Simplifying OCD: Three Easy Steps to Peace of Mind

The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music. Thank you for listening. 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 409 i hope that wherever you are today you're doing very well and if you are those struggling with ocd or anxiety and you would like to get some support with that well you can by heading over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there you can book in for a free session or if you prefer you can send me a message and just let me know about what you're struggling with.

In today's podcast I'm going to be keeping it fairly simple in this introduction because today's podcast is all about how to simplify the process of dealing with OCD d better so yeah i'm not going to talk about it anymore i'm just going to wait until we get into the episode if you do find the podcast helpful it would be great if you could follow and like on instagram my instagram handle is at robertjamescoachinguk also if you could please subscribe to the podcast if you listen on a regular

basis but you're not subscribed, it would really help the podcast if you could do that so if you wouldn't mind doing that i would really really appreciate it so many thanks guys i really hope that you enjoy and off we go.

Okay so here's a quote by gilbert k chesterton to get us started today the simplification of anything is always sensational and i think this is this is a great quote and it's it's absolutely true so often we we over complicate things and i think this is you know one of the problems with OCD definitely is, no, that we're always overcomplicating stuff. Things that, you know, previously maybe didn't worry us at all.

Things that we were, you know, we just didn't think about. Unfortunately, with OCD, those things can become, you know, the worst things to think about.

Things that whenever they do pop up into our consciousness, they're giving us, you know, know a lot of anxiety a lot of self-doubt a lot of complication and it doesn't have to be this way but you know we've we've created this situation where we are complicating everything you know way way too much and we are experiencing a lot of anxiety about these things and then we also over complicate the process of of managing OCD and learning

how to to get over it we you know We tend to think that we have to be doing all of these things and we have to be doing them absolutely correctly. And if we're not doing this or that in just the right way, then we're not going to get over the OCD.

Or we can convince ourselves that the way in which we're doing exposure work or the way in which we're applying acceptance commitment therapy or the way in which we're trying to use a particular diffusion technique is actually going to make the situation worse for us or that it's not helping.

And I think all of this kind of stuff, all of this kind of thinking, it just detracts from the whole point of it, which is really learning how to simplify things, to let go of all of these ruminations and all of these thoughts, to let go of looking for perfection, to let go of looking for 100% certainty, and to just allow the simplicity of things and life at times. Not that life is simple. Obviously, it's very complicated.

But so often we take what is already complicated and we multiply that 100 times over by all of the overthinking that we do about it. When we just learn to let go and entrust a bit more, it's really what we're doing is we're just simplifying the process.

We're giving ourselves an opportunity to be able to to kind of come into the present moment and to experience life as it is rather than trying to dictate and say no I want life to be this I want it to be like that I don't want to experience this so I don't want to have this difficult thought or this difficult emotion coming up you know we're trying to control everything and And actually, part of that process of trying to simplify things is really,

I think, learning how to kind of let go of control a little bit. And obviously, that's really at the heart of OCD.

So I wanted to set out three clear goals or three clear things that you can focus on. That might be helpful when it comes to trying to simplify this process. So the first one is to kind of be very clear about one or two goals that you are specifically working on in regards to your OCD and try not to give yourself an endless list of things that you have to do and that you have to do perfectly. Remember that really what you're up to with OCD is you're trying to change your habits.

You're trying to find a way to allow a little bit more uncertainty on a day-to-day basis and to lean into your discomfort a bit more, to be a bit more accepting or tolerating of your own discomfort and the difficult emotions that might come up.

And I think you know if we give ourselves too many goals in relation to that you know maybe you've got all sorts of different wellness goals that you're aiming for maybe you've got an endless list of exposure activities that you're trying to do and you're trying to apply lots of different techniques from acceptance commitment therapy at the same time and you know maybe you've just got too many things going on and it you know

it can be exhausting to try to tick all of those things off your list each day. I'm not saying that it's not a good idea to have, you know, wellness goals. Of course it is. But I think, you know, we don't want to overcomplicate with too many things. When it comes to working on the OCD, ideally, you just want to have, you know, a few things that you're going to really focus on each day and that you're going to make sure that you do and that you get some wins with them.

