Eye.nonymous Wrote:
I had this very wise roommate in Yeshiva. After watching my long and futile struggle to get up in time for minyan he pointed out, "the secret to getting up in time is to go to bed on time."
Sometimes we're just fighting the yetzer hara at the wrong end.
After a recent fall, I realized that the struggle wasn't so much the desire to act out as much as it was this "sinking feeling" that would eat me up for days until I felt compelled to act out. This sinking feeling was really the beginning of a crash with lust.
A couple of times recently I've managed to catch this feeling at the beginning and to deflect it by coming up with a positive outlook on the same situation, and thereby avoid another fall. Two recent examples:
On Thursday I woke up late. I was an hour and a half behind my ideal schedule. On my way out the door I got this sinking feeling in my heart -- "OH NO, I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANYTHING DONE TODAY!"
I started to get caught up in it. THEN I recognized it: "this is that depressed feeling that starts to eat me up, and keeps on eating me up, sometimes for days or even for a week, until I eventually fall!"
Instead, I told myself that I'll manage to do whatever I manage to do, and I'll be happy with it. After all, I still have a full day ahead of me. An hour and a half isn't the end of the world.
This realization cheered me up and put an end to that sinking feeling.
And for that day, the yetzer hara was defeated.
On Friday night, Thank God, I had a repeat performance.
After I came home from Shul, I felt far short of being "inspired". It was really chaotic - with the kids just being themselves. That sinking feeling set in again.
This time I couldn't pinpoint exactly why I was feeling down. It was just a general feeling of being overwhelmed.
BUT, the feeling was familiar. I knew I couldn't fall for it, or I'd end up falling.
So I just said to myself, "here's that feeling again, but I can't let myself be depressed". I somehow managed to project myself out of the situation. I realized that despite the chaos, I'm probably doing the best job I can as a father.
I actually starting singing, "TOV L'HODOS L'HASHEM".
And thank God, I'm still clean! I know I would have fallen a couple of days ago already if not for this lesson that I took out of my last fall: "beware of that sinking feeling. It's not real, it's just the yetzer hara trying to drag you down. There's so much about life you can just find to be happy about".
What beautiful victories! Thank-you so much for sharing that, Reb Eye. Sometimes I just hold on to the little victories for the whole day by writing the gratitude down on a note and saying "thanks Hashem for doing this for me, or for helping me do that..." a few times over the course of the day, then reading it before or after the bedtime sh'ma. It's nice to go to sleep with a little smile, even if nothing else feels like it went right that day.