Dear Mevakesh,
I really, sincerely think you did nothing wrong. Does it say somewhere that the eidim testifying against a ba'al aveirah have to be lamed vav tzaddikim?!
The feeling that you had was something to work on, and BH you are. Because besides for working on your kedusha in such an amazing way, you are also learning here, like I and others have, that there is so much beauty in a Yiddishe neshama, and even those that have sullied themselves, even they have so much greatness, so many amazing facets. 
So keep on trucking! No, being judgmental is not a good thing, but what you did, even if your motivation was not 100 percent pure, you asked and followed directions, so you DID the right thing. And then, BH, you joined our brotherhood! Thank you for all you add to the conversation!
Hey, redfaced, any popcorn left?

Hi everyone, this is going to be a sad post for me, and i apologize in advance for that. For the past couple of months i was on GYE ALL DAY EVERY DAY, literally, I felt after a while, that i was getting to caught up in this, so i decided to give myself a break, while checking in occasionally. This period lasted from around Pesach, up until today. I'm back with my tail between my legs. But i must say that at times, I did feel better, it felt better because my mind wasn't busy thinking about not thinking, of all the junk floating around in my head. But I'm here to tell you that it still was not a good idea. Why, do you ask? I cant tell you the psychological reason for it, but i will tell you the only other reason i can think of, and that is, that it did not help my struggle in the least bit. I fell way to many times, I'm still excessively thinking about s**, I'm still struggling with m*******n, and I'm still hyper sensitive to every women that walks down the street. I keep on hitting this brick wall, back up, and run right into it again. I came here to better my life, I came here to better my connection with my Creator, I came here to better my connection with the people i love, and I'm lost all over again. 
I'm trying to find the correct balance, so that GYE should enhance my productivity, not the opposite, and don't get me wrong, it has nothing to do with GYE, but everything to do with my inability to stop and tell my self not now. I have come a long long way, and i am very proud of myself for that, but I'm not at the end just yet. I must keep on trucking, for my sanity, for my marriage, and for my future. I will not stop till the lights go out, I will not stop till my last day. I'm back with the hope, that this should be the last time that I have to come back. Just beating my self up wont get me places, I know I've done wrong, and I assume full responsibility, but I can move on, I will move on. 

Don't let guilt steel your successes, they are yours and only yours, forever. 
Peace unto all of us!!                    

A Giten Tug Rabbi Muttel,

I just read thru this whole thread and i have no words! 
But ill still try.......

Your first post really turned me on and then scared the heck out of me. After 12 years you fell for 3 1/2 years? So there is no hope? 
I kept on reading, at the part where you wrote that you used the gift card for sex, i snapped out of my impure thoughts! I felt the guilt coming out of your words. Oi vy! I cant dont ever want to feel that. 

The more I kept on reading I realized that I was wrong, your 12 years of cleanliness didnt go down the tube, no, they are helping you. 
Your brain knows that its very possible to stay clean forever, you just need to wake up that part of your brain that got stuck behind the big porn garbage truck and is trying to navigate to get ahead of it. 

Regarding your question why you are feeling the desire to look so much strong now, that is a very common thing once you stop looing at porn and masturbating, I have a few theories why that is. You can chose whichever one you like. 

1. Your mind is craving that Dopamine fix you used to get when watching, and since its not getting it, the mind is trying to find alternatives how to get that fix, and since its more exciting when seeing an actual person the desire can be stronger. The way that I fight it is to talk back to my thoughts and say " This is so fake that its crazy! I know exactly what Women are like and while sex is very good and nice, the level that you are exciting me is wayyyyyyy over the top false, take it down a few hundred notches"....... Or I tell my mind "whats the point of this? I know already that I will NEVER masturbate so why would i look and make it so much harder for m e to fight? Thats just stupid". 

2. As long as you watch Porn, women on the street never come close to those actors, because they are real. Once you stop and you start to get used to reality, you can start seeing how beautiful actual people are. Its just a fact Hashem created beautiful people, doesn't have to do anything with you, sometimes i have to acknowledge it "wow she is beautiful" but it has nothing with me, she deserves better than having a strange man objectify her. I feel bad for them, thats makes them human and not a piece of meat. Imagine how your wife would feel if someone would be staring at her and thinking what you think.... you can ask her so as to make it more real. 

3. You went up a Madriega! Yes, the higher you go, your trials will become higher. That doesn't mean that they become more and more intense to the point of despair, quit the opposite, the holier we are, the sharper we feel impurity!
For example, when a homeless person steps into some feces lining the streets of Brooklyn, he won't recoil at all, maybe he'll wipe it off or maybe he wont. But when someone like us steps into that, we will jump up in shock and wipe for hours, I would throw out my shoes!  
Why? Because when you are clean, you get much more bothered by uncleanliness. So although you might say "But im actually more attracted to women the cleaner i am? yes, that's because they are actually beautiful but look deeper inside, you will hear your Neshama screaming "No! this is so not good for you! please stop! you are making me so dirty! I want to be clean" 

Keep on posting and keep on trucking! 

