How to Stop Ruminating I OCD I ROCD I Depression

Foreign.

Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton. I am an anxiety and OCD recovery coach. And today I want to talk about how to stop ruminating. Now, as many of you know, ruminating is one of the main compulsions with any form of ocd. It really doesn't matter which form. You are probably participating in the ment compulsion called ruminating. And what ruminating is, is basically thinking you're in your head, you're analyzing, or you are trying to solve a current problem. And the reason why ruminating is such an issue is because it is an OCD compulsion. And if you've watched any of my prior videos, you've probably heard me talk about the OCD cycle and that these compulsions or the coping mechanisms that you have discovered that ease your anxiety in the short term actually only reinforce the OCD in your brain and they make OCD worse. So it's very important that you get very aware of when you're ruminating and you actually stop this compulsion. Because when you are ruminating, no matter when you are feeding the OCD cycle, and every time you stop the rumination, you actually make your OCD better. So this is a really crucial one that you're going to want to practice really pretty much for the rest of your life. Now, a lot of people confuse obsessing with ruminating, and they are actually two different things. So the obsession with OCD is actually the intrusive thoughts that are coming in, and they're usually around a particular subject. So if you struggle with relationship ocd, that and the subject is relationships, whether that's future or current. If you struggle with scrupulosity ocd, the subject is religion or morality. If you struggle with harm ocd, the subject is around harming yourself or others, pedophilia, ocd, around being inappropriate with somebody. So it doesn't matter what the form, it's any of the thoughts that you're having around the subject are the obsessions, and these are the intrusive thoughts. And a lot of people get the ruminating confused with obsessing. Ruminating is actually not the obsession. Ruminating is the compulsion. And it's important to distinguish this because as we know, we have to stop doing the compulsions when it comes to the obsessions or the intrusive thoughts that are coming in. We can't fully control those. The intrusive thoughts may come in, they may not. The more you treat your OCD and learn exposure and response, prevention and acceptance and commitment work, the less intrusive thoughts you're going to get. But we can't fully control those. What we can fully control is whether or not we do the compulsions which then either reinforce the OCD when we do them, or they don't reinforce it, and they make it better when we don't. So the most important thing here is awareness. Awareness is key. And so every day you're going to want to be aware of whether or not you are ruminating about the subject of your ocd. And there may be more than one. A lot of my clients have several different subsets of OCD that they kind of have to keep an eye on. And that's very, very common. So now let's talk about four different tactics that you can use to stop ruminating. And the first one is reminding yourself that there's nothing to figure out. So when you are ruminating, you're usually thinking about the past, right? You're thinking about memories from the past or what you've done in the past, or you're thinking about the future and what might happen in the future in certain situations. Or you may be just thinking about a current situation that's happening in your life right now. But no matter what, you're probably trying to figure it out in some way. You're analyzing it. You're trying to figure something out. You may not even be aware of what it is you're trying to figure out, but that's exactly what you're, what you're doing. So when you are aware that you are ruminating and you notice it, you can remind yourself that there is nothing to figure out. That goes back to the exposure and the acceptance work of allowing things to be what they are in the moment. And when we remind ourselves that there's nothing to figure out, then it typically helps us to stop thinking about that particular subject and analyzing it. So the key is to stop trying to solve the problem, right? Because there really is no problem. We want acceptance here. And this actually includes your ocd. If you're someone who is always trying to figure out how to get rid of their OCD permanently and cure it, then this is another tactic that you're going to want to use and remind your that there is no cure. And what you need to do is practice your ERP skills in these moments. The second technique that you can use to stop ruminating is again, back to awareness. Notice that you're doing it, and then choose to do anything other than a compulsion. So you could choose to hang the clothes up that are on the bed in your room. You could choose to call a friend and not talk about the subject of your ocd. You could choose to go watch your favorite TV show or read your favorite book. Anything. It does not even matter what you choose, but anything besides ruminating or a compulsion. The third technique is noticing that you are in your head and bringing your awareness down into your body. Okay. This is very effective. When we notice that we're in our heads, we can feel it. Right. Sometimes you can even physically feel your head feels full or heavy. And so bringing your awareness down into your body. Okay. And a lot of times when I do this, I bring my awareness down into my chest or my heart area, and you can focus on your breathing, just breathing in and out.

Okay? And this actually brings your awareness back into your body, into your chest area and out of your head. And when you're focusing on breathing in and out, you're not ruminating in your head. And the last technique that you can use, number four, is a mindfulness exercise. Now, you can look up mindfulness on the Internet. There's a lot of different exercises for this. I'll be talking about more, but this particular mindful exercise can be very effective, especially if you're just out and about walking around. You can actually do this anywhere. It doesn't matter where you're at. And what you're going to do is it's called 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay? So you're going to bring yourself into the present moment and choose five things that you can see. Okay? So just look around in your environment. I can see a computer screen right here. I can see my peloton bike over there. You can even describe it. Okay. The colors and the texture. That can be really helpful. So my peloton bike is black and red and white. And there's a couch over here that's kind of off white with gold studs. And there's a plant on my desk that is mostly green. And I have my computer right in front of me. Okay. Then you're going to pick four things that you can touch, and you want to really feel the texture of these things. So my jeans, okay. That are kind of soft. And then my chair, which is soft and leather and a little cool. And my desk is hard and flat. And my cat that is in my lap right now, who loves to lay in my lap when I do videos for some reason. Who's really soft and fluffy. Okay. Then you're gonna pick three things that you can hear. I can hear the hum of my computer right now. I can hear the wind outside blowing. And then I can hear the leaves of the palm tree scraping against my window. And next you're going to pick two things that you can smell. So right now, I can smell the lunch that I cooked in the other room that smells really good. And then I can smell the fresh air here in the room as well. And then lastly, you're going to pick one thing that you can taste. And I actually just had a bite of cashew butter, so I can kind of taste the cashew butter still there. So this is just one of those mindfulness techniques that takes you out of your head, out of that subject and back into the present moment. Ruminating is probably one of the most difficult compulsions for a lot of us. Not everybody. Some people have others, but it is the one that you are going to work on for the rest of your life. Some days, you know, you are not going to really feel like you are ruminating. You are going to be good. And other days it is going to be a little bit more difficult. But the more you practice, practice this. The less you ruminate, the better you're going to feel. The less intrusive thoughts you're going to get, the better your OCD is going to be, and the better you're going to feel. Now, a lot of you might have some questions about the intrusive thoughts, the thoughts that are popping in your head. Make sure you subscribe to my channel here because the next video we're going to talk about some of those troubleshooting tips for the intrusive thoughts that either pop in your head, stay in your head. We'll talk more about that. So subscribe and click the bell to get notifications. And as always, if you need more help with your ocd, please click the link below and go to my site where you can find my courses, my coaching options, and most importantly, you can schedule a free call with me to talk more about how I can help you and how I have helped others recover from all different kinds of subsets of ocd.