Embracing Joy with OCD: Tips for Finding Happiness in Everyday Life

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music. Thank you for listening. Hello and welcome to The OCD and Anxiety Podcast where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety disorders disorders taking back control so that you can start living the life you choose and not the one chosen by your fears. Music.

Hello and welcome to episode 414. I hope that you are doing marvelously well today however if you are struggling with OCD or anxiety and you would like to get some support with that well you can by heading over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there you can book in for a free session or if you prefer you can send me a message and let me know about what you're struggling with.

In today's podcast we're going to be talking about how to make the most of the little things to actually be present and enjoy the small things that life offers up and to actually be present to those things as a way to deal with OCD more effectively. This is a really important strategy that I find is really helpful. As always, if you do find this podcast helpful, it would be amazing if you could subscribe. The vast majority of people who do listen are not actually subscribed.

So if you wouldn't mind doing that, I would be very appreciative. So many thanks, guys. I really hope that you enjoy if you have any questions at all about anything I speak about today do please let me know and off we go.

So here's a quote to get us started today and this one is by vincent van gogh great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together and i thought this is very apt when it when it comes to ocd because really a big part of learning to get over it actually involves.

Doing lots of small things, not necessarily trying to do the biggest thing at first, but actually breaking the problem down, rather than looking at the whole problem, which can be very intimidating when it comes to OCD. Almost like looking at a, you know, a horrible, scary monster.

You know, when we look at the whole problem and everything that OCD involves it can be very daunting intimidating and difficult for us to know where to start but when we break the problem down when we look at its at its basic parts it's much easier to be able to to deal with it and you know whether that involves you then learning uh you know to to apply different diffusion techniques from acceptance commitment therapy uh whether that's learning how how to do exposure activities

and kind of gradually increasing those exposures over time. By stringing together these small steps, you're able to take on the big challenge of being able to deal with OCD more effectively in the long term. And that's really what it's all about.

Also, though, and I think this is something else that is reflected here in this quote, another big part of it is really learning to enjoy the small things that life offers up rather than just focusing on, you know, trying to make everything good today, trying to make everything perfect today, everything how you want it to be immediately. And this is something that many people with OCD, unfortunately, get really caught up in.

There's there's this element of perfectionism that's involved with with OCD not everybody might think of themselves as a perfectionist however there does seem to be a certain flavor of perfectionism that many people with OCD have even if that isn't obvious to you even if you wouldn't otherwise describe yourself as a perfectionist you know we have to reflect honestly when it comes to OCD and we have to recognize that within that want for things to be a

very specific way well of course there's kind of a maladaptive perfectionism that is really at the heart of that you know and when we are demanding perfection all the time when we're demanding that things do be a certain way until we can be happy when we kind of tell ourselves well I have to be I have to get rid of this or I have to be feeling in this particular way or I have to get rid of this particular thought or this obsession that keeps

coming up because only then can I actually truly be happy. As long as we're getting caught up in that kind of thinking, we're very likely to remain stuck, stuck in the cycle of OCD, stuck going around with our thoughts because, you know, we're kind of not giving ourselves an opportunity to be able to enjoy things as they are right now, to be able to enjoy the small things that might be going right in our lives or even the big things.

The truth is that with OCD, what we're focused on is the small, very actual kind of insignificant, really, things that are not going that well in our life, whilst ignoring all of the many, many, many things that might actually be going really, really well in that moment.

Because, you know, the vast majority of the time you know most things are actually going in our favor and we tend to ignore that we tend to focus on the one or two things that are really that we really don't like the one or two things that make everything else feel like it's kind of disordered or not the way it should be and of course when we do that when we focus in on those things that we think are not quite right well you know we make it very difficult for ourselves to be to

be able to to enjoy but when we can actually choose to focus in on what's going on around us and to do our very best to make the most of whatever that might be to actually really enjoy the things that are in front of us right now now of course if you have things going on in your life that are very enjoyable if you have sports or activities or people or stuff that you do that you find really enjoyable that you find is a really healthy distraction for you then

that's going to be somewhat easier for you and perhaps you do notice that already that when you really focus on your surfing or your tennis or maybe you do theater or maybe you love going and watching films or whatever it might be And when you find yourself in that environment, you find that your thoughts and the anxiety and maybe even the OCD itself for a short time kind of takes a bit of a backseat.

You know and and that's because you're you're learning to come a bit more into the present moment you're using that activity or that thing to focus your attention and to really try to be present and you know that's a really healthy thing of course you know we can't always be be doing those really fun interesting things that we love and enjoy but you know when we do it does help And, you know, if you're able to kind of focus on these kinds of things more, it tends to help with the OCD more.

It's very important with that in mind then that, you know, we do try to recognize what are things that you can kind of build into your life.

