Finding Stability in OCD: Strength Amid Chaos

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 398, where today we're going to be discussing how you can find strength in the the middle of chaos that OCD tends to create.

If you are struggling with OCD or anxiety and you would like to get a free session with me well you can get that by heading over to my website robertjamescoaching.com. There you can book in for that free session directly or if you prefer you can send me a message and let me know about what you're struggling with.

So yeah in today's podcast we're going to be looking at what you can do to help yourself when you find yourself really stuck in the middle of OCD and you're really finding it difficult to kind of find a way out of it you're getting blown around by the storms of OCD and so this is a really important kind of topic if you find the podcast helpful today it would be great if you could follow and like on Instagram and also if you could give the podcast

a review and actually make sure you're following most people who actually listen to this podcast are not actually following so if you could subscribe that would really really help the podcast so many thanks guys i really hope that you enjoy and if you have any questions do please let me know off we go.

So I have a couple of quotes to get us started today. And the first one is by Helen Keller. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. This is obviously a very uplifting and powerful quote. Helen Keller is somebody who obviously went through extreme adversity in her

life. And I think it's important that we try to focus on these kinds of quotes when we are going through it with OCD, because we know what the challenge can be like at times. When the OCD is winning, when it feels like, you know, we're just stuck, we keep doing the compulsions, even though we know we shouldn't. Maybe you're listening to this podcast and you're feeling a bit more positive and you're getting energy, you know, to change things.

And then you find yourself getting stuck in the same old habits again. And it can be so frustrating when, when that happens, you know, and I think it's helpful though, to, to reflect on people like Helen Keller and the adversity that they overcame in their lives, you know, because it does give us that, that inspiration that. You know, that energy that I think is necessary to take on the challenge of OCD and to believe and to have hope that, you know, you can learn how to deal with this better.

You know, in my experience, you absolutely can, you know, and it's all about taking little steps, taking action each day, you know, and over time, you really can begin to improve your situation. Despite the fact that, you know, OCD likes to create this kind of chaotic situation that I was talking about in the title. And, you know, we have to find a way to find strength amidst that chaos.

Here's another quote by Marcus Aurelius. You have power over your mind, not outside events.

Realize this and you will find strength. And the way in which I like to think about this quote when it comes to OCD is you know outside events well sometimes with OCD we could even describe that as inside events no so I think we do have a lot of power over our minds but we also have to we have to realize that there's some things that we don't have power over for example you know one of those things that tends to cause chaos amongst people with OCD is intrusive thoughts you

know when we get very very concerned and determined to not experience those intrusive thoughts to not have them at all that's when we we tend to start running into problems and and likewise likewise when we start to try to control our emotions when we say no i don't want to feel that actually i'm going to block that through doing this compulsion or through doing this other activity that's going to actually give me some peace of mind

for a few moments it's going to stop me from feeling the intensity of a certain emotion okay you can do that but uh unfortunately we know what happens you know when when we do that it's so much better actually if we just allow those emotions to come up. And this is where I think the important control of your mind that Marcus Aurelius was alluding to is so important when it comes to OCD.

Because we do, no matter what's going on, no matter the size of the waves, the power of the storm that may be going on with your particular OCD on any given day, We do have this enormous ability to be able to choose to focus our mind and to put our attention where we want it to be rather than just focusing on the OCD itself and the compulsions and trying to get rid of it.

We do have this power that so often we're giving away unfortunately with OCD and when we realize that and we we kind of claim that power back we we focus on taking that control you know we recognize okay so if I don't have the power to control external events likewise I don't have the power to uh to control intrusive thoughts and I don't have the power to control emotions.

Well what I can do though what I do have power over is you know the way in which I respond to all of those things and you know this is incredibly powerful because when we realize this really it gives us everything that we need in order to to manage those storms to manage the chaos to keep ourselves in a positive place despite everything awful and difficult and challenging that might be going on in our lives on a particular day when you struggle with OCD.

Certainly in my life, there's been examples of when the OCD and the anxiety has got so bad, so strong, you know, that I just feel that I don't know what to do with it. I felt like I didn't know how to manage it, how to be present in my life, how to deal with all the things I had to do.

It felt incredibly overwhelming like I was really in the midst of a storm and I didn't have the equipment necessary in order to kind of you know protect myself from that situation to not be taken away by the winds by the waves by the currents and you know I was very very stuck at that time and I didn't know about acceptance commitment therapy I didn't have you know a kind of community of people to speak to about these things because I kind of kept it all to myself and you

know it was incredibly difficult and I think this is one of the problems is you know if you don't know that you have OCD for example but you're struggling with it or even if you do know but you're you know you haven't perhaps learned enough about it or maybe you're not quite applying yet the things that you're learning about it it can be really really difficult as I found out myself you just end up going around in circles and you really do feel kind of disempowered and you know this is

why it's so important that we, that we learn. You know, how to take that power back, what are the strategies that we can apply so that actually, you know, we can begin to take those steps each day that we need to take in order to improve our situation and that's really what happened to me despite the fact that in my twenties I was really struggling a lot of the time going around in circles with my thoughts.

Performing compulsions trying to have certainty about things and just getting more and more frustrated with the situation annoyed with myself I had a complete lack of self-compassion I'd be beating myself up all the time about it and it was exhausting it was a really difficult time with my life and fortunately today I'm in a much better place and that really comes down to the kind of habits the behavioral habits that I've put in place that really support me to to to be able to manage

the OCD very effectively to the point where, you know, some of the time, I feel like I'm managing it so well these days, most of the time, that it kind of feels like it's in remission that, you know, there's many days where it doesn't even come up at all. Whereas in the past, it was present pretty much all the time. And it was just frustrating me all the time.

