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adorable- Im glad! my pleasure. Iv been where u r and I can relate. Working on yourself changes u deeper then u would think. Iv never been a naive girl and Iv been exposed to much, but because I TRY I give off a very innocent, good impression. (Its kinda funny sometimes- ppl tell me that and I laugh in my head) Trying is what counts, thats what makes u pure.
“I can see right away which posters are speaking from personal experience and which aren’t”
Uh huh. I guess I went straight from my Upsherin to being a 38+ year old (and somehow skipped the teen years).
Trust me. Been there, done that. Not proud of all things, but few have escaped my experience. Except for drugs. That one I missed.
But the other vices? Yeah, I sure do know from where you speak.
Think I’m a guy, or think its different?
Trust me, its not much different. The only advantage I have over you is mileage.
I once kept having trouble getting certain thoughts about something I had used to do out of my head. They would pop up at the most random times. I asked one of my rebbeim about it and he told me it was because I still felt an attachment to it.
Time has proven him right. At the time I was still shaky in my decision to not do that particular thing, but once my decision solidified and the nisayon passed, I moved on and everything related to it left my mind. I can still actively recall those things if I want, but its not there hovering in the back of my mind all the time.
My advice is to commit to your present path and let go of the past. Eventually, you will lose your connection to it and become a different person. The person you want to be.
Realization that you really can be better than you were and commitment to do what you know is the right thing. Focus on what you need to be doing now and one day sometime down the line you will wake up one day and realize how its been so long since the last time you even thought about those things.
Adorable- I just read this thread for the first time and i think i understand what you are saying. (If Im off base then at least this is what I think)
In high school (at least mine) all our worries were what we were going to score on our chemistry and math regent. We were in our little cacoon of tests, shabbatons and play and never really understood what our teachers meant by internet is bad and certain places are bad. You knew that it will never affect you.
Now that you are out of school in the working world and single, there are no teachers guiding you and naturally you get pulled by certain attractions that you never knew existed. Especially now that there are more worries (shidduchim, work issues….) Its nice to find other means to make you happy, so you turn to other things. (email, websites..) Even on kosher sites there can be innapropriate things! Now you feel that your not that sweet aidel BY girl anymore.
You still are!! Just move on and the fact that you its bothering you is a good feeling. Im not sure what exactly is making you feel unpure but whatever it is you are obviously smarter not to go there again. Also try to attend speeches once in awhile or do something that makes you feel pure (i still keep my 12th grade chesed job and it makes me feel so good!)
B’hatzlacha!
” your past! “
You’re kidding, right? You cannot have a “past”, not in the terms that the street normally thinks of.
OK, we’re going in circles. Try this:
Take a look at some of the mussar seforim. They will help you turn your “past” (however dreadful) into something positive, and give you a fresh start.
If that doesn’t do the trick, Yom Kippur is only a few months away. Who knows? You might even be going to shul with your new, white leather set of machzorim. Talk about a fresh start!
Relax. We old folks have been down this trail before.
Adorable – a number of years ago, when i was post sem (a very frum seminary)I went to college and started liking rock music and movies. (no not terrible movies or heavy metal rock but still it was not for a bais yaakov girl) I did not compromise any other area of frumkeit ex: Shabbos, kashrus, tznius, etc. I did not hang around with guys either. Actually I knew a number of frum ppl who went through the same stage. NO I WAS NOT OTD. Sometimes you just get caught up in something that’s not so good for you. Baruch Hashem it did not affect me. I am married and have children and we lead a beautiful Torah life.
So like most other ppl on this thread, I’m not quite sure to what you are referring. But you did mention that you’ve read things and have seen things on the internet that you feel are inappropriate. It’s great that you stopped. Now concentrate on who you really are. You surely have a lot going for you. Especially if those things are making you feel so badly. That shows you have a true Yiddishe neshama. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We can all work on ourselves. Hatzlacha Rabba to you.
