Live Q&A

I've seen your post, like, but in regards to ocd, but nothing with, like, the new program stuff.

But yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, Eric and I are here. Let's let Allison in. Hey, Allison.

Hello.

How are you doing?

Good. How are you guys?

Good.

Good. All right. So welcome, everybody. Good to have everybody on.

Daniela was supposed to join us, so we'll see if she finds her way here, hopefully. And it looks like we have one person on, so welcome to anybody who is watching, go ahead and post in the comments for me. Maybe where you're joining us from and if you're comfortable, what those subsets that you struggle with. And then also what question do you have for us? Any question at all. We're happy to answer for you. That's what we're here to do. And in the meantime.

I will just talk a little bit about the new program that's coming out just to give people time to join, if they'd like to join. The new program that we have coming out in about a week is called the Path to Love. It is for relationship ocd, and the course covers all OCD subsets because. Because it's really important that we tackle everything that's there, but it's a lot of very relationship OCD specific information. And so. Hey, Jess, how are you?

I'm so glad you. I know you joined us last time. I'm so glad you're here. And welcome. And yeah, post your questions. I'd love to hear them. Anybody who's on, we're here to answer your questions. In the meantime, while everybody hops on and starts asking, I'm going to. To just talking a little bit about the new program, the Path to Love, that comes out in about a week, and it just has a lot of amazing stuff. Hey, Alex. A lot of the subsets. Yeah, I would say, you know, all of the clients that I've worked with over the years.

At least 50% of them have more than one subset. And technically, almost everybody, no matter what OCD subset they have, has a touch of just right ocd, which is where that perfectionism, feelings needing to be just right, people needing to say or do the right things.

Really comes in. But most of us and notice, we start to recognize that we've either had other types of intrusive thoughts come in or other worries or topics that have really been there the whole time. So.

So, yeah, so Jess says, I'm really struggling at the moment. OCD is a beast. It definitely can be. How do you get over the exhaustion of ocd? Always Latching on to new themes. It's endless. So, yeah, so I'll start off answering this and then I'll let Erica and Allison answer. Actually, Eric and Allison, you both. I don't know if you both turned your cameras and sound off on purpose. Kind of ironic, I'm guessing. Maybe not. But.

Anyway, so, yeah, let me get back to Jess's question. So OCD will latch on to new themes for most people. And here's why. When we have ocd, we don't know how to handle discomfort in healthy ways. And so the coping mechanisms that the brain is looking for, the brain is doing to cope is things like rumination, reassurance seeking, trying to get rid of the thoughts, trying to get rid of the feelings, checking all of those types of compulsions. Right? So when we don't know what else to do, this is the brain. This is what the brain tells us to do to try to feel better. The problem is these coping mechanisms or compulsions are rarely effective. So the more we do those compulsions and try to get certainty or relief in unhealthy ways, we're actually training our brain to do this more. We're training our nervous system to worry more. We're training it to be anxious, to need certainty, to need perfection. And so when your brain drops one subset and starts to latch onto another, that's actually, can be. Can be a really good sign. The reason being it means that you've probably decided consciously or unconsciously, or maybe you've used good coping mechanisms to let go of one subset. But your brain right now is trained to try to protect you and look for things that might be wrong or go wrong. And so it finds something else. And so the.

Recovery process should teach you how to handle any discomfort, any doubt, any uncertainty, any imperfection. And when you understand the way that OCD works and you understand the recovery tools, you can get a better sense of when a new worry or intrusive thought or theme comes up. And if you use the same tools, what will happen is you will continue to tackle every single thing that your brain wants to latch onto, better and better and better. And eventually you can get to the point where your brain stops latching on to certain themes. Okay, so hopefully you're with me so far.

Now.

Our brains are always going to look for ways to protect us and things to worry about. That's the way the human brain works. But when you're responding in healthy ways, really, really, really, really consistently, your brain will stop latching on to new themes. So I have had relationship ocd, Harm, ocd, somatic ocd, health, ocd. Just right. Ocd. I think that's it. And now in the recovery stage, my brain will want to latch onto something that's imperfect in my life or isn't going the way that I want it to. But the method that I teach helps me to recognize when that's happening, and the rest of the method helps me respond in a healthy way. Let me add Daniela in.

So it helps me respond. Hey, Daniela.

Hi.

It helps me to respond in a healthy way.

So that I'm not going back into the OCD cycle. And do I sometimes start to ruminate or overthink something or want something to be perfect? Of course. But it doesn't last very long because I've gotten really good at this method, catching it and stopping. Okay.

So.

And the method is taught in our programs. But just to give you a piece of what you can do today is.

You know, and, Jess, maybe you can answer this in the chat. What I want you to answer for me is what tools have you used in the past that worked? Okay. That you could continue to use that may continue to work? And then we'll. We'll chat through those. All right, so. And one thing I want to mention, too, is that OCD is exhausting, definitely. But what's more exhausting is the compulsions. Exposure work is hard, but it actually gives you more energy because it lets you let. It helps you let go of the obsession. The compulsions are the most exhausting. So people often avoid exposure because it's uncomfortable and they think it's exhausting. But what's more exhausting is actually the compulsions they're doing. So I'll let. Do any of your other ladies have anything you want to chime in on there?

