Hey everyone. Thank g-d I’ve been clean now for about to be three weeks and I thought I’d share some of the things that have helped me get through it. First of all I made a absolute no policy rule of bringing any unfiltered device (which there are many in my house) into my bedroom for any purpose. Doesn’t matter if it was for a shiur, music, or even for an alarm clock. This made sure that when I got into my room at night that I wouldn’t have such a hard nisayon. The key to winning the battle is for the most part to avoid the whole thing so I found this to be the number one helpful thing for me. Second of all, when the urges just hit u (as everyone here knows) I used a tactic that I heard from R’ Ari Bensoussan. He said that when you ever are in the middle of a nisayon you should stop, laugh out loud, and verbally say “hashem I know you are challenging me right now”. The reason for this is because we all know deep dow that every nisayon is just a chance to be bigger. It’s a chance to earn more schar in the next world. So while it seems in the moment like the hardest thing too overcome, you should really in a sense be joyful that you have the opportunity to grow-hence the laughing… This was really weird for me to do at first but I found that it was incredibly helpful while in the midst of a nisayon (I.e. walking down the street, going shopping etc.). Obvious there are some settings where it’s to much to really laugh out loud (unless you have no busha whatsoever), but still saying underneath your breath and recognizing that you are being challenged to grow can help a ton. And lastly, tefilah. Davening immediately after a nisayon is one of the greatest feelings in the world and apparently you can ask for anything. There is nothing like davening to hashem right after successfully facing a challenge. I know that I always use to beat myself up about failing but I never took credit for each individual win. So this has been my day to day incentive for winning the battle (along with a bigger incentive at higher increments of time).
I hope this can help other people on their journey as well!!
if anyone else has good advice for dealing with in the moment nisyonos please share it here!