Right now, the stuff is fresh in your mind, giving you the impression that you are a changed person. If you persistently stay away from it, and change your focus to better things, it will fade. Innocence in the technical sense doesn’t come back — the information doesn’t fly out. However, how much that matters, can change.
BTW, are you the one who caused that good boy to be expelled from Yeshiva :?)
Dear Adorable,
I never thought I would post here, but i relate to how you’re feeling so well that i just had to.
First of all, you have no idea how many girls out there feel like this so, you are not alone and you are not the only “bad” one. I know exactly what you are talking about because I have, from your vague description, similar inconsistencies. What works for me is take a kabbalah not to expose myself to a certain thing (although i don’t actually ‘feel’ it or want to) and after a while you get resensitized and the emotions catch up with the actions and you no longer want to do those things.
This can be a temporary thing if you take control and you’ll feel amazing afterwards. i know i sound as vague as the rest of you, but I hope you, adorable, understand.
This shows that you care so much about doing the right thing and that should make you very proud!!
Good Luck!
Love,
Your sister in struggle
Hi one time user. Really? Only one time??
I do not understand, Ado. You should not have read/looked at certain things. You are sorry about it. But,innocence? You think people who are married are not innocent? What do you mean?
adorable, you think only girls worry about such things?? you don’t realize how much i worry every time someone asks me for shidduch references that they are gonna hear from someone who knows how i used-to-be. nobody bothers caring that now i am a responsible and mature person, they just look at the few bad decisions in my past. welcome to the real world girl!
been there, done that. i once heard something that made a really big impression on me. i was told that every time you think about something, it makes a groove in ur brain. for example, ur phone #,has a really deep groove because you repeat it often. so the more you think about something, the deeper the groove gets. then, when ur sorta ‘not thinking at all’, ur “juices” flow into the groove thats the deepest automatically causing you to think about that thing. the way to help yourself is to think about things that sorta counteract the other thing….whatever, sorry if im totally incomprehensible, its just much easier to understand when you have it drawn out in front of you….
adorable – (im actually responding to what you wrote on the “we miss you” thread.
there are many girls who have also seen or done things, unfortunately, that they wish they hadn’t and now are married. what about all those baalei teshuvas who get married – think they’ve been innocent their whole life?
it’s good to regret how it’s changed you. now feel remorse, and then move on. staying in guilt is staying with the aveira. the yetzer hara wants to tell you that now that you’ve lost your innocence, it doesn’t matter. But wrong! every decision you make matters. a tzaddik falls 7 times; but the difference between a tzaddik and a rasha is that the tzaddik keeps picking himself up.
Adorable, it entails being who you are today and loving yourself for who you are today. You can’t undo the past but you CAN forgive yourself and move on. I am sure someone can post the famous quote that I am sure I am saying wrong.. Yesterday is history and we can’t change it, today is a gift, the present so appreciate and be grateful for it make the most of it. Use it to prepare for tomorrow, the future.
Don’t get hung up on past since there is nothing you can do to change it, it is history and it is over. What you could have done differently and should have done differently is what you can change for the present and look forward to for the future. That is something you can do. That is something feasible and attainable. Don’t let the past be a stumbling block towards your future. There are two things you can do when there is a boulder in your path. You can either keep ramming yourself into it to see if it will budge or you can walk around it and keep moving. So it is up to you what you choose to do. Are you going to keep ramming yourself up against your past and let it keep being a stumbling block in your present and future or are you going to walk around it and past it to keep going and leave it behind? That is your choice. It is baggage that you can choose to leave behind and continue to make better choices and improvements in your life.
Try to set some short term measurable and attainable goals so you can easily look back and see how far you have come and how much you have accomplished. This will give you the self-confidence and self-esteem to keep moving forward. As you grow, you can keep setting more short term and then longer term measurable and attainable goals. Don’t push too far in a direction that is too far reaching for the level that you are at because that will only lead to frustration and disappointment that is unwarranted. Pace yourself and you will eventually get to the point where you will not have a need to look back just keep looking forward. We can never ever stop reaching for better goals since we can always achieve a higher level of improvement in our lives. So all of us keep trying our best to keep climbing up to higher madreigos.
