Like anyone here in E.Y., my attitude on that is: To heck with the shtreimel -the ikker, let it rain, let it pour...

BTW -I have a decent stock of "Nylonim", it's the veise zocken getting soggy that ticks me off. I need a good pair of boots like the skverers, and then I'm all set (I've been planning on getting a pair for years).

E

Sholom alechiem reb tzadik. It looks like we have a new up and coming star.
ps why are all the great writers in israel?

what did i do to make people think im a star....maybe bec. i wrote alot....
Thanks guys-you saved me. I feel uncomfortable remaining on this thread right now bec. i feel BH great and i do not need all the clamor. you guys are ne-eman! i mean it. If i need s/t again ill just post here again, but until then maybe ill just retire from focusing on myself and perhaps get the zchus of focusing on a fellow jew.
Tzaddik90
By the way ebd, i have army boots that are waterproof-not joking-maybe those can help you-i wear them every day (".")

tzaddik90 wrote on 30 Jan 2011 13:59:

;D ;D

Thank you for a smile in the morning!

hey there tz.90 -

i hear where you are coming from.
it all comes down to BOUNDARIES.

and learning how to set new boundaries for yourself ... and being able to define who you are.

EFT (emotional freedom technique ) is also helpful.
do a google search for both of the above - many good articles on both.

if you can find a life coach in your area - also helpful.

let me know if I can help.

dov.ii

btw - there is a new launch on Tues 2:30 est - its an experimental launch, we will be covering some of the above topics in addition to the 12-steps.

ur welcome to join us - we just started this week

1-760-569-6000
code: 121318#

dov.ii

Wow, Dov in Israel, you hit a nail on the head. Actually, a huge, ugly and rusty neon green nail. How did you gather from these posts the idea that i have to define and find myself?
    That is s/thing i'd love you to answer.

Kuntress bi'inyan hanal:
That was s/thing i had a crisis with for two years past in particular, that was so fascinating, self destructive, and funny, i could write a whole book about it. I tried and tasted so many different styles of thinking until i came full circle understanding that to be myself , i just have to let go and not be so intellectual, or calculated-rather, to just naturally slip back into my born with innate traits.
    You see, being one's self may not be that difficult for one whose self esteem is moderately okay, like myself, but in truth there is another way that it can be distorted, like so: The more learning i did, the more i came to rationalize the way that i acted, when in truth i really acted that way in order to fill a gap in myself. Too hypethetical for you? ill explain.

    From the above posts, you see that i experience loneliness.
In order to fix that, i tried to be different and thereby try to become part of several communities. For one example out of a dozen, i learned R' nachman's sfarim inside and out and then davened by the Breslov place in an adjacent neighborhood.
 
Every falsehood stands only when truth is mixed within, and so there was elements of truth to this way of being not like myself which made it stand, thereby propogating this destructive behavior. For example in this case, i actually do love R' nachman, and i have a phenomenal memory, and so i remembered everything i learned from him, etc. And so i could use this ploy to be "one of the guys"-and it worked, for a shortwhile, but we all know that nothing artificial is like the real thing-be it a limb, sugar, or personality.

Here at GYE i allowed myself to joke the way i used to, and let loose, and be myself. I have nothing to demonstrate to anyone here-that's why being virtual, amidst its twenty thousand chisronos, has a maaleh. I can be myself, open unrestricted, and thereby become healthier and more self aware.
I also would learn a chazal about ie. kul hasach seecha biteila over biaseeh, and of course i know that you have to "be normal". im not so stupid.
But, after combing the ein yakov, ben yeho', and gedolim biographies to define it, i'd conclude on my own what that chazal means to me and then i'd stop shmoozing properly with my wife and friends-you see- self destructive. The above chazal is one example of a million that i used to lop off parts of myself and personality, thereby worsening my depression and plight, and driving up ever more the need for my addictions.

Wow, i typed a mouthful. Even if no one read it, its good to have chazarah i suppose. I am complex. Well, isn't all of mankind supposed to be? As the Ari says, ha'adam olam katan, vihaolam adam gadol.
Unbelievable. The more complex i am, it was that much more that i needed to overcome to be who i am now. It was always those reflective pats on the backs that got me until here.
I need to acquire this let go and let god mentality.
And so, i will finish by saying "god-you are the captain of my ship-you got me this far, even when i tried to thwart you fifty thousand times, and so youre going to keep on guiding me to where you want me to grow, no matter what. YOU ARE THE ONE that's been guiding me through all of these steps, the whole time."

tzaddik90 wrote on 03 Feb 2011 08:24:

I did. 

me too

wow
you write well and you probably gain much by expressing all this, so keep it up

Me 3

Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

Didn't Shlomo HaMelech say something like The world is simple but man made many complications?

The ability for us to rationalize our unhealthy behavior can be truly impressive. And the more we learn and know, the more ammunition we have to do so, if we so choose.

Wow.
first of all, to add, that pasuk is quoted in the 2nd half of the gye handbook, shame on you-s/thing like hshm asa ess ha'adam yoshor, viheim bikshu cheshbonos rabim

2ndly, silent battle, your'e right on target. Its therapy on steroids. The real mccoy (i just wanted to say the real mccoy).

