freedom11 wrote on 16 Nov 2023 14:00:

Yeah, the hard times are hard. I'm feeling your pain.
You wrote, " I did not ask Hashem for help as Hashem Help Me suggested. I find that when I get a strong urge my mind sorta goes blank."
I think we can all relate to that. One thing I've found helpful for this specific problem is to use the more highly motivated times to get into the habit of preparing a response to the bad times.
For example, I've been using the posuk of אֵ֗שׁ תָּמִ֛יד תּוּקַ֥ד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֖חַ לֹ֥א תִכְבֶּֽה׃ (which is supposed to be a segula for clearing the mind from hirhurim) as a urge surfing meditation, just saying the posuk slowly a couple times when I see something triggering. I've tried to do that before but was never able to remember to say it in the moment. So I started saying it every night a couple times to ingrain it as a more habitual response; now it comes to mind more readily in the heat of the moment.
This is probably not helpful in the very short term, but if you want to get into the habit of davening for help as HHM suggested, or get in the habit of viewing self-control as a greater pleasure as Iwannalivereal suggested, practicing during the good times will make the response more of a habit which will make it easier to activate that habit during the bad times.

I am b''h now at a 18 day strike now, what a gift from hashem!
things start to feel a little more easy on me, the urge surfing tool is a huge chizuck for me.
( and btw it does not make any sense to me why this should help-and every time at the beginning it feels like its getting worse but then the urge is mysteriously gone)
I am praying to hashem he should help me remember that i still need him to rescue me every day, and i should not fall back in to the cycle of feeling proud which usually leads to a massive fall.
thanks for all words of kindness u are all giving my so much strength.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Thoughts of the IT reviewing my history may help, but eventually that may fade. Also, it's a small company that definitely doesn't have an IT guy on staff - maybe they have one on call.
It's the type of place where admitting weakness will not earn you brownie points - it's run by an absolute perfectionist who has no patience for weakness. But maybe I could install something without them noticing? Are there filters that run entirely as a browser add on - something like that is probably easier to install?
I guess I'll see what it's like if I get the job. There were other halachic reasons I was going to turn it down, but I asked a shaila about those reasons and was told it's okay.

In other news, today was b''h smooth. I was definitely more focused on this potential new job than other urges and today went pretty smoothly. Helped that the internet went down today at the office for like an hour - couldn't work since we all work on the cloud so everyone at the office just hung out in the conference room. Socialization is also good for distracting from urges. There's definitely salot about working at an all frum male office I will miss if I move on.
Tomorrow will be a week clean since my last fall. Other post-Yom Kippur falls have spiraled on for months so I'm feel like I'm making some progress. I've been working on urge surfing and I think that's been helping.

I did last night for the first time the "urge surfing" thing. It actually felt like it was intensifying the urge.I thought that its going t end really bad, but I must say it really works. I guess it takes you away from being in it, to observing it from outside. It worked! literally in 6/7  minutes the urge was gone.
wow! thank u hashem!

I called this topic stepping stones because I have learned over the years that it can take decades, but eventually every challenge leads to growth, including challenges that originally seem like they are only leading to failure. 

I had a setback two days ago for the first time since I started my journey. It happened on day 90 which means that I had a beautiful 89 days of healthy success for the first time in my life. I was discouraged for a day and a half but I am starting to feel very positive again. I had one slip in the first week or two of my journey and now the first setback. Chazal say that the Yetzer Horah renews himself on a person every day. I realized that my slip and setback came about when the Yetzer Horah came from an unexpected angle of challenge that I didn't experience previously. In other words, I haven't actually lost ground in my success, however I have to be more prepared for unexpected situations. I generally don't have urges and it is safe for me to practice mindfulness tools when everything is going well. I am thinking of practicing tools like Urge Surfing and SOBER here and there so that hopefully when a new challenge appears I will automatically switch gears to these tools.

No Mask wrote on 08 Sep 2023 17:38:

You have accomplished so much! It would be a crime to not be makir that! Having lustful thoughts is not a sin. Its the acting on them that is.

No Mask wrote on 08 Sep 2023 17:38:

Why do you think you're not doin' well? Because you saw a nice woman or two and enjoyed the sights? So what? She is God's creation! Enjoy, move on and feel good!

Godspeed

I don’t feel I’m doing well

I’m not masturbating

I’m not watching porn

But I do look on the street….

When I’m in the grocery, I do find myself in the aisle, something I didn’t do for a long time

It means much too much to me to see a nice women etc.

You know when a computer thinks, there is this turning ring, I feel by me lately my brain is doing that to find lust in everything, going to a store, going to doctor etc. the computer [brain] processing it with lust

I need to get to refocus

Practice

1.      Urge surfing

2.      Mindfulness

3.      ACT

Because just fighting doesn’t help, it actually makes it worse

So I need to find a way that it doesn’t have a grip on me, not that I’m fighting the grip it has on me

So what am I doing L’maseh

Life is so busy or distracting and it doesn’t happen to have time to practice the above

Maybe a partner would be a great idea, so it keeps me in check, and it takes me out from the isolation

bright wrote on 13 Aug 2023 14:07:

I did have to use many tools in the toolbox including urge surfing but only for the first few weeks. Now that I got it under control my urges are very easy to handle. I wouldn't call it a struggle any more. I believe I did build solid foundations of how to make it through an urge and how to get up after a fall. I already helped others and it worked. I only faced the challenge of whether to give in to an urge or fight it for the first few weeks of my journey but I did help others that were about to give in. It is much easier to help others than to fight for myself so it is good in a way that I am fortifying myself before going out to a tough battle. Only that I lost so many battles until now and I could have already been an experienced fighter.

