¶ Introduction to The OCD and Anxiety Podcast
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 408. I hope that wherever you are today, you're doing very well and if you are struggling with OCD or anxiety and you would like to get some help with that well you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com and there you can book in for a free session with me or if you prefer you can just 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 the pressure that we can put ourselves
under sometimes when it comes to healing we may want to heal very quickly we may be determined to not be experiencing ocd ever again and this pressure can end up kind of backfiring on us and it can even make things harder in the long run. So today I'm going to be talking about that. If you find the podcast helpful, it'd be great if you could follow and like on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at RobJamesCoachingUK.
Also, if you could subscribe to this podcast, most people who listen are not actually subscribed. So if you could change that situation today by subscribing, I would really, really appreciate that. Also, if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review that also really helps so many thanks guys and i really hope that you enjoy.
¶ Understanding the Wound of OCD
Here's a quote to get us started today, and it's by Rumi. The wound is the place where the light enters you. And I think this is a very apt quote for today's podcast because so often with OCD, we are looking at the wound that we have, you know, that vulnerability that we struggle with, which is really not allowing or not wanting to allow uncertainty, even if that's, you know, a very small amount of uncertainty.
We don't want to have it. And this is related to a kind of wound that we're struggling with, a wound of pain, of discomfort. A wound of anxiety that, you know, when that uncertainty is present, we're doing everything that we can to try to get rid of it, to push it away, to fight against it, to perform all of these difficult compulsions and to go round in circles. You know all about it. if you struggle with OCD, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
And, you know, really what we actually have is this wound. We have something within us that is telling us that we're not able or we're not allowed to accept uncertainty, that it's bad or that it's dangerous in some way.
And so we are putting ourselves under enormous pressure to heal that wound, to get rid of that wound in fact you know to to not just kind of put up with it to not just kind of uh you know allow it to be there or try to accept it but to destroy it to completely annihilate it to find a way to get rid of that wound because we do not want it anymore we do not want to deal with OCD ever again we've had enough of it it's it's exhausting it's horrible we don't want it in our lives.
And unfortunately, when we start to put ourselves under this kind of pressure. Where we're determining that, you know, we just don't want to deal with it anymore, we just want to be healed immediately or as soon as possible, and we're going to put ourselves under pressure until that happens.
Unfortunately, I think this is part of the reason why for why so many of us are getting stuck in the the kind of OCD trap as I often call it which is this um you know this incessant going round in in circles looking for certainty about our particular obsessions we may be ruminating on it we may be performing various different compulsions that help us to have more certainty but ultimately as as you know all of these things all they're really doing is
they're playing into OCD strengths the more that we look for that.
Certainty the more uncertain that we feel and we feel that we need to keep on kind of doing those compulsions in order to kind of get ourselves or to make ourselves feel that we're that we're okay and as long as we're doing that as long as we're playing that kind of game well we are going going to stay stuck with it and so it's really important that you you find a way to to let go of that and this kind of healing that Rumi is talking about in the quote is really
kind of a big part of what we've got to learn how to do and part of that is the mindset I think the mindset when it comes to OCD is so important if we can view OCD rather rather than this absolutely absolutely awful thing that is immovable that you know it has come into our lives and it's it's ruining everything and of course in many ways that is true so i'm not denying the fact that ocd is an awful and very difficult thing to deal with having struggled with it myself
i know that to be the case however if we are able to bring a slightly different perspective to the ocd it can. Help us to manage it much more effectively and to get us moving towards that healing in a much more positive and in a way that is actually going to be helping rather than taking us in the.
¶ Adopting a Mindset of Accepting Uncertainty
Adopting a mindset or trying to at the very least of recognizing that OCD is really pointing.
Towards something that we need to to be able to do a bit more of in our lives and that really is to be able to start accepting a little bit more uncertainty and when we acknowledge that that is what we have to do and you know we try to lean into that well that's what I really mean when i say we need to try to adopt that mindset it's not that you're changing your mind of course you're still not going to like it and you can't just change that we
have to accept the fact that our our emotions are there we have to acknowledge and honor those emotions try to feel them try to allow them to be but at the same time we need to we need to adopt and try to adopt a more open mindset towards the fact that we're struggling with OCD we need to allow it to be there we don't always want to be trying to get rid of it which unfortunately I think so often even you know when people are trying to deal with with OCD in
a positive way you know a good example of this is if you're doing a kind of meditation exercise where maybe you've done an exposure activity and then you're trying to sit with and even move towards the anxiety and the discomfort that's come up from doing that exposure activity. It's really important when we're doing this that we try our very best to have a kind of open and willing mindset to feel what we're feeling and to do our very best to just feel that and get in touch with it.
But we're doing it just for the sake of feeling it, of being interested in our emotional state. The moment that we say, OK, I'm doing this in order to get rid of the OCD or in order to, you know, to push away the discomfort. Well, we start kind of running into problems again because we're not doing this meditation anymore with acceptance in mind. We're doing it with an idea of kind of controlling or getting rid of things that we don't like.
And as soon as we get into that kind of mindset, we're kind of demanding healing. We're kind of saying, no, I need that healing now. I want to feel in a particular way right now, right in this moment.
And I'm not willing to to kind of play a slightly longer term game a kind of medium term game you know where I practice acceptance I practice actually feeling those negative emotions in the short term because I know when I do that in the mid to medium mid to long term I'm going to start feeling better the problem is though that when we just say no I don't want to focus on the.
Median turn or even you know just a little bit more than a short term which is often what it turns out to be when we say no i just want to feel good right now i just want to get rid of this right now i think that's often when we run into to problems because we're putting ourselves under too much pressure to heal and to feel better and when we just have that more open more accepting kind of mindset in regards to OCD I think it can really help us to actually achieve that that healing that we're
really looking for 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 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.