountain. You just gotta keep climbing…

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 07 Jun 2013 21:16 #208646

Avrom
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Thank you so much for your warm words the mean so much to me. The groups support really helps!!

The good news is I'm still clean!! The bad news is that I'm not over the hill. The past few days I survived, not by winning the fight - I was just too busy with other things and had no time for the thoughts. (Btw, sorry chacha, that was the reason I didnt update) But now that I'm back to my regular schedule I realise that nothing really changed. My fantasies will be waiting for me after the shabbs seudah

I find that davening does work. My personal tefila is "Hashem I'm doing this because of you, take these thoughts out my head, please help me to love you and show me that you love me too" If I could do avodas hashem out of love - not acting out wouldn't feel like a sacrifice. Yes, I dont care what lav suicide is, but I somehow don't view bad thoughts as such a bad thing. I guess that is the real problem.

Welcome to Zvi and Eliyahu, great to have you on board!!!

Enjoy shabbs!!

Last Edit: 07 Jun 2013 21:21 by Avrom.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 09 Jun 2013 17:55 #208681

Avrom OFFLINE Expert Boarder מודים אנחנו לך Posts: 150 Karma: 9	Sorry to bother you guys with another round of tehilim. I was struggling the entire shabbbs afternoon motzei shabbs I eventually fell. I will try not to let myself get depressed. This is the furthest I ever got. I have to realise the progress I have done so far and try to grow further. Please Hashem help me, that this fall should end here and not drag on for the next few days.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 09 Jun 2013 17:56 #208682

zvi OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 224 Karma: 11	Avrom, you did AMAZING! Don't get depressed, just pick yourself up and keep going! Hashem loves you! We all love you! Don't look back, whatever you do!
	Life’s a mountain. You just gotta keep climbing…

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 09 Jun 2013 18:23 #208683

inastruggle Current streak: 25 days OFFLINE Platinum Boarder the picture is shimshon hagibor. not st. mary.... Posts: 1263 Karma: 35	maskim. KOT buddy

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 10 Jun 2013 00:28 #208715

some_guy
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I did really bad over the weekend and am not sure what to do about all the charity I owe and tehillim I have to say. Can you post on my thread (guardyoureyes.com/forum/1-Break-Free/137177-I-need-help-please?limit=15&start=210) if you want to give advice. I outlined the problems more clearly there.

--some_guy/Elias/Eliyahu

P.S. Thank you all. Hearing what you said about me having emunah and being a tzaddik really means a lot. I am a baal teshuva, so it really great to hear people say those things to me.

My Rabbi always gives me the same advice. "Be happy. The world is good. Just be happy."

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 02:37 #208957

chachaman
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I also fell after 22 days clean or so last night. What happened was that I was babysitting from 9pm-12am, I had a few improper thoughts during the day and also about the mother of the kid for whom I was babysitting. I went to sleep, but at like 12:45 I was in that kind-of-asleep-kind-of-awake phase, and once I started (when I was asleep) I didn't stop (even when I awoke).

Inastruggle: do you have advice for making it 90 days? I was getting full of myself for making it 22 days, so I think falling was a good reminder for myself to be humble. The main thing is to just go out there and live, without focusing on this issue too much. It's the living that can be hard, but I guess that we can't expect to be happy 100% of the time and that slips are expected to pop up along the way.

baruch Hashem, I haven't viewed any shmutz in about a month and a half despite my two falls in between then and now. I've only had one internet-related slip, in hwich I was (unwisely) on YouTube and I clicked on a "featured" link that I shouldn't have.

It is very interesting--I think I have a cycle where if I spend an hour or two on the internet I get very depressed because I feel like I should be doing something productive, even though what I was doing was GYE and b'etzem it was productive. I have been working for my mom the past few days, so I've been busy. I got on GYE from 2:00-4:30 (i.e. now, I'm about to log off), and I feel like I've wasted a huge amount of time even though it's nothing abnormal, and if I had been working today I would have basically been gone from 7:30-5:30 or so (including the commute).

I still have trouble with two things:
-fantasizing about different people
-controlling my thoughts sometimes.

Anyway, I had an amazing shabbos as I stayed by a Yeshiva. I honestly think that I am going to take a big break from the internet--until today, I had barely used the internet since Thursday. I have been checking in to GYE on my android phone, however.

Anyway, bye for now! For some reason I feel bad for going on the internet. I guess that's just conditioning--and it's probably a good thing to feel bad about using the internet!