"The real struggle has been stress. In hindsight it seems that masturbation used to be my stress reliever. Does any1 have any etzuh for a good stress reliever?" 
I don't know how to copy and quote so I did it this way.

I have found STOP to work for minor stress related urges, and urge surfing and SOBER to work for powerful ones. They can all be found in the GYE toolbox.

There was a lot on the forum about watching your eyes

I could only share my experience

I basically gave up my struggle years ago, because it was worse when I didn’t look, because I got so exited what’s going on there…… and as we all know by now that 99% of this struggle is the imagination that makes you……

So what I learned

I needed to find a way not to look around, not because I’m strong and I’m able to FORCE myself not to look, only to find a place in me that’s not interested

So I practiced, urge surfing, mindfulness, and when I’m aware what in me wants to look etc. and you don’t give in, I’m  are not forcing myself, rather being in control of myself, being mindful and recognizing the urge, and not letting it hijack me, and not letting him take me over.

But this helped me to be happy not to look around and feeling in control, and feeling good not being controlled and pulled by my urges.

But still once I see something attractive I still have a hard time, but still much better than before.

But being in this mindful mindset is not easy all the time

And I do feel I need to practice daily urge surfing etc.

 I tried accountability, to have to report how my day was, but I see it doesn’t help me, because when I use force the opposite happens, I need to feel not interested in looking.

But to have a partner that keeps me accountable to practice urge surfing, F2F that’s a very big help.

Summary

1.       Practice urge surfing

2.       Review F2f, work on one thing each week

3.       Avoid triggering situations

Dear Reb Chancy, this thread was started by funnyfellow, a person that was banned from this site. Keep trucking, brother! I have saved a post from you about urge surfing, btw

simchastorah wrote on 14 Mar 2023 07:49:

Woooooffff…… this is incredible and amazing to see how you took the urge and cut it into tiny pieces…!! I loved it!
On the GYE phone line, they have a section of how to deal with an urge, and this kind of technique is called “urge surfing”, mamesh like you did. They call it “out of the box technique”

thanks for sharing!

It's been a tiring day. It was a good day b'h, but I really struggled with taava. Not while I was in a matzav that anything could happen b'poal, just riding on the bus.

It was like every semi attractive female that i passed was just so intriguing, and I had such an urge to look at them and think about them. I was able to resist mostly, but inside I feel exhausted from it, and I have a nagging voice telling me that I can't last forever, and that eventually I'll fall, and when I do the combined desires of whatever tkufa I'll have managed to stay clean will burst forth and make me fall again and again. And thinking this way I feel like a failure already. And I know this is atzas hayetzer. But what can I say? My yetzer has a lot of practice being a baal eitzah.

I tried doing the urge surfing technique and I did find it somewhat helpful. I saw in a post from HHM that once you realize that there's no real need to ejaculate you feel a real menuchas hanefesh. I would love to have that clarity. To have clear that there's no need to ejaculate, there's no need to have 'relief', that sounds so wonderful. That sounds like such a freeing feeling. 

'Oy li m'yotzri, oy li m'yitzri'. The shackles of this yetzer hara just feel so heavy sometimes. It feels good to get it out in this way, writing on the forum I mean. I kind of feel like I just want to scream. I want to be free. I want to know that the yetzer doesn't have any real power. But I've spent years teaching myself over and over that the yetzer does have power, and it's hard to unlearn a message that you've spent so long learning. 

How long can I go on like this? That's how I feel right now. My heart aches and I fear the darkness where I was a few weeks ago. Hashem please please help me to overcome this thing. Please I'm begging you. Give me strength. I need that clarity that the yetzer can't make me do anything. I need the clarity that my real ratzon is to be a holy Jew, and anything that I feel otherwise is a foreign party encroaching on my thoughts.

This is my meditation then. I am a holy Jew. I am a ben Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Maybe they would even be proud of me. I'm welling up with tears at that thought. And these thoughts and desires are not me. They are not me, and I don't have to listen to them. I am part of the Am S'gulah. Hashem loves me and has a mission for me. With Hashem's help I can rise above this.

And the ever present YH already attacks me. As I write this he says, "don't say that. If you do, then when you fall you'll look like even more of a clown. Get off your high horse. Stop being dramatic. You'll fall in the end, and you'll look like such an idiot. Oh here's the guy who thinks he's a ben A,Y and Y. Here's the holy am sgula guy. No you're not. You're the guy who can't stop himself from watching porn."

I hope this doesn't bring anyone down. (if anyone's still reading). Maybe someone will find their own yetzer in the words of mine and realize that he's the clown. But either way that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to get clarity. What do I tell the yetzer? How do I fight him. It seems like every path I take he's already two steps ahead of me

@chancy Thanx for your continued support.
I think you're right that I'm confusing diffusion and urge surfing. I think that I "get" diffusion for the most part, but for some reason urge surfing just isn't processing. Maybe I don't fully understand it yet.
Shouldn't diffusion be enough to keep me from getting overwhelmed by an urge? It seams to me that urge surfing is just a "playful" but unnecessary way to experience the urge.
Without diffusion, I'm assuming that you'll have a pretty hard time urge surfing because you're still stuck fighting your own brain, and the urge won't really subside since you feel it as a very real part of you (true?). But once I diffuse myself from the urge, there's no reason to get overwhelmed by it anymore, and I can just let it subside. To view an urge as a wave I guess makes sense, because it actually does rise and fall like a wave, and you'll be viewing the urge accurately, because those are the facts. But if I instead  just view it as an outside force that's "just there" but will go away if I don't fight it, it still doesn't make it any harder, since I'm not overwhelmed by it anyways.
What's the whole "avodah" of and how does it help for me to go out of my way to see and "feel" it as a wave?