Day (12+)5 clean, boruch hashem.

@Hashem Help Me: thank you for the idea. I'm not sure if it's a specific time, at least I never noticed. I'll look out to see, and I'll try to implement it.

bochur23 wrote on 09 Feb 2022 05:54:

In my journey it was very interesting I would go from filter to filter and always blamed my falls for filters and access until the day came I just got the best filter and had a kenas and everything but still fell! I said that’s it! Something doesn’t make sense! And the truth is it’s because we don’t want the filter after a few days! Let’s be real! So we try to outsmart our original commitment and it becomes a whole game! There’s many many ways to build a clarity! I think firstly we gotta understand what clarity is and how it remains..to achieve constant clarity it doesn’t mean reading the reasons not to fall here and there! Because after all the drive toward porn and any lust is huge! We become impulsive. We stop thinking. We through out the window the previous clarity that we have and we fall. Then right after the fall, clarity comes shooting back! That’s the process. :-) we gotta understand what happened here, we lost our mind for a few moments and fell that’s the process! So the question boils down to how can we stay strong and clear even in impulsive moments! So that’s where we get to understanding how to build a clarity and how to help it stay.. it has to be done with sincere points. It has to be touching a lot of how you felt after the fall! Because that’s where you’ll be if you fall again! Those moments are sincere! I’ve found that what worked for me was talking to myself 30 minutes a night for many months and that’s how I built a clarity… and that’s how I’m here today! Of course this was just 1 component of breaking free from porn but this was the main one. for many people this sounds like a lot but my answer to them is falling is a lot too. So pick what you wanna struggle with. - Making time to talk to yourself. Or falling - and making time to deal with horrific feelings.

I would suggest to take a piece of paper and write down every reason you don’t wanna fall.

this should include..

1. Your situation now. - olam hazeh

2. your future. - Olam hazeh

3. Your olam haba

theres so so so much a person just doesn’t realize but the fact that such horrific feelings come after falling shows that there’s a lot that we don’t want from this behavior! We just gotta tap into it!!

The point is not just to write it down, the point is to go through it 30 minutes a night… think about how it’ll feel. Think about the points your making and how what your saying is true. For example if one of your reasons is that you can’t possibly have a home of kedusha then think about what that means for you! Go through it and then travel on to what it means for your kids! Make it a conversation with yourself! And you’ll see it’ll go into your blood! This will be the new you! You’ll start feeling clear! You’ll no longer be the impulsive guy who forgets everything in a Moment of heat! Trust me it works! Try it for 2 weeks you’ll see what I mean!

I actually have many many  recordings on my phone of all recorded motivations.. and the conversations with myself! It’s a nice idea to record it! This way it’ll feel more productive! And sometimes you can listen to them! Each night your motivation should come out different! Cuz your discussing and actually feeling through the points you wrote down!

Here’s an example of my motivation that I used for myself..

1. We will ALWAYS not wanna watch! We are always upset with our behavior! (Since it destroys our hearts and minds and our whole life) The question is when will we tap into it?! Now? Or… after we fall! When we feel like we wish we’re buried under the soil.
2. Once we understand that we’re gonna always be unhappy with our “watching of porn” we’re just giving in to the cycle that we’ll always wanna stop so why not just stop?
3. We truly feel horrible since we made an incredibly stupid decision, we feel sticky and uch! Like why why why! Why did my eyes have to see that!
4. We feel so full of guilt! Like how on earth did i do this?!? And if we’re on a good streak we’ll hear the words in our head I was doing sooooo well now I’m back here!
5. Sad- how did I ruin everything?! Now I’m back to square one.
6. Worthless- we feel our minds are like a toilet.. or better say - an overloaded sewer system! I’m not capable.
7. We feel angry- how many times are we gonna try!?! How many times do I have to see myself fail! How many day,  months and years!!
8. We’re overloaded with a whole bunch of extra tayvos now! A whole new video in our brain! The thoughts an cravings that come because of it are absolutely ridiculous!
9. We’re ruining a chance to have a clear mind
10. The way breaking free works is because this is very visual the more we stay away the more our brain forgets that high and what it looked like and everything like that! And by keep on falling we don’t allow that process to start!
11. We feel like a double standard! Putting on teffilin in the morning and yet doing the biggest aveiros later! It feels like a knife to our heart! We feel so fake! Our sincerity feels like a lie.
12. Ruining a chance to feel free! There’s no better feeling of realizing this parsha is behind me! The constant doubts are gone! The ones like “should I fall?! Should I not?!? But maybe! But it’s right here!” “I’ll just do teshuva right after!” “Oh one video will be enough!” “I’ll feel so much better.”
13. Ruining a chance to look back and realize how long you came! Trust me it’s yetzias mitzrayim! It’s a feeling of “wow I’m a real fighter I’ve been clean for so long”
14. Navigating lust to porn isn’t an option cuz we can’t have a happy frum marriage and home of kedusha and tranquility etc while having this horrible issue in the way! Which means for the - unmarried guys your only buying time by allowing your mind to turn there since we must gain full full control of this before a happy marriage starts and honestly a happy life starts! And for the married guys- your killing your wife and your killing this golden opportunity of a happy household. - We don’t live forever.
15. Porn also means for 99% of people automatically mz”l so it’s really killing a lot of birds with this dumb ugly stone.
16. Porn also ruins the chance for intimacy it’s trains the brain to love that sexual excitement and intensity which will only cause issues cuz sexual intensity never lives up to the hype and it will make one’s mind become completely distorted.
17. Also remember one day the day will come you’ll be underground in a box! Naked! With no phone and no way of getting out! In fact dead! And if you’d come back alive no one will be able to come get you! You have a big chunk of cement on top of you together with your name on it! You’ll be history! The only thing you have for yourself is your mitzvos and aveiros!!! Let’s go! Wake up And smell the roses!