Danielle, can you hear me?

I can, yeah.

Yeah, I have something. There's something wrong, I think, with my smartphone because I have problems. I have still problems with my computer. MF and password.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's hard for me to stay from here, from the smartphone.

So I can get.

From there. Yeah.

If you do, you have a computer you can try to join from.

Yeah, it's impossible to join because of the password. I don't know. What is the problem with the password?

Okay, well, let's connect offline about that. Maybe after the call, we can connect and see if we can get it fixed. If you want to just stay and listen for now, if it's really choppy, because it does look like your picture's frozen.

So.

What's that?

Yeah. I think it's really choppy, so if you want to just stay on and listen, that could work. And then we'll see if we can get it next call.

Okay.

Okay, so I'll mute you for now, and if you want to turn off your video, too, that could help with being able to hear.

And then we'll get you. We'll hopefully can get you going for the next one, but stay on and see if you can at least kind of listen in.

All right, so, yep, Alex has lots of subsets. Okay, let me go to Alex's question. I worry about real events. I will do small things that make me feel like a bad person. Like, I was carrying a bag of my old. Oh, sorry. Like I was carrying a bag my old cat was in after getting his nails trimmed and moved the keys in my hand, like, to scare him when I know I overestimate harm and threat. Okay, so, yeah, so real event ocd, some just right stuff going on here. So when it comes to obsessions, no matter what the obsession is, what we need to do is we need to get comfortable with uncertainty, imperfection, and discomfort, right? So whatever it is. So if your brain. Let's see. Real event ocd, your brain is obsessing about something that either may have happened, may not have happened, or, you know, that did happen that you wish was different. Okay? So the more you engage with the doubt, the thought, the perfection, the certainty, the more it's going to feed the cycle because your amygdala is wanting certainty or perfection in this moment. And the more you try to get it, the less you'll find it because it doesn't exist. So what we need to do is we need to get comfortable with uncertainty and imperfection. So one way that you might respond here is.

Just, generally, I'm a bad person. Right? I think a lot of us here can relate to that thought. And what we need to do is we need to accept that we're not going to be perfect. We're all going to do things like, I've stolen a pen from work, actually. I mean, let's be real. I've stolen something before from a store. Right. That's uncomfortable to admit, but we're all imperfect people. And so we have to get comfortable with not being perfect in order for our brain to let go of this discomfort with feeling like a bad person. So we could do things like purposefully doing things.

Incorrectly or purposely doing things that might be disrespectful. There are boundaries, right? Like, I wouldn't say, go cheat on your partner. But anything that would be uncomfortable, that might make you feel like a bad person, go do it anyway. And what this is going to do is it's going to help you get comfortable with not being perfect and your brain is going to let go of this obsession.

And so, yeah, when you overestimate harm and threat, you need to either physically or mentally do things to lean into the possibility that that might be true or come true by what you say back to yourself. So you can say back to yourself, yeah, maybe that will happen, or, yep, maybe that did happen, but I'm not going to do anything about it. And I know this seems so counterintuitive, but what it does is it helps you teach your amygdala, this part of the brain that's bringing up the fears and doubts and intrusive thoughts that, hey, maybe this did happen, maybe it will happen and I'll handle it if it does. Right. And so it helps your brain to let go of that fear that it's going to happen and stop thinking about it. Because usually it's just a story in your head, right? Or you're engaging with something in the past that's completely done, that doesn't even matter anymore. So we have to teach our brain to let go of that. And those are some ways imaginal exposure or in vivo exposure that we would do that. But then we also have to do the response prevention. We have to stop those compulsions that we're doing. So hopefully that makes sense. Alex, you can let me know if you have a follow up question.

Anything else that you guys might want to add to that?

Danny? Sorry. It seems okay now from the computer.

I'm okay. Awesome. Good, good, good.

Yeah. Okay. Hi, ladies. Hello.

So, yeah, Erica, Allison, anything you want to add to that with real event or harm ocd?

I was trying to see.

If I could, like, raise my hand instead of just jolting it and talking, but I was gonna say that perfection aspect that you mentioned, like recognizing that part. And when you do have the obsession, the obsessions coming in and the compulsions, because it's usually behind a lot of things. And you can see like, okay, I'm just trying to be perfect here. I'm not perfect. And then having that level of, like, acceptance also helps, you know, with the ERP aspect or the real method.

Yep, absolutely. That's a good one.

All right.

So, yeah, Jess says I distract myself with something more helpful or in line with what needs to get done. Like work jobs around the house, moving and getting out of the house. How has distraction worked for you guys? And do you have any other suggestions for her?

I would say cooking.

Yeah, go ahead, Daniela.

Yeah, I would say cooking. Cooking. It's something that's relaxing me in some way.

Yep. That can be really helpful.

Something with my hands.

Yeah, absolutely. What about you, Alison? What are your thoughts on distraction as a tool?

I mean, I think it's important to do things that you enjoy, like cooking or painting. Like, there's healthy distraction. And obviously, we have our daily life, which we have to get through OCD or not. So I think it's more about, like, not letting OCD stop you from living your life or doing what you like to do or doing something relaxing.

