Some recent thoughts...

1) I gained a deeper understanding of what real teshuva is recently. For years, and still today, when I make a mistake many times my reaction is something along the lines of: Shucks! Did it again! I guess I'll have to try harder next time. I then proceed to strengthen myself so that it shouldn't happen again.
The problem with this process is that whatever brought about my current failure isn't going to change/improve/go away just because I steeled myself and tried harder or because I said "No! That's not going to happen again!" 
There is clearly a deeper issue that needs to be resolved in order to prevent further failure.

This is something I realized towards the beginning of my journey. My new realization is that this is possible for every single mistake we make and every struggle we have. Through searching internally for the root cause of my failure can lead me upwards on to the next rung of the ladder. This is something that can take place at an infinite number of levels.
(I got this mashal from F2F, but to me it seems like spiraling upwards. At each new level of growth there's still more to do. As I struggle at my new level, it's up to me to keep strengthening the foundational issue and through that achieve continuous growth.)
[As an aside, through this, I think I started understanding how Yiras Shamayim works. ודו"ק]

I then realized that this post probably means exactly that...
chaimoigen wrote on 09 Aug 2024 08:02:




2) It always bothers me and makes me squirm inside whenever people brush off the necessity of filtering flip phones, because "it's so slow, you gotta be crazy to do anything bad on it" or similar things.
Guess what? I guess I'm crazy. The only time I ever watched a pit of porn was...on a flip phone.
I guess I got too much of that recently, so thanks for listening.

3) Still struggling badly with street sights and the like...how can I wrest back control of another bit of lust from the YH?
Any ideas?
    3a) Any ideas on how to implement humanizing the person? Always been a struggle for me...
    3b) I also find myself being the "Tznius Police". Any ideas how to combat that?

Good stuff. 

This won’t work from across the street, but when I interact with women in offices, stores, etc, I make eye contact and connect slightly, human to human. Makes it far less likely to take shameful glances and less likely for me to want to. 

When I am in a park with my kids or similar I find it can help to try to relate to the women there (with their kids) as mothers. Interact slightly with them as such (point out when her daughter is trying to get her attention etc). Helps similarly. 

WARNING. This is dangerous to try with women that you have regular interactions with, such as those with whom you share an office, as it can turn very easily into a casual relationship, and that’s a different kind of danger zone. 

chaimoigen wrote on 27 Aug 2024 19:30:

Reb CO, I guess I'm not on your level (I actually know I'm not on your level...), or maybe everybody is just different. For me to interact, even slightly, with intent, would just ignite my lust even more. For me, ignore as much as possible works best. 

chaimoigen wrote on 27 Aug 2024 19:30:

Reb CO, I guess I'm not on your level (I actually know I'm not on your level...), or maybe everybody is just different. For me to interact, even slightly, with intent, would just ignite my lust even more. For me, ignore as much as possible works best. 

What a beautiful post!

I'll also challenge you. Are you really not as successful as you would like to be? How are you gauging that? If you are like me, than when you get to your destination you probably judge your performance by what you feel like. And that is not the true gauge. For most people, the time that they walk around with their eyes down does not create any emotional feedback. But they one second that they saw something, even if they didn't take a second look, will create an emotional feedback. So, you get to your destination, and you feel ich. And you only remember and keep processing the moment of lapse, or not-even-a-lapse. And you feel you failed.
And that is so wrong!
The only gauge we should be using is our actions, our choices. What we feel like is absolutely meaningless. Eventually, we can hope for our emotions to come along with our logical mind and realize the truth of our successes

About the old-fashioned nisayon of not ogling over the women we come across, be they overdressed or underdressed, I think there's another point that was not mentioned. The proper way, I think, is to balance הסח הדעת with שימת לב. Yes, you gotta be on guard. You can't make believe that they are not there. On the other, you can't be uptight and obsessed with their presence, as that just makes us want to see it even more, and even if we didn't look, we are there, 'looking', the whole time. So there needs to be a balance of awareness, know your surroundings, and don't look where you know you shouldn't. When you see something inappropriate, don't let it get you down! Super important- Celebrate your wins! Keep reminding yourself how much you do to make Hashem proud- and that should make you a proudyungerman!

eerie wrote on 29 Aug 2024 17:17:



Just for clarification- keeping my eyes where they’re supposed to be and not noticing is the first line of defense. The above methodology is what I use when I need to interact. 

chaimoigen wrote on 29 Aug 2024 19:49:

Thanks for clarifying! I understood that you were saying that if I'm lusting, as a way of dealing with it, interact slightly, to which I wrote that interactingf with intent, by which I mean that I davka interact to get rid of the lust, would not work for me. But I'm happy I misunderstood, and you meant it only when interaction is needed for another reason. In that I'm totally with you. Being here, working on myself, has definitely brought me to a place where I can interact with women when I need to, and it means nothing. It's just another person. Of course, trying to minimize the interaction, but when it is necessary, it goes over well BH
Thanks for all your words of wisdom, Reb CO!

It's really nice not having a phone, and there are certain parts I want to try to hold onto when I do get my phone back.

However, I really miss talking to the oilam....

Y'all have a wonderful Shabbos!!

Last year I spent waaay too much time checking YWN. (You know when you just refreshed the page again, for the fifteenth time in 5 minutes? As if the world is actually going to collapse...) There were a bunch of reasons for this ridiculous habit. Either way, in the summer I didn't have access to YWN for around two and a half weeks. (Yes, this was around the same time my phone broke. No it wasn't connected. For real.)

I noticed an amazing thing. For some strange reason, the world hadn't waited around for proudyungerman. It kept sporting, politicking, olympicing, and everything else that the world does without my expert analyses and predictions of what should or shouldn't happen.

It hit me hard. I don't have to know everything going on all the time. Then, one day as I was thinking about it, I realized that I am much calmer and relaxed. I realized that I can enjoy not knowing what's going on all the time.

I decided that for Elul I am only going to check YWN once a day. So far so good, and I haven't missed any earth shattering news yet.
Instead, I find that I have more time and yishuv hadaas for learning and for my family. 


Exercising my newfound self control is actually enjoyable!
Thank y'all for helping me be here today!