Don’t we wanna avoid all this damage!!??!??

If you wanna mess up your life - go fall. And I’ll see you agree with this in an hour from now… probably, even in 5 minutes from now. Actually if your married, maybe think about your poor wife and how much your making her suffer… and if she doesn’t know, The dynamics of your relationship is surely affected. And if your single have some rachmanus on your future wife so she can marry a clean strong individual!

If you wanna remain happy,

Realize this!! It’s true.. this doesn’t make you happy! Go do something instead of this fake stupidity and at least channel your lust to something better. Go get a good sandwich that you’ll actually not kill your life by doing.

Stop just reading through it. Go back to the beginning. Do the first lesson. Don't move on until you complete everything and actually implemented it into your life. Only then move on to the next lesson. If necessary only do one part of a lesson per week. Some lessons took me over 2 weeks to complete.If you just read through it, you won't end up doing anything. It will be too much for you to digest and you will end up giving up. It will be a wasted opportunity.

As Chazal tell us תפסת מרובה לא תפסת, תפסת מועט תפסת - "If you have seized a lot, you have not seized; if you have seized a little, you have seized." 

Rav Avigdor Miller used to quote by every one of his Va'adim (found in the pesicha to the sefer Sha'arei Orah) the following pasuk: חֲכַם־לֵ֭ב יִקַּ֣ח מִצְוֺ֑ת וֶאֱוִ֥יל שְׂ֝פָתַ֗יִם יִלָּבֵֽט (משלי י:ח). He translated it the following way: A חכם לב, a thinking wise man knows that the main thing is action (even a tiny act), in order to be elevated. On the other hand, an אויל שפתים, a fool with lips, talks and thinks about elevating himself, but it only remains as a thought or an idea, it never becomes action. And he ends up ילבט, which he translated as stumbles (because the fact that he won't amount to anything is a major stumble). 
He goes on to say that the חכם לב, takes the ideas in his hand and does a little bit, and through that little bit, he truly elevates himself. And even if what he does is a מעשה קטן, a small action, he already grasped the branch of perfection, and it is in it of itself a great perfection. And one who does this is a successful man who will elevate himself above the rest of the nation. 

Do not underestimate the power of taking it slow and putting small things into action. 

[As a side point he also used to quote another pasuk from Mishlei: יִֽהְיוּ־לְךָ֥ לְבַדֶּ֑ךָ וְאֵ֖ין לְזָרִ֣ים אִתָּֽךְ (משלי ה:יז). They will be yours alone,
Others having no part with you (Proverbs 5:17). He stressed that it is vital for you to keep the mussar you learn and the actions you do in private and not to publicize them. This is in order that people won't mock or make fun of what you believe or are doing because ליצנות אחת דוחה מאה תוכחות - one word of mockery pushes away 100 words of mussar. As Shlomo says later in Mishlei: בְּאׇזְנֵ֣י כְ֭סִיל אַל־תְּדַבֵּ֑ר כִּֽי־יָ֝ב֗וּז לְשֵׂ֣כֶל מִלֶּֽיךָ׃ (משלי כג:ט) - Do not speak to a fool, for he will disdain your sensible words (Proverbs 23:9).
When people make fun of what your doing, or make a negative comment about it, it automatically with weaken the effect it has on you.
It may be a good idea to be careful with who you share with.]

Days (12+)6 and 7 clean, boruch hashem. Had a very geshmakeh shabbos.