Yeah.

Um, but if you're doing it, you know, if you're. If you're doing it all day, every day, and you don't want to deal with ocd, like, you get nervous when things are quiet because you feel like the OCD is going to pop up again. That can be unhelpful. So I think it's about learning to take moments in the day and pause and accept. Feel uncomfortable.

Yeah.

You don't have to fill every moment with something to, you know, not have to deal with ocd. It's going to be there whether, you know it's going to be there throughout the day. It's just sometimes we distract ourselves in a healthy way, and then sometimes it can be a little bit unhealthy. So you just have to be careful about that.

Yep. The way that I explain this is, yes, distraction can be a compulsion.

Distracting yourself from doing compulsions. Perfectly healthy. You're essentially choosing not to do compulsions. You're choosing to do something else. Okay. But if we're trying to. Compulsions are the things that we're doing to get rid of the discomfort or trying to get certainty, or usually we're trying to do it to get rid of the thoughts or feelings. And that in itself is a compulsion. So.

If you're doing it and it's really subtle and you're going to have to just notice in the moment when you do this, but if you're doing it to run away from the thoughts or feelings, it's a compulsion, and it's not going to work very well if you're doing it to say, you know what? This can be here. I'm just going to choose to go do something different then in a way that is exposure and response prevention, because you're just refocusing your energy on something else, which can be very helpful, but it shouldn't Be your main technique, meaning it is one technique. But if that's your only technique that you've had that, I can see why you might still be struggling. Because like I mentioned before, OCD is.

Obsessions and compulsions because we can't handle the thoughts or the feelings. And so we have to learn how to handle uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in a healthy way and not engage with obsessions and compulsions if we want to stop the cycle. So learning the tools to move towards the fear, move towards the doubt, and move towards the discomfort. Sounds terrifying, right? Everybody on this call, we can relate to how scary that is. But what happens? What has happened? For I'll ask you, Daniela, what has happened? The more you lean into the discomfort, lean into the uncertainty and let the discomfort be there without doing anything about it.

Yeah, you know, it's difficult. It's difficult, but it's something that necessary to heal ourselves. So.

And I think it's important, as you said, to distinguish when you use a destruction, a destruction.

We'Re just.

The possibility to do something else in an. In a healthy way. And when you use a distraction as a compulsion, it's totally different. Sometimes when I pray, I. I have. I question myself about it because sometimes pray just. It just pray. It's a prayer. Using prayer, using to used to pray is something you can.

You can use it to stay.

Well with yourself. But at the same time, if I use pray when I want to maybe stay calm, when I was to stay calmer, so it's something I need to pay attention to. I don't know if.

Yeah. Erica, what's happened for you? The more you move towards the discomfort, lean into the uncertainty.

So I feel like for me, when I do notice that, let's just say I'm ruminating on something and I'm cooking, but the ruminations there.

If I don't.

Go to do something about it in that moment, because I try to make sure, I'm also not trying to do like erp compulsively.

I'll usually just continue doing what I'm doing and then usually because I'm not giving attention to the ocd, it subsides. And I'll notice later on as I go on about my day, I'm like, oh, you know, like, what if I do a check in with myself? I'm like, oh, I don't have any OCD right now. Or the rest of the day went good, you know what I mean? Because I'm not feeding the ocd. So that's one thing that can happen for Me. Or if I haven't done any ERP and I'm noticing like, oh, this, there's something that's been coming in, and I've had it for a couple of days, maybe I need to go and take care of it. I'll stop what I'm doing and I'll go do my ERP and then I'll be able to just continue on with my day.

Yeah.

Have you, Allison, experienced the more you lean, allow the discomfort, lean into the uncertainty, the less that topic bothers you?

Yeah, definitely. I just don't give it my energy. Right. I allow the thoughts, the feelings, whatever it is to be there. But I have my schedule. I have things I need to get done. There's things I want to do. So I allow it to be there. And I just go about with my day, on with my day. And.

Yeah, the less I. The less attention you give it, the less it's going to show up and eventually it's just going to subside.

Yep.

It sounds so counterintuitive, but the more I do it and it's. It's never easy or fun, but the more I do it, the less my brain attaches to that obsession or thought or worries about it or it bothers me less. So. Yeah.

Yeah.

And Alex wrote, and if I'm not the other extreme, where I'm overly cautious. Sorry, put the tabs up. It's like acting normal is harmful. Yeah. Your brain is going to. Your brain is trying to convince you that you need to do something about this because your brain thinks that you have to do something about this scary or uncomfortable topic. But again, this is not a healthy. Shouldn't say it's not a healthy part of our brain. It's a healthy part of our brain that's just not giving us the right direction.

And so we have to stop listening to fear. We have to start allowing discomfort. And I know it feels so counterintuitive, but I've never seen it not work. So. And the cool thing is it's. It's. It's counterintuitive at first, and it's uncomfortable at first when you start using the tools, but you start to see that it works. And then you probably get caught back up in the OCD cycle a couple weeks later, and. And you spiral down again, and then you use the tools again and it works. And so we have to go through that roller coaster and in and out of the OCD cycle, or what I call dips, to see that when I do this, I feel crappy. And when I do this, I feel better. And so we're more motivated to use the recovery tools to lean into the discomfort, to allow it to expose, to not do the compulsions. It gets easier over time because we're able to see how well it works through the experience.

