Hi everyone, after years of reading this forum, and thinking I had beaten my yetzer hara over and over again, I have finally decided that I need to post! (Although that may just be my yetzer hara trying to get me not to revise for my exams). I am in my mid/late teens, and have been struggling in areas of Shmirat Habrit since I was about 13/14. I have never really spoken to anyone about it, so I'm hoping this forum will help me to break free!!!! I have been trying on the ninety day chart for a while now, I had a fairly recent streak of 58 days, but unfortunately I fell and haven't kept clean for more than a few days since I have read the guidebook (well bits of it) and I installed a filter on my laptop and desktop, but I still sometimes get triggered by stuff and find it difficult to control myself. I daven so hard for tahara in this area but I sometimes feel like such a fraud because I've davened so many times and then fallen again.
I'm going to Yeshiva next year, so Be'ezrat Hashem I'll be able to stop for good there, but I really want to stop from now, I have just reset my thingy on the 90 day chart and with help from Hashem I will really do it with all the help and chizuk from everyone on here!
I also have a few questions for everyone: Are there good reliable filters for ubuntu linux, and also for android phones, as I often find that I fall using my phone (Which hopefully I won't have in yeshiva).
Also, I really don't want to talk to anyone in my life about this issue, but I feel I would find it really helpful if I had someone who I felt was checking up on me (apart from Hashem OBVIOUSLY), would anyone be willing to sponsor me for the 90$ for 90 days thing?

A few more questions:
1. I am very familiar with the idea that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us everything to use for good: if you have a bloody nature become a shochet rather than an axe murder etc., and he gave us the taivas that we have in order to use them for holy purposes, to become a Shutaf with Hashem. I know I should try and use everything I have Lsheim Shamayim, but I don't understand how it works before I'm married; there is no good outlet for these taivas!

2. How important is it to go to the mikva, should I wait until I am clean for a bit, because otherwise I risk just using it as a make up every time I fall I know I can just go to the mikva and it will be ok?

3. How can I daven properly with Kavanah to stop if I think I might fall again?

(btw I copied this over from wall of honor forum because I don't think many people saw it)

(and I'm copying here what I posted there -- you're right, there's generally more traffic here)

Your question #1 will definitely be better than my answer.

On a practical level, I heard Rabbi Rietti say once that our bodies mature as young teenagers because sometimes, as conditions demand (such as after a major calamity), it is necessary to get married and start a family at a younger age than we are accustomed.

It may also be that there is wisdom in having us grow up with this battle, rather than start it right when we are ready to get married.

I'm sure other guys will share better ideas. I'm just an addict, not a lamdan.

I have no thoughts at all about mikva, although if you search this site for mikva, you will find many discussions.

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the tefilla that has kept me sober for the past 3+ years. I say it whenever I encounter any thoughts of lust -- immediately and repeatedly as necessary:


"Ribbono Shel Olam, I am powerless over lust and my life has become unmanageable.
Only you can restore me to sanity.
I turn my life and my lust over to your care and ask you to please heal me from this illness of lust. I don't want to lust, I only want You and a relationship with You and Your Torah, (and appropriate attraction to my wife). Take my lust. Please, take my lust."

I also insert a personal bakasha in Sh'ma Koleinu that Hashem should help me guard my personal kedusha.

Hatzlocha!
Alex

Hi,
welcome aboard.
i totally know where you are coming from with my problems having started earlier.
though one thing i must let you know going away to yeshiva will not be some sort of magic cure for lust (it most definitley helps being totally isolated from women but abstaining isnt recovery especially when its because of lack of access) i am speaking this out of experience which i am going through right now being in yeshiva even for times of up to three weeks at a time with absolutely no interaction with women whatsoever doesnt cure me from lust when the urge arises only davening and really working on oneself to really change can do that
hatzlacha

TS, tayrer yid, shulem alejchem!




I have to disappoint You, it will bepashtus not help much, dont relay on that only.

They bring beshem Rav Nachman miBreslav, that going to mikve + tikun klali (psalms: 16,32,41,42,59,77,90,105,137,150 one after the other) help to rectify the pgam you do to yourself...But haKadosch baruch hu will not love us more (bepashtus) if we just do it.. what doesnt mean we should not use it. its pretty bedieved


hatzlocho with your fight!

If going to yeshiva solved our problems this forum would be little more than a Gmail chat.

Here is a short explanation of the Tikkun Kloli. I hope it is informative.