And, you know, so having those kinds of strategies in place, knowing what they are for you, because everybody is different when it comes to this kind of thing, you need to figure out for you what are the important things that help you to keep yourself in a good place.

Generally speaking, one very good strategy that we really do know that works is acceptance commitment therapy. And I think a big part of the reason for why that does work so well is that it encourages us to live our lives much more in the present.

So much of OCD is really us getting stuck in our heads we're so focused on problem solving and trying to figure out the OCD or figure out the obsession get to the bottom of it and there's this kind of misled idea or belief that you know if we do think about it enough we can figure it out that you know our our intellect will will get us out of the you know the the problem out of the the situation and you know despite there being piles of evidence to uh to

demonstrate the contrary we keep on doing that same thing we keep on using the same tool to try to to kind of get us out of the trap and really what it involves i think in order to start changing things is the first step you've always got to put up your hands and kind of admit defeat in a way and i don't mean that in a negative way, I mean that in a positive way, where you're admitting that what you've done up until this point,

unfortunately, it was not really serving you, it was not helping you enough. You know, to be able to get yourself out of that OCD trap, quite the opposite, in fact, that all of the thinking and the problem solving that you've done around the OCD has actually been part of the problem, it's the anxiety trap, if you like. Which they talk about in the book, The Happiness Trap, a really good book.

I recommend checking it out. But it's this idea, this concept that you are going around in your head with your thoughts and you're trying to figure everything out. And it's actually the thing that is keeping you stuck. In many situations, for example, there's obviously pure O, purely obsessional OCD, where the compulsions are actually done in the head. They are not physical compulsions. When we think of OCD, many people think of hand washing, for example.

Whereas a lot of the time, you know, compulsions can actually be your cognitions. You know, you're thinking about a particular issue that you're obsessing about and you're actually trying to figure it out. And those thoughts actually wind up becoming your compulsions.

Compulsions you're effectively trying to reassure yourself about something only you know every time that you think you've come to the right answer and straight away something else comes up to replace that thing and so we know that that kind of approach doesn't help and so acceptance commitment therapy it really helps us to begin to let go of doing that and to instead choose to to focus on being more in the present by refocusing our attention onto valued activities and generally

speaking when we're in the present well you know we're not really going to be in our heads we're going to be in our bodies we're going to be more focused on our senses and what's going on around us and that means it's going to be much easier for us to let go of things to let go of thoughts that don't help us to refocus our attention onto to helpful things and to actually you know potentially give ourselves the opportunity to start enjoying life again because

so often with OCD people stop doing things that they enjoy it's a really sad part of it that you know you kind of that maybe there's all sorts of things that you used to enjoy doing but because of the anxiety and because of the obsessions you no longer want to do them anymore you're fearful of how you will look or how it will go or what might happen and so it kind of feels more comfortable to just. Kind of stay at home and unfortunately over time it means that our worlds can.

Become smaller and smaller. So really, if you're able to, trying to address this by choosing things each day, little challenges, things that you would like to do that are going to help you to push back against your fears and push back against the things that perhaps you're avoiding.

You know, certainly for me, this has been incredibly helpful. And this then links into exposure, which obviously involves doing things about your particular obsessions that you would much rather not do that, you know, that you would probably find very difficult to do, in fact.

And the idea with with exposure work is to slowly over time starting off with small easy challenges or relatively easy challenges things that give you a small amount of fear the idea is to try to do one or two of those things each day and to start giving yourself some confidence and belief that you can actually overcome some of these some of these fears you can actually start moving in the right direction.

And when people start doing that, you know, on a daily basis, you really start to build up some momentum in your life, some potential for change. And, you know, this is really what it's all about, you know. So having some kind of approaches, some behaviors that start to become habits for you is incredibly important. And.

Over time, when you really focus on, you know, setting up your life in this way, where you start to view some of the chaos that OCD produces as an opportunity for leaning into and potentially for growing and overcoming those challenges. That, in my view, is a much healthier, more positive way to view it. You know, and by saying this, this in no means is about trying to say that the challenge that you have is not difficult. Of course, it's incredibly difficult and it's very hard to do this.

But at the same time, I think it's very important that we do focus on positivity and, you know, trying to view the challenge of OCD, you know, through that kind of positive lens.

That actually this this challenge in the end it may it may offer up all sorts of opportunities for you to grow in ways that perhaps you'd never even thought of and so you know i think that can be uh that can be really really healthy another important thing to to mention is making sure that you have some kind of support network set up and you know whether that's friends and family like obviously it needs to be trusted people that you can speak to about these problems you don't want want

to be sharing this with everybody, you know, so actually having a trusted friend or some family members that you can speak to this about, I think is very, very important. If you know anybody else with OCD or anxiety, they can be good, good people to speak to as well, because obviously they're going to have more empathy for, for your situation. Um. And obviously, also, if you can, I think it's very important to try to work with somebody to help you.

So to work with a therapist or a coach or somebody who is able to to have some knowledge, somebody who has experience with these kinds of things and who can can give you that that support. And it's so important that we don't just struggle on our own. If you are struggling with that chaos that OCD produces, well, there is help out there. There's also OCD charities, OCD Action UK, for example, or the OCD Foundation. There's different things online.

There's so much out there in order for us to get help these days. So I think it's really important that we do do that as well.

And I guess my final message today is really just about resilience. Most people are far more resilient than they think they are. You know, I think that we have worlds within us that, you know, so often we're not quite tapping into. And if we can find a way to tap into those resources that we perhaps have, you know, it can really help us in new ways.

And I think that's really, really important. important so there we go guys i really hope that you enjoyed that one if you have any questions at all about anything i've spoken about today do please let me know and 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 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. Music.