amevakesh wrote on 01 Sep 2024 18:08:

Chazak vematz 

I had a machshava the other day. If it helps, epic, if not, also good. 

I was walking in the street and a nice looking, fresh, cute girl was walking in front of me and I was lusting. A few minutes later, she was gone and a new one was in my way, and the lust returned. Vechulu. 

It was killing me, foreal?!

Then I thought, what do I want from this? Do I want to marry her?! No. Cuz I'm content with what I have (or at least, not ready to throw away all that I have for this). And then I'll have to remarry every girl I see. So what's my matara?! Just for a minute worth of pleasure?!? 

Personally, when I think about what I'm doing and what I want from it, the stupid feeling it brings to heart helps the lust go away. 

Obviously it's different when fantasies come to mind, but when you think deeper about what your doing and what you want, it could help...

Just sharing my thoughts. You're in my prayers regardless. 

All the best!!!

Hows the captain doin' today?

Thank you for asking. Today was a bit better. Not out of the woods yet. 1 day to go until my schedule will become so busy that I won't have time to think about these שטותים (Hopefully)!

Learning alone tends to cause anxiety in some of us. With a chavrusa the tension levels are lower so certain muscles don't start tightening up....

Summer - I can't do without you, I need you, even though it's so hard to get through you unscathed. I attended a camp where as posted before, I worked quite hard. In my personal life, I had a few times where my boat was rockin and was steadied by some dear friends. Then I came home and all was calm, finally some peace and tranquility, when a storm of urges hit me out of the blue. I can say that in all probability, if not for all of my dear ידידים and חברים that called, texted and posted to give me חיזוק and showed interest when I needed it, I would have fallen. BH, as the Zman resumes, my life heads back to the proverbial treadmill, where I'm running and running and can't seem to catch up to myself. The benefit of it all is that I am in a structured schedule that doesn't leave me any time for nonsense.

To my dearest friends - Thank you all so much for helping me make it to the finish line. As I gratefully update my streak, I know that the only reason it says 408 instead of a different number, is because of you.

It is a two way street buddy. You are doing exactly that for many others..... 

minhamayim wrote on 29 Aug 2024 00:27:


This Vort is beautiful, extremely powerful, resonates deeply within me, and perhaps is even life changing. It it one of the few that I’ve seen that I hope will have an impact I the way I look at certain parts of my life.

You see, for the past year, with the help of the עולם here at GYE, I have been זוכה to shake off the grip that lust had on me. Obviously no one is ever free from his clutches, but for the most part, I am at a stage that I would call maintainence, rather then the break free stage.

One of the most profound benefits this had was on my marriage. Until last year, I bore a (mostly) silent grudge against my wife for not being there to serve my needs and whims. I thought that that was her primary responsibility, to take care of her husbands needs. No doubt even though I didn’t often say anything, she definitely felt my dissatisfaction with her with was quite toxic for our marriage. I will say that for the most part we always had a working relationship, you could say we even got along well most of the times, but there was always an underlying tension because of my expectations.

Fast forward a year. The monster has been tamed. I now look at my wife with a fresh perspective. I see beautiful things in her that I never noticed before. Our Shalom Bayis has greatly improved over the past year, in ways I never thought possible.

Having said that, life is still not bliss. (If there’s anything I learned on these forums, it’s that even the guy you think has it all, is struggling with something.) My marriage has a unique challenge that I choose not to elaborate on in public. Suffice it to say, it’s a very difficult one. There’s been little written on this subject here on the forums, but even the little that is, I haven’t found anyone who struggles to the extent we do. It’s a נסיון that potentially can greatly challenge one’s Shalom Bayis in the best of times. As long as I was lusting, this challenge was unbearable. But, even now, with lust under control, it can be very difficult, and at times makes be sad. Sometimes reading about how certain people’s graduated from using their wife as one who fills his sexual fantasies, to one who attains real intimacy fills me with a feeling of longing that’s awfully intense. Yet, I try (and am largly successful) to remain upbeat, by counting the blessings in my life (of which there are many BH), and focusing on the beautiful and positive attributes in my wife (of which there are also many BH).