Good.

All right. So Dickie says, how much does OCD enter into the spiritual realm to you ladies? As far as possession, if at all. So I'm going to assume you're talking about being possessed spiritually.

Is how I take that. And if that's the case. Not for me, but I'm sure I.

Think maybe I would use the same. If I well understand it's something related. It's a religious thing. Maybe this question is related to religion thing. I would use.

Stuff as well. Our skills as well.

Yeah, exactly. As you have it.

Just normally.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, OCD is latched on to my beliefs at times. It latched on to, like, manifesting in the law of attraction.

It hasn't really. I am more spiritual than religious, so I don't have this, like, really strong. Like.

Some people have really, like, strong or sometimes rigid beliefs that it'll latch on to.

But. Yeah. What about. What about you, Alison, or. Or Erica? Anything in this area for you?

Well, I am Catholic, but I'm also quite spiritual. So I do believe in possession. I do believe in demons. I do believe there's a lot of things we cannot see.

Yeah.

However, my ocd, I have noticed, has latched onto that as well. Like, what if this is a demon possessing me? Right. What if there's like a darkness that have. Has come over me? And sometimes I have called ocd, like the OCD monster, because it does feel like a monster. Right. So how I handle that is the same. I'm like, well, I'm not gonna feed the monster, no matter if it's a demon. If it's just my mind, I don't know, I don't have all those answers. So I just treat it like I would any other thing that comes up with my ocd. Like, maybe it is a demon. Maybe I'm getting possessed. I don't really know. But I'm not going to feed this monster with more compulsions because I know that's going to make it stronger. And every time I've done that, when I stop feeding, the monster, OCD subsides. So I just don't, you know, it's. The key is, like, I'm not going to show fear to my mind, because if I do, it's just going to get stronger. So that's how I've looked at that before.

Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree with you, Edison. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, OCD latches on to. They say what we care about, but.

I like to say OCD latches on to whatever we let it latch on to, meaning if it's important to us, then we. Then we have more investment in it, and that's why OCD will latch onto it. But, yeah, what. What Allison mentioned there is exposure, saying, yeah, maybe I'm possessed. Maybe this is a demon. And, you know, that's. That's a way. That's a way of using exposure to lean into the uncertainty. Right. Telling your amygdala, yeah, maybe that's true, but not doing anything about it, that helps the brain latch onto it. What you're doing there is you're teaching your amygdala that maybe this is true, which helps it accept the uncertainty. And then when you don't do anything about it later or after, it teaches your amygdala that it doesn't have to keep trying to figure this out or protect you in any way. You're basically using a different part of your brain to retrain the sphere center of your brain. And. And you may have to do this over and over again, but the more you do it, the more you're teaching your amygdala that this isn't a topic that it needs to continue to bring up for you. And you will get less intrusive thoughts. It will bother you less, but you do have to continue to not engage.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hopefully that answers your question. Dickie, if you have any more, just post.

All right. Alex says, I liken in intruding thoughts to a bar of soap. You don't want to grab it, but let it. But let it slip through your fingers before it becomes a thing, like a hot potato. I like that. I like that analogy. Yeah. Like, we can touch it. It's not scary. I'm not scared of it. I can touch it, but I can also let it go just as easy without engaging. That's nice.

That's nice.

Yeah. There's a lot of great analogies out there that really help people kind of go, oh, yeah, I like that. That. That resonates with me.

Alex says, I'm Catholic, so I get that. I get that fear a lot. What makes it worse is that there are people who say that OCD is the bad guy. Not helpful at all. Lol.

I love this. What do you. What do you guys. Before I talk, what are you guys thoughts on this? You mentioned the monster, Allison.

Do you find that helpful, to call.

It a monster, like the OCD monster? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a very famous TED Talk where this lady is talking about her daughter that has ocd and she mentions, like, you know, don't feed the OCD monster. Don't feed the monster. You'll make it stronger. So I have done that before, and I have called it the bad guy, and it's worked. It's like. It's. It's kind of like it's a part of me, but the less energy I give it, the less stronger it will be, and it will become a very small part of me.

So, yeah, I. Yeah, and that's awesome that I like the way that you explain that. Feeding the monster. Feeding.

I think if I. If I can say just a word.

OCD is the bad guy. I think it's something related to everything, not just. It's not just a religious thing. So I think it's okay to not be scary at all. On or not in that way. It's not the enemy. I don't know how to say, but I think Elizon is. Can understand.

Yeah.

So it's. It's a bad guy because it's something related to our health and it's dangerous for our health, but it's not the enemy. The enemy. It's other thing. And I don't want to talk about other things, but I think the bad guy is. Is could be everything. We can be scary or. Because it's scary, it's scary for our health. Health, for example. Thing.

Yeah. My take on it. And again, everybody's different. So just take. Take what fits for you guys, because everybody's going to be a little bit different. I.

I like to look at OCD as.

