How Judgment Can Make OCD Worse

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 386. I hope that you're doing very well today no matter where you are in the world and if you are struggling with OCD or anxiety then you can get a free session with me to get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com you can book in directly there for your free session or you can send me a message and let me know about what you're struggling with in today's podcast i'm going to be talking about how judgment can actually make ocd worse when we

are focusing on the inner critic if you like and we're getting very caught up in judgments about how we're doing about you know how OCD is kind of taking over and stopping us from enjoying things and getting upset and angry with ourselves and comparing ourselves to other people unfortunately all of these things make OCD much harder to manage if you find the podcast helpful it'd be great if you could follow and like on instagram my instagram handle is at Robert James Coaching UK.

Also, you can now follow along on YouTube if you want to head over there and follow and like too, that would be amazing. And yeah, let's get going. If you have any questions at all about anything I speak about today, do please let me know. And off we go.

Here's a quote to get us started today, and it's by someone called Wayne Dyer. Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. And I think this is a really good quote because it's really pointing out of the obvious fact really to us that, you know, so often when we get caught up in judgment.

You know, we're actually just blocking ourselves from actually seeing the positive things that are going on, you know, all around us because we're focused on wanting things to be a specific way. You know, when he talks about things that lie beyond appearances. You know, those appearances are almost the kind of things that we, you know, we want to be just right in OCD.

So often people are struggling with this idea of if only I was feeling the right way if only I was using that acceptance commitment therapy technique just right then I would be able to manage the OCD correctly if only you know other people didn't judge in this particular way then I would be okay in life if only I didn't judge myself in a negative way then everything would be all right Right.

And we're getting really caught up in, you know, this idea of wanting things to be a very kind of specific way. And that actually kind of prevents us from seeing that actually so many things are really, really good in the present moment when we actually allow ourselves to be in the present and to let go of judgment, to let go of thinking how we want things to be. And instead we try to let things unfold a bit more naturally. We try to allow things to be the way in which they're meant to be.

And when we start doing that, well, you know, we start to move beyond some of our challenges. It's not that anxiety just disappears, of course. It's still there, but, you know, we begin to become a bit more accepting of it. One of the big problems with OCD, I think, is that.

When we are really struggling with the obsessions and we are finding ourselves going around in circles with performing compulsions, it's very easy to get very judgmental about all of that, to get really annoyed and upset with yourself, really angry. You know, you might kind of get caught up in saying things like, no, what's wrong with me? Why do I do this?

Other people don't do this i'm so ridiculous or this is so ridiculous and i should be stronger i should be able to just overcome this i should be able to think about it enough to be able to resolve this and you know we get so caught up in this negative judgment and this is this is definitely something that i spent years doing getting so angry with myself that i couldn't find a kind of simple solution to these problems that I couldn't problem solve my way out of it of course at that stage in my

20s I was doing all of the wrong stuff I didn't know about mindfulness I didn't know about acceptance commitment therapy I didn't even know I had OCD so it was very hard to kind of deal with it in a positive way but I was really judging myself and this is because a big component of OCD is the kind of the inner critic, the part of us that focuses on judgment. That's the whole point of the inner critic. It's kind of like this internal judge that we have that never quite switches off.

It's always there in the background ready to pounce and to start judging, you know, leaving us unawares and, you know, feeling a bit vulnerable at times. Fortunately, we can learn to listen a lot less to that judge, so it doesn't bother us quite so much. But it's something that's potentially always there because we can't just eradicate that judge from us. What we can do is develop a different relationship with it. So what is this inner judge, this inner critic, and why is it so annoying?

Why does it want to make us feel bad all the time?

