Finding Hope in the Darkness: Overcoming OCD Challenges

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music. 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 430. I hope that you're doing very well today.

If you are struggling with OCD or anxiety no matter where you are and you would like to get a free session to To help you with that, well, you can by heading over to my website, robertjamescoaching.com. There you can book in for that free session, or if you prefer, you can send me a message and let me know about what you're struggling with. Today's podcast is really all about how you can find hope in the darkness.

Really believing that your approach to dealing with OCD can actually work, even when that That feels very daunting and very difficult. Of course, when we're in the midst of OCD and we're really struggling with it, it can feel that, you know, that taking the first step is very hard to do. But often that is just the very thing that we need to do. We need to forget about the big picture and we need to focus on what is the next little step that I need to take in order to keep me moving.

Now, if you find this podcast helpful, it would be very, very helpful. helpful and fantastic. In fact, if you could subscribe, most people who listen are not actually subscribed. So if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes to do that, that would be amazing. Also, if you'd like to follow the podcast on YouTube, you can, and you can also follow along on Instagram, my Instagram handle is at robertjamescoachinguk. So many thanks. I really hope that you enjoy.

And if you have any questions, do please let me know. Thank you. Here's a quote by Norman Vincent Peale to get us started, and it is this, it's always too soon to quit.

And I think this is a helpful quote, actually, to get us started today, because, you know, sometimes when we are struggling with OCD, maybe you're doing ERP or acceptance commitment therapy or whatever approach you're taking to try to manage it. And there's frustrations that come up.

Even if you're learning something like mindfulness or meditation, agitation you know there are frustrations there's annoyances these things can be very difficult at times when you're trying to learn to to manage something like OCD.

OCD is very good it's a trickster it's very sneaky it knows how to come up with new ways to trap you new ideas or obsessions seem to pop out of nowhere when you think you finally finally defeated something that you've been struggling with for a long time and so you know OCD can be very good at taking away our hope and creating that sense of bewilderment a sense of how am I ever going to be able to do this is is the approach that I'm taking actually going to work

maybe it's worked for other people it's not going to work for me I can't do this it's very very easy to get caught up in that mindset In fact, I was in that mindset myself for many years. You know, in my 20s, I was so frustrated with OCD, not knowing that I had it at that time. And, you know, getting stuck in the cycle of OCD, it really took away my hope altogether at that time.

I felt exhausted, frustrated, very, very anxious all the time, getting stuck in my thoughts, going around in circles trying to have certainty and not knowing what any of this meant you know not knowing that I had OCD made it an incredibly frustrating thing because a lot a lot of the time I was just trying to figure out well what's actually wrong what is what is the problem here you know and it it takes up so much of your energy when you're when you're doing that kind of thing.

Eventually, when I did figure out that it was OCD, obviously that was a really helpful step for me. Then I started to learn about the different approaches that I could take. This was a time of some renewed hope, having figured out what the issue was and then finding the relevant material and the relevant things to help me. Of course, on some level, that did make me feel a bit better.

But on another, I started to get frustrated with the different approaches that were available to me to try to help to deal with because a lot of the time it felt like they weren't actually working and I might be applying things and not actually seeing any results.

You know and that was really annoying and sometimes really almost kind of more anxiety inducing because you think that you're doing the right work you're doing the things that you're meant to be doing in order to start feeling better but you're not really getting the results that that you you think you should be getting you know and this can be a really confusing and kind of almost anger-inducing time, if you're not careful, if we get too caught up in the moment here with this kind of thing.

The reality is when you're learning new skills and you're trying to apply a different approach to something like OCD.

It isn't something that you can just do straight away and that's it.

Now you're going to feel better and you're going to get the results. it is something that you need to be applying over an extended period of time in order for you to start really seeing the benefits of the approach sometimes you can get very quickly improvements and you can see okay wow if I do this then I take control and I do feel a bit better and you begin to make progress but then you might have a setback, you know and that can be annoying and frustrating but it

is a part of the process and i i think sometimes though one of the issues is that we don't necessarily want to get started because you know we're not seeing initially that there's any improvements coming from maybe what we're what we're doing or we haven't really committed to it enough yet in order for us to see those improvements.

And so if you're in that place where, you know, you are perhaps more hopeful than you were because you're seeing, okay, if I apply these things, then supposedly I will start to improve. However, you haven't seen that yet for yourself. You know, you don't yet have that evidence that that really works.

And maybe you're questioning that. Maybe you're questioning the the whole thing maybe you have been applying it but perhaps you haven't quite done it in the right kind of way or maybe your perspective on it hasn't been the most helpful and so you haven't quite yet seen the feedback that you're looking for maybe you're beginning to doubt yourself maybe you're questioning the process maybe you're thinking that you're you know you're you're never going to do this you know

and my message today is that i don't think that's true certainly in my case i did feel a little bit like that when i first started to try to apply techniques like acceptance commitment therapy and exposure because you know it it's very it's very hard to learn to bring acceptance to things i think i remember one day when i was working at a at a shop that i uh i was.

Really struggling with the OCD with the anxiety I had been for a while but I had just learned about mindfulness and this idea of bringing acceptance to difficult emotions and you know I was really at such a difficult place at that time I thought well I just have to give this a go I'd only read about it in a book I hadn't I hadn't received this information from a podcast or from anybody who had OCD I didn't know anybody who had OCD again I didn't even know myself that I had OCD so I was

just trying to stumble around in the darkness and try different things try to figure it out and I did notice that when I tried to bring a little bit more acceptance to the anxiety that it did help me a little bit in that moment you know and from there I did kind of develop that that skill but it was a very difficult time there was lots of moments where I convinced myself again that that approach doesn't work, that, you know.

Trying to bring acceptance to something like OCD and anxiety is pointless. You know, it's not really a strategy that is going to help enough in the long term. And actually, I needed some different approach, something else that was actually just going to completely take away the OCD. Of course, not realizing that that isn't reality at all.

But I just didn't know that at that time. and you know I was kind of so tired and so exhausted of of dealing with OCD all the time you know that all all I wanted is for it to be gone you know I kind of wanted that uncertainty, to be out of my life that anxiety to not be there anymore and to just feel good and you know I so I completely relate to to you if you're kind of feeling that way at times I guess my message is as well that

you know if you can if you can hold on in these moments and and try to take a step back and realize that having something like OCD is incredibly hard it's incredibly challenging.

And in order for us to to really improve you know we we do need to be patient with ourselves we do need to be kind with ourselves and we do need to try to have hope and it's really just making that conscious choice to say okay I don't quite know yet if these things are going to work for me but the only way I'm going to find that out is actually by trying to consistently apply them to my life even if the results I get are inconsistent the only way I'm ever going to really know which things

work for me is through trial and error actually getting out there and And just trying, you know, the different approaches, whatever that might be. Of course, if you can work with a therapist or somebody to help you with that, that is, of course, always going to be the best way that you can do it.

You know, but just by stepping out there and taking some action, looking at the tools that are available, ERP, acceptance, commitment therapy, different approaches that focus around mindfulness skills, you know, relaxation techniques, whether you're doing other things as well, no matter what it is, you know, you've got to give that approach some time. You've got to try to sit down and give it a real go, get started with it.

And you may be surprised when you do that at what you can actually achieve. 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 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.