Checking in.

Turns out Tuesday was my three year anniversary on GYE! I don't really want to think about that though. Kinda depressing how little progress I've made in three years.

In other news. The things that were stressing me out the past few days have been resolved. In astonishingly good ways. One thing that was bothering me I thought was for sure absolutely terrible. Somehow today it turned out to be almost totally fine. Still some small amount of fallout, but I thought the situation was beyond all hope and somehow there was mamash a techiyas hameisim. I'm very grateful to Hashem.

Kinda makes me feel worse though. I mean, here I was lusting away in reaction to all these "terrible" things, when in truth there were totally awesome things cooking along just below the surface. That feels pretty silly.

Today was a clean day. Feels good to say that.

Checking in.

Had a thought walking down the street this shabbos. I've never connected to the idea of "humanizing" as a way to control my lust in the streets. I just don't get it.

But this week I was thinking I don't have the strength to spend a summer fighting to keep my eyes down. My self-control tank is just not that full. So I was walking along, trying to keep myself distracted, and I realized a lady was walking parallel to me. I so I started philosphizin'.
I shouldn't look, but why is it such a struggle to not look?
Well, Shem it's a struggle since you've trained yourself that every women in the street is there solely for your sexual pleasure.
No, other Shem, I don't think that's true. If it was a animal, man, small child or other non-sexual creature I'd at least take a glance. I wouldn't fight to keep my head down. I only fight if it's a woman and that's why it feels like a "struggle" there.

So then I think something clicked with the "humanizing." It's not that I should stop finding women sexually attractive. It's that they should stop being important. What makes them important is that I hypersexualize them. If I stop hypersexualizing-> stop being important -> stop fighting to keep my head down. Az m'meilah if there's no struggle then I don't need so much self control.

I don't know if that makes sense, but that was my shabbos afternoon philosophy sesh. Take it or leave it.

I like it. 
To me, this dovetails with the idea that I have written about about arriving at the personal realization that my own gratification isn't so important so missing out on being together (because my wife got tired, etc.) isn't really a big deal. This doesn't sound groundbreaking on paper, to anyone else, but when I FELT this, it was a game-changer.

I think that's what you're saying about looking. Yeah she's female and pretty. But it's not important. I won't "miss out" if I didn't see her and I wont be "full" and "satiated" if I do. It doesn't really make any difference. 

Checking in. Been busy with Pesach prep and been pretty clean recently. 

B"h have a new job lined up, so I think I'm able to keep things together till that starts. The new job should be busier, in a good way, but I'm terrified of screwing things up with porn there. 

I did somehow find the guts to email the new boss in advance that I prefer to use only filtered internet. He never responded to that - hopefully he does not think I'm retarded now and rescind my offer since I already gave notice lol.

chosemyshem wrote on 08 Apr 2025 21:23:

Going in with a clean slate, I highly recommend putting together a new program of accountability that can keep your slate clean 

redfaced wrote on 08 Apr 2025 21:26:

גם אני מסכים להנ"ל,
באהבה רבה וידידות נאמנה,
פראודיונגערמאן

proudyungerman wrote on 09 Apr 2025 13:39:

Once again a brilliant post  by ProudYungerman. 

redfaced wrote on 09 Apr 2025 15:05:

Appreciate the compliment, but it really was your incredible insightfulness that really got this thing going...

I could really use a good pesach.

It's funny. I wanted to do the 40 day prep Vehkam had posted about. I set off all determined but very quickly crashed. And hard. It's been a pretty rough 40 days. Even going in to pesach with the shavua shechal bo clean I didn't really manage.
I don't feel like I'm doing great these days. Snapping at the kids, learning hasn't been going as well as I'd like (forget about davening) and of course the lust.

I'm not ready. I'm not ready to eat matzah, to tell over the faith of my fathers to my kids, to drink four cups of freedom. I'm not ready for spiritual heights.

But for pesach that doesn't matter. The Jews in mitzrayim weren't either ready. 

I honestly don't know how I can go free. These habits, this life, is so ingrained in me I don't see away for me to leave it.

But Hashem can do it.

Here's to freedom.

chosemyshem wrote on 10 Apr 2025 21:05:

I don't have the right words, but my heart feels you. Its been feeling the same for an awful long time.