Because I think with OCD, it's all about picking up momentum. And, you know, being able to prove to yourself over time that you can take action, you can stick to a plan and that, you know, when OCD comes up, you can respond to it in a specific kind of way.

So whether you're practicing with exposure activities or learning how to feel difficult emotions when they come up, you know, whether you're applying different diffusion techniques, it doesn't matter, but just have a few things each week that you're really focused in on. Obviously, this helps if you're working with somebody because you can get very clear with them about what you want to focus on.

And, you know, that can help you to be to kind of set that out and to be very clear as to whether you achieve that or not.

I think step number two then is really important as well, and that is to recognize that throughout this process of trying to manage OCD better, we really have to be compassionate with ourselves. We need to let go of perfectionism because the reality is when you're learning how to overcome OCD, as you probably have found already, is that it's not a linear path to success. Unfortunately, it's going to involve, you know, a lot of difficult moments, setbacks here and there.

Times where, you know, you feel like you've made a load of progress.

You're feeling really confident in yourself. you're managing the OCD really well only for you know a very difficult moment to come up where you find yourself really struggling again you find yourself falling back into old habits and you feel like maybe you've gone back to square one you you haven't you know just the fact that you've been you've been working on the OCD and you've been learning how to to kind of allow the discomfort a bit more and you've

been practicing with that well anytime that you do that that isn't for nothing you know that that that's there in your nervous system your body does not forget the hard work that you've already put in to managing your OCD but it's you know changing OCD is something that is is difficult and and quite complex and in order for us to to really do it We have to recognize that, you know, there's these kind of patterns of behavior that we have in our nervous system.

And to change that, it's not just going to happen overnight.

It takes consistent practice.

And the important thing is when you do have a setback, as you inevitably will, is to try your very best to remain calm about that, to recognize what's what's happened. And as soon as possible to kind of get back on, you know, to recommit to those those simple steps that I was talking about earlier, whatever you've decided to really focus on that week to try to deal with the OCD.

Just really come back to those things recognize that you know maybe you're going through a difficult emotional moment for some reason maybe there's stress in your environment maybe there's different things happening that's making it harder for you to manage the OCD or maybe I don't know you know for whatever reason it's just difficult on that particular day the problem is if we pay too much attention in that moment to what's happening and we we try to find a reason for for

why we've started to ruminate again or we you know we we try to uh figure it all out again we start ruminating on it again the issue with that as we're going to talk about in just a moment is rumination really just becomes another part of the OCD and we're just kind of doing you know.

Compulsions effectively but in a kind of in a very sneaky way and so you know it's really important when we do have setbacks that we don't dwell on it too much we recognize it we recognize that perhaps we made some mistakes and you know we we started to fall back into old habits that's important we have to acknowledge when we make a mistake but don't dwell on it too much as soon as possible try to just come back to those

techniques that are supporting you to be more accepting, to be more in the present. You know, I often find when I have a setback like this, that a very simple strategy that helps is just, you know, to do some exercise or, you know, if you don't exercise very often and you're still, you know, thinking about doing that more in the future, but you're not doing it yet, even just going for a kind of walk can be helpful in that situation.

You know, particularly if you incorporate things like mindfulness into that process.

Process so yeah i think that's really important too to be to be very compassionate with ourselves and to recognize that you know we are going to make mistakes and that that's okay and step number three is really all about learning that rumination is really at the heart of so many of our issues when it comes to ocd really our our thinking and the excessive thinking and the overthinking that that so many people with OCD do, is a really a big, big part of it.

When our thoughts are just kind of leading us around or leading us astray all the time. It can be very hard to make any consistent progress because, you know, a difficult or challenging thought pops up into our consciousness and straight away we're reacting to it. And the important word here is, you know, reactiveness.