3rdly, i'm embarrassed to say this, because it exploits a weakness in myself, but as EBD wrote to me earlier AIN habayshan lomed:
      My weakness (i might as well emphasize it!)- i feel that i have never been properly listened to in my life-and that is because i have not been properly listened to in my life. ha. I need not remind you all of my childhood.
    And so, when i write a long post amidst the other, how many does it say on the bottom of my screen, 88,000?, i assume it'll be swept away like many other of my feelings and words.
  And so when i wake up and see the whole senior GYe moetzes white house chelm staff has read my post, it heals-y' hatzaddik, EBD, Zemmy, and now SB-you've healed me so much in the past three weeks, it would make you cry from simcha if you knew. let that go into your hearts, bec. it came out from mine, like the pasuk says.

Kun' acharon:
I was going to write more about myself, but the sponja's waiting. I want to be understood by my new friends, and not rejected as strange, but i trust you guys. all of you.
I know this is not common, but why does it have to be.

There was a nevuah ktana from a tzadeikess before i was born that i would become a tzaddik.
Additionally, i was told by one of the gdolim that when i am 70 i will receive.....spiritual kochos.
More so, all the time, meshuggeners would approach me and tell me things.
additionally, mekubalim (the real ones, i read tamiim tiyyeh, i know!) would often tell me messages of how to work on myself.
Two rabbeim of mine would look at my tzelem and tell me whati need to fix.
I have also gotten hasaga dikdusha before.
Plus, i have gotten hasaga of tumah as well by accident.
    But i am just a regular guy, and thats what i want to be-im like all you u gedolim-trying to grow and work on freedom from the SA (sitra achra, not the SA we all thrive on!).

And why i share this all? the answer is twofold.
one, it is like drugs to be able to be open with s/one about my struggles. This dimension of my life has added many turns, twists, and nisyonos.

two, and this should knock your socks off- GYE has helped me more than all of this gedolim staff put together. How? Because even with a senior staff of neviim playing flutes at my side, i needed to work on the internal. I am a broken vessel. I needed, as someone in the handbook said, to get out of my eighteen wheeler red mack truck, and get on the tricycle. You all took part in some of the most internal, deepest healing of my inner child. You cant fathom it all. Id express it now, like a cow expresses milk, but i must go.
Vidah bnee, even the insignifacant things that you do make an impression. 4ex., whenever any of you, my rabbeim, sign off with the KOT, it gets me to go on and be the best that i can be.

How embarrasing. But more so, its coming forth and gainig even more self awareness that i need to go on.
Im just an avreich. I llok up to all of you for what we are all part of.
As Silent battle wrote in his thread 39 years ago,
    us gye's? WE ARE THE FRONT LINES!
good shabbos,
confused,
happy and unclear why,
tz90, the humble addict who grows from you

Sorry, I should have looked it up  :-[

Ah gitte vuch Tzaddik!

Tha ikkar is that you are happy and growing...

KOT!

EBD

To add, i tried to pm/email u, and even post here before u wrote sorry; i just wanted to clarify i meant shame on u in the rhetoric, non literal sense-for vi'yeesem n'kiim i posted this to clarify that i do not ever want to be s/o that even a touch hurts s/one's feelings. Have a great week and please forgive me.
and now...
Back to our hero's wild adventures :

I remove my jacket in anticipation to type more efficiently and create this post, and bring forth the deepest of deep thoughts from within my locked up inner child.
    I discovered an understanding of a lifelong habit, and dumptruck loads about myself. B"h.
   
you see, i was reading the white sa book this morning for breakfast (i read instead of eat), and i learned more clearly how Alchohol is just the model for all types of addictions-and that addictions can really take all forms. The common denom. is that the person does it in order to receive the chemical stimulus in his brain, with which to experience an escape from reality.

  I have tried many types of escapes over my successful addict career-for example try having zanax with a half cup of vodka-now that is what i call an escape!

Anyhow, in my yeshiva days, continuing until recently, i have tried another-it is s/thing you may know- and what is so great about this one is that it is such a subtle addiction that you may not have ever noticed this one. it's called...............................suspense.....................................................c'mon already........okay-BUYING SFARIM!

Whenever i felt anxiety id just walk to the sfarim store, i mean the dozen stores in meah shearim, and whip out so galavantly (i dont know how to use this word) my credit card and whoosh, with one fell swipe, id own the new likutei imrei yosef meir chaim elliot on bava basra. I did this hundreds of times. in fact, i own over 400 sfarim, so ive done this more than once for sure.
 
  Its the feeling of escape that i cherished so much when id walk back home with the bright yellow manny's bag, now green. Then, id write my name in it, and number, read the first 3 pages, and then shelf it.
   
Isnt that great? i love it. Its not sexual, nor does the addict sway around with vodka breath and say funny things. Its so innocent. In fact its a mitzvah-everyone knows the rosh on the mitzvah of writing a sefer torah-that's right, my rationalizing, anxiety racked, frum, addict friends- buying sfarim! 
    I just realized this during breakfast, today feb 6, 2011. Enlightening! knowing is half the battle, and now i know.
 
Oh, and did i tell you all, my dad is a chashuv rav.....and a lust addict (magazines)...and....drum roll........A SFARIM COLLECTOR! WHOPEE!!!
    Every day or two he receives a fedex box of sfarim from different places around the world. He sits in his chair, leafs through them for a day, and then shelfs them. Maaseh avos siman libanim-just kidding
    I am revelling in self awareness. The self awareness is so thick here at gye, you could cut it with a knife. I just added a thin coat.
non shatnez, hahaha.

next point will be in a seperate post to up the chances of people reading it. post psychology, 101.