When OCD Hijacks Your Spiritual Practice

Music. 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.

Hello and welcome to episode 494 i hope that you're doing very well today and if you are struggling with ocd or anxiety and you would like to get some support for that well i offer a free discovery call to get that you can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there's a link in the show notes. Spiritual OCD doesn't always show up in churches or temples. Sometimes it hides in your meditation cushion, your breath work routine, or you'll need to feel calm all the time.

It looks like growth, but underneath it's fear in disguise.

In today's podcast, I'm going to be talking about how OCD and spirituality can kind of go hand in hand sometimes, but not in the way that we would like the OCD can kind of take the spirituality and turn it into something that actually becomes unhelpful in our lives please remember if you find this podcast helpful it would be great if you could subscribe and also leave us a review that really does help and it just takes a few moments to do it so many

thanks guys I really hope that you enjoyed this episode if you have any questions or want to get in touch please do and off we go you.

Spiritual formation is not about steps or stages on the way to perfection. It's about the movements from the mind to the heart through prayer, in its many forms that reunite us with God, each other, and our truest selves. That quote is by Henry Nguyen, and I think it's a great quote to get us started with today, because OCD, spirituality, they tend to go hand in hand sometimes. Obviously, when we think about spirituality and OCD, We may tend to focus on scrupulosity.

You know, this is something that comes up a lot with traditional religion, where maybe if you're in church and you're getting intrusive thoughts or you're trying to pray and you're experiencing, you know, intrusive thoughts, you may obviously get very, feel very bad about that, get very anxious about it. You may want to try to get rid of those thoughts, make sure that it doesn't happen again.

You may find yourself avoiding certain situations. and really what we're talking about today is very much related to scrupulosity but i'm really basing it more on general spirituality however that is for you because of course with spirituality it's a much kind of broader scope that we have you know we're kind of spirituality is really however you make sense of the spiritual yourself in your in your own lives and you know how you deal with some of the bigger questions that we have,

some of the bigger uncertainties that we have. Of course, OCD is all about uncertainty. And so spirituality, I think, is a big part of it. I think one of the main things that comes up, and certainly this has been the case for me, is of course, in OCD, there is often a huge moral component to it. If you're struggling with intrusive thoughts of a harm nature, for example, there's this huge kind of moral side to it that comes in. How can I allow these thoughts to be here?

You know, am I being a bad person to allow these thoughts to be here? How can I practice acceptance of these things when they go, you know, so much against the kind of person that I want to be?

It might be related to mindfulness and meditation where you're feeling like you need to do these things perfectly you know that you need to be full of peace full of full of ease and if you're not well that's not okay or that again you're not allowed to experience intrusive thoughts when you're doing these things because it's meant to be a spiritual practice another thing is getting caught up in self-growth and kind of demanding perfection from that

another thing could be you know trying to make sure that you're an absolute perfect person, that you're doing your best to be 100% the person that you want to be all the time and not allowing for that imperfection to be there. And as was pointed out in the quote at the start, unfortunately, when we start to do this, we really do set ourselves up for problems because. You know, we can't be perfect.

We weren't actually made in that way in order to be perfect, which is a bit ironic in itself, though, that we're looking for that perfection all the time, even though we weren't even created in a way to be perfect. We can only ever chase that. But in doing so, if we demand that absolute perfection and we really get caught up in that all the time, looking to feel that we're full of good energy all the time, we're always on our best game, we're always doing everything in the best possible way.

Always with the best kind of spirit about things, well, you're putting yourself under enormous pressure. And of course, pressure is something that tends to make OCD a little bit worse. If we aren't careful, OCD has a way of kind of taking helpful practices such as meditation or mantras or, you know, kind of checking in with your energy and your body. You know, these are things that can be very, very helpful for OCD if we practice them in a kind of positive way.

But as soon as we start telling ourselves that, you know, we need to do them perfectly or that we can't experience these kinds of thoughts or that we can't allow any uncertainty about the practice to be there, then, of course, we're allowing the OCD to come in and to start to dictate terms. You know, and that's when things really do begin to go a little bit south.

Over the years I've supported many people dealing with OCD and anxiety even those who've already worked with multiple therapists and here's what one client recently had to say Rob is wonderfully knowledgeable and empathetic and he also has a deep and lived understanding of OCD and anxiety For more than a decade I've seen multiple therapists with varying therapeutic approaches for OCD and Rob is by far the best person that I've worked with.

Within a few short months, Rob has helped me move to the healthiest mental space I've been for a long time. I completely recommend Rob to anyone seeking evidence-based. Empathetic and effective support for OCD and or anxiety. Curious to see how coaching might help you too? Let's connect for a free discovery call. It's a relaxed 30-minute chat where you can ask questions, tell me what you're dealing with and see if we're a good fit to work together.

