im swollen too!
have an awesome weekend!
hope hashem gifts you with.................

So, I was on the road today on a heavily populated highway for about an hour, first thing is, Boruch Hashem no traffic.

I noticed that we I have a bad habit of trying to ‘get ahead’ of car in front of me. I mean, I was already travelling in the left lane and going quite fast, but the car in front of me was still going a little too slow for my liking.

So, I move over to the center lane and, what do you know! Lo and behold! There is another car going too slow for me!

So, I move to the right lane, manage to swerve around another 2 cars, slowing down not to hit anyone and make my way back to the left lane passing this car and that car.

After I get back to the left lane, I realize Aha! I am exactly where I was before.

Now was that worth it??!

All that dangerous moving, weaving in and out for nothing.

And this is not the first time that this happened. Almost every single time I travel I do the same thing!

Why can’t I just get it straight? Just stay where you are I am, and you I will get there the same time. Slow and steady, you I will succeed.

This is just a mashal for other things in life. We I know that running around to try to get things done is not so helpful. I am better off going slow and steady. Growth will come, one step at a time.

For the second part of the ride, I kept the car quiet and worked on myself.

Travelling from one Jewish location to another, I often concentrate on all the cars around me. Who is traveling from here to there? Is that car ahead of me (read – minivan with the bumper falling off) being driven by a yid?

After a bit of this I just about hit myself. Why is this important? All this is doing to me is to make me see all the other drivers including the females!

Once I realized that this is what is going on, I quickly adjusted my mindset and I concentrated on driving. I even passed a truck that entered my peripheral vision that had pictures on it.

I am proud to say that I do not know what the pictures were. I was able to not look at anything the rest of the trip.

Wow!

What a flight!

138eagle wrote on 17 Sep 2024 18:22:

Amazing!
Indeed, so much of what our curious mind and eyes chase after serves no real purpose (let alone the assur things). When we train ourselves to pay these distractions no heed, then we can achieve a calm and controlled state where the focus is where is should be - on ourselves.

I wrote a little poem out this if you'd like to read it: A Rule for Shul (and Everywhere).
guardyoureyes.com/forum/15-The-Torah-amp-Chizuk-Approach/415747-Real-Life-Lessons#416198

Continued Hatzlacha

BenHashemBH wrote on 17 Sep 2024 18:43:

Just read this.
Wonderful!!!

I tried this a few weeks ago to train myslef not be too curious about the things that are going on around me that are not relevant to me.
It just takes a good reminder of what is going on and what I am looking at in order to get each situation in the correct mindset.
Thank You

So today I did 2 things that I normally do not do.

1. I drove through Manhattan
2. I drove for a while with my wife in the car.

Either one of these is already a challenge…

As the UN is having a General Assembly going on the East Side was not an option if I had any chance of getting to where I needed to be on time. So, we drove on the West Side. That comes with it’s own challenges of Shemiras Einayim.

But hey! A little bit of foresight and concentration, I managed to make it all the way (there and back!) mostly intact. I focused on the fact that I do not need to know everything that is going on around me and all I need to do is to concentrate on the road.

(And yes, in the back of my mind I thought about what I am going to write here when I get back. Thank you, brother ChaimOigen and brother Thompson).

A few minor slip ups did happen as I looked around a bit, but managed to pull myself back together right away, so even those I would chalk up as a success.

The hard part was that I realized that many years of not actively guarding myself now made it that the automatic was that I am looking around and I automatically notice all the problems. My eyes and mind are defaulting to “what is that person wearing”? (or not wearing).

Apparently, I still need more work to make it that my mind and eyes are automatically keeping to themselves.

Aha! It is a lifetime of work! I am here for the fight flight.

Then as the trip was winding down I took the plunge and told my wife about what I am working on and how this trip was considered a success. I think she appreciated it.

So apparently I am doing something right.

138eagle wrote on 26 Sep 2024 20:51:

Amazing! KOMT! KUTGW! KOFH!

Hello All

I have not been posting much lately, as I have been busy, but I am in touch with quite a bit of the עולם in all ways.

I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you here for helping me to grow in my קדושה and by default from there to my שלום בית. Those that I read your posts, and those that I speak and text to on a regular basis.

It is not just about recovering from P & M and about not lusting. My journey here has changed me to be able to be a calm(er) person and to be able to deal with life in a positive way.

Thank you all for saving my life!!!

I thank you, and my wife and kids thank you!!

Here is what happened to me the other night.

My wife was going to the Mikva again, and as usual it was a hectic night. She did not want to leave with our kids asking here where are you going. So, it ended up being quite late. I was annoyed. In the past, I would have let my wife know what I think of the situation. But thanks to all of you here who have been helping me look at my wife as a real person with needs that I have a real bona fide responsibility to fulfill, I was able to look at her as someone who needs help getting things done and to do it!

I kept my mouth quiet, and I just lent a hand to move things along in a quiet and calm way.

When she was ready, I drove her to the Mikva and waited for her in the men’s parking lot. When she came out, I got the most beautiful reward.

