Three Tips For Finding Peace From OCD Rumination

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 375. I hope that you're doing marvelously well wherever you are today.

However if you are struggling with OCD or anxiety then you can get a free session with me to get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com and there you can book in 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 three tips that are really helpful when it comes to finding some peace from those incessant obsessive ruminations and we know what it's like when we're constantly going around in circles in our head stuck with our thoughts it can get very very difficult and so learning to have some consistent strategies that help us to find peace can be incredibly important if you would like to support the podcast you

can head over to instagram and follow and like there the the podcast is also on youtube tube now so uh you can go and subscribe there too if you like there is also patreon for the podcast so if you would like me to answer a particular question you know basically do your own podcast for you then you can sign up for the patreon and you can let me know what what you would like me to cover in in the patreon there so if you'd like to do that you can follow the patreon link in the show

notes so many thanks guys i really hope that you enjoy this episode if you have any questions do please let me know and off we go.

Here's a quote to get us started today, and it's by Virginia Woolf. You cannot find peace by avoiding life. And I think this is a very apt quote when it comes to OCD. So often we are trying to avoid things. We're trying to avoid the things that make us feel uncomfortable, that create uncertainty in us, that give us that bodily sense of anxiety.

And, you know, we do our best to try to manage those things through performing our various compulsions that perhaps we're struggling with you know of course ideally what we would be doing instead is really trying to get back into our lives because we know when we do that when we actually learn how to allow those difficult emotions to come up in our day-to-day lives and we do our very best to start actually purposefully trying to do those things things that we've maybe been avoiding.

You know, that's when life starts to open up again. We start to feel a lot better. Obviously that's easier said than done. But it's, you know, I think it's a really nice quote, actually, you know, this idea that that peace is not going to come through avoidance. It's actually going to come through us living our lives in a slightly more helpful and perhaps wise way. And in a way, this is kind of what this this podcast is all about today.

It's really learning how to find a bit more peace in in life through actually living our lives in a way that is more helpful for us that is going to make us get more in tune with ourselves is going to help us to to be more in tune with our values and what we want to do and the first kind of tip here that i really want to mention is is mindfulness but it's not just the standard standard kind of fare when it comes when it comes to mindfulness I know it's one of those words that's thrown around a

lot mindfulness if you can just be more mindful then you know your anxiety will be much more bearable you'll be able to live your life again and you know obviously it's not that straightforward mindfulness is a really broad there's a lot that falls under it you know different types of meditation different ways of being in the world philosophy and so you know Really.

What I'm going to be talking about today more specifically is learning how to do everyday activities in a bit more of a mindful way. And also learning how to, if you can, get some time in a kind of outdoor place. Whether that's actually if you live close to nature, whether that's actually going out into nature itself for a short time.

Or whether, you know, even if you live in a city and you have a nice and a safe park nearby as something like a good place to go, you know, actually spending a bit of time in nature, in green spaces can be incredibly helpful for us. And, you know, something that I really want to talk about that I know personally for me is very helpful when it comes to meditation is is the fact that it does give me a break from rumination.

But it's important to point out here that that only happens when I'm applying the mindfulness in the right way.

So I kind of wanted to talk about that. It's really important with mindfulness that we're really practicing it on a day-to-day basis, that we actually make it a commitment with ourselves, that two or three times a day we're going to really mindfully pay attention to something and you know it may be as simple as actually paying attention to brushing your teeth you know and this is a really good one actually because hopefully it's

something that everybody does first thing in the morning and it gives you an opportunity to really practice that skill of of paying attention, of being more aware of an activity that, you know, that often can be a kind of mindless activity when we're not careful. You know, we can just be there thinking, right, I've got to brush my teeth and I've got to do that. Then I've got to have my breakfast and I've got to, you know, and you kind of just think all this list of chores that you've got to do.