I just want to share with the olam something I heard from HHM that I felt in an acute sensory way today. His basic point was that the YH looks to convince us that there is a buildup of tayva in a person and if I don't have a release, eventually it's just going to have to come out. That's a misconception and the attitude should be "one day at a time" - let me get past this urge and things will calm down.

I'm happy to report that with much undeserved help from Heaven, my storms and pressure buildups of the last couple of days have subsided (until the next one ) and I've gotten a feel of the veracity of HHM's statement.

Here's hoping that this will be mechazek one of us suffering from what I've been the last couple of days and give them a push to Keep on Trucking!!!!

We should all be zoche to shed the chains of lust, the bondage of pleasure being a must, and most of all, experience the joy of turning the YH to dust, Amen!

Muttel

BH Im finding that I am able to talk to women when necessary without feeling uncomfortable bc my mind is getting way less clogged with disgusting thoughts.  Of course, I am still being vigilant but it's getting easier.

Keep on trucking and even tip towing, bc any progress is progress!!

When I am in a similar situation I try to get away from that area. For example I am going to the frozen goods and there's an attractive women in front of me I go to a different aisle so I am not in the situation anymore.
Or I was walking to shul and 2 women cross the street and are now in front of me so even though the shul is on that side I crossed the street so I couldn't look.
Sometimes it's not what do I do in this situation but rather avoiding the situations all together.
Of course this is easier said than done

Keep on trucking and even tip towing bc any progress is progress.
Hatzlacha!

It is a common misconception that sharing your story will cure you. Even opening to a rav or therapist might only help you stay 100% clean for 6months max. Just telling does not cure you but it definitely helps you move forward on your journey. Don't feel discouraged and say, "If it doesn't cure me then there's no point in telling" bc this may not cure you but it is a giant step in becoming clean.

Something to keep in mind, and you may argue with me if you would like, is that there isn't a complete and total end and that you will not necessarily be 100% tahor for the rest of your life, the goal of this journey is to make progress and keeping on trucking.
If we masturbate and it's been long time since the last time then that's a great accomplishment. Not the masturbation but the fact that we don't need it as much and we are distancing ourselves from it as much as possible. The takeaway from a fall should be both acknowledging how long you went without needing it, and learning from your mistakes of why you felt the need to masturbate so that it doesn't happen again.

"Journey before destination"

Keep on trucking and even tip towing bc all progress is progress
Have a great shabbos!

notezy wrote on 20 May 2024 11:06:

BEZH soon, it will be a month and feel like a week .
Keep on trucking, friend . 
YOU CAN DO IT!!!

amevakesh wrote on 17 May 2024 16:19:

My dear friend, you need a shout out for all the hard work, for the winning, for the being stronger than your YH for 95% of the time-that's a fantastic success rate! YOU ARE A HERO!
Gotta say I was very surprised at HHM's response
I would think that HHM meant to get you to strive higher, and he did that by making you think about the question, if I look at a woman a second time just to notice her beauty, isn't that belittling her? The fact that you realizes she's pretty, the first time you saw her, that's not objectification. That's healthy human male condition. But in the future, when the YH wants you to take a second look, HHM feels you're at the level of being able to help stop yourself by realizing that the second look is belittling her. I'm not holding there yet, but take it as a compliment that he feels you can reign in the YH by thinking this way
Keep on trucking!
You are an inspiration to me!

chooseurname wrote on 10 May 2024 16:07:

But if I was good at sticking to my commitments I probably wouldn't need to be here to begin with.

Was thinking more about this. Another reason I thought I should take a break from posting is to "adorn myself before adorning others." I'm not sure if that's a valid reason. But the main reason was because every time I get a few days clean it turns into an ego thing, " I am doing this, I am winning the battle of the generation." And that's neither good nor helpful. Because I am also the idiot who got myself into this mess and have not been able to get myself out. And posting little bits of helpful advice and suggestions or whatever only feeds that ego. "Listen to me, I know what will help you." 
So it's hard for me to keep my mouth shut. But I'm trying...

Anyway. Rough week. A bunch of small falls. I haven't had consecutive falls like this in a couple months. Not sure what to do other than to keep on trucking. Been working on my flight plan and watching a bunch of F2F videos. Trying to internalize that even if I enjoy porn I don't like it. 

Some other thoughts that are coming up as I write.
I was looking at the Big Book. I think it's hard for me to believe Hashem would get me out of this. And I generally think of myself as someone with emunah and bitachon. Not just externally, I've made serious and fundamental parnassah decisions relying on Hashem. But now when I try to believe He can restore me to sanity and ask Him to remove my defects of character, I get stuck. Not because I don't think he's capable of doing so. But because he has not done so yet. Over the years I've shed countless genuine tears, and begged Hashem to fix me, to take away this taaveh, to help me fight. And while intellectually I believe those tefillos were accepted and had whatever affect He wanted, the taaveh didn't leave and so I feel like they didn't help. 
So I kinda am stuck. I believe Hashem could help me, but I feel like he does not choose to (for endlessly perfect reasons of course). And I'm not angry at Hashem for not helping me. But I also am having trouble believing that my higher power can restore me to sanity when he apparently does not want to.
So I am powerless. My Higher Power can help me, but may not choose to do so. Where does that leave me? Am I fundamentally not a ma'amin and what I thought was bitachon was just disguised laziness? (this is very possible). Am I a ma'amin but not enough? Should I just close my eyes to the past and believe that Hashem will swoop in and save me this time? idk

Ch3. How do we know if we are growing?