The whole world is built on ten sefiros: Keser, Chochma, Bina, Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchus. The Gemora in Pesachim 117 says that sefer Tehillim is composed from ten expressions of song,which we learn from the Zohar Hakodesh correspond to the ten sefiros.
Any collection of ten chapters of Tehillim which contain all ten expressions contain the essence of the whole sefer Tehillim and several mekubalim compiled lists of ten chapters of Tehillim containing all ten expressions to say everyday as a segula for various things.
It was also known that there are ten specific chapters which would fix the pegam of zera levatolo which is pogem in all ten sefiros, and many mekubalim tried to find them to help people fix their aveiros. Hashem did not want to reveal this secret until He decided that the time was right. He revealed it to the tzadik Rebbe Nachman of Breslov zt”l, a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov zt”l. The ten chapters are 16, 32, 41,42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150. Since they fix all ten sefiros, they fix every pegam and every sin and therefore they are called Tikkun Kloli, the All-encompassing Remedy.
Rebbe Nachman zt”l explained briefly how they work and the great mekubal Rav Yitzchok Meir Morgenstern shlita explains at length how they work according to kabbolo in his sefer, Yam Hachochma.
The Tikkun Kloli cannot take the place of teshuva, but after one has toivled in a mikva, the Tikkun will remedy all the damage that was done. The Tikkun takes about ten minutes to say and is effective even if one does not understand the words, like all Torah shebiksav.


For the sake of honesty I want to say that I did not write this to answer your question. I wrote it a few months ago for my thread in the Bais Medrash and copied and pasted it here.

Thanks so much for the support guys, I'll have to keep it short because I really should be revising right now.
Specifically thanks alexeliezer, I know there's no simple answer but I'd never thoguht of that before, it's good to have fresh perspectives. Also, I'm going to try and learn your tefila off by heart and say it whenever I need.
Blind beggar, thanks for the very beautiful explanation, I have read about the tikun haklali before and even said it a few times, as a sephardi I think the pnimiut hatorah kabbala etc are an important part of my mesora, and I think it's an amazing connection the eser sefirot and expressions of shira, but I sometimes feel a bit uneasy about saying things purely because they are a tikun, it seems like a bit of a quick fix that doesn't really correlate to real effort which is what Hashem is surely rewarding us for? (Lephum Tzara Agra)

But anyway, thanks so much for the chizuk guys, please keep it coming, I certainly didn't realise how much help encouragement from anonymous yidden around the world can have until I received some myself!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, effort is required. But not the fighting kind.
The AVOIDING kind.
If you spend your energy avoiding triggers rather than fighting them, you will be much happier.
And if you do see something, or a though pops into your head, the effort -- again -- is not one of fighting, but of surrender and tefilah.

alexeliezer wrote on 22 May 2012 20:05:


There is a vort on Pirkei Avos (5:3)
עשרה נסיונות נתנסה אברהם אבינו עליו השלום ועמד בכולם

Chazal say (Brachos 6b) that 'amidah' means 'tefilah'. So the Mishne is teaching us that Avraham Avinu withstood all his nisyonos through tefilah.

MT

that's a beautiful vort, thanks so much!!!

alexeliezer wrote on 22 May 2012 20:05:


I get that if we put effort in the wrong areas it's pointless, but I feel slightly uncomfortable about the idea that saying 10 tehillim without even having to understand is this magic cure and will make you tahor, when really you have to put a lot of effort into being shomer einayim etc.

I'm not talking about saying tehillim. I'm talking about davening a heartfelt personal bakasha in your native tongue.

When you realize that it is only chasdei Hashem that got you through the nisayon, there will be no gaivah about it.

alexeliezer wrote on 23 May 2012 15:39:


but as far as I'm aware that isn't the tikkun haklali...

You're right, Teenstrugle. What Alexeliezer is talking about is not what Rebbe Nachman zt"l called Tikun Klali but what he called Hisbodedut. Hashem understands English and He is waiting for you to speak to Him about all your troubles the same way you would talk to one of your friends or one of us on the Forum. No preparation is needed, just talk.


Hatzlacha.

And just to clarify (if necessary), you don't have to be a Breslover to do that. For instance, I don't think the Chofetz Chaim was a Breslover, but he too had this pratice of talking to Hashem privately in his mother-tongue (Yiddish).

BTW, Reb Nosson of Breslov said, that if one practices Hisbodedut for 40 consecutive days, it is inevitable that he will change and become a better person.

Hatzlacha

MT

Can't find the Maareh Makom- Somewhere the Mishna Brura quotes the Chayei Odom that a person should find the time once a day to speak to Hashem in private, using his own words. And he writes that he may use his own language if his Loshon Kodesh isn't as meaningful.
The Ramban says a person has a Mitzva D'Oraysa to talk to Hashem whenever he has difficulty. Oh, and so does the 12 Steps.
Have a good Shabbos!
Meir