I hope this was helpful for you, and it is something that you can adapt to your reorganization plan. The sky is the limit but you can’t take the express elevator, you have to take the local one stop at a time. How does that sound to you?
what I think Ilovetheholyland is saying is that if you think about something else for longer than what you don’t want to think about you’ll start thinking about that by default
coffee addict –
thanx for bein articulate! exactly what i was tryin to say…
adorable – can you move somewhere else to kind of start over and get a new name for yourself?
holyland- I got u the first time. I had a teacher who taught us that too. We all chapped what she was sayin but none of us knew how to repeat it. It became kinda a joke.. :))
Holyland did a good job but its hard to explain..
I once tried telling it over to someone… (So like theres grooves in ur brain and when u think it makes a groove and when u stop the grooves get smaller but if you dont something happens that makes u think about whatevers in the grooves..) It didnt work out too well.. the person was like whaaaaat??? lol
What you are getting at is what I wrote on the Middos thread, and it applies here, too: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/how-do-you-improve-your-middos#post-203623
I’m probably repeating what other people mentioned, but I’ll repeat anyway 🙂 I think the best thing to do is push the thoughts out as they come, stop the action, and find good ways to spend your time. With time, you will heal. And teshuva is not a physical thing so it works in miraculous ways.
s2021
why dont we just call it “groovin?” lol!
Maybe going to the mikvah every morning can help preserve and keep the kedusha.
” um im a girl…. “
And your point is? True, daily dips could run into a major expense, but hey, can you put a price tag on kedusha?
(Sorry, the $2/day rate is only for the menfolk)
What if you feel so bad about what you did that you just can’t forgive yourself because you don’t feel you deserve it?
They’re not, if they’re going for the wrong reasons. Check the lines at most BP mikvahs on Erev Yom Kippur, and you’ll see a long line of singles. When its kedusha driven, all ages / status are welcome.
But once a year may not do the trick in your case. Seeing as how, in your sullied state, a “daily Yom kippur” might be called for, contact your local mikvah to see if you can work out a scedule (and price break!)
See? I may not “understand the situation” (at my age, these things are out of my league), but I can still see the humor in them!
All together now: LOL!
How do you think Jewish women who were married to Arabs and were later saved through the Israeli organization Yad… I read on YWN thata Gadol in EY said they actively bring Moshiach closer through returning themselves to Yiddishkeit. If this can be said about those women, than kal v’chomer to someone in your circumstance (I’m not actually comparing ch”v).
The Midrash says light is only appreciated when it comes after darkness.
Adorable,
Basically, how can I even want to feel good and happy if I did what I did.
Does anyone have any advice how to stop thinking so?
” do you think there is light at the end of this tunnel? “
100%. In about 10/12years, you’ll see the light at the end.
It will take you 20 (or so) years to get to the end of the tunnel.
When you do, be sure to look for the inscriptions on the wall:
<name> was here / 2011
YWN Coffeeroom rocks! (no, its not spelled rox)
The light is the virtual act of refraining from doing inappropriate acts in the future. Your future act of refraining yourself, causes more spiritual light to be created since it comes in the aftermath of darkness.
Here’s a 411:
Ask your parents / mentors / Rov. They are already at the end of the tunnel.
They have gone thru, in some way / shape / form what you are now going trhu.
True, today’s society can do things quicker, cleaner, quieter than a generation ago, but its not a new situation. Young people do dumb things, and think the world is coming to an end.
Good behavior rinses away bad behavior. Stay on the righteous path and leave the old baggage in the corner. Don’t dwell on it, and don’t let it drag you down.
Now, can we get back to the important things in life?
Denim skirts, anyone?)
Actually I believe some great Rabbi said “if you believe you can destroy, then believe you can fix”. It’s easier to destroy, but with additional perseverance you can repair / fix.
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