Last Edit: 12 Jun 2013 02:40 by chachaman.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 03:03 #208958

chachaman
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I'm reading through some of Gibbor's thread (called "home of Gibbor120")--it's mamash amazing, he has great divrei Torah...and on Page 15, I found something that really helped about the idea behind self-esteem: it is self-acceptance:

WMP and dov, I agree with both of you! I'm still working on my understanding of this, but here's the way I see it right now.

I think you guys are indeed arguing semantics. Dr sorotzkin says essentially exactly what WMP is saying. People with low self-esteem also have as a counterbalance a feeling of superiority. He illustrates this with a case he had of a fellow who had the lowest self-esteem he's ever seen. One day the patient admitted that he sometimes feels greater than G-d. The Dr wasn't surprised in the least. The lowest self-esteem needs a counter balance of the greatest feelings of grandiosity.

As far as what dov writes about accepting himself and realizing that G-d loves him no matter what. That is the foundation of true self-esteem. I have seen this written by (I think) R Twerski and R Zelig Pliskin. My true value is in the fact that Hashem created me, not in what I can do. I think I am finally starting to understand it and I think that's what dov is talking about.

If my self esteem comes from the fact that I always get up on time for shul, what if I'm late one day. If it's because I'm a great basketball player, what if I have a bad game? If it's because I'm a great baal tefillah, what if I mess up a tune? If it's because I'm smart, what if I meet someone smarter than me?

It's this type of false self-esteem that creates pride (the kind dov is weary of). We love ourselves because of x, y, or z. We try to be better to make ourselves feel better. The driving force is really that we feel awful about ourselves (low self-esteem). Once we have self-acceptance (what dov mentioned) we can look at ourselves honestly and not feel prideful about our achievements (or awful about our failures). When we don't accept ourselves, we don't accept our achievements either, so we are driven to acheive more... to boost our self-esteem, but it doesn't work. We need to accept ourselves "just the way we are", then and only then do we have a shot at true self-esteem.

So I think you are both right... that's my 2 cents anyway.

BTW I highly recommend all of Dr Sorotzkins stuff. You can find it here drsorotzkin.com/ . The stuff on perfectionism is especially relevant to this discussion.

That really struck home for me. Self-esteem is a misnomer. It's not esteem...because no matter how great of a person I am, I'm always going to be able to find a reason why I'm worthless. It's self-acceptance, that Hashem has made me the way I am and I'm giving myself up to a higher power.

It's living without regret. It's living while focusing on the good htings, both in myself and others (and accepting other Jews). It's about losing insecurity.

There's no reason to be insecure, because tatte is here and tatte will provide for me.

It's about being thankful for what I have without complaining. Baruch Hashem, I have so many things to be thankful for.

It's about not letting my mother guilt me about the smallest things (oh no! I lost my graduation tassel! How could I???). It's about keeping stuff in perspective, and accepting myself.

I know what it is intellectually, but I'm having difficulty internalizing the conception. Maybe it'll happen over time.

Thoughts?

Last Edit: 12 Jun 2013 03:05 by chachaman. Reason: Apparently if you edit twice, the 1st "reason for editing" is deleted.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 03:20 #208961

chachaman
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Rabbosai, another link from gibbor that I found to be an amazing article that described me at least very well, and I think that it is worth everyone's time to read:

nymag.com/news/features/27840/index3.html

Reading further on page 15 of Gibbor120's home, it really hits home for me: I strive to be seen as perfect, as worthy, etc. I worry about my image.

Perhaps admitting my frailties is healthy--I don't need to be perfect.

As I'm writing this I'm experiencing a little mental block, as if it is very difficult for me to go through my faults or to think in this manner. I think I may have penetrated to the core of the issue.

Last Edit: 12 Jun 2013 03:24 by chachaman.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 03:42 #208966

chachaman
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Thinking about it further, I think part of this fear of being seen as imperfect was part of the self-repeating cycle of guilt accompanying the shmutz, or "how-could-you: you're wasting time, losing your potential, etc!"

I realize that changing my mindset won't necessarily happen overnight. But I hope that I will be able to internalize the message that:

SELF-ESTEEM IS NOT BASED ON MY ACTIONS, IT'S BASED ON THE FACT THAT I AM HASHEM'S CREATION, IMPERFECTIONS AND ALL.

Gibbor120--mazel tov on 4 years clean, and thank you so much for giving me that bit of inspiration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 03:44 #208967

chachaman
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Sorry to hijack the forum.

Just one more thought--my mother always gets super mad when I leave a dish in the sink, or forget to shut a window, etc. A reaction completely disproportionate to the situation.

