Sustainable Growth For A Life With Less OCD

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 381. I hope that you're doing very well today.

If you are those struggling with OCD or anxiety, as you may know, you can get a free session with me to to get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there you 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 then I'm going to be talking about how to make growth from OCD more sustainable so so that

you're actually able to to make the progress and and kind of keep that progress, which can be quite challenging at times. So I'm going to be kind of unpacking how I do that and sharing some tips. If you like the podcast, it would be great if you could follow and like on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at RobertJamesCoachingUK. The podcast is now on YouTube too, so if you'd like to follow and like there too, that would be amazing.

Many thanks, guys. I really hope that you enjoy. If you have any questions, do please let me know.

Here's a quote to get us started today and it's by dr klaus topfer sustainable development is the peace policy of the future now obviously when we think of sustainable development obviously that phrase is reserved for things to do with the environment and looking after the environment what I'm talking about here and actually this quote I think it really fits quite well is sustainable development when it comes to OCD and you know what I love about this quote is

obviously it's talking about this idea that when we grow in this sustainable way actually what we're doing is we're creating more peace for our future. And I really think that should be our mission with OCD. So it's so easy with OCD to kind of get caught up in the fears of the short. No, we play this kind of short-termism game where we're thinking, I just need to get rid of the anxiety right now. I need to feel more comfortable right now.

And I need that just right feeling in order for me to take action.

And it's these kinds of perspectives that unfortunately keep us trapped and you know and it's not it's not very easy to let go of that unfortunately OCD is is a real habit it's something that many people you know myself included in my in my 20s I you know I'd been doing this since the age of 16 and so there was like years and years of of time that I'd been engaging with kind of obsessive thoughts even throughout my 30s at times I was still doing it and

well quite a lot in my 30s still and even today sometimes when I'm not careful I can still get stuck back in that old circuitry because it doesn't ever go away those circuits in your brain if you've been doing something for a long time those circuits in your in your brain are potentially there and you can always drop back into that old behavior if you're not careful if you're not careful in your response to difficult thoughts or

if you're pushing away difficult emotions before long you will end back up in that trap again but how we go about making sure that you know we we are.

Really keeping up with any gains that we've made that when we do have setbacks that we're not getting too upset about that that we're not kind of getting too focused on it and that we're keeping our attention on where we need to be and how we actually kind of build in this continuous way so that we're making steady progress over time I think it's really really important when when it comes to OCD, and it can really help you, you know, to consolidate any progress that you have

made and to kind of keep the inevitable challenges that will come up in their place.

You know, a big issue, I think, with OCD is that when we have these setbacks, they can be so difficult at times, they can be so obnoxious, so horrible, that it kind of feels like everything's gone wrong we've completely messed up because you know we've got we've fallen back into all of those old habits that we thought that we'd finally kind of left behind you know and it can be really disheartening when you've made progress

you're feeling really good about yourself you're feeling really positive and then boom some kind of really difficult thought comes along for some reason your anxiety has got really high again. Maybe you're stressed out from life events or there's, you know, other challenges going on in your life and you're under more pressure because you're feeling all of that pressure, then you have more anxiety. And because you have more anxiety, well, you're more likely to ruminate.

And, you know, maybe you haven't actually done anything all that wrong.

Maybe, you know, you were on the path and then inevitable life challenges actually came up and created more stress for you in your life if in those moments when you know when when we're on the path and we're learning how to manage OCD and we're we're doing quite well we're taking action but then we have some inevitable challenges if in those moments we get really angry and frustrated with ourselves if we get really upset and annoyed and we start being judgmental and as soon

as we we get into that judgmental mindset you know you can pretty much rest assured that there's some OCD going on a lot of OCD has to do with this inner critic this part of us that is very loud that tends to be quite perfectionistic and always wants things to be a certain kind of of way and you know if that voice is taking over and saying oh no look at you now you thought you you've made this progress but no you're doing this you're doing that what have you done this is terrible so if

if you begin to recognize that that voice is coming up the inner critic is getting involved well that's a really good sign that you know the the OCD has has kind of. Put you back in into a trap and you know you're not responding in the best way possible to the challenge that life has created you know through maybe the stressful events that have appeared.