Not something I'm fighting or, you know, the bad guy, but more of my brain's just trying to protect me. And when I look at it this way, it helps me to see it not as this bad thing that I'm fighting, but.

Really just saying. Yeah. My brain just trying to protect me. It's just telling me to do things that aren't very helpful, and so I need to work with it and retrain it to do the right things. Right. Because our brains. Our brains can mislead us all the time. Right. They tell us to eat desserts when we don't need them. Our brain tells us not to go to work because we don't feel like it. Right. It misleads us all the time. So when we can see it for what it is and work with it. I found that very helpful. Now, I also love what Allison said about, you know, the idea of feeding the monster makes it stronger. So I think that's really helpful, too. But do what works for you and what resonates with you because, again, everybody's going to be a little bit different.

But when you say Alex, people. There are people who say that OCD is the bad guy, and that's not helpful. If that's not helpful for you, toss it. Right. If what I just said isn't helpful for you, but what Allison mentioned is helpful, keep that and toss the rest. Everybody's going to explain things differently, have a different experience.

And that's okay. You know, everybody might be right. It's just that you're resonating with something, you know, that Erica says versus something that I said, and that's okay.

Yeah. But I'd love to know, when you say that OCD is a bad guy and that's not helpful at all, why isn't that helpful? Let's explore that a little bit.

All right. Jess says, I'm worried that I'm making excuses for my boyfriend and his behavior. He treats me well, and I love him a lot, but he has a lot of issues going on, like weight, drinking, and sleep, which is the first part. How do I tell the difference between excusing his behavior and accepting his imperfections and. And our differences? What do you think, Erica?

Oh, I knew you were going to call me.

This is a good one.

I definitely feel like it's important to take care of the OCD aspect first. So if this is causing some rocd, you're constantly analyzing him and questioning what he's doing. His sleep, his weight, his drinking, usually ocd. And so I think it's important to take care of that aspect first.

Before jumping to any conclusions in regard to the relationship. And that's not to say it's not good to have healthy conversation with him about.

Like, the issues that you're seeing, but not in a compulsive, urgent manner. It's got to be done when you're not. It's not you in an ROCD state. That's my take on it. But it's very tricky because, like I said, I think it's important to take care of the OCD part first, because then once you do the OCD treatment for that, you'll see things a lot more clear and you'll be able to see, like, okay, well, this was just my OCD latching onto this, and I don't even really care about it. It's not really something I need to address. You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you 100%. Anyone else have a take on that?

Can I ask this question, Danielle? Yeah. The first of just.

One, because I. I'm reading just the second part.

There you go.

Oh, okay.

So I will.

Yeah, yeah, I would.

I would say just you are two different people, so you need to.

Maybe take care of your OCD and him.

About everything else.

Other things. But it's better that, as Etika said, you need to work on your OCD first and you try to help him just to be aware, because behaviors you can't. You can't control behaviors, his behaviors in general and others behaviors. So maybe it's better you take care of your OCD and you can suggest him maybe as soon as possible if there's something really.

Important there.

Just to talk him about. About it and let E space.

To do something about it.

Yeah. This is the million dollar question. Right? How do I know the difference between OCD and real? Right. And you know that OCD is attaching to something if you are obsessing about it, which means you're thinking about it all the time or doing other compulsions. So if that's happening, then OCD is absolutely latching on to the topic. And when, you know OCD is latching onto it, I promise you, it's making it bigger than it really is. And so, of course, the next fear is, well, if I don't address it, I'm, you know, not listening to my inner self or I'm going to overlook something that's important and blah, blah, blah. So maybe you will. Right? That's the exposure. Maybe I am. But you have to take care. Like, like Daniela and Erica said, you have to take care of your OCD first. Because 9 out of 10 times when I took care of my OCD, that thing stopped bothering me because it really wasn't a big deal, nor was it something that I could control or even should worry that much about.

And if I did need to worry about it, once I took care of my ocd, I could then address it from a healthy place. But you're not going to address it from a healthy place. If you're. If. If OCD is, you know, driving that bus and.

They'Re often. Everybody's going to have imperfections. Right.

So if there's, let's say, Jess, that your partner drinks every single day.

Could.

That be a problem? Yes. Does it mean it's a problem? Not Necessarily. So if there's something that you're pretty sure is an issue.

You know, we. We address that in our coaching sessions with our clients all the time. Like, hey, this is ocd. Address that first. Or, you know what? Yeah, that sounds like something you need to address right away. Here's how to do it. Or, yeah, maybe we need to address that, but let's take care of the OCD first. And here's how you do that. So working with a coach who can help you determine that first, OCD is latching on, and. And let's take this route, and then let's talk further to see if it's something that really needs to be addressed. Usually it doesn't, but if it does, we have to clear the ocd, because then you're going to see it from a completely different standpoint. Raise your hand if once you use the recovery tools, OCD quieted down. You either saw that thing is not a big deal at all, or very tiny.

It was very different than where you saw it with ocd.

Yeah.

And Danielle, I was going to say, too, if you have tried to bring up these things that are OCD related to your partner, at least in my experience, my husband has been like, what's your point? Like, it's probably something I've brought up before in the past in a cycle, and we've already talked about it, and it just feels like a pointless conversation.

