Hi, Avi.
WOWIE! 17 days clean! That's amazing! Keep up the good work!
Shmiras Eiynayim is a big challenge. If you catch yourself accidentally looking due to engraved past habits, if you divert your gaze as soon as you realize what you're doing, it's only counted as a "slip" around here, not a "fall." See the rules about the 90-day count/wall of honor pages. We're all human, and slips happen. A "Fall" is when you decide to throw in the towel, even for a few seconds, and choose to look or continue to look. That's a conscious (spelling wrong?) choice.
The same excellent advice you've already gotten from others in dealing with urges, helps here as well: TEFILLAH FOR STRENGTH AND SIYATA D'SHMAYA, AND VISUALIZATION. Practice scenarios in your mind where you are confronted with tempting sights, but CHOOSE the right course of action, either lichatchilah, or to correct a slip before it turns into a fall. It'll become easier with time and patience.
Also, B"H for yeshivishe hat brims. Put them down low and the world thiks you're cool, but you know you're just trying not to be tempted by what's in front of you. Problem is you don't see the trees and poles commin'.
Mind if I share a personal insight with you? When I really concentrate on this, and don't fake it, it helps a lot.
Why are the Tzitzis called that? The word Tzitz means "to gaze". We're supposed to gaze at the tzitzis to remember the mitzvos, indeed to realize that we are completely ENRAPPED by them, and especially "not to go after our eyes and after are hearts." How exactly does looking at the Tzitzis control our looking with our eyes?
Well, there was a keli in the Beis Hamikdosh worn by the Kohein Gadol called The Tzitz. It was worn on his forehead, above his eyes. It had the words "Kodesh L'Hashem" engraved on it. Every way he faced, every direction his eyes pointed, the Tzitz faced with him, displaying those words.
We are all human. Part of our make-up is that when when we are told we CAN'T have something, we want it more. If I'm told NO you can't have that cookie, I want it much more than I did before. (If only America would pass a law that Jews are not aloud to learn Torah, then ALL our "friya" brothers would swarm the beitei midrashos!) So when someone tells me I can't look at that lady, I automatically want to even more. I even resent it - if I don't look now, I'll lose my chance, she'll be gone.
But, instead of concentrating on what I CAN'T do, we can concentrate on the positive, what I CAN do. Don't think negative, think positive: " I now have an opportunity to MAKE MY EYES KADOSH L'HASHEM! I can, AT THIS MOMENT at least, dedicate my gaze, make the koach of sight that I have been blessed with KODESH L'HASHEM! It's an affirmative action, it empowers me, not weakens me - I am GAINING something, not LOSING something. I just have to turn away from the BAD, which at that moment is, say only 5 out of the 180 degrees around me I have to choose from (unless I'm an owl), so whichever direction I turn to, I am making a conscious effort to make my gaze Kodesh L'Hashem. I always find it helpful to say out loud, "I'm making my tzitz Kodesh L'Hashem" at the moment I turn my eyes away. Eventually, it will create new synapses in my brain, BE"H.
Maybe, unless I'm driving, I'll be able to look at my tzitzis at that moment, so the name will associate with what I'm doing, and my gaze will go downward, and inward, so a safe place till the znus passes.
(Avi, Thank you for helping me to rmember this chizuk for myself. I'd forgotten this positive approach, I've been focused on the negative, and wondering how long it'll take before I "fall" with my eyes on the street. I'm going back to this method now, too.)
Steve (one of your new friends here at GYE...)
