Dude, 
You didn’t read me totally right. I am not a stoic (though sometimes I wish I was). I am all for a glass of fine wine, and I actually enjoyed many, together with Esmeralda’s splendid cooking, over this blessed three-day Yom Tov. 

But there were moments of frustration. And moments of pain, (because Dumbledore still somehow knows of certain extraordinarily painful things that he cannot share, and Harry is still engaged in self-destructive behavior).

But through these special days - there is a thread of golden light woven through the tapestry that is life, the same golden light that slants through the Schach, and casts sun-dappled patterns on the wall. It wrapped me up during Hallel, and makes my Esrog glow. It’s reflected in the faces of my wife and kids. It even made the words in my Siddur light up, a bunch of times. 

And, at least, the message of the Yom Tov gave me a sense of joy in knowing that I have where to turn, on Whom to rely, that I can cast my burden on to the same Shoulder who wrapped us in his Wings and carried us over the burning sand… He will do so for me today, also. This provides soothing. And Simcha. 

So I wasn’t chock full of happy gladness every second of Yom Tov (though I was sometimes). But I feel a sense of simcha that permeates everything.

I am working on it. 
Hope to go dance my brains out soon. 

Maybe I’ll be dancing with you!! Maybe we will sing together, not knowing who we are אשרי מי שלא חטא ומי שחטא ישוב וימחול לו That would be terrific!!

I’ll imagine that it will be so. Looking forward!! I’ll dance with all of you,
LiChaim!!

Beautiful sentiments R' CO.

I was so fried by the third day of the three day yom tov that I have no idea what I was feeling. Joy, simcha, anger, lust, pleasure, pain. Idk man.Couldn't even focus on my second-favorite megillah - Ecclesiastes (it's all pointless doomed fools!). I just wanted a shower and a nap.

Which I got motzei shabbos.

The nice thing about low goals is how easy they are to hit.

Speaking of low  high goals, I hit 50 days sometime over yom tov. I'm trying to not focus on the streak, and take it one day at a time. But not celebrating passing a number that I'd come to believe was truly impossible would be self-harming, ungrateful, and just plain wrong.

50 days! I thought something like that was truly impossible. I truly felt I would never get loose from the hooks lust had dug into me. But somehow, one day at a time, G-d worked a miracle for me and kept me free from lust. And even more enjoyably, I'm not feeling pressured or like the streak has to end anytime soon.

I do have a history of forgetting how bad it can get when things are going smooth. Just look at my post history around last chol hamoed pesach. And just over aseres yemei teshuva I found myself sliding near the borders a couple times. So I'm trying to keep in mind that I need to put in the work today and every day, while at the same time feel some simcha about a milestone.

This exact time last year (Sunday of chol hamoed IIRC) I was casually surfing the internet on chol hamoed and wandered right into some juicy porn and masturbation to brutally terminate my brief clean streak from Yom Kippur (or possibly just from first days yom tov). This year things are different. Idk how different, but hopefully different enough. Thank you chavers, and thank you Hashem.

Anyway. Yom tov was nice. Felt some joy. Shouted at the kids. Drank some wine. Slept relatively well in the succah (turns out sleeping on a lousy mattress in the freezing cold is a pretty solid way to kill any night time lustful thoughts). It was chilly around here most of the time, and the streets were not an unusually difficult challenge. Looked a bit, looked away much more, and didn't feel a whole lot of lachatz about not looking.

l'chaim!

chooseurname wrote on 01 May 2024 15:39:

Amazing how things repeat themselves. 

Went back to the same place this chol hamoed. Less crowded and colder weather (so more clothes), but more tipsy young people for some absurd reason.

Looked away from some, looked at some, came home resentful and crabby.

Did some surrendering of my resentments by mincha yesterday, which helped. 

Overall though, much less upset about the whole thing. Much less of tensely "fighting to keep my eyes clean" and getting upset about what I saw. I hope that's a helpful attitude.

Had truly absurdly sexual dreams for some reason though. 

Hoping that my streak  cleanliness doesn't come to a crashing (and account deleting) end like pesach's did. But taking it one day at a time.

Buddy,

Youre a different person than Pesach… all the work you’ve done, the help and guidance you’ve provided, you’re a leader….