There are activities or things that you value that will give you an opportunity to focus your attention onto something you know and this isn't directly going after the OCD this isn't saying okay I'm gonna you know go and deal with this particular obsession or I'm gonna learn how to expose myself to this particular obsession this idea here is more in line with acceptance commitment therapy it's more in line with the idea of okay I'm going to find something else

to focus my attention on to rather than just focusing on the OCD and the obsession itself I'm going to do my very best to focus on a different activity something that hopefully you enjoy and the idea would be to to try to be in the present by really paying attention to that thing a lot more than you would do normally.

Now of course if this thing is something that you really enjoy and is something that you really value then it's going to be a little bit easier to do that but let's be honest we're not always in situations where we're able to do the activities that we really love. I would love to be surfing all day but unfortunately I live on the Mediterranean coast often there's not waves and I don't surf very often these days. But, you know, I've adapted and I do different activities.

But even, you know, when I can't mountain bike or when I can't go running in the hills, you know, there's times where I have to be able to focus in on other things. And sometimes those things are quite small.

Sometimes the things that I need to focus on. Quite mundane everyday activities. But interestingly, what I've found, and I think this is, you know, this is really a kind of mindfulness exercise. What I've learned is even those kind of seemingly boring, mundane, average activities, they still offer us up an opportunity to be more present, to pay attention to them more, to enjoy them more.

And I find that this This is incredibly, incredibly important because so often OCD, particularly the pure O kind of form of OCD where, you know, rumination itself actually becomes the compulsion where we're trying to reassure ourselves through our ruminations.

When OCD gets like that, it's so important that we recognize that we have this ability to take charge of our attention and where our attention is going if we allow it our attention will dictate to us where where it goes and often it will go to our fears to our obsessions and so it's so important that we we take charge of that and mindfulness is a really important skill here now obviously if you're doing an activity that you really love it can be much easier to

kind of be in the present and really pay attention to things. But what I'm talking about here is the small things when you're doing something that isn't maybe so instantly engaging. But you can still actually learn to pay attention to those things much more intently than you would do normally. And in doing so, you can get much more out of them. And also you have this ability then to kind of really pay attention to the present.

To not get so caught up in your head and your thoughts and instead to remain a little bit closer to the ground, to be a bit more in your body, to be anchored in the present moment. And this is really a really big part of it, particularly as I was just mentioning when it comes to Pure O, if you're somebody who struggles a lot with rumination and not being present.

Being able to find a way to remain in the present and to focus your attention on what's actually going on around you you know can really help to to not get so caught up in those thoughts and those fears and actually you know in in doing so you know you become a bit more of the captain of your ship it's really horrible when you feel this kind of powerless sensation that OCD is always going to win it has this kind of ability to just kind of tell you what

you need to think about and you know and so often actually the thinking is the last thing that you want to do because it's that that's kind of keeping you stuck in the first place and so when you can take everyday activities something as simple as eating a sandwich so imagine that you're just eating a sandwich but you're actually going to be much more present to that whole.

Process when you're preparing the sandwich you can mindfully be aware of picking up the bread putting the butter on the bread putting the cheese slices for example whatever you're having in your particular sandwich and then you know actually kind of taking your time to eat that sandwich whilst really paying attention to the texture the flavors the sounds all of that process of eating can be actually a mindful activity where you're

anchoring yourself into the present moment and that's just one example you know you may be having conversations with colleagues or other people at work you can choose to really pay more attention to that. More intently. It may be kind of more other mundane activities. It could just be walking somewhere. Are you actually present when you're walking somewhere? Are you in your body? Can you pay attention to your body as you're walking?

Can you also pay attention to your other senses as you're walking somewhere, noticing the things around you, really paying attention to what you can hear? All of these things give us an opportunity to remain in the present moment.

And you know in a way it doesn't matter what it is it doesn't matter what small activity it might be if you can find a way to make that a bit more of a mindful activity to help you to remain in the present and in your body rather than getting caught up in problem solving in your head which is obviously very much related to the OCD well you know you're finding more and more moments throughout the day to to have a break from the OCD to be present and and

that's what that's what I was talking about at the start with uh with with the quote it's all about stringing together these little moments where you're successful where you're not getting involved in the OCD and you're a bit more present and the more that you're able to string those things together well I think that really, really builds up over time. And before you know it, you find yourself dealing with the OCD in a much better way because you've learned how to do it gradually over time.

And I think that's often the best way. So many thanks, guys. I really hope that you enjoyed that one. If you have any questions at all, do please let me know. And also do please subscribe. It really does help the podcast. I will see you next time.

Just a quick reminder that if you want to get a free session all you need to do to get that is to head over to my website www.robertjamescoaching.com and there you can leave me a message and we can arrange the free session and now just a quick reminder of my disclaimer any information that you view on my website instagram page facebook group or anywhere else online or any Any information that you listen to on the podcast is for informational

purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor, psychologist or any other medical or mental health professional. Music.