And then you realize, like, oh, okay, yeah, this is the ocd. You know, if you do give in to that compulsion of trying to get reassurance and you're bringing up the situation.

Yeah.

Or you end up making your partner feel insecure because you're bringing up things that.

You know, might cause an insecurity or may not even be an issue. But, yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah. So there's not 100% certainty. That's. That's, again, the other thing that we have to get to that point of accepting. So hopefully that answered your question, Jess.

All right. Soul Mass says, do we need to treat the core fear or root of the rocd, or just treat it as a symptom of whatever the root cause is and use the tools on it? I love this question. There are people out there that talk about the core fear and that you have to identify this core fear in order to get better? And there is some truth to that. And also not some truth.

Does anybody else, before I kind of speak on this, have an opinion about it?

I do actually go for it.

So I feel like in the Beginning when you're trying to treat the rocd, it's, this is my experience. Of course it looks different for everyone, but in the beginning for me, what worked was just doing erp, learning the techniques that you knew work to kind of like settle the rocd. But I think moving along in my recovery journey, it was important for me to look at other aspects of it, like past traumas or you know, obviously thoughts, but you know, certain conditionings from our parents kind of getting more so to the root, kind of having that understanding. But in the beginning for me, I couldn't dive that deep. I had to kind of just stick to the techniques that were gonna kind of tame the ocd and I was going to learn how to treat it as it came in.

Yeah, I like that. I like that. Because you're just dealing with survival in the day.

Any other thoughts?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think at the very beginning. No, I, I think is for, at, at the beginning, maybe treat this symptoms could be better. I think it's just my opinion, but I think maybe the core fear, it's, it's at the beginning. No.

Yeah, yeah.

So maybe one day. I would say maybe one day.

Yeah. I used to think my, the root of my ROCD was my first serious relationship in high school and I, it was a four year relationship and he cheated on me and it ended.

With.

Him hanging up on me and us never talking again after a four year relationship. And so I used to think that was what caused all this because it, that's when it started to get worse more and more over time. So I used to think that that was the traumatic relationship that caused me to get relationship oc.

And now I realize it was there all along. It was there ever since I was a kid. I had social anxiety, relationship anxiety ever since I was very little. And it bled into a lot of my relationship decisions that then just morphed over time and got worse and worse over time until I understood it and I, I had coping tools, so that wasn't the route. The root of ocd, we don't know scientifically. They say that they don't exactly know where OCD comes from, but they think it's a combination of genetics and learned behavior. Meaning most of us, if not all, had a parent with either anxiety or OCD or fear based tendencies. And so they don't know whether that just happens genetically or because we're born into.

You know, one or both parents having some sort of anxiety and not knowing how to cope with their anxiety. We don't learn health in A healthy way, how to cope with our anxiety. Right. So that is the root. Now, as life develops, there are things that happen to us that could be labeled as traumatic. Right. I can remember. I have a really strong memory of my mom leaving me at swim lessons and just panicking. Right. So there all are things that happen that can feel traumatic, that can play a part in our anxiety and beliefs, but it's usually not the root cause. It was kind of there all along. Now, there are some people who talk about you have to identify your core fears to really overcome ocd.

But I don't really do that in my programs because they're going to come up. Right. So when we're all talking to our specialist or our coach or our therapist about our intrusive thoughts, our core fears are coming up all the time in those thoughts. Right. What if I make the wrong decision? What if I marry this person and I'm unhappy in. In 30 years? What if I lose this person? Ultimately, the core issue with OCD is we don't know how to handle our uncomfortable feelings and the uncertainty. And so we're afraid of anything that might trigger that.

Okay, so. But your core fears are naturally going to come out as you're doing the recovery work, because they're coming.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So hopefully that answers that question. I feel really passionate about that one because some people will say, yeah, you have to identify this main core fear. It comes out in all the more. We understand our intrusive thoughts and what's popping up in our head that's naturally going to come up. So hopefully that's helpful and a little bit reassuring. Reassurance isn't always bad guys. It's okay to feel reassured sometimes.

Alex said I meant the bad guy, as some say OCD is a possession or spiritual attack. That's interesting. I don't believe that at all because.

And that's probably, again, a religious or spiritual thing that somebody will tell you. And I guess I'll just say I. I disagree with that because I overcame OCD by changing my own behavior. Nothing spiritual, religious, you know, exorcism, you know, nothing like that. No, no, no, no, no. But there are those beliefs out there, and I. I respect everybody who has those beliefs. I just don't necessarily agree.

Yeah.

And I can see why that would trigger your ocd, too, for sure. Another cool thing I see people do to create distance between themselves and their OCD and dismiss it is to name it. Oh, that's just.

Yeah, I've heard about it. Yeah. I think it's Funny.

Yeah. Humor can be a great tool. I didn't use it as much, but a lot of people do, and it could be a really great tool because what it's doing is. It's helping you. It's helping you just accept the thought and the feeling, but choosing not to give it so much meaning that you might do. Did anyone. Any of you guys use in your recovery process?

Yes.