It is hard to keep striving if a person feels that success is beyond him. In spiritual matters, success is very difficult to measure. One reason we lose hope is wounded pride. Every achievement is a success. Don’t compare yourself to others. The only benefit in taking not of another’s progress is for inspiration. Don’t look for inspiration from the gifted, look instead at the ones who thirst for growth. When a young boy learns alef beis, his progress is easily measured and one can see a huge difference in a relatively short period of time. As we grow, and the longer we are growing, the less obvious our progress is. We may feel stagnant, but this is an illusion. Everything single thing we do counts.

Yoma 38b: If a person comes to purify himself, [Heaven] helps him.

Yoma 39a: If a person sanctifies himself . . . down here bewlow, [Heaven] sanctifies him from above.

When we strive for perfection on earth, our higher neshama is elevated. The person is not aware of it because it doesn’t enter his body. However, that elevated neshama can radiate its new light back down on the person and sanctify him. So his efforts are still helping to lift him up, even if not detected.

It is totally counterproductive to dwell on the pace of one’s progress. Just keep on trucking! The real success is the toil itself. Trust Hashem. Every day we are created anew. Whatever we were or are, Hashem can any day recreate us without our prior faults that weighed us down.

I just saw a shtickel מושב זקנים, which is baalei Tosafos, that blew me away!
He says the reason a Kohen Gadol can't marry an almonoh, is because we the Torah is afraid that the Kohen Gadol, when he says the name of Hashem on Yom Kippur, will have in mind to kill someone using Hashem's name, in order to be able to marry that guy's wife. In order to avoid this issue, the Torah forbade the Kohen Gadol from marrying an almono, so now he has no incentive to do that.
What blew me away was that the Torah was afraid that the holiest man in klal Yisroel, on the holiest day, will be thinking about a woman he wants and try to do away with her husband in order to marry her. That speaks volumes about the power of the YH.
So, dear friends, please! Stop beating yourself up! Realize that we're mere mortals, and we were created with a real, powerful YH! Of course, we gotta work on controlling ourselves, but don't eat yourself up for having that desire! Cut yourself some slack!
And then...keep on trucking!

chooseurname wrote on 16 May 2024 19:13:

I'm in the process of writing a longer piece, but here is a sneak preview. Perhaps you and Heeling are mechavein to the Vilna Gaon who writes in his commentary on the Zohar HaKadosh: "For the [higher] neshama is not enclothed in the body at all, but helps him from above". When we strive to improve ourselves, our higher neshama is elevated. It then radiates its new light back down on us to keep helping us on earth (with our guf and lower neshama). Yasher Koach!

Excellent question.

Likely it's just a trick of the yetzer hara to make us feel worthless. But to play devil's advocate. Perhaps there's an element of kedusha that is a yes/no state, and one is either kadosh or not. So before the fall you are kadosh and during/after the fall you lost that. You didn't lose the past six months of being a kadosh, but the status of a kadosh is gone.
The positive version of that is that after deciding to change direction one is kadosh even if yesterday he was falling hard.
No source for this. Just today's enthusiastic opinion.

Regardless.

Keep on Trucking!

Hope this makes sense. The 'גמ in שבת קי"ב and עירובין כ""ד bring a Halacha, that in order to nullify the status of a כלי to make it lose its טומאה, it needs to have a hole the size of a pomegranate to render it טהור. The 'גמ has a שאילה what if there was a smaller hole the size of a כזית that got sealed up, then alongside it another hole the size of a כזית developed, got stuffed up again, then another one developed alongside it, until all of the filled parts equal the size of a רמון. Do we say, that since at no given time was there a hole larger than a זית, it doesn't change the status of the כלי, or maybe since there is an area the size of a רמון that was changed at one point or another, even though it didn't occur at the same time, we still say that, the vessel becomes טהור?

The 'גמ resolves its question with the famous words פנים חדשות באו לכאן. We consider the כלי to be a completely new item. Even though the hole that formed, at no point in time was larger than the size of an olive. A small gain, that got stuffed up again, back to square one. But the 'גמ is telling us that its never back to square one. The small holes even though they were filled can be combined to make a larger one.

The 'גמ concludes with an exclamation that one of the אמוראים exclaimed. לית דין בר אינש someone with that outlook is not a human, rather a מלאך.I've heard it being said in the name of the חתם סופר (although I tried finding it inside, I couldn't) that we see from this 'גמ, that even when one seems to be going in circles and not making any progress, he needs to be aware, that even subliminal change that seems to regress, is not lost. As long as we keep at it, making new holes, coming up with new plans eventually we will reached the level of a פנים חדשות. Hang tight. Keep on trucking. The fact that you're still in the fight despite the regressions, shows how tough a fighter you are.