Why is it always pointing out the negative things why is it always telling us that you know we're no good and that you know we you know my inner critic will tell me things like if I'm learning technique or something new to try to help me it will try to persuade me that this thing isn't going to work for me that maybe it works for other people it's not going to work for me you know and that still comes up today I have to learn how to not listen to it and not pay

attention to it because when I do that it quietens down and eventually it just disappears altogether but if we do listen to it and if we do take it to heart you know it can be really painful and so really kind of trying to understand that you know the urge to judge is really coming from this this idea of the inner critic within the psyche and I think it's really helpful to view it like this, that actually this inner critic, it isn't exactly you.

When you're getting caught up in judgment, it isn't the whole person, it isn't the whole part of you that is doing that judging. It's actually one part of you. It's one part of the psyche that is called the inner critic. And all it does is judges. It doesn't have empathy. It doesn't have the ability to reason or have logic such. It just attacks and criticizes things.

And when we get caught up in that inner critic, sometimes we can kind of turn it on other people and we can criticize other people. But a lot of the time in OCD, we're turning it on ourselves and we're putting ourselves down. It isn't necessarily, though, that the inner critic is against us. I think it can feel very hard at times if you believe that there's this part of your psyche, the inner critic, that, you know, wants you to suffer or wants you to feel bad all the time.

I'm not sure that the inner critic is necessarily doing that. I think it's more to do with a kind of protection thing.

The inner critic is potentially trying to point out to you all of the things that could could go wrong in the environment things that you know you could make mistakes about things that you obsess about perhaps and it wants you to pay attention to those things to make sure that nothing bad happens and obviously if we think about OCD and how that relates well you know that's going to be in relation to your particular obsessions whether you need to go back and check the door

again whether you need to wash your hands again whether you need to think about that problem one more time in order to feel comfortable, it's the inner critic at play here that is judging you and saying well you better do that because if you don't something bad could happen and then you'd be a bad person. Or then you'd be foolish, or then you would be whatever, you know, whatever the inner critic is trying to put on you at that time.

So in a way, it's trying to help you, but in a kind of misguided way. And this is very much to do with self-esteem. One of the problems with self-esteem is we tend to focus too much on what other people think of us.

Self-esteem is really about how we see yourselves in comparison to to kind of other people and the the kind of inner critic is very concerned about self-esteem it doesn't want you to to make mistakes because it sees that as being a threat to your kind of self-esteem your position in this kind of social hierarchy or structure that it imagines and you know when we're too focused on on self-esteem it's very easy to allow the inner critic to run wild because we're constantly

thinking about what other people think about us and it does seem to be the case that many people who struggle with OCD can get very easily caught up in focusing on self-esteem a bit too much and the culture today actually really perpetuates that when you think about social media use for example it's all about kind.

Of aggravating the self-esteem we are you know looking at other people and people are posting pictures of themselves when they're really happy when they're on holiday when they're out with their friends when you know they're making amazing food or they're having really fun times and you know it looks like they're they're living like their best lives all the times of course this is not really reality as we all know at social media people post their very best pictures they put

filters on they're not on holiday all the time but they make it look like it by going to very beautiful places and taking photos there and it becomes this kind of very artificial, kind of way of living life where you know we're looking at all these other people and we're seeing them and we're kind of judging ourselves compared and making comparisons with them and oftentimes those comparisons are quite negative we're kind of thinking well look at that

person how am i doing compared to them I don't think I'm doing quite as well they look like they're having a really great time. And it's not just social media. This comes from all sorts of different ways as well. It's just part of the modern culture is very focused on this. We also live in a very consumer orientated world where, you know, we're constantly bombarded with messages that, you know, we need to have this or that in order to be fulfilled and to be happy.

And, you know, it's very easy to kind of get caught up in that, to get caught up in this idea that I need to have these things in order to be happy. And, you know, we can, again, make negative judgments about ourself depending on how well we are doing in that kind of that rat race or keeping up with the Joneses.

You know, we can compare ourselves with our jobs, with our relationships, with even our friendships and all sorts of different ways where, you know, perhaps in the past we didn't do that quite as much. Of course, it is a human thing to judge and compare ourselves.