She thanked me for driving her, and she just touched my hand as she said it. Not in a sexual way, but in just a nice feeling way.

That touch meant more to me than anything she could have done for me in the bedroom. It was just an expression of underlying love and caring. It was about life, love and marriage itself. A few days later I still feel warm from it.

The flight of life has begun to become enjoyable.

138eagle wrote on 14 Oct 2024 21:57:

I wish I could hit the thank you button 20 times...
Beautiful!!

Tears in my eyes. Oy how much I relate to this! We're in this together. To me, these words jumped out. Priorities straight makes life so much better and like you wrote so much more enjoyable.
138eagle wrote on 14 Oct 2024 21:57:

It is nice to be back here after being away over a long Yom Tov.

Things were relatively nice and peaceful.

I even had a few high points.

The other night, I thought my wife was waiting up for me, I came upstairs, and she was 95% asleep. I knew that in this situation it is a waste of time. I told her good night and went back down to learn some more. I felt upset, “oh here she goes, she doesn’t really care about me and about our relationship. She is not interested in sex at all”. But I realized that although I was upset, I was not as bitter and angry as I used to be.

Wow! What an improvement! I can realize that life is not all about sex. I can realize that she has a right to be tired, and to go to sleep without me. This is what being here is about. On all levels, whether married or still single, there is life without sex, and it can be quite pleasant and enjoyable. We can give up this habit that we have and survive, and even thrive!

Another high point was that in my shul, as in many others (I think almost all of them that I know of, there was even a discussion about this in another thread before Yom Tov) they allow the ladies into the actual shul during the dancing on Simchas Torah, with a very poor separation*.

I am proud to say that even though I looked there a few times, (I was looking for my daughters) I did manage to keep my eyes away for most of the time, and even when I did look there, I did not pay attention to the looks of any of the ladies that were there, and I even did not notice which women that I may have known were there, besides for the elderly lady (the Rav’s mother) sitting in the front.

* A friend that I was complaining about this to in shul told me that his brother-in-law, who is a son of a very Chashuve Rebbi (a Rebbi of mine at one time) but his mother did not come from such a family. His mother told him once that she decided that she wanted to marry a chashuve Yeshiva bochur from seeing them dance on Simchas Torah.

I haven’t updated in a while, and I got some complaints. So, I sat down to pen my thoughts. And I thank those that complained, so that I was able to write the below. It helped me clear my mind and put me on track.

As the regular doldrums of life carry along, I feel them weighing down on my shoulders. Regular tough times at work. Regular challenges at home. Feeling so good about myself and about what I have accomplished the past 9 months, that I have even been hard on myself to be even better now.

This comes with its own challenges.

So, first the good news.

However, through all this, even though I am having urges, they are quite manageable. A year ago, these feelings would have had me aimlessly searching for something to do on my computer and rapidly going down the rabbit hole. Now all I do is check the news again, (there is nothing there). I have also taken some time to talk out some of my emotions to some people just to clear my mind a bit. So doing good here.

But there is the part that still needs work.

However, there has been one small hole in my defense, and I thank Chaim Oigen for binging this to my attention. B”H my filter is set to a pretty high standard, and I do not have any sort of social media, or any secular news websites. I used to use Hamodia as my news source, but they are under construction for the longest time, (I think they are building a skyscraper, it better be something good when they roll it out). As of now I temporarily opened up Matzav.

But I do have LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn is officially a business tool so it is allowed. And while I agree it can be useful for business, I realized that it can also be used for endless aimless searching and scrolling, with no toeles at all. And as I sit at night and type these words (offline) I realize that in my current situation, this is what I have been doing. Using it to dull the doldrums of daily life. And even though I have not “fell”, I have definitely put myself in compromised situations because of this.

And, as I wrote earlier today in thanking Chaim Oigen on his thread, that we sometimes need reminders that we are still human and we still have challenges.
Here it is, I got one, I am still human.

But what we do with those reminders is what makes us grow.

So, Bl”n even though I am not ready to block LinkedIn as I do use it from time to time for business, I will bl”n go to my settings and turn off notifications so I do not see the endless posts of “inspiration” and “motivation”. I will hopefully get that from the Chovos Halevavos on my desk.

Signing off with a Tefila on my lips to the Borei Olam to keep me flying in the air.

wow. keep inspiring us!  even when you don't feel the growth you are still growing!

הרי זה בא ללמד ונמצא למד!! 

וקווי ה׳ יחליפו כח יעלו אבר כנשרים 
ירוצו ולא יגעו ילכו ולא יעפו!!

When at times it feels like giving up the pacifier is losing out, after it’s off the table, you realize that it’s such a pleasure not to need a pacifier any more!!

Admiringly, 
Chaim

Ah, Linkedin. The social media site for the chareidi world. 

Great point about "endless scrolling" too. Any site or app that is an "endless scroller", meaning content refreshes and new content pops up the second you're done the old, is inherently dangerous as a time-suck. 

Good for you!