¶ Intro / Opening
The OCD and Anxiety Podcast by Robert James Coaching. Music.
¶ Introduction to OCD and Anxiety
Hello and welcome to the OCD and Anxiety Podcast where we explore how to have a more positive relationship with anxiety 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 a welcome to episode 483. I hope that you're doing very well today wherever you are and if you are struggling with OCD and anxiety and you would like some support with that well I offer a free discovery call.
To get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com and you can book in there directly for the call. In today's episode I'm going to be talking about three of the most common things that keep you stuck in the cycle of OCD. Obviously the cycle is something that propels OCD forward.
When we really get stuck looking for certainty, when we are trying to to kind of eliminate anxiety and not feel difficult emotions you know so instead we perform compulsions well this is when we get stuck in that OCD cycle and it's one of the worst places that you can be because we tend to just go around in circles so today's episode is all about helping you to uncover some of the typical things that might be keeping you stuck in that OCD loop if you find the podcast helpful it
would be great if you could leave us a review I really would appreciate that whether that's on spotify or apple podcasts and if you would like to follow along on instagram you can my instagram handle is at robert james coaching uk so many thanks if you have any questions at all do please let me know and off we go.
¶ Understanding the OCD Loop
As I'm sure you know, one of the worst things about OCD is when you're stuck in that loop, when you're trying to figure it out, when you're trying to have certainty, you get this kind of thought that pops up into your consciousness. And then you, of course, feel a lot of anxiety about it. You want to deal with that anxiety. You want to push it away or get rid of it in some way. And so we perform compulsions. But the payoff that we get from a compulsion is very short-lived.
We only feel better for a very very short time and because we had to perform a compulsion in order to feel better well we go straight back to the start of of this cycle you know and it really is a loop and unfortunately it's a bit like the Fibonacci sequence that over time we're kind of spinning and this this loop it gets bigger and bigger and bigger it starts encompassing more and more of our lives and so it's so important that we we learn about what are the things that kind of keep
us stuck in this loop so that we can begin to kind of break out of it so the first major thing that so many people do is actually trying to get rid of the thought itself now there's there's a good reason for why people do this because in OCD many of the thoughts that people can experience can be really horrible. Can be things that people really do not want to be experiencing at all.
And so, of course, it completely makes sense that you would want to get rid of that thought or disprove it or to make yourself feel better about it. But unfortunately, when we do that, we make it more and more likely that we're going to kind of stay stuck with it. And there's a good reason for that. Whatever we kind of resist will persist.
And that's a quote by Carl Jung. it's and it's very very true if we try to kind of force our thoughts away they tend to come back twice as strong and i'm sure you you've experienced that in your own life and dealing with with ocd so an important thing is that we you know we try to allow the thoughts to be there in the background we don't have to disprove them we don't have to have certainty about them yes they may be horrible but you know when we allow them to be there you know they can't really
hurt us and you know if we pay less attention to them at some point it's likely that they'll start to kind of move on of their own accord.
¶ Rethinking Anxiety as a Threat
Number two is treating anxiety like it's a threat and again there's a good reason for why people do this. I certainly did it myself for many years. When we experience anxiety, it's of course a visceral feeling in the body. It's your sympathetic nervous system kind of coming online and expressing that in your body. You're feeling activated. Perhaps your body is pumping out stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.
And when this happens, suddenly any thoughts that were present, they suddenly seem much more threatening. You know, and this is where we can kind of find ourselves really getting caught up in things. Our thoughts become, you know, more and more catastrophic and it can feel incredibly intense in the body. You can feel, you know, sick with it. You can kind of get narrowed vision almost. You know, you can start to panic all sorts of physical sensations in the body, sweaty hands.