We want to be able to recognize when we're getting caught up in reactiveness because basically if you're reacting to challenging thoughts in a negative way all the time if you're getting angry with them and frustrated and then you're instantly trying to do something about them anytime a difficult thought or image or whatever it is it pops up into your head if you are responding to that with straight away trying to solve it figure it figure it out get rid of

it unfortunately what you're really doing is you're or you're kind of perpetuating this challenging situation. You're likely getting yourself more stuck because that reactive emotional state, it just tends to wind us up even more. And as we know, when we get caught in trying to figure something out, all we're really doing is we're exercising the cycle of OCD. No, the kind of trying to figure it out becomes this compulsive exercise.

And you know every time that we do feel that we kind of figure something out through all of that ruminating then a new kind of thought and just pops up out of nowhere and takes over and we start feeling anxious again and then we want to perform a compulsion again so we start ruminating about it trying to figure it out and it's a really vicious cycle and so it's so important I think you know in order to get over OCD in the long run,

to start taking a bit more control over our thoughts. And obviously that's easier said than done.

It's really as i've just pointed out there it's learning how to not react so much and i think mindfulness is a really really important part of this process learning to be able to kind of watch our thoughts almost like you're kind of imagining that your your thoughts are like a like leaves on a stream the thought pops up you see it there on the stream on this leaf but you're not going to to pick up that leaf and start looking at it, trying to identify different parts of it,

trying to figure it out. You're going to watch that leaf. And if you just watch it, if you just take some time to pay attention to it without engaging or reacting to it, but just observing it, it will begin to move on down the stream. And before you know what's going on, it's kind of out of sight. And this is really what we have to learn how to do with our thoughts.

We have to learn to stop responding to them so much in a negative way you know and to actually just allow them to be there allow the difficult emotional states that come up with them to be there but to to kind of not not engage in them in this kind of negative way they're allowed to be there in the background but you know if we if we focus on acceptance commitment therapy for example and how we would deal with those kinds of thoughts using ACT,

you know, we would effectively choose to refocus our attention onto a valued activity. You know, if we tell ourselves, right, I'm not going to think about that obsessive thought again today, no matter what, it doesn't matter how many times it comes up, I'm not going to think about it, I'm not going to engage with it.

As you probably know when we take that kind of approach unfortunately it's like trying to hold a beach ball underwater you can do it for a certain amount of time but at some point you're going to get exhausted and when you do that beach ball is going to come flying up it's going to break the surface of the water and it's going to be right there in your face so we don't want to do that but what we can do is is you know we can actually say right.

I'm just going to choose to allow the thought to be, but I'm not going to pay too much attention to it. I'm going to refocus my attention onto something more important to me. And if that thought wants to be there in the background, so be it. But I'm going to refocus on my friend and speak to them. I'm going to refocus on a different valued activity or hobby or something that you enjoy doing, or it could be your work that you're going to refocus onto.

It could be something as simple as cleaning the house as long as that's not one of your obsessions but yeah there's all sorts of different things that we can refocus onto and I think if we can bring mindfulness into that refocusing process as well that's really really important where you know we're able to kind of tune into the body whilst we're refocusing we're paying more attention to our senses you know using the senses to try to anchor us in our bodies and

into the present moment during this process of trying to refocus and you know we're not refocusing in a forceful way it's a kind of gentle but purposeful way and you might have to keep repeating that because we know what OCD is like it's quite persistent it wants to keep trying to get your attention you know it's quite difficult from a kind of anxiety perspective because often these thoughts are accompanied by quite intense emotions but

you know if we're able to just keep gently bringing the attention back bringing it back to to what we want to focus on rather than you know what OCD is telling us to focus on you know over time that obsessive thought begins to disappear more and more into the background and the emotional.

Intensity often begins to really go down as well so those are my my three steps for trying to kind of simplify simplify things when it comes to to OCD I really hope that you found that helpful 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 Be a substitute for actual medical or mental health advice from a doctor, psychologist or any other medical or mental health professional. Music.