Hello 1daat,

I wanted to say Hi! as well.

I've read the thread and can see how amazingly you have turned yourself around. It proves what a person can do with hishtadlus and siata d'shmaya. Clearly you have both.

I find your honest account of where you are up to to be fabulous chizuk. I hope in time, I'll be able to reciprocate.

Please G-d, you'll continue to have lots of success and go michail l'choil. I don't get a chance to get to the computer much, but I promise, even when you don't see me on the forum - I'm still thinking of you and rooting for you!

B'hatzlocha, courageous and holy Yid!

With love,

NotGivingUpYetOldBean!

1daat wrote on 06 Jun 2010 04:45:


1. Wow -- you are astute enough to recognize that the blush is fading and the real 'work' approaching. This means you're already more than half the way 'home.' Shkoiach.

2. "Help, guy, please." Well, you might get a little chizuk (or even lots) from the guys here. But I'm guessing you already know that the real help ain't gonna be comin' from us. It's gonna be from deep inside of YOU. And all of THAT help is coming from deep inside of Him. So I hope that everytime you wonder if we're even listening, you ask yourself whether He is even listening. (And I know you know THAT answer!)

Sounds like you're doing great. Keep going.

Keep up the great work, 1daat!

You guys sending me chizuk MAKES A DIFFERENCE!  and yes, Briut, I hear you.  Is He listening.  The question at the moment seems less like "Is he listening", then "Am I able to hear anything?"  I feel like I've got the flu in my heart--it's stuffed up and not feeling much.  Latley, since coming to GYE, the feeling quality of my relationship with Hashem has taken a substantial dive.  Used to be, I'd go along clean for a little while, and I'd be Hashem's "darling".  Then I'd fall.  Next day I'm in the dramatic remorse, and tears flowing through tachanun.  And it's all so emotionally dramatic.  Now, (clean 10 days), I feel kind of flat.  Davening is difficult.  I daven fast, slow, go over whole sections I've read and realized I've been totally spaced out.  Kavannoh has never been this hard.  BUT, I also notice that I'm not messing around with putting off davening, or missing benching.  But I feel far away from Him.  It's not exactly empty, I know that horrible lonely place, and this isn't that. 

I guess I'm just grieving a little.  I remember this numbness during the phase where I had to accept that my dad really was dead, or that my marriage really was over.  She was not taking me back.  I would not get to be with my kids every day.  I guess I'm missing my best friend--that altered state of consciousness, the trance I'd get in for hours looking at porn and masturbating.  Yep, I guess that's it, or part of it, anyway.

Maybe the FEELINGS when I daven or leyn or do any mitzvah really have changed so much because the me that came to H" is a little different, and I don't know this new place.  So I don't really want to analyze this.  It's never gotten me anywhere.  It's never helped to "understand".  Right now, for me, I gotta keep things very very simple.  it's just about doing the work, the avodah. I don't want to mess this up.  I don't want to get fancy.  I go online, I post, I read the heart rending posts of you guys in the throws of your own work.  I read the support and chizuk and direction you give me.  And it's just work.  I didn't sign up for this version of ohl malchut shamayim.  I signed up for white light and bliss, wisdom and piety, the hoohah of Yiddishkeit.  Not for avodah. 

I don't know which way is up right now.  It's not really that important to me.  What's keeping me sane right now is just to stay close to the ground (watch out for the low flying quail), stay on line, posting, reading the handbook and the attitudes, reading the tons of chizuk, and listening to the kosher music.  Just doing the work.  I understand from reading you guys who have made 90 days that the sun does come out.  But it's overcast where I am, kind of lonely without the high intensity Hashem experience. 

Is this something that's happened to anyone else?

Went on a date tonight.  I guess I'm disappointed and sad.  I'm 64, she's in her late 50's.  And no, she's not going to look like all the women on the porn sites I imagined were so into me, and I won't settle for anything short of that.  Could you guys weigh in on this:  I think maybe I shouldn't be even thinking about dating for a good long while.

The expectation of the hoohah-experience was a great, great problem I had. It still pops up it's ugly head now and again and has to get pushed down. For me it stems from Pride, period. I started to give up on it when I came to see that by all rights I'd lost all rights to any relationship with Him or His Torah (or with normal people) at all. That helped get me a bit more realistic, and the quiet, calm relationship w/o hoohah started developing from there.

