committed_togrowth wrote on 13 Apr 2022 07:17:

Mitzva l'farsem. You have put into words so clearly what so many of us have tried to express.

committed_togrowth wrote on 13 Apr 2022 07:17:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I bolded one line above. I just want to say that the biggest irony about this feeling that you (and probably so many millions of others) feel is that these women are literally the farthest you could possibly get from being solely for you. They are literally the most disgusting, hefker women in the world that put themselves naked in front of hundreds of millions of men. This realization is something that definitely helps me to be disgusted by pornography, which is agav an extremely powerful tool for quitting (i.e., to be disgusted by it). If similar feelings hit you in the future, you could try to think about how literally not solely for you these disgusting animals are and maybe it will help to evaporate the lies.

Keep on growing and sharing! I enjoy reading your posts!

committed_togrowth wrote on 13 Apr 2022 07:17:

It is well written; thank you.
Personally, my triggers are many times when I feel on top of the world: after a successful meetin', a fundraisin' hit, a chaburah that went over real well, a speech at an event, etc.
Other times as well.
Which is why I came to the conclusion that it's all about sex.

5Uu80*cdwB#^ wrote on 13 Apr 2022 12:12:

I agree, the whole entire thought process is ironic as it's all imagined but what you mention here is one of the sharpest ironies. Thanks!

@cordnoy that makes sense! Definitely there's lots of ways to end up here

I want to put down some reflections I had over Pesach before they leave me, just a stream of conscious. We each possess a deep sense of nobility, and we have to cling to it. We are human beings and we are Jews. We are poised, significant beings, and our actions have an incredible impact on the world. This isn't something that is measured by your accomplishments or accolades.  We, simply as we are, carry weight.

And yet, we over the years have become overly familiar with ourselves. Accurate self-perception diminishes and we devalue and criticize ourselves by measuring ourselves repeatedly against external measures of success. We become small, so small that we subconsciously start to feel uncertain as to whether or not we have a right to occupy the very space we exist in. This feeling is manifest in many small ways. Feeling nervous/awkward when walking towards people on the sidewalk, being excessively jokey/frivolous, fidgeting around. We don't take ourselves seriously. We don't think there's any harm in spending hours of time watching TV, engaging in totally idle chatter, or worse, because nothing great was going to come from that time anyway. We come up with a categorical difference between ourself, and those who attain greatness. Great people have better brain, a bigger neshama, whatever it is I don't have it. I am consigned to category of average, blowing in the wind, not so significant. This deterioration of self-image makes us unanchored, listless. It's a prison.

I don't know if it was the special quality of the zman or what, but this Pesach I was given a tiny glimpse of the freedom that comes by escaping smallness. I hate to say this, but I do feel a bit back in jail now. Back to normal, plain old me and my usual problems. But, this time around I think I have more understanding of the prison architecture. It's a webwork made of millions of tiny actions I have performed which say "I am insignificant and small." Each nervous fidget or shifty glance, these are all subconscious actions that make me smaller and smaller. I will fight against these small ways that I diminish myself. They are small actions, but their effect is enormous. Anyway, an amalgam of thoughts on an idea I wish I had more clarity on, but I'll end with saying may we all be able to carry ourselves in a manner that reflects who we really are.

I've been doing a mental exercise recently to try to rewire my understanding of intimacy, and I thought I'd share some of my reflections here. For better or worse I've been dissecting some of the tropes that are exploited by online shmutz to clarify to myself how wrong they are. I think those who have never seen such things should not read this post.

The main point I have been thinking about is, most of what is "exciting" or "captivating" about shmutz is not the actual imagery itself, rather it is the message or connotation that comes along with it. If we were really just seeking imagery, then the first photo we find would satisfy that craving. But, I can unfortunately recall many instances where I spent a significant amount of time searching through images and videos looking for a particular intangible factor. I've been thinking about what it is I was looking for during these dives. I believe what I was looking for was essentially video proof that human beings do not have value and that morality does not exist. This sounds like an extreme statement, but there is an abundance of content online which tells this narrative. That anyone on the street can be bought, that seemingly "decent" people are just putting up a facade and really on the inside everyone is a pleasure-seeking hedonist, that it is exciting to exploit/blackmail women in exchange for intimacy, the list can go on. These are the sorts of things that drew me to watching, because after the habit of watching develops simple indecent exposure is not enough to satisfy the craving. The actual meal was witnessing the corruption of society, while the intimacy was just an initial enticement and also the vehicle through which the corruption is done.

It's very embarrassing to say this, but I've realized that there is a part of my mind that actually gets excited by evil. This was highlighted pretty strongly for me while reading last week's Torah portion. During the section on forbidden relationships, (again massively embarrassing to say this) I found that my mind actually got excited by the discussion of these relationships. It's actually an astonishing thing to feel excited while reading the direct word of Hashem on what He objectively defines as perversion. 

