Anxiety and OCD
Intrusive and obsessive thoughts are a common issue which often lead to compulsive behaviors (avoidance or control strategies) meant to alleviate distress.
At times, it can feel like your mind is bullying you and telling you that you have to do certain things in order to decrease this heightened level of distress; unfortunately, while performing compulsions does typically provide short-term relief, the reality is that it often then leads to longer-term costs in regards to living the life that you would like to live.
Although attempts to quickly alleviate our distress make sense (in the short-term), this can be likened to feeding a tiger cub: the tiger cub growls at us and so we throw it a piece of meat and then it calms down. However, throwing the tiger this piece of meat then allows the tiger to grow so that the next time it growls, it seems scarier and requires even more meat in order to calm down - and on and on the cycle sometimes continues (metaphor used from Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven Hayes).
Therefore, when we do not allow our mental, emotional, and physical distress to go down in its own time, we inadvertently reinforce to our and body and mind the increasing necessity of performing compulsions in order to bring down our distress: short-term relief, longer-term issues.
Using an integration of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), we will instead look at trying more helpful, longer-term strategies by:
Identifying and getting some distance from intrusive thoughts (remember: thoughts are thoughts, not facts).
Learning skills to make space for distressing emotions and physical sensations instead of trying to prove/disprove or push away this discomfort (keeping in mind that “what we resist persists” - Steven Hayes)
You can try this: try to not notice the clothes that you are wearing for 20 seconds and then allow yourself to notice the clothes that you are wearing for 20 seconds - what did you notice? The former strategy often requires much more energy and leads to more focusing on your clothes; thankfully though, we do not need to get rid of our difficult thoughts and emotions in order to live a life that is meaningful to us!
Connecting with the part of you that can take a step back and notice that you are not your thoughts - you are the observer of your thoughts!
Exploring practical strategies to help you reconnect with the present moment when you get stuck in thoughts that are related to the past or future - when we do this, we get back in touch with what is within our control: our actions.
Clarifying which of your personal values you either move toward or away from when you engage in compulsive behaviors and using this awareness to help you more consistently be who you want to be and do what you want to do.
Offering compassion to yourself for the ways that you are trying so hard to improve your life.
Doing gradual and specific exposure exercises to help you not be “bossed around” by your thoughts as much and to slowly do more of what you - not your anxious mind - want to do.
This can be an anxiety provoking process, so we do this slowly, for a clear purpose (to help you move towards your values), with mutually established objectives, and with lots of compassion.
Helping you to develop more creative, values-led, and flexible responses to your intrusive and anxious thoughts!
If this sounds good to you, I would encourage you to reach out!