Hi daat, sorry I didn't have a chance to welcome you. Your progress over the past days is remarkable.

Here are two links you might find enlightening to read through when you have time:

www.guardyoureyes.org/?p=296

www.guardyoureyes.org/?p=518

Keep up the good work!

Wow, 1daat. What a beautiful post! Such real honesty, such openness, such... being real. Thanks for opening it up to share with for us.

I think you know the difference between like and love. Hashem doesn't love us more on our clean streak and love us less (or ch'v worse) when we fall. That's our kindergarden teacher. Getting really clear about how He loves us and how He exists only to bring us to the right place (yes, I say only -- the whole world was created for Me, eh?)... that's something beyond our kindergarden teacher. And we all know that He wants us to make it through whatever He gives us.

Still, getting "there" is the work of a lifetime. And you're clearly doing that work. And sometimes I feel like "the journey IS the destination." At least, I hope so 'cause the destination I had imagined is way beyond my own horizon and 120 is coming faster than I can count.

Hi 1daat,

My thoughts - during the period I was in counselling, I found that some of the most profound and helpful pradigm shifts I experienced in dealing with my problems, were during the quieter, subtler moments. No big band, not even a big "Wow". Just a little "oh, ok". Kinda blink and you'd miss it.

I guess similar with Matan Torah. It's sometimes the big $200,000 weddings that end in a lawyer's office 10 days later, and the quiet, humble, unassuming moments that can duck the radar enough to have some kiyum.

It sounds to me very positive. You also sound like you know yourself very well indeed. (I guess as a counsellor yourself, it comes with the territory).

I can understand "missing your best friend". Are you on the phone groups? Do you have a partner / sponsor? I wonder if you could help take the pain away somewhat by deveoping new, healthy relationships?

Hatzlocha.

NGUYOB

NogivupYOB, This was good.[quote="NotGivingUpYetOldBean!" link=topic=2570.msg69373#msg69373 date=1275958696]
Hi 1daat,

I found that some of the most profound and helpful pradigm shifts I experienced in dealing with my problems, were during the quieter, subtler moments. No big band, not even a big "Wow". Just a little "oh, ok". Kinda blink and you'd miss it.

You also sound like you know yourself very well indeed. (I guess as a counsellor yourself, it comes with the territory).

Not really.  I'm finding myself little by little here.  You say something kind and helpful.  I feel touched and eager to get what you just said.  I learn that you, people here, care, unselfishly taking time to relate to what I've said and give me Chizuk and really useful help.  This is beginning to know myself.  The me that can actually let somebody else in, really in, into the most secret of private world places where only me and my secrets and Hashem have known about, letting you into that place, and you not rejecting me, indeed answering me on point.  So on point that I know you understand, and I am touched.

Being touched by another person, b'makkom ha ta'alumot, in the innermost secret place that I don't have to hide in anymore, this is new for me.  This is a me both thrilled and scared out on this edge where I've never been before without secrets and without performances.  You help hold my hand, tell me you've had similar experiences, and then offer me something practical.  I get that my struggle matters to you.  This is new to me.

As I hope you know, I've been following your thread, too.  I think we're both newbies here.  I will stay close to you and want to know how you are doing.  Thanks.  a lot!


Briut, I understand about H" not being kindergarten teacher, loving me when I'm good, and opposite.  But right now I only understand that intellectually.  There is definitely something in me that's about being closed right now.  I can only vaguely feel it, kind of at the chochma level.  This is all so new to me.  Maybe after so many years of hiding and lying and pretending and denial, and so never really being able to just be with Hashem, having to always be in the best-worst drama, and not being able to just be with others, too, dodging and weaving all the time, that now, just being quietly unsure of everything and yet trusting, a little, everybody here, I'm scared of it all.  It seems big, and unknown, and I have to trust you guys right now.  It's not that my bitachon is shattered or turned cynical.  It's that I can relate to guys who have been "there" and done "that".  I trust H" in a kind of abstract way.  When life stuff comes at me--IRS audits, State Board Investigations, dates that I don't know what to do with--I DO turn it over when I remember, or when the horrible crazies start up. 