As well as thinking about, you know, the obsession and you've got to do this compulsion, you've got to find time for this and we all know what it's like with OCD it's often like we're juggling all of these different things that we're trying to do and actually the idea of mindfulness is to slow everything down for for a few minutes to really try our very best to just focus on one thing and this is very very helpful for the brain when we choose to just focus more intently on one thing.

We're actually training ourselves to develop this ability to put our attention where we want to put it, rather than where our attention is being dragged by OCD. And so, the more you practice this, the more you're going to have this ability to be able to focus on more helpful things. And, you know, something like brushing your teeth is often quite a boring activity. But by developing this ability to really focus on it.

You know you really do help yourself and so you know if you can if you do want to start with that you could really notice as you're picking up the toothbrush feel it in your hand notice as you're putting the uh the toothpaste onto onto the brush be aware of any movements that you're making during this process you know really taste the toothpaste and notice the brush going across the the teeth on the gums pay attention to to the whole process if you can and don't get

annoyed or upset with yourself try not to be judgmental when you make a mistake because you're going to get distracted you're going to start thinking you're going to get caught up in a rumination the idea is not to have no ruminations the idea is simply to whenever you realize you've been caught out by a rumination to bring your. Attention back to the present to to brushing your teeth you know and this is this is.

Such a helpful thing to practice but then of course you know if you can bring this to other things throughout your day that can be really helpful whether that's you know having 10 kind of mindful breaths at some point throughout your day or as i was just talking about if you can actually go out into nature if there's an opportunity for you to do that i know it's not always that easy for everybody so maybe there's a park nearby or a place that

you can go you know even just kind of paying attention to a green space in some kind of way can be beneficial but there's been research that does show that spending time in nature can be very helpful for for mental health but I think if we couple that with mindfulness that can help us even more and so something that I like to do is just when I'm walking a dog for example maybe I'm walking through this small kind of woods that we have nearby you know I really try to be really present

during that that experience to notice my feet as I'm walking along and pay attention to.

Every step that i'm making noticing my muscles supporting me helping me to move noticing the trees as much as that sounds like you know quite a kind of hippie kind of thing to do it's it's really not what you're what you're doing is you're just really trying to pay attention to nature to the things that are going on around you that are actually just present that so often we take for granted We're just like, yep, there's a forest.

There's the sun shining through the trees, there's whatever, I'm just going to go and walk the dog, I don't really care about that stuff. I want to think about my worries, I want to think about my ruminations, I want to get certainty about this, I want to figure out what my boss is going to say later, whatever it is that we're, you know, consumed by. And actually, you know, we would be so much better off if we were able to just say...

I'm actually just going to focus more on the present right now. I'm going to pay attention to what I can see around me. I'm going to try to notice my senses more. I'm going to really try to feel the wind on my skin. I'm going to notice the sun as it's shining through the trees. I'm going to pay attention to every little pebble I can see. Whatever it is, just notice the things that are happening around you.

And again when you get caught up by your thoughts which you will do try to remain calm about that and just keep bringing your attention back to the present we don't need to be perfect with any of these things the whole point of kind of mindfulness in a way is really learning how to train your ability to keep bringing your attention back when you get distracted and like that well you can't really do it wrong if you just keep reminding yourself okay I've

been distracted it's been a minute or two that's okay that doesn't mean that I failed it doesn't mean that I've completely messed up I can just now say okay now I need to bring it back and just keep practicing that and over time you are developing this ability to to focus more and I think that really does help in the long term with with OCD.

Tip number two is you know to really focus a bit more on valued activities when you find when you find yourself ruminating too much you know and ideally things that involve exercise as i was talking about a few weeks ago there's obviously a lot of new research that's come out recently a meta-analysis that showed you know huge benefits of of exercise for for mental health obviously if you are beginning a men's a exercise journey make sure that

you start slowly consult a doctor if you haven't done much exercise recently, But, you know, activities that you enjoy, that you find fun and interesting, activities that are related to your values, they basically make it a bit easier for us to pay attention. And as I was talking about earlier, you know, rumination in a way, it's all about our attention. Where is our attention going? Are we allowing our attention to move on to unhelpful things?

