You won’t heal OCD by playing it safe. Here’s why

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 489 where today we're discussing how to not play it safe when it comes to ocd 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 there's a link in the show notes. You won't heal OCD by playing it safe but OCD really wants us to play that game.

It tells us don't take the chance, don't put yourself into an uncomfortable position where you experience anxiety because it's not worth it, you're going to feel bad and why do you want to experience that? But unfortunately when we take that kind of mindset that's when we remain stuck with it. So in today's episode I'll be talking about some of the steps that you can take to stop playing it safe with OCD and actually start beginning to make some progress.

If you do find this podcast helpful, it would be amazing if you could leave us a review and to subscribe. Most people who listen are not actually subscribed and that really blows my mind. So if you wouldn't mind subscribing, I would really, really appreciate it.

So many thanks guys. If you have any questions at all, do please let me know and off we go. OCD is a master at keeping us playing it safe, of kind of keeping us in our comfort zone. But unfortunately, when we listen to it, when we don't take on challenges or we don't do difficult things, because we're kind of fearful of the emotional response that we might get, this is when we really kind of stay stuck.

And if you struggle with OCD, of course, you're going to be aware of the OCD cycle, you know where a particular thought or situation gives you a lot of anxiety and so you perform that compulsion in order to kind of feel better in the short term but then of course we kind of get stuck in a trap doing that and this can kind of go on you know indefinitely over weeks months or even years at times yeah and the way out of that trap is to actually recognize that you know we don't have to

do that that we have agency we have choice you know and when we actually ask, on that agency. When we choose to take action despite the fact that we may not really be feeling up to it, that we might be experiencing a lot of anxiety or uncertainty about that particular obsession. About that particular thing, we recognize that but we take action anyway. You know, that's when things really can change and this is why exposure is such a big part of learning to overcome OCD.

When we play it safe, when we choose to stay in our comfort zone, Okay, it's true that we might not be feeling too bad. We might not experience too much anxiety. We might be feeling a bit more confident, a bit more in control. But the reality is that it's a kind of fake sense of control because you're not really pushing yourself. You're not learning how to tolerate discomfort. You're not learning how to allow anxiety to be there in the background.

And these are essential skills if we really want to overcome OCD in the long term and so finding a way to kind of push ourselves to challenge ourselves even when we're not really feeling up to it is actually how we begin to kind of move past OCD you don't necessarily you know have to kind of you know take on the most difficult challenges you know at first and in fact I wouldn't encourage you to do that at all i i would encourage you to kind of gently uh push back against the ocd to

identify you know some of the things that you're perhaps avoiding or some of some of the things that you know you really should do but that you're you're not doing because the the anxiety is present or you know you you have a lot of uncertainty about that thing and once you've identified what some of those things are to actually start taking some action to demonstrate to yourself that you're stronger than the OCD.

OCD does not want you to think that. It wants you to believe that you're a kind of prisoner to it, that you have to do all of these compulsions in order to feel better.

But when we start taking action, when we step outside of that comfort zone and prove to ourselves that actually this simply isn't true, that you have much more strength than perhaps you're giving yourself credit for, that you are able to take action despite the fact that you're feeling anxious or shameful or whatever it is that you're experiencing. So a great activity to do this is to actually, you know, once a week reflect on what are some of the things that you might be avoiding right now.

And it doesn't have to be things about your particular obsession. Of course, if it is, then that's great. But a lot of the time, there's also things that we're very anxious about, that we're avoiding, that we're obsessing about. But it isn't so obvious. OCD can be very sneaky in that way. We might find ourselves obsessing about something that we really don't like, but it isn't obvious that it's a kind of obsession.

We might tell ourselves that this is just something that we don't like in our lives, but actually it's quite likely that it's related to an obsession in some way.

Maybe you're avoiding a difficult conversation with somebody maybe you're not wanting to go somewhere because it reminds you of something you know something that you didn't like or you had a negative experience in in that place whatever it might be the the idea is to kind of sit down each week and reflect on what are some of the things that you feel that you're avoiding right now what are some of the things that you know you should be doing but for some reason you aren't quite doing right

now and the idea then is to kind of pick two or three things that that that week that you're going to do and you're going to lean into that discomfort despite the fact that you're not really feeling ready to do that you know you're going to kind of prove to yourself that actually you can do that thing. And, you know, it may not be doing the whole thing outright to begin with.

It might be taking, you know, a few steps towards doing that thing just so you can get into the practice of kind of leaning into that discomfort. You know, but when we actually reflect on this each week, you know, what are the things that we're, you know, we're kind of avoiding? Are there some things, for example, that maybe you're wanting to do absolutely perfectly?

That maladaptive perfectionism is coming in and you're demanding you know that you do that thing perfectly so you're kind of not even starting it at all because you know to get started with it is is really uncomfortable because so often we're telling ourselves that you know we need to do that thing absolutely right so we don't even bother to get started because it gives us anxiety just kind of just thinking about it but if you were to get started you know you don't need to

finish it but just getting started and allowing things to be a bit more messy a bit more uncomfortable really what we're doing is we're bringing ourselves out of our comfort zones and allowing a little bit more discomfort to be there in the background you know and the more that we can do that well this is exposure this is allowing uncertainty this is allowing discomfort you know when we can do that we really prove to ourselves you know

that we're we're stronger than than we think we are and you know.

It's a little bit like elasticity. If you keep pulling an elastic band again and again and again, eventually the length of that elastic band starts to increase because you keep on pulling it, you keep on coming up against your kind of point of resistance and then you pull a little bit further.

And it's the same here when we're doing exposure activities. Over time, you can increase your ability to allow that discomfort to be there you can prove to yourself that you can do things that perhaps you've been telling yourself that you can't and like i was saying before sometimes this is about our obsessions and other times it might be about things that are completely unrelated but actually you know when you think about it you're coming up against the same kind

of thing you're coming up against difficult emotions that are underlying that thing that you're avoiding and just learning to lean into that well that might also help with the particular themes that you're that you're struggling with so many thanks guys i really hope that you enjoyed that if you have any questions do please let me know and remember 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

and i will see See you 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. Music.