You can head over to robertjamescoaching.com. There's a link in the show notes.

Spirituality can be something that can really support, in your OCD journey because as I was talking about at the start ultimately it's it's a kind of approach that helps you to bring more more acceptance to things that are clearly very uncertain in life you know death being one of the kind of clear ones that that stands out when we're able to bring you know more acceptance to to that for example and spirituality can really help you to do that well that's something that that will really give

you more confidence in your ability to then be able to kind of tolerate other uncertainties in your life. But as soon as we get caught up in this perfectionistic mindset. I need to have it all figured out. I need to practice it perfectly. I need to feel the right way all the time when I'm doing these things. Well, that's when it really turns into something that works against you.

I think one of the reasons for why spirituality and OCD can be so sneaky is that actually.

You know, it looks like growth on the surface when you're applying these skills when you're developing a meditation practice for example or you're practicing mantras on a on a daily basis it can feel like you're doing something good you're building up momentum you're kind of changing things but of course if you're doing it in in that perfectionistic way that i was just talking about well actually it starts becoming like a compulsion where you feel that you

have to do it in just the right way if not you're doing it wrong and then maybe bad things are going to happen fear starts getting involved you know we find ourselves getting caught up in the OCD cycle we're actually you know rather than practicing the spiritual practice in order to bring more acceptance to unknown things suddenly we're using it as just another way to kind of push away the unknown and to try to have a kind of false sense of control about things and to kind of

feel better in the short term. And these are all things that tend to perpetuate the OCD cycle. See if you can ask yourself this question, am I practicing this because I'm looking for a deeper sense of connection with myself, with life, with other people to get more in touch with my values? Or am I doing it in order to control things, to, you know, to kind of deal with my fear more, you know, to kind of not allow difficult emotions to be here in the background.

Of course, if it's the latter, then it's something that you might need to address. You know, if you can find a kind of healthier way to practice that spirituality, it could actually be something that brings you enormous joy and comfort. I think for me, the way in which I like to practice spirituality is through allowing some kind of imperfection into the practice. I definitely do not see myself in any way as any form of spiritual guru, by the way.

I'm just somebody who is spiritual and I do bring that into practicing managing my OCD and anxiety. But I also recognize that I'm human, I'm going to make mistakes with it. Sometimes I'm going to get intrusive thoughts because I struggle with OCD and that's okay. I'm not always going to feel the way in which I want to feel. And when we allow a bit more kind of imperfection here, I think it just really kind of sets us free.

If we're always demanding that we have to feel a certain way or for things to be a certain way in order for us to be okay, then we're just getting in touch with that kind of fear mindset again, that control mindset, which really underlines OCD. And I think it's so important as well just to point out.

No matter what your view of spirituality is, if you're religious, if you view yourself through more of a kind of Buddhist perspective, a Christian perspective, or simply a very spiritual perspective and you're not really aligned with any kind of religious approach at all. You know, I think it's helpful if you can kind of believe that whoever created us did create us.

You know, knowing that we're imperfect, that we're doing the best that we can, you know, from an OCD perspective, you know, that we didn't ask to have intrusive thoughts.

Actually this is not something that we wanted to be going through you know perhaps we you know would prefer to not have anxiety but we're recognizing that we do we do have fear and that we have to bring acceptance to that and if our creator made us that way and recognizes us as being this way then you know of course i think that can help us to bring a bit more self-compassion to that to realize that we are doing the best that we can this is who we are as people and

you know it's not easy to be a person particularly when you're struggling with OCD you're you're dealing with anxiety a lot you know if you are going through those things then it's even more reason for why you need to kind of be easy on yourself at times and to you know to recognize that you're trying to practice something but you don't have to do it absolutely perfectly you just need to show up and do the best that you can and I think when we take a bit more of that.

Approach I think it kind of loosens up you know the obsessions and it allows us to let go of those compulsions which unfortunately keep the OCD cycle going so if you find yourself checking all the time demanding that perfection getting caught up in kind of ruminations about your spirituality these are all signs that perhaps you're not quite aligned with it in the best possible way in order for you to manage the OCD. So it might be worth, you know, reflecting on that a little bit.

And, you know, hopefully this is something that can really help you moving forward to kind of view spirituality in a healthier way. So many thanks. I really hope that you found that helpful. If you have any questions at all, do please let me know. And please do remember, I do offer a free discovery call to get that.

You can head over to my website robertjamescoaching.com there's a link in the show notes, 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. Music.