menuchashanefesh9 wrote on 29 Dec 2024 02:44:

Chanuka is mesugal for a zman Aliya. I’ve been following your thread and share in your accomplishments as you obtain menuchas hanefesh. As you noted in your posts, the chizuk from other Chevra on Gye really goes a long way in battling the urge. That has helped me more than the other Material on the web site. 
aleh vehatzlach! 

hey. it's been a while how are you doing?

Hi to all my beloved members of the GYE community, It's been a while since I posted and I am way overdue... but I just want to share at least this for now. BH this week my counter hit a year. In fact I just noticed that I started this thread on 8/1/2024. 

I have tremendous gratitude to Hashem for helping get here and particularly for the path in which He took me to get here. Last summer I was living a life of freedom, achieved through the help of GYE and all the amazing tools I learnt from the site, both from the F2F program and tremendous wisdom shared via the Forum. But when I fell flat on my face- quite hard- I was shattered. I felt like I was back at square one- my streak of 373 days clean gone and as if my work had gone down the tube.

Out of utter fear of never being able to achieve my goal I did what to me seemed like the hardest thing I ever had to do: reach out for help. Tisha B'Av night I sat in my car- terrified beyond-- and dialed המבקש's number-someone whose own journey I had been following from afar and it had resonated with me. The rest is history as they say...HHM was my second call.. Muttel my third.. A few weeks later Eerie was my fourth.... and a few weeks later PY was my fifth.... and together they all, and many more, helped get me to where I am today.

אין מלים  to express my love and הכרת הטוב I feel to all my friends here. I daven for you all always and absolutely feel connected in such a deep way.

There's a מדרש I heard years ago (I think a ילקוט שמעוני) that says that ט' באה was supposed to be the original date for יום כיפור (and יז תמוז to be ר"ה and ראש  חודש אלול to be a long joyous סוכות). Instead after the חטא העגל ושבירות הלוחות on י"ז בתמוז plan B had to be implemented. Those days were transformed into days of tremendous sorrow and a month full of fear , אלול. But after we experience the growth of these times can we now experience a  ר"ה, יו"כ וסוכות . The destination is similar, but the path looks very different. 

Last Tisha B"Av I was broken-- I felt like i was hopeless.. This year I see that it was just the path Hashem had in mind to allow me to get to where I really needed to be: in a place of freedom surrounded by friends like no other!! Thank you Hashem for designing an amazing Plan B.May Klal Yisroel be זוכה  this year to reach our final destination, and may Tisha B'Av become a day of ששון ושמחה- the holiest of days- a יום כיפור  as it was always intended to be.

I sign off with tremendous gratitude to everyone here and Hashem Yisborach for helping me achieve what once was only a helpless תפילה, a life of מנוחת הנפש