Time. For me, that's probably one of the biggest things that helped me was, like, it's because OCD just feels so dark sometimes. It just feels like a dark hole if you're stuck in it. And I just. I can't always be serious. So I have tried to use humor myself, and it really works. It really is a good trick to use.

So, yeah, I love that.

Allison, let's touch base on that later, because I have an idea. So, yeah, it's. It's a great thing. It's just. Yeah. It's giving you distance and helping you just see the thoughts is just thoughts, because that's exactly what they are. Absolutely.

All right. Jess says, I so resonate with that. Erica. My boyfriend responds in the same way.

Yeah.

Yeah. Everybody's going to respond different. Some people get. Some people start to take all those intrusive thoughts and things personally. Other people get annoyed.

Other people, you know, do different things. It depends on how we're responding. But, yeah, because, you know, in my.

In my experience, depending on what we're bringing up all the time, the person really does start to see it as, you know, they can see the reality that sometimes it's not a big deal or it's normal, but then sometimes they can take it really personally. And I know that it can really cause a lot of havoc in a relationship. It has for me before in the past, for sure.

Danielle, I think you're. So. When I started your program, you had.

Some videos for your partner to watch. I think I got that free when I started your program. I don't know if you're gonna offer something like that, but that helped my husband a lot, have an understanding so that he's not reassuring me and understands when these repetitive.

Questioning comes in, you know, he knows, like, okay, this is just the ocd. So he's gotten very good at being like, all right, this is the ocd. And kind of just dismissing it and not taking it very personally. So that's very helpful as well, to have a better understanding.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

That is actually. I'm glad you bring that up. That is going to be a part of the new The Path to love for relationship ocd. It's called support your loved one with ocd.

It's a.

It's a mini course. It's an hour and a half. It's not meant to be overwhelming or anything, but that course is available, comes with the program so that your friends and family members can be a part of the recovery journey. Because, yeah, if. If they're reassuring you, if they're participating in your compulsions, they are unknowingly feeding the OCD cycle with you. So helping them to understand.

Is super important. And helping them be a part of that recovery journey with you, it's only going to help. So I'm going to post a link to the wait list for the path to love when it comes out next week. And that wake list, there's no obligation. It's just. You'll get the information about it, but it is included in that program. And then once that program launches, the path for all other OCD subsets.

Will.

Kind of be revamped. And that's going to take me a minute to just kind of get together, but it will also include that course eventually, very soon. So, yeah, I'm glad it was helpful.

Let's see. Jess says a heavy one this weekend. After 10 months together, I found out that my boyfriend watches porn. He says he does it out of boredom, habit, and for the dopamine hit. This makes me feel so insecure. I don't see this as a deal breaker, but it's causing me a lot of discomfort and questioning my trust and what ifs. I can't stop thinking about it. How do I overcome this? This is a common one and a big one, and everybody's going to have a little bit different opinion about porn and relationships.

Who wants to start?

Or I can.

All right, so I'll just try. And if anybody wants to chime in, you can.

I get. I get the insecurities. I've had a little bit of that myself with my husband watching it, because he does from time to time, and I don't think it's that bad of a thing. I mean, I'll be completely honest. I've watched it myself, and I'm not watching it and thinking anything about.

Men.

And it's not making me love my husband any less. But as women, we do, we can feel insecure and think that. Oh, you know, because they're usually, you know, unrealistic and, you know, a lot of times they have perfect bodies and all. All the stuff. Right. So what I tell people. And again, your opinion, everybody's going to have a different opinion on porn. I don't tell my husband not to watch it because I know that the discomfort around it is coming from my own insecurities. Right? So it's kind of my stuff. And if my intimate relationship with my husband were being affected by it, that would be a totally different story. I wouldn't be okay with that. But it isn't. You know, we have had our, you know, we have had our ups and downs and differences in our sex life, but we work on it.

And.

And I've had times where I've avoided sex because for certain reasons, and I've been working on that. So for me, it was important to understand that my discomfort with it means nothing about, you know, his intentions. So for me, as long as my sex life with my husband is good, I'm not going to worry about him Sometimes watching porn because we've talked about it and. And we've had discussions about it and come to an understanding and, you know, we've been. Even added it together is something that, you know, that we use from time to time together just to keep. Just to spice things up. Right. And so for someone who. For someone who doesn't believe that it's okay in a relationship, that's okay too. But again, we have to differentiate a belief from ocd. And so if you're doing obsessions and compulsions, again, you have to take care of that first. And then when it comes to relationships, and I think I talk about this in my new course called the Connected Couple that comes with the path to love.

When you're in a relationship, you have your deal breakers and you have everything else. And if this was a deal breaker coming in, then maybe it's a deal breaker for you. And you said it wasn't just great, but a lot of times, again, OCD will latch on to imperfections. And so if you're, you know, obsessing about it and doing compulsions, you have to treat this as ocd, and you have to work on acceptance and allowing imperfection. Because in relationships, you've got two people with different opinions, feelings, beliefs coming together to create a relationship. And so once. Once it's not an OCD obsession anymore, if you can get it to that point, then you have a conversation and you say, okay, I can accept this, even though it makes me feel insecure or uncomfortable, as long, as, let's say, our. Our sex life is good or that you're honest with me about it or that you're not watching or whatever that. Whatever that.