So it's really important in these situations that we just kind of try to take stock of what's actually going on, take stock of the bigger picture. When you do have stress in your life, When there is things going on that are outside of your control, maybe you've got a boss that you don't like, or maybe you have difficult colleagues, or maybe you're going through a difficult time in your relationship, or maybe you're moving house, you know, or having children.

All of these things can be very, very stressful, very, very difficult for us to deal with.

And it may not always be obvious you may be thinking well I'm really looking forward to my new house it's going to be it's really exciting I'm getting this fantastic house we're going to move from this smaller place and it's going to be great I'm really looking forward to it and then it and then it comes and yeah maybe it is great but it also can not always of course but it also can come with with stress and difficulty and challenge you know

and so when we are learning to get over OCD. It's so important. That we try to focus on sustainable change and growth, that we recognize that, you know, there are going to be these setbacks, there are going to be these challenges, these difficulties along the way, that actually, you know, even doing exposure work in itself, well, you know, that is going to be a challenging thing.

It's the whole point of it, in a way, that we're going to have to learn how to get more uncomfortable, uncomfortable we're going to have to learn that sometimes we're not going to feel like doing that and sometimes it's going to be hard to to overcome the the inertia it's going to be much easier to just kind of stay in our comfort zones we're going to have to keep pushing ourselves all of these things are difficult all of these things

they you know they they take a lot of energy a lot of determination a lot of focus and some of the time you're going to be really good at that and other Other times, you're going to struggle more and you're going to find it quite difficult. I think if you become judgmental in those moments, and that's really one of the important things here. If you become judgmental in those moments, you're going to have a really difficult time. You're going to get annoyed and angry with yourself.

So if you can, just bring that awareness to what's going on. You know, this is a more challenging time. I've got this going on. I've got that going on. It may be, and not always, but it may be a bit more difficult to do the exposure work. It may be more difficult to stay on track with acceptance commitment therapy, focusing on my goals and my values. But I just need to be patient with myself, keep plugging away. And, you know, things will continue to work out in a positive way.

Another important thing is kind of watching out for burnout. You may be putting everything into trying to get over OCD. You may be really committed to doing your exposures. You may be working really hard on all of the different elements of improving only to completely run out of steam because you've thrown.

Yourself into it so much and maybe other areas of your life too that you know you you might get exhausted and something that is important to remember is habits there's a fantastic book i've mentioned it a few times on the podcast called atomic habits by james clear and you know he talks about the importance of you know not having too many things that you're trying to to learn how to do at the same time you know if you're creating new things creating new routines don't have too many

new things because if you have too many it creates a lot of pressure for yourself and it's likely that you know you're not going to cement any of those things it's much better if you can just have a few things that you're really focusing on changing and then committing to those for an extended period of of time at least a month but more like six weeks or so after about six weeks something along those lines because that number seems to keep on changing depending on who you listen to but that

that starts becoming more and more of a habit and once it becomes a habit then it's much easier to keep up with it and you don't have to be expending you know all of this energy all the time to keep Keep doing the difficult or the new things that you've decided to start doing.

As you know, I'm a big proponent of cold showers, for example. Cold showers, if you do it in a sensible and safe way, can be very helpful in my experience for anxiety and acceptance. You know, when you step into that cold shower and you learn how to embrace the cold. And maybe you're not going to enjoy that cold shower, but you can learn to accept it. You can learn to move towards the discomfort of that shower.

And starting your day in in that way often maybe just you know finishing your hot shower over 30 seconds of cold at the end can be a really positive thing but of course there's going to be some inertia there you're not going to want to do it and that's that's completely normal.

But if you if you do if you do do that and you find it beneficial and you want to to to to make it a habit try to do it every day if you can for a period of of six weeks and you may begin to notice that it gets easier and you're not having to use up so much energy to to kind of do it every day if you give yourself too many targets and too many goals and you know you really go at it really really hard initially for a few weeks and then you just stop again

and you're kind of not doing very much again then you know that doesn't tend to have as much of a good effect as actually really kind of doing things in a sustainable way over a longer period of time you know taking on your challenges breaking them down into smaller steps and just keep taking action over and over again each day is really the way that you want to go rather than kind of burning yourself out trying to run a marathon in one day.

So there we go guys, I really hope that you enjoyed that. If you have any questions at all, do please let me know and I will see you next time.

Just a quick reminder that if you want to get a 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.