Zman Cheiruseinu is Lmayla Min Hateva, where Hashem shows that he loves his children whether they deserve it or not. 

May this be the One where we finally getting taken out of this miserable Galus.

Bottoms up to freedom.
Ill have another shot .
To true Freedom!!!!!

I'll join in raising my glass to freedom. For us all. For every brick wall that needs a doorway...

Here's a Vort from the Yismach Yisroel: 
The Rasha says" Mah Haavoda Hazos LACHEM" He jeers, "I know you, Dad, better than you think. I know what you do, and what you don't do. So don't sit here tonight, all holier than thou at the head of the table, in your white Kittle, preaching holiness. I knew some holy people, and you ain't them. What does this exalted Avoda have to do WITH YOU, huh?"

The answer, says the Yismach Yisroel, is that you tell him: "בעבור זה עשה ה' לי בצאתי ממצרים' 
"It's true, son. I'm not so Heilig, unfortunately. But hear this: I AM NOT WORSE THAN WE WERE WHEN WE WERE TAKEN OUT OF MITZRAYIM. THEY WERE WORSE THAN I AM TODAY.  And Hashem still took them out. And catapulted us to the highest heights. And He can do it today, too. For me and for you. But you gotta believe... ".

That's a big Chizzuk,
Let it be so. 

Love, 
מאן דבעי חיים של חירות 

chaimoigen wrote on 26 Apr 2024 05:17:

Ahem
chaimoigen wrote on 11 Apr 2025 17:18:

What, you think we weren't payin' attention the first time?

chosemyshem wrote on 10 Apr 2025 21:05:

Rav Pincus says that the avodah after pesach is to have emunah. Have emunah that you're a different person. Have emunah that you left mitzrayim. Have emunah that Hashem chose to personally take you as his nation.

Even if the seder wasn't a transcendent spiritual experience. Even if you feel like the same person. Even if you don't see your life is any different.

Have emunah that it happened.

Anyway. Had a hergesh during Hallel the second night. It's not super coherent, but I wanted to get it out.


You lifted us up from the garbage (literally) to the highest heights. From mitzrayim to the pesach seder in one jump. Awe-inspiring!

This is a posuk that genuinely inspires me. But at the seder it hit me a little different.

I'm used to this experience. I live it daily.

I turn around, close the computer, wash my hands, and go. To the beis medrash, to davening, to my family, wherever. From the garbage to sitting with the nedivei am. But that's no cheirus. Aderaba, that's part of the problem.

That was the hergesh. Not such a helpful one.

The dissonance of living two lives that is part of the problem obviously doesn't exist by real cheirus, when Hashem genuinely removes you from the problem. But how to know if that happened or if it's just part of the upswing of the cycle?

Maybe that's where emunah comes in. But maybe also the rest of the kapital gives the answer.


Maybe.

What a vort!! Unreal!! Unforgettable. Thanks for such unbelievable chizuk.

Had a hergesh yesterday. Not on Hallel this time. Instead, it was on the New Testament. Romans Chapter 7, to be precise.

I was reading a very interesting book on the founding of Christianity, and the author was theorizing why Paul did his thing. His basic theory was that Paul moved Christianity from a Jewish Messianic group to a semi-pagan religion out of guilt over his personal failures in his own Judaism. And the author cited this passage from Romans as an example:


This is one of the foundational ideas of Christianity. That there is a tendency to sin within a person that cannot be controlled by any means and therefore the only hope is to check out of life and into salvation - which cannot be attained through effort in any way since the sin is too strong and instead only "grace" can "save" you.
This idea of course is not Jewish in any way (and the book theorized that Paul's inability to comprehend the idea of teshuva shows he was not a Torah-true Jew prior to converting. But I digress.) In Judiasm we believe that yes, ilmoleh hkb"h ozro ein yochul lo, but we also believe teshuva is in our grasp to do. We believe that no sin cannot be overcome, and the body is not some evil thing we need to rise above and escape.

But what shook me up is how much I related to Paul.

It really threw me to see how deeply I believe that I'm hopeless, wicked, disgusting, and doomed to suffer with a lust that I cannot quit. And it struck home how absolutely foreign that idea is.