Letting Go: Overcoming OCD Without Beating Yourself Up

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 402. I hope that wherever you are today in the world that you're doing very well and despite OCD and anxiety being present potentially and And frustrating you, you know, this podcast is hopefully here to support in some small way. And if you did need some extra support, I do actually offer a free 20-minute session. To get that, you can head over to my website, robertjamescoaching.com. There you can book in directly for that 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, I'm going to be talking about the importance of letting go of beating ourselves up when it comes to OCD. So often we can get really frustrated with ourselves for why we struggle with it. And we can get really fixated on trying to push it away and kind of getting annoyed with ourselves. Kind of, I shouldn't be like this. Other people aren't like this.

So why am I like this? and unfortunately it just tends to perpetuate things and make it even worse and even harder to deal with. If you find the podcast helpful please do subscribe. Most people who actually listen to the podcast are not actually subscribed so if you could do that it would make an enormous difference to us so that would be fantastic. So many thanks guys if you have any questions at all do please let me know and off we go. More.

Here's a quote to get us started today and it's by somebody called mazza not having to control or fight ocd can lead to a sense of freedom or lightness your energy can then be spent on things that you find meaningful and this is very very true as as we know ocd it takes up an enormous amount of energy when you're going around in circles with it and you know this is this is most definitely energy that could be put into all sorts of different areas in

in our lives and you know sometimes I talk about this this connection between OCD and creativity where not everybody but a lot of people who struggle with OCD also identify in some way as being a bit of a creative person you know they they want to express things maybe you're interested in art or music or poetry or whatever it might be for for you and i i think a big a big part of it or a big part of that reason is is actually because when

you're struggling with ocd you are you know creating a lot of problems for yourself in the process no it's the imagination is running wild it's finding all sorts of bizarre things to focus on that other people just don't focus on They literally don't think about it at all. But people with OCD are very good at kind of using this kind of spotlight to shine the spotlight on things that, you know, most people just wouldn't find interesting or wouldn't pay attention to.

You know if you if you think about it this way if you do have a spotlight normally the the spotlight would be on on the stage you know it would be right right in the center and you know when we are in a in a more or less good place that's where the spotlight is shining but when OCD starts to win what we're really doing is we're moving that spotlight all the way over to the left or all the way over to the right and in the process you know we're shining on something that that you know

nobody else really wants to be paying attention to in fact all the people who are there in that theater are going to be like what is going on with this this this person controlling the light they're kind of like shining it onto the curtain when it should be right there on the stage and you know so maybe you move it back again to the center only for it to kind of move all the way over to the left this time and now you're like really paying attention to the fire exit or something like that.

And, you know, we get stuck there as well. The spotlight literally kind of freezes in place. Maybe, you know, it's an old spotlight that's got rusty and it just kind of gets stuck in that position. And we find ourselves just really paying attention to that area. And we don't quite want to kind of give that up.

And, you know, unfortunately, when it comes to kind of beating ourselves up in relation to OCD, this can be part of the problem that, you know, we've got so used to beating ourselves up and going around in circles with the OCD and feeling bad about ourselves, feeling frustrated with ourselves.

Ourselves, thinking that, you know, that we can't do this, that even at sometimes the things that you might be employing to try to deal with the OCD, well, you know, you may get caught up in perfectionism about how you do that and find that the very things that you're trying to use to try to help you with the OCD just become.

You know, parts of the OCD itself, where you find yourself self ruminating on how to best apply a particular technique you know and then you realize what you're doing and then you get really angry with yourself and really frustrated and this is what it can be like and you know I think it's really important to notice when you are getting unfairly kind of angry and upset with yourself about your struggles with OCD it's so important that you can and shine a light on

that and that you try to lighten up. No, that's taking it a bit too far with the spotlight analogies. But of course, unfortunately, if only we could lighten up because we know how difficult that can be in those situations. It's very, very hard to start.

To actually kind of let go in in that situation because we're we're so invested in what we're doing with the OCD we're so invested in trying to to fix it and to solve it you know and we kind of know on one hand that the things that we're doing you know are not really helping so often as I was just talking about the things that we're we're trying to do to fix it end up being compulsions themselves if we employ them in a in a way that we're trying to

kind of reduce our anxiety or push things away and so you know it is incredibly frustrating at times there's no getting away from that it is really annoying and you can find yourself getting really angry and oftentimes sadly we turn that anger on ourselves we start blaming ourselves and criticizing ourselves and it's really just not fair you know we we have to learn how to start to just let go of that a little bit start to loosen up on that and like I say it's it's a

habit though that is hard worn most people who struggle with OCD also seem to struggle with this sense of a strong inner critic this part of us that comes up and criticizes and judges and you.