That being said, up until this Vort, my approach was “I love my wife for all the good I see in her, despite the challenge we have in our marriage.” What this Vort has taught me is that I can reach a level, and I believe that it’s in the not so distant future that “I will love my wife precisely because of the challenge we have in our marriage”. This fills me with a sense of joy and anticipation, because I know that if I ever overcome this challenge, it will be because I make myself into something special. Then I will be at the level where I actually thank ה' for the challenge that he gave me, for without it I would not have been who I am. Thank you  Minhamayim so much for posting this beautiful insight.

amevakesh wrote on 10 Sep 2024 10:51:

Brother, the way you deal with your pekel, has given me such a kick in the pants to refocus on whats important you have no clue.
One of the true Hero's here!

I second R' Red's motion!

Amevakesh, I'm thinking of פלטי בן ליש crying over מיכל בת שאול (his source of challenge) getting removed from him and his crying at the lost opportunity. I then think of our own Amevakesh having a bird's eye view of his lifelong test and the great person he became because of it, and his subsequent crying (לאחר מאה ועשרים and then some...), your impact on me is that powerful...........

KOMT!
Muttel

redfaced wrote on 10 Sep 2024 12:54:

Between the splinters and the kick, I can't imagine what those pants look like. Just saying, if you need a tailor, I have a friend that does a good job.

amevakesh wrote on 10 Sep 2024 10:51:

What a beautiful vort and application!
My dear friend, you are flying high!
Knowing you, you will put in the effort and you will, Bez"H overcome this too...
(Please excuse my slight edits...)And if y'all don't mind, please stay away from my pants, thank you very much...

amevakesh wrote on 10 Sep 2024 10:51:

A slightly belated response to this post.

I really try to use this vort in life especially when things get really tough. Thank you amevakesh for showing me that it's actually an attainable madreiga. I hope to get there one day.

I thought of a couple additional areas where this yesod may be able to be applied.  Here's one of them.

Someone brought up a point to me that I think many would agree with.

We obviously all have our own unique struggles. Sometimes we can look at someone else who we know is going through something very tough as well and wonder to ourselves whether we would be willing to trade our problems with theirs. I'm definitely not speaking for everyone but I think that even if we believe that our problem is "worse" or more difficult to bear, we would never actually choose to realistically give it up in return for someone else's package.

Think about it. Perhaps some of you would disagree. But on the tzad that I'm right...

The question then is, why not? Why wouldn't the obvious choice for everyone be to want to swap out our peckel for someone else's better or easier one?

Perhaps an explanation for this is that deep deep down we all know that our lot is ours because it's necessary essential for us to have to go through it. Maybe this knowledge is so deep down it's only in our subconscious. Perhaps it's just our nashama that's margish it. But the truth is there. We know on some level that we would have to be crazy to give it up. Living life without our own struggles and instead taking on some other guys' seemingly easier ones would be "tafkid suicide". Life would just be pointless.

We won't give it up because we want it and can't afford to lose it. We want and need our nisyonos in order to grow into what Hashem wants us to be and therefore in order to grow into what WE want to be.

Just a thought, could be wrong. 

MinHamayim

Small, yet meaningful victory for me. This Sunday, as I was returning from Yeshiva, I noticed the neighbor that lives 2 doors down from me. They are a Jewish reform couple, who are very nice people, with whom we have a cordial relationship with. Usually this doesn't pose a problem, however sometimes they exercise, they are big joggers, and they do so in their full glory, him in shorts only, and she, without going into detail, almost matches him. As I was coming around the bend of my street, I noticed that he was doing lawn work cutting down branches from his tree. I also noticed that he was talking to "someone". I figured that I knew who that someone was, and she's quite pretty, especially when (un)dressed in such a fashion. Now the normal thing I would do in such a situation would be to first find out who he’s talking to, and after I see who it is, if not appropriate - look away immediately. But I thought to myself, why is it important to find out who he’s talking to, you know who it probably is, and who cares anyway. Pleased to report, that I still don’t know who he was talking to. To me this was significant because i believe that the root of many of my falls were rooted in the מדה of curiosity. If the YH felt it was important enough to push me to find out who it was, then I guess it should be important to me as well, to consider it part of the fight. Onward.

amevakesh wrote on 19 Sep 2024 19:44:

I figured that you knew that someone would go ahead and correct you from downplaying an incredible win.

That takes a lot of koach and BezH you should continue to be matzliach.