Ourselves but my fear is that society maybe is becoming even more focused on this kind of thing even more focused on on self-esteem and i think the more we get focused on this idea of self-esteem you know viewing ourself through this idea of how well are we doing compared to other people unfortunately the more anxiety people seem to be struggling with because you know it's very much based on judgment and it's not a stable thing to base your sense of self on.

Ideally, what you want to be building your sense of self on is a kind of more steady sense of self-confidence that you would build over time through achieving your goals related to your values. Building things up over time, overcoming obstacles and gaining the real confidence that you get from that.

And and trying to move your attention away from you know making these judgments social media is an obvious one that can help with kind of you know if you reduce social media i think there's been a fair amount of research now i i don't have it to hand right at this moment maybe that's for a future episode but there's research that shows that there's a you know a very positive correlation correlation between the more social media use that you have the more anxiety you're likely

to have too and of course that probably doesn't surprise you the thing is when it comes to OCD and judgment is OCD as you know is incredibly hard anyway it's incredibly difficult to to be struggling with it to you know perhaps you're you're learning to manage it better perhaps you're learning about acceptance commitment therapy and you're doing exposure work you're trying to be more self-compassionate but maybe you're struggling with the self-compassion element because that really is

one of the antidotes to to getting too caught up in judgment and self-esteem and if you do struggle with that then you know perhaps you know what is likely to happen I think certainly in my experience is that you're going to compound whatever struggles that you're already having by judging those struggles. And, you know, this is a really harsh and unfair situation to put yourself into, but we do it.

Because it's a very easy trap to fall into. You know, you're kind of performing compulsions and you're getting really upset because it's really difficult. The anxiety is really intense. And then, you know, the inner critic comes online and it's like, look at you. This is ridiculous. Why are you doing that again? Why can't you stop this? And, you know, all of these kinds of things. And it just compounds the pain and the difficulty that you're already experiencing.

Experiencing and so really trying to recognize this kind of vicious circle because it really is a kind of vicious circle OCD is a vicious circle anyway but when you add judgment on top of that then we get shame we get guilt we get other difficult emotions to deal with as well as just having a lot of anxiety and so it becomes even more complicated recognizing that there is this this kind of component with the OCD as well can be really helpful because you can start to

pick apart these different elements of the OCD and you can start to to practice a bit more self-compassion you know it starts with maybe having a bit more awareness of what is going on when you start to get caught up in the inner critic and judgment and once you begin to have more awareness about that, well then you can start to kind of bring more self-compassion to it. And self-compassion really is the antidote to this kind of thing.

Learning how to be a bit kinder with yourself, learning how to be a bit more forgiving, learning how to perhaps tune in and feel what you're feeling rather than getting so caught up in all the thinking and judging about it. It's a really important area to kind of take into consideration and, you know, something that's been enormously helpful for me to recognize, you know, there is that part of me that there is that part of me that really wants to judge all the time.

And when I learned to kind of let go of it and just kind of come back to the present, practice acceptance, you know, try to be more with my emotions and, you know, allow the difficult moments to pass and, you know, let go of some of that rumination, things do begin to improve.

Prove of course you may be thinking well that's probably easier said than done to let go of some of that stuff and of course it's it takes practice it takes time you've got a you've got to kind of chip away at it each day a little bit and just start to become more aware of it perhaps a really good place to start is to start journaling you know when are you getting caught up with this inner critic can you write down the kinds of things that the inner critic is is telling you

and try to think of that inner critic it's just one part of your psyche it's not actually.

Completely you some people like to give their inner critic a name and that helps to kind of separate out the kind of stuff that the inner critic is saying you know to make it a bit more obvious so there we go guys that's just some some tips for today and this is an area that i will be returning back to again because it's a really important area to keep on talking about and there's more to kind of unpack with it.

But I really hope that you found this one helpful. If you have any questions at all about anything I've spoken about today, don't hesitate to get in touch, 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 professional. Music.