It can be very, very uncomfortable. but actually what I discovered is anxiety is something that you can learn to bring much much more compassion and acceptance to when we stop fighting with it when we stop pushing it away and learn how to almost be interested in it to try to explore it a little bit we begin to see that actually anxiety is something that we can tolerate we of course may not like it and you know i'm absolutely not asking you to do that it's not about liking anxiety but it's
about proving to ourselves that actually we're stronger than we think that we can put up with anxiety we can allow it to be there we don't need to to kind of get rid of it in order to start living our lives and i think a really you know a very negative thing that many people do with anxiety is they kind of tell themselves well I can't start living my life properly I can't focus on my goals and my values until this anxiety is gone and unfortunately when we do that we keep
ourselves stuck in in the loop in in in the cycle of OCD. When we are able and willing to take action, despite the fact that we're not kind of feeling up to it in that moment, despite the fact that, you know, the anxiety may be present in our core and we're feeling very anxious.
¶ Taking Action Despite Anxiety
You know, if we're able to say, right, I'm going to go and focus on a value today or I'm going to do this goal, you know, despite the fact that I'm really not quite feeling up to it. Well, that's when we are, we're kind of sending a very different message to our subconscious mind by doing that. We're taking action, we're focusing on our goals. And actually, that can be very calming. And it feels really good.
You're kind of proving to yourself that even if I'm not feeling fine, I can still do these important things in my life.
And this starts to generate a real sense of confidence in your ability to overcome anxiety you know and over time when we do this as well the anxiety tends to take a bit more of a backseat because now we're not so focused on it anymore we're doing the stuff that that's important to us despite the anxiety being there the anxiety you know it kind of its flavor changes in a way it's not quite the same thing and
a lot of the time it can kind of disappear completely because you're just focused on other things. You're doing stuff that you like doing, that you're interested in. Other emotions start to come up because now you're having some fun or you're a bit more in the present moment. And this is all about taking action and allowing the anxiety to be there. It's not something that we have to get rid of in order to start living our lives.
¶ Measuring Progress Beyond Feelings
And the next big mistake that many people make is actually measuring your progress by how you're feeling. And unfortunately, this is a really bad strategy because, you know, as I was just talking about, sometimes you will be feeling anxious. You know, removing all anxiety is not really the target. And actually, that's almost an impossible thing because, you know, sometimes we're going to feel anxiety. Anxiety is actually very closely related to excitement.
When you're going to do something that you really want to do and it's very important to you, maybe a wedding day or giving a speech for something or doing something hard in any way, you may have some kind of nervousness about that. But you're probably also going to be excited. Both of those two states can kind of activate your nervous system in a similar kind of way. And maybe you'll get physical sensations that kind of feel the same.
And so what I'm saying is that when you're experiencing anxiety. It is an inevitable part of life. You are going to experience it sometimes.
And so if we measure our success solely on that you know we're going to we're going to feel you know that we're not making progress we're going to get frustrated and angry with ourselves whereas if we can measure our success on you know was I able to take action despite the fact that I wasn't feeling a hundred percent was I able to focus on my goals and my values in this situation even though the anxiety was very very high when you can start doing that
you know you start getting a sense of empowerment back in your life you start realizing that you're much more much more strong than you you thought and you start proving to yourself that you can break out of that loop you don't have to sit there you know you know kind of ruminating or asking for reassurance from your friends or you know checking or performing whatever compulsions you might be struggling with because actually you're recognizing that you're allowed
to feel you know a bit bad today you're allowed to have some shame there in the background or some anger or some frustration you don't have to feel perfect and you know this can be incredibly uplifting and powerful when you give yourself permission to feel bad and actually just focus on your life anyway one final thing try to remember that actually, you are stronger than the OCD.
¶ Empowerment Against OCD
Of course, OCD wants to persuade us of the opposite. But when we prove to ourselves through, you know, taking the steps that I was talking about today, through letting go of trying to, you know, control your thoughts, through allowing difficult emotions to be there in the background and actually, you know, taking action, even when we're not feeling quite, quite up to it.
What you do is you start proving to yourself that you're stronger than the OCD and that even when you do get caught up in a kind of loop of thinking at any given moment you do have this ability to break free to kind of get out of that trap so I really hope that you found that helpful please remember I offer a free discovery call to get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com please do subscribe that really does help and many thanks I will see you at next time,
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. Music.