Methinks you’ll be going really really far…

With tons of brotherly love,
Muttel

chosemyshem wrote on 21 Oct 2024 20:36:

I really lived this experience when I went somewhere a couple of days ago... Managed to not look, yes look and couldn't enjoy where I was because I was so stressed about it. Came home feeling really upset and had this feeling for the rest of the day and some of the next. 
You mentioned resentmend shedding. Can you explain?

[quote="avifl" post=423607 date=1729623654 catid=4]
] wrote:

I'm happy to explain, but I strongly suggest listening through the lectures in Dov's 12 step workshops to learn about this (link in my signature).

It's an idea from the 12 steps. I don't do 12 steps so I probably don't do it in the "correct" way if there is one. But it's a beautiful and powerful idea. For a better understanding really, please listen to the workshops etc. 

Basically. You're tense, upset, angry. You want to look and you want to not look. You're torn, feeling deprived, and really just want to let loose with some solid lusting. At this point, it's fundamentally an issue of feeling upset about your urges and drives and what happened that day and not the urges and drives themselves. 

Unless you're some secret mussar giant you can't just snap your fingers and stop feeling that way. (You also, short of castration, will not stop feeling urges.) But what you can do is recognize that the resentment you have against xyz is coming because you do not want to accept the situation Hashem put you in.

As believers we "know" that whatever happened to us throughout the day is coming from Hashem and is completely and utterly for the good. But we don't "feel" that. If we "felt" that we wouldn't be resentful - why be resentful about something good? Again, you can't just suddenly accept the ratzon Hashem. But you can recognize the resentment, try to feel like you are ready to give it up, and ask Hashem to help you be mevatel your ratzon to his ratzon with joy. 

A lot of times the resentment is wrapped up in ego, self-image, desire, jealousy or whatever important negative middah, and it can be very hard to be ready to give it up. Like, if part of my funk is that I'm resentful at my wife for not being as well dressed or attractive as those ladies on the chol hamoed trip, giving up that resentment kinda means giving up something that is important to me and I honestly feel like I deserve - the "right" to the prettiest wife (which is lust and ego all tied together.) So this takes work. But it is incredibly powerful - for life not just for this struggle.

This doesn't solve all problems. But it is really a very powerful tool and an essential and important idea.

I do not think I did it justice. Whatever truth there is in this is honestly recycled poorly from Dov's lectures. But I hope this helps some. 

Checking in.

Second days of yom tov were.

Survived the open ezras nashim of simchas torah with less neurotic stressing than anticipated. 

Survived Yom Kippur -> Chol Hamoed Succos without porn and masturbation for the first time.

Survived a nidah cycle without masturbating for the first time.*

Trying to survive some spotting issues and doing pretty well so far. Actually feeling slightly relieved for some reason I don't understand. Like if things were too smooth it would be weird.

Worried that my short term motivation of the high holy day season is gone and when the going gets tough again I'll crumple like a sheet of paper. At least I've got the 90 day deadline coming up in a month and that's pretty good short term motivation. 

Trying to take it one day at a time.

*Note that I was clean for a two year period after I was first married. I don't really count that in the cheshbon for various reasons. If I were to count it, I think I would say this is likely the first nidah cycle I went without trying to convince my wife to take her clothes off for my entertainment. But that's a discussion that probably belongs on the BB forum and is beyond the scope of this post.

At this point it’ll be difficult for you to crumple like a sheet of paper because all the people you’ve helped and continue to help are additional sheets in your pile…. Not easy to crumple a pile of paper….

Rock on, bro!
With a ton of brotherly love,
Muttel

Taking a break from playing doctor for minute to whine.

An annoying thing happened. The type of annoying thing that I probably won't remember in a couple months but right now feels very annoying. And I'm feeling general financial stress [bh nothing major] which always comes together with double helping of feeling inadequate (one dose from feeling like an inadequate breadwinner and one dose from feeling annoyed at myself for feeling stressed). And some other annoying things.

So here I am being annoyed and because I'm sixty days clean I don't want to act out from annoyance and muddy my beautiful clean streak. I'm sure there are other reasons to not act out but they aren't coming to mind right now.