But to trust another person, someone who can fail me by being "pretend interested and caring", or who can fall away after "getting me started" with a few posts, to trust you guys is a whole different thing.  I've been trained to know that H" can be trusted, and that's proven itself to me by being able to look back on 64 yrs and seeing how, indeed, gam zoo l'tovah.  I ended up here didn't I?  Trusting you is a day by day being willing to NOT DISTRUST.  To extend provisional trust.  And day after day after day (ll days today), you have shown up, up front and personal.  And so I'll take another little step.  I'll open up a little teeny bit more.  I'll read more of the handbook and the links.  I'll read a little Yom Yom that I've been too frightened to read because it pierces the heart so often, and I just can't take any more.  I'm trying, and I'm scared, and you (guys) just keep showing up.  I think letting you in, trusting, seems like something I have to do for right now, and let H" take care of my bitachon.  I've had enough of trying to make Yiddishkeit happen by being superJew.  Obviously it doesn't help with what I'm here for.

Sheesh, this is becoming a megillah.


Guard:  Thank you for those two links.  They are exactly what I needed to know and learn.  And I mean EXACTLY.  I need to print these pages out and go over them a few times.  I ran out of ink.  Tomorrow.  But I am so deeply reassured l) that you could find  links that so exactly spoke to me, and 2) that you cared enough to look them up and get them to me.  There is enough in those two links for me to work for a long long time.  yashor coiach!

I'm trying not to mess around with davening times like I usually do.  So I'm going to daven mincha and probably won't come back on line because I'm also trying to get to bed early and not...get up, modeh ani, lie back down, oversleep, rush, decide not to daven on time, but to wait for a break at work, and then have to speed daven for the brownie points.  I'm just so sick of all that.  ok.  mincha, maariv, bed.  Goodnight. I'm waaaaayyy too scared to say I love you, but I can say thank you, and trust that you each know that something in me makes a tiny trembles when I say that, and that's real and heartfelt.

Nice megillah! 

Just checkin in.  day 12, B"H.  Read the links Guard sent me a few times.  I'm pretty ok with no-deep-feeling davening.  It's what He wants me to do.  It gives Him nachus.  I talk to Him more, look for hashg prts +/-, and have started Windows to the soul.  Also sent Guard an email about my problem getting on the 90-day page.

So it's all about left foot right foot. 

No major yetzer intrusions during the first few days, maybe a week.  Now it's starting to send me little tempting invitations, which I can move to the solution and out of the problem.

BUT...they're starting to come more frequently, which is a pattern of the yh that I recognize, so I'm concerned about it getting on a roll and my being too weak.  All I know to do is ask H" for help, and work this site, and stay out of isolation.  If anybody's got some tips, I'd appreciate it.

Get phone #s of guys from the forum or phone groups who you can call once a day and make 5-minute calls 3-4 times, tomorrow. If it turns out that it helps you, then try it again the next day.

You asked.

Dov, thanks.  I'm going out of town tomorrow and won't have access to a computer B"H.  I'm going to visit my kids.  Afterwords is always a major high risk time.  I get back home around midnight pacific coast time.  Could I have your number and would you be available at that time.

I think I better get skype.

What do I do when I call, just say that I'm at risk and need some support?

Yeah, I asked, and thanks for answering.

So, Halevi the emails say it all.  And Dov, just knowing I could call if I needed to, thank you.  I hope it's ok to call at some other time if I'm in trouble, or is it better to think of this as about this situation only?  In either case, thank you (seems such a puny thing to say).

So I wasn't feeling crazy and looking forward to a marathon p&m session.  Rose up inside me a few times, but I just thought about the community here, and it settled down.  I never realized how much I needed to not be alone with everything. 

Couple problems.  Day 16.  This seems too easy.  It goes pretty smoothly.  Am I in some kind of major denial trip here?  Should I be forewarned that a yetzer attack is coming?  That this ease is a setup?  Or am I worrying about tomorrow when I should be paying attention to today?

Next.  This is a hard one to tell.  I notice I'm using the site in what I think is a wrong way.  I caught myself comparing who has more/less posts.  Feeling bad I didn't get more posts, and generally into the kind of self centerdness that makes being honest here hard.  It's the wanting to be special, brilliant, deep, meaningful, to stand out that I'm ashamed of.  It gets in the way of being simple and honest her.  I try not to re-write for effect, but just to puke it out.  All this overthink doesn't feel good.  Could anybody help me with this, please?

We all need help with our own mishegas'n, gevalt!