So often we are. and you know we do have a choice here and this this choice is so important even when you are making the wrong choice i find it's really helpful to just kind of remind yourself okay i am choosing right now to pay attention to this obsession i don't have to i could instead focus on doing this puzzle or i could go for a walk or i could go for a run or i could lift some weights or I could do some, I could do tension ups or I don't know, whatever it is that you want to do.

There's so many things that we could just say, rather than just sit here on the sofa thinking about this problem again, can I instead just go and do this or that? Often when we do, okay, maybe the rumination is still going to be there in the background. But, you know, for a little while, you've had a bit of a break from it. You found a little bit of peace for a few minutes. And often, that's just what we need in order to kind of get past that urgent moment.

So often with OCD, there's these waves, you know, these waves of urgency that come up. And, you know, the obsession feels much more strong, much more urgent in that moment. But when we busy ourselves with something, you know, that urgency tends to kind of come down. We're able to kind of ride out the storm of that OCD moment and we don't get so caught up in it. And so valued activities can be really important with that.

It might be helpful if you set yourself some goals or some targets in relation to valued activities, you know, and that can really help keep you on track as well.

Well and then the the final thing is kind of you know just using some simple diffusion techniques something that i like to use a lot with people is postponement where we simply say to ourselves look.

This is really frustrating if i i know if i keep thinking about this thing i'm going to think about it more i'm going to time myself up and not i'm going to get more and more frustrated with it and you know and so maybe what i can do is make a deal with myself where i'm not going to think about this now however if i want to think about it in an hour's time at 2 p.m or if i really want to think about it then i'm allowed to think

about it during my rumination time which is that every day at 6 30 p.m depends on how you want to do it you can be flexible with that some people just like to postpone for half an hour or an hour. Other people like to have a specific time where they think about it later if they still want to think about it later. But that kind of diffusion technique just helps because it gives us permission to say, well, you know what, I'm not going to just kind of ignore that.

I can if I want to, I can think about it later, but I'm going to make a conscious decision to just not think about it anymore for now because I know if I do, I'm going to go around in circles, I'm going to wind myself up, I'm going to get more confused, and it's just wasted energy.

And another thing that's kind of a helpful diffusion technique is simply actually journaling your your thoughts you may have heard me talk about this in the past and really kind of thinking actually when you're journaling about whether what you're you're doing is helpful so writing down the thought you know with the kind of following format can be helpful to create separation between you you and your thought by simply writing down i was having the thought that

or i am having the thought that depending on which tense you're using it for but But then you want to actually reflect on, you know, what you actually did. Is what you did, your response to that thought, was it actually helpful? So if you're, you know, reflecting in the evening on what happened earlier that day, you know, you can reflect on what you actually did. Did you just kind of continue thinking about it? And if so, what happened? Well, most probably you got more stuck with it.

You know did you do something else though maybe you you did some journaling in that moment maybe you postponed maybe you went for a walk maybe you you did something else and you know we really want to start kind of uh building up this habit of of doing healthier things things that we know are going to help rather than just doing the the habitual thing which unfortunately for most of us is to just kind of ruminate particularly if.

You're struggling with kind of pure O OCD if you're struggling with you know with physical compulsions then you know of course there may also be some rumination there too but it's the same kind of thing you you know can you find other strategies other things that you can do as we've talked about today related to your values related related to mindfulness that again to help you to focus your attention in a healthier and more positive way and you know rather than just

performing those compulsions that ultimately are just going to lead to you performing more of those compulsions in the future and feeling more stuck so there we go guys those are my three tips for finding a bit more peace when it comes to rumination and compulsions so 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 also remember i do now have patreon for the podcast so if you would like me to do your own podcast to answer your own kind of question then i can do that in the the patreon group so follow the link in the show notes if you're interested in that and thanks i will see you next time just a quick reminder that if you 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.