That compromise is that you have together.

Any other thoughts on the topic?

I think communication is the key always in the couple, but we need to pay attention to avoid. To stay there with an obsession and talking about over and over, over and over again. So. But I think communication is the key. And when there's a deal breaker we need to talk about and verify makes everything OK in. In the couple without obsessions and compulsions, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, everybody's different. I mean, some people, it may not be something you want in your relationship, and that's perfectly fine too.

But you mentioned a lot of OCD red flags. Right? A lot of discomfort, questioning my trust, what ifs. I can't stop thinking about it. Um, so the recovery tools of ERP and the real method and acceptance are crucial here. And the great news about that is you can get to the point where this doesn't bother you as much, but what I would want you to do is look at your beliefs outside of ocd, outside of fear, outside of insecurity, and before you were in a relationship, and then, you know, and those beliefs can morph, of course. They can ebb and flow and change, too.

That's a tough one. There's a lot of different. There's a lot of different beliefs about that. Beliefs are valid.

When we go into relationships, we just kind of have to do our best to determine what's a deal breaker, what isn't, and if it's not, how do we compromise and work through our own insecurities with that. And that self talk is key. So what I tell myself, you know, when. When I start to feel like, what if my husband's enjoying this person more than me? Or what if he wants to watch porn more than he wants to be with me? I have to kind of coach myself and say, you know what? You know, we've had conversations about it. He doesn't watch it very often.

For him, it's something that's normal and. And he prefers to be, you know, just looking at the facts. Even though we can't ever know. Right. What's happening when they're watching it.

And if it's a deal breaker, then you just set that boundary with your partner, which. Jess, I know you said it wasn't, but if it is for somebody, you set that boundary with yourself and your partner, and it is what it is, and that's okay. You can have needs and boundaries and still have ocd.

Hopefully that's helpful.

All right. As we wrap up a couple more questions, I'm struggling to understand how me Telling myself, maybe I love my partner, maybe not, can help.

Allison, you want to tackle this one?

Yeah. So I think that your biggest fear, you say in the next comment, is that you don't love him. That's your biggest fear. So when that is our biggest fear, and we keep thinking about that fear, we're teaching our brain that this is not okay.

Right.

This is a. This is a big issue.

So the key with ERP is we're going to teach ourselves. We're going to bring up that anxiety on purpose, and we're going to teach ourselves that we can handle it. So when you say, I don't know if I love my husband or not, and you keep doing that, and you say it to yourself over and over again, you're just bringing up the anxiety on purpose with ERP to train your brain and yourself that, I can handle this uncertainty. I don't need to know right now. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I'm gonna teach myself over time that.

You know, maybe it could be I'll. Maybe I'll never know if I'll love him or not. But you're just teaching yourself, your brain, especially, like, I can handle this. I can handle this uncertainty. But this is all kind of stemming from that core fear of like, what if I don't love him? That's the biggest thing with. Or, what if I don't love them? That's the biggest fear with rocd.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the biggest. When we teach your. The amygdala, the fear center of the brain, to accept that uncertainty, which is what you're doing there, then it stops needing certainty, and it all quiets down. And then there's space.

For the comfort of not feeling in love in the moment, if that's the case, or there's space for love and joy to show up. Because there's no space for joy when you're anxious.

Right? When we're anxious, there's no room for anything else. How could we feel in love when we're constantly engaging with doubts and negative beliefs about our relationship?

Right.

Yeah.

That.

That fear center of the brain is going to turn off attraction. It's going to increase anxiety. So you're just going to naturally feel more annoyed with your partner. And so when you feel those things, of course you feel like, oh, I don't love them.

So, yeah, when we do ERP and we teach ourselves, we can handle the discomfort, that anxiety increases, and some of your normal feelings for them are going to return.

But we have to give it space to first.

Absolutely. Very well said.

I was going to say, too, it's a distorted way of thinking to think that you're always going to feel in love with your partner and those feelings be there. It's very.

Right.

I think it muted, but I said it's very black and white, so.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not black and white at all.

And what do we see in society? We see movies, we see music of what love is supposed to look like. Right. That's what.

All the time.

All the time. Feel in love and all these things.

And it's a lie.

Sometimes you don't like that person. And.

Yeah.

No one today after you love him or her.

Yeah. So it's like balancing. Like what's. What's a real relationship look like long term? You know, we only do the fantasy. We don't always see the. The negative side that can come up in relationships sometimes.

Yeah. And the versions of what a relationship looks like are endless. Right. All. All four of us. All four of our relationships look very different, and that means nothing about all of our relationships. And we're all. We all probably want different things and different levels of different things. So. Yeah. Really, really good stuff. Awesome. Well, thank you guys all for showing up, for being vulnerable.

You know, it's. It's really nice to hear everybody's stories and just being open enough to asking your questions and sharing your stories, because we've all been there and. And OCD is hard, but I want to bring you all a lot of hope that recovery is possible. It. It doesn't just go away, but it doesn't also have to be something that negatively affects your life. It does take time and practice and tools. So thank you all for being here.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jess. All right, y' all have a good day.