I realize I will have to stop letting her perfectionism--perhaps discontent with herself, because I happen to know that others criticize her a lot sometimes (like my jerk of a stepfather for example), and perhaps she passes that perfectionism along to me.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 10:11 #208980

skeptical
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Chachaman

It is very interesting--I think I have a cycle where if I spend an hour or two on the internet I get very depressed because I feel like I should be doing something productive, even though what I was doing was GYE and b'etzem it was productive. I have been working for my mom the past few days, so I've been busy. I got on GYE from 2:00-4:30 (i.e. now, I'm about to log off), and I feel like I've wasted a huge amount of time even though it's nothing abnormal

Depression is something we need to be extremely careful about. It's a great mitzvah to be happy, to serve Hashem with joy. It's impossible to serve Hashem unhappily, it just doesn't work and the yetzer horah (the selfish part of us that wants to ignore anything other than our own self) knows it. So the doubts creep into our minds how we're so terrible and can't do anything right. The self pity and depression sinks in and we want to make it feel all better. And then the solutions to make our pain turn into pleasure begin to mushroom.

This yetzer harah is sometimes very sly (remember, it is the selfish part of us - all that matters is to make ourselves feel good). "Psst, you over there! It's great that you're spending much less time on bad websites, but don't you think you're spending too much time on GYE? Also, who are you to try to help others? Do you think you're so great and smart? I smell a ga'avah problem! Listen to me, cut your time there or better yet, cut out the internet completely - then you'll really have the potential to be great!"

As has been pointed out many times on this site, seclusion and keeping this issue to yourself breeds more issues. It's important to have some kind of continued support. So it's important to be aware of where the thoughts are coming from. I'm not saying not to cut back on internet use, it's a great idea, but unless you have some real life support that's not connected to the internet, you should be wary.

Chachaman

I still have trouble with two things:
-fantasizing about different people
-controlling my thoughts sometimes.

Don't try to control of your thoughts - just be very aware of them and where they're coming from. If you notice that they're not coming from a good place, let go of them quickly like a hot potato and replace them with some other kind of positive thoughts.

Hatzlacha!

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Last Edit: 12 Jun 2013 10:12 by skeptical.

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 18:48 #208997

zvi OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 224 Karma: 11	I also fell last night... sorry to impose even more tehillim on everyone. I'm not quite sure how it happened... I was doing something minor which was taking a while, and I just got frustrated and I m*** to relieve the frustration... sorry everyone.
	Life’s a mountain. You just gotta keep climbing…

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 12 Jun 2013 21:53 #209023

gibbor120 OFFLINE Platinum Boarder NEVER EVER GIVE UP! Posts: 5251 Karma: 166	Chachaman wrote: Gibbor120--mazel tov on 4 years clean, and thank you so much for giving me that bit of inspiration!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm glad something that I wrote helped you .
	My Home \| My Links \| Dov Quotes \| Dr. Sorotzkin \| Handbook \| Additional Tools \| AA Audio \| Shalom Bayis \| Skep's Tips

Re: Tcholent for the Soul (the Group) 13 Jun 2013 01:02 #209076

chachaman
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Sorry to hear that Zvi, but at the same time, in your post you seemed a little mad at yourself. Don't be mad! you'll do better next time, and the tremendous progress you've made hasn't been lost, even though it kind of does feel that way.

I got in a huge argument with my mom because I refused to eat something she heated up in a nonkosher microwave--wrapping it in a paper towel and putting a plate above and below it while still leaving a gap is not "double wrapped", and getting mad when I wouldn't eat it after I told her five times not to heat it up...aaaaaargh.

I think that's another thing about me--whether she meant to or not, my mother betrays my trust. I tell her one thing about my relationship with my dad, and she proceeds to use that to insult me or to say "well, just go live with your dad".

right now, I honestly hate my mother, I love her deep down, but it is very difficult for me to confide in anyone after having bren emotionally hurt by my mother who is the only person I am kind of close with.

WHAT MOTHER INSULTS HER KIDS PERSONALITY AND TELLS HIM I DONT LIKE YOU, YOU ARE UNLIKEABLR BRCAUSE OF X Y AND Z, ETC.

I cant wait until I go to college when I wont have to deal with my parents.

I'm not very close to my Dad, partially because hr wasn't always very accepting of my religion and also because of the remarriage which has just made me drradthe time I spend at his house, but:

He is a legitimately nice guy who wants the very best for me, and hes had some issued of his own growing up. I really dislike my mom right now. my dad is a nice guy though, and he loves me. My mom really loves me too, but its more of a selfish love, if you get what I mean.

btw, thanks skeptical, that was very helpful!