This is a bit of harsh introspection, but the only solution I have found is to start calling this part of my mind what it is and to rout it out. I'm not sure how I developed these interests, whether they are innate or whether it is from years of absorbing this kind of content. But, at least by naming it and telling myself it is simply bad I've begun to reeducate myself and pop the bubble of allure surrounding shmutz. I hope these thoughts are helpful to some.

committed_togrowth wrote on 03 May 2022 05:47:

We all have a touch of that. Look how many films are produced that portray murder, kidnapping, and other violent crimes. And they are best sellers....

30 days today. Thank you Hashem for helping me get back on the horse.

wow keep up with your great work and stay committed to grow stronger!!!!
hashem loves you more than most tanuem and amoiruem!
they couldn't reach bassicly all avieres with a click of a button unlike us

A pretty difficult past week or so, mostly due to continuous work pressure, heavy hours, and tension with my supervisor. Anytime I let a problem consume my whole existence it becomes extremely difficult for me to be a grounded eved Hashem. My entire sense of why I'm alive and what I'm here to do drops away and I start to exist in a state of tantrum and clamber for coping mechanisms. This is the mind state I've been in for days now. Definitely a week where I relied on my gedarim rather than on motivation or willpower. There were a couple of positive moments though. I had two very large stressors that were of the scale that triggered my last fall. My mind went into the same scattered state as last time where I basically surrendered my daas, and I felt myself starting to lean harder and harder into entertaining fantasies with a an attitude of "screw it" or "my life is falling apart anyway." Then, there was a thought that pulled me through. I asked myself, "Am I really ready to sit down right now in front of a computer, watch pornography, and masturbate?" The answer was no, and I was able to recenter myself. I think by skipping all the games and just being frank about what the outcome of this mind state was going to be I was able to stop. During a second moment I used the same thought and it worked, and I also actually said to Hashem that I want to turn to him in this moment. I didn't have an intense feeling of kavanah or any sort of moment of connection, but I did manage to say the words and to stop myself from going down the dark path. Hoping things get better soon, but my takeaway from this week so far is sometimes you really just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move forwards. Even when you don't want to, when you have excuses to fall, when you don't have motivation. B'ezras Hashem I will get through this period.

Had another positive experience today (most of what I talk about is work related stress as this is my biggest challenge, apologies for the broken record). I have a lot riding on some work going on right now because it can significantly determine my future. I was working on this project today and I noticed some abnormalities that suggested the whole thing was going wrong (in my eyes). I started to go into panic mode again, then all of the sudden I had the thought "Hashem is a lot smarter than me. Why am I panicking over this if He's in charge?" For months I've been trying to break my pattern of anxiety and work on my bitachon. This is the first instance where really, I felt total calm in the face of what would normally unnerve me completely. I was able to skip over the entire stress-induced nisayon that I've been having to wrestle in recent memory. This felt like a gift from Hashem. Thank you!

Day 45, getting along well BH. It's interesting how working on this issue forces you to work on all areas of yourself (emunah, relationships, dealing with stress and difficulty, anger etc.). Rabbi Moshe Weinberger says that the middah of yesod, which he says is the central ingredient of being a shomer habris, isn't actually a trait in and of itself (like chesed or gevurah for instance). Rather, yesod is the link between all of your character traits. This sounded super abstract the first time I heard it, and I probably still don't understand it. But I'm coming to see that working on yesod means properly aligning all of the parts of yourself, which makes working on this struggle in particular a way to work on yourself holistically. Interesting that Hashem set things up in such a way, that working on this issue in particular is a door into working on yourself in your entirety.

Posting an update for the sake of honesty, a couple of days ago I had a few of large life questions/concerns converge into somewhat of a meltdown. I actually went and sought out pornography, briefly watched, then pulled myself away. I'm not counting this as a fall as in the end I climbed out of the pit and I think calling it a fall would ultimately be harmful. But, I want to keep the chevra updated on what's been happening. Much of this nisayon comes down to fear. Fear that I won't be able to actualize my deepest desires, which currently are to make it to yeshivah and get married, fear of those who I perceive as having control over my life (like an imbalanced and over demanding work supervisor), fear that I myself might fail in life to due incompetence. BH I am being pushed into a zone where bitachon is becoming a necessity, not simply a nice idea to have. I've taken the lesson from that day and am moving forwards.

Incredible! I haven't been following ur story, this is the only post of yours i've seen, and i just want to say that's awesome that you managed to climb out even w such major pressures in ur life.
If you keep up this attitude of honesty, fortitude and Bitachon, Hashem will definitely help you!
Keep it up!!!!