Know it really wants to kind of put us down in a way and it's not necessarily doing that from a bad place though and that's important to point out as well the if you do have a strong inner critic normally it's about kind of protection it's this part of us that wants you to kind of do things in a very specific way it doesn't want you to make mistakes it doesn't want you to do things that you know could lead to you being seen or portrayed in a bad way and so

of course it's trying to make sure that you're not.

Going going to make any mistakes and the way in which it does that is constantly alert you to things that you could do wrong that have gone wrong that potentially could go wrong in the future it focuses on all of the negative aspects that that that could cause in your life and uh and then of course when we listen to it too much and we get caught up in it well we find ourselves going around in circles in the in the OCD cycle trying to to deal with

all of the anxiety that's coming up about those thoughts you know and then we and then the frustration comes in here i am again i've gotten the trap again how have i done this you know i've been learning about acceptance commitment therapy or i've been practicing exposure work or i've been doing the wim hof method or whatever it is that you've been doing and you know maybe you've got a bit of respite things have been a bit better for a while only you know you fall back into old familiar

habits and i think one thing that's really important to point out here is you know. Really what you're trying to do is you're trying to change a habit that's potentially been there for quite some time.

You know, even if you haven't struggled with OCD, specifically OCD for all that long, you know, there may have been habits of pushing things away and, you know, of dealing with things in a certain way or kind of thinking styles, you know, that are not particularly helpful that contribute towards the OCD you know so really what you're up against is is kind of habits that may have been there for a long long time and when you're trying to change those.

It's so important that you do your best to bring self-compassion to the table here to recognize that what you're up to is not easy actually you're you're trying to change these habits it and you know it's it's OCD is something that is very familiar we get comfortable with performing the compulsions we get comfortable with pushing things away it's what we've learned to do and it it's kind of a kind of protective mechanism in a way when we push away difficult emotions

that we don't want to feel well that kind of helps us in some way it makes us feel like we're controlling things and you know that we can do something when strong and difficult emotions come up so in in some regard there's a part of us i think that doesn't want to necessarily let go of that because on some level it's helping us but we know on another level that it's keeping us in that that ocd trap but this is why i think you need to bring compassion and patience

and kindness to the table if you can because we need to recognize that it's not easy if you have this habit and you've got stuck in this kind of loop in this cycle this OCD cycle you know for uh for.

A while for maybe for a number of years even then you know learning to undo that and learning to to actually feel your difficult emotions to be more in the present to let go of trying to come to conclusions and your your ruminations and to just come back to the present and say maybe to them and all of these kinds of things that we try to work on.

When we start doing that, of course, it can be really, really difficult at first because you're trying to pick up all these new skills and you're going to have some success with it. You are then going to also have some setbacks along the way.

And this is where the compassion and the kindness, it's so important that we try to show that to ourselves. It can be, you know, as little as just some few encouraging words. It could be doing something kind for yourself. It could just be learning to feel your emotions even when you really don't want to. All of these things really help with self-compassion and kind of learning to let go.

Go another important thing i think is to recognize the self-judgment try to get more in tune with your uh or try to have more understanding of what your inner critic is like what kind of uh voice is it when you're when you're speaking to yourself in in in the inner critic voice what typical things do you say to yourself is it is it very kind of repeated is there a certain kind of structure to it? What type of words do you use when you're getting caught up in the inner critic?

The more awareness and attention you can bring to this inner critical voice and the more that you can just identify it and call it out. Some people like to give that inner critic a name, for example, you know, and some people like to give it a silly name and some people like to joke with it. Some people like to be sarcastic with it and thank it.

It doesn't really matter here. The idea, though, is just to get a bit more aware of that inner critic and try to bring a bit more kindness, a bit more understanding to it.

But don't listen to it quite as much. Don't take it quite so seriously. You can thank it, say, thank you very much, inner critic. Thank you for giving me that lovely thought. But you know what? I've got more important things to do.

And then you can practice refocusing on your values, use doing activities that you enjoy speaking with a family member you know doing all those other things that you'd much rather do a creative project anything at all that you value you know learning how to refocus on that when we when we find ourselves getting caught up you know with the inner critic and you know kind of listening a bit too much to the the negativity that it likes to give

out to us if instead we can learn to refocus our attention on on other things or if we can learn how to kind of stop if we're at home and we're somewhere safe, we can actually stop and, you know, kind of meditate on what we're feeling for a few moments, actually pay attention. To how it feels when we're triggered by the inner critic. And, you know, by doing that, well, we can learn to kind of let it go.

We can learn to recognize that uncomfortable feeling for what it is and to recognize that it is actually just a feeling.

It's not to do with the thoughts that are coming up it's to do with the fact that we've been triggered by something and if we just allow ourselves to feel it well it may move on so there we go guys i really hope that you enjoyed that one uh 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 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.