Bardichev, thanks for your personal chizuk. You are definitely not alone. As I am sure you have noticed, shmiras einayim in the street represents the final frontier.
I constantly use two strategies:
1) Due to the nature of my work, I cannot, in many occasions, avert my eyes from looking at a woman. I am, however, extremely strict in not saying a word more than necessary. Should the woman be attractive to me, it helps to think of the words of Chazal: "a women is a barrel of excrement, and yet all run after her", or I think to myself: "in a few years she will probably look fat and decrepit"...
2) If I see something triggering in the street, after averting my eyes I think of the quote below from the Sefer Hatanya. And I think of the great nachas that I am giving to the Creator by resisting my animalistic drive, and I mumble to myself: "Velo sasuru acharei levavechem ve'acharei eineichem" ("and you shall not stray after your heart and eyes").
Here is the quote from the Tanya:
Should sadness come to a person because of evil thoughts and desires that enter his mind, he should, on the contrary, be happy in his lot in that, although they enter his mind, he averts his mind from them in order to fulfill the injunction "You should not go after your heart and your eyes after which you go astray". When he averts his mind from them he fulfills this injunction. Indeed, the Rabbis have said "he who passively abstained from committing a sin receives a reward as though he had performed a precept". Consequently, he should rejoice at his compliance with the injunction as when performing an actual Mitzvah Aseh...
And with every thrust (of the temptation) wherewith he expels (the thoughts) from his mind, the sitra achra ("the other side") down below is suppressed, and since "stimulus from below causes stimulus above", the sitra achra above is also suppressed.
Thus the Zohar(p.128) extols the great satisfaction before Hashem, when the sitra achra is subdued here below. For then the glory of Hakadosh Baruch Hu rises above all, more than through any praise, and this ascent is greater than all else.
Therefore, no person should feel depressed, even should he be engaged all his days in this conflict, for perhaps because of this he was created and this is his service--to constantly subjugate the sitra achra.
DAY 38. Thank you for your powerful reply. I hope rabbeinu guard shlit"a uses some of these posts for chizuk emails. There is just so much here, I feel I need time to work on them rather than just read them.
Please, let's all give each other the chizuk to go further!
THIS IS AN APPEAL I AM MAKING ON MY OWN INITIATIVE.
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We need to help as many people that want to be helped. This addiction is so wide-spread; beyond any number that people can imagine, and on so many different levels.
I feel that there is so much that can be done on this site alone, as long as people find it and use it correctly to better themselves, and not just to read about other people's problems...
And always remember, SIMCHA is the key!