So, in an effort to distract myself, let's talk about why annoyances should lead to acting out. Some would say that lust is a powerful drug. A nice little dopamine hit to sooth a troubled soul. And there's likely a lot of truth to that. But I think there's more going on - sugar is also a dopamine hit and I'm not hankering for some candy. (Question for the dieters among us: which is easier to do - dieting or stopping porn?).

Some would add that we've trained ourselves for a very long time that this is a good solution to problems. Pain? Discomfort? Anger? Porn porn porn will soothe it all away for a bit. I think this is also true. But why is porn such a sticky habit? Why can't I inculcate new soothing responses?

And so one fundamental idea from Dov's lectures is that porn is not the problem. The problem is life. Life is annoying (see the whole beginning of this post), life is painful in that it is full of pain, life is existentially uncomfortable. We don't like life. Porn is not just pleasurable, it's not just a very sticky learned habit. Porn/masturbation/lust is something that removes us from life very thoroughly. It's all absorbing and all encompassing. It's an exit from a merry go round we don't particularly like.*

So then all the attempts at recognizing porn is not pleasurable, at finding greater pleasures in staying clean, at setting up new habits etc etc are not going to be nearly as helpful as learning how to live your life. Porn will always be an escape hatch. The best solution is going to be to learn how to not need to escape. 

And so now annoyances aren't just something to deal with and hope it doesn't drive us to act out. Learning how to accept these stressors as the life Hashem gave you is one of the central areas of the struggle. 

While this idea is certainly targeted at the mythical "true addict" I think it's true for everyone at different times or places.

Anyway. Easier said than done. 

*Note that in addition to that it is certainly something very pleasurable and something people have a natural or learned drive for. And so generally part of dealing with porn is going to involve weaning yourself off that pleasure.

chosemyshem wrote on 30 Oct 2024 19:56:

I love this. 
I don’t think this truth necessarily has anything to do with being an addict. This is the theme song of my personal journey, though I sing it with a far different niggun that Dov does. 

And I would add the qualifier that learning to experience the pleasures of Tahara are not necessarily a band-aid to assuage the need to escape. Such realizations can be part of learning what living really ought to be about. I understand that you’re talking about the need to learn how to  embrace dealing with living, facing up to problems, and thank Hashem for life, warts and scars and all. But I think realizing and learning to appreciate the beauty and pleasure in living real is part of it too. Aseh Tov with positivity isnt a band-aid, it’s part of the thing itself..

chosemyshem wrote on 30 Oct 2024 19:56:

Very insightful, 30 seconds after I read this I saw that my bike got stolen, this post really helped. Thank you

Thanks for this post. Learn how to accept and trudge through the annoying, uncomfortable, stressful part of lives.

levaryeh wrote on 31 Oct 2024 15:48:

Nein! Learn how to accept the annoying, uncomfortable, stressful part of life and then you won't be trudging through life, you'll be dancing through life. 

At least in theory.

Just to share something positive while I procrastinate on an unpleasant task in an unhealthy way.

Yesterday was a lousy day (are we allowed to say "crappy"? I always thought that was a potty word but I saw it in Mishpacha Magazine over Succos and Mishpacha is how I determine what is kosher in mainstream Judaism). 

Anyway. I kinda struggled through the day. Heading home from maariv though it hit me that I didn't have to act out to cope. I went the whole day without watching porn, fantasizing, masturbating, etc. etc. etc. I didn't even have strong urges to do so. And for some reason I was just overwhelmed with gratitude to HaShem for pulling me out of the mud.

Just two months ago I almost certainly would have reacted to my lousy day by checkin' out of life and into porn. And boy would that have made my bad day worse. And it would have made today into a horrific and painful struggle. But I didn't have to do that. Feeling grateful about that.

chosemyshem wrote on 31 Oct 2024 16:12:

Seriously?! They stooped so low and used such vulgar lanuguage? 
I'll need to pen a letter to their editor about this.
Immediate action must be taken to preserve the sanctity of our camp!

Lol I noticed it too, it was in ad. As an avid reader of ads, I was wondering if any one else caught it. Not gonna lie, when I read it my eyes bugged out. Was probably overlooked. There are much bigger issues with ads these days in magazines, and I don't think anyone's screening them to closely...