Day (12+)8 clean, boruch hashem.

You’re doing amazing buddy. 

Hi guys. I'm not sure what to write. Had a difficult two weeks, about half the days clean in total.

Feeling pretty low about this issue (not that I'm depressed or anything like that, actually many other things are going great!). I don't feel that I'm actually accomplishing anything, if anytime I feel like acting out - I do. The success I've had is as long as I don't use an unfiltered computer, but the second I'm sitting in front of it with the possibility there I automatically go down that path. What did work was texting my friend before using the computer, but (as with the motivation not to use the computer to begin with) it eventually died out...

Basically, I'm not really working with any strategy except for filtering, which I see isn't working now and I know won't work long term (it's impossible that I'll never be with an unfiltered device).

The last three days I haven't fallen because I was too busy - following the news about Ukraine very closely. I guess it's better than nothing... But I haven't been learning as I should be. I don't know.

So I don't really see a clean day as a "victory". Obviously every day clean is a victory for itself, but as part of a bigger picture - it just "happened" to be clean, but I wasn't fighting any urges.

I probably need to speak to someone real who knows what he's saying. Having a friend to be open with about this is great, but a. He's married so he's not always available, b. It doesn't seem to have been enough. On the other hand, I'm not sure what advice they would have for my situation (probably הא גופא what I need to hear from them - what I don't yet know myself...) But I'm too shy/introverted to do it (this isn't just regarding this issue, this is my nature in general. Although it's probably stronger here).

There is someone in my community that I know who deals with this who בעצם I would be comfortable speaking to, but whenever I see him anywhere I can't get myself to ask him.

I don't know what'll be with me, but I'm sure that hashem has my well-being in mind. So I'm not giving up on aligning my actions with his plan for me.

Bochur23

Get the courage to sit down with that fellow in your community. A real person can b'ezras Hashem be a real game changer.

Next time you see that person just ask him for his email address…(assuming he has one)

This new life of mine is very similar to the old one...

So far I didn't get the courage to speak to this person. So I asked my friend (who also knows him) to speak to him about me, and then he'll reach out to me. But he's been very busy recently (he had a baby), and he's not exactly very comfortable doing this (I can't blame him...), So there's nothing doing on that front.

But I decided, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try and have some success until I managed to speak to him...

My goal right now is until the end of Lag Baomer (meaning Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). I hope I don't disappoint myself (by the way over Pesach Bein Hazmanim I managed to stay clean for 12 days, until I accidentally found an unfiltered device. The difference is that now I have unfiltered devices always available).

Speaking to a real person has less to do with getting advice and much more to do with removing the shame. So really you can talk to anyone you are comfortable with that will be understanding even if they won't have such amazing chidushim to share.

Maybe this sounds too simple - Let's devise a plan for those unfiltered devices....

Ok, so first day clean, boruch hashem. Didn't really have any urges today, was pretty much busy with things the whole day.

@Shmuel: while this is true, i already have someone whom I speak to openly about this. With his help, I managed to stay clean for a month at the beginning of this year. But it's not helping me now (not sure what the reason for that is). since I need more help, I was thinking of speaking to someone who has experience helping people with this issue (not just a fellow struggler).
I don't know, maybe I don't need that. What do you say? (At this point it doesn't really matter, because I'm not going to approach him myself anyways... So this is just a theoretical question).

@hashem help me: any ideas for a plan?
There are two unfiltered devices in the place I live, one is an old phone which I don't use (I can probably give it to someone to hold for me somewhere else, so that's not the main problem) and the other is a desktop computer.

Day two clean, boruch hashem. Again, was pretty busy throughout the day, didn't really have urges today.

What'll be longer run, I don't know. I'm not really working with a plan right now, so I guess then I do know what'll be ("if you fail to plan, you plan to fail") - But that's up to me.

But I need help. I need to pinpoint where/when/what causes me to fall, and then figure out a system for that. But I haven't been good at "diagnosing" the issue accurately. I can't say what triggers me etc.

Get a small notebook, or just fold a paper and carry it with you. When you feel tempted, write it down. Eventually you will have a list of things to avoid or work on. 

On unfiltered devices. Here is my perhaps controversial perspective. I don't filter anything. I'm trying to develop control, and I am tech savvy enough to get past anything. (I know programming, and have been installing operating systems as a hobby for a decade at least.) I don't want to rush back into the old habit any time I buy a new device before I can filter it. And I know my yetzer hara would jump for the opportunity. 

So maybe it's a good thing you have to fight a little. I'm not saying to take off your filter, keep it. My approach is kind of dumb anyway. But maybe your situation is also enabling some growth...?