Danielle Jhiani, an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, explains that compulsions are choices to avoid discomfort, not responses to thoughts. Recovery means tolerating that discomfort, refusing compulsions one at a time, staying present, and using exposure to weaken urges over time.
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Welcome back. My name is Danielle Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, helping people reach the lifetime recovery stage for anxiety and ocd, just like I have, so that you can have a happy, healthy life and amazing relationships. Today we're going to talk about how you say no to compulsions. When I'm talking to a new client, I often hear over and over again that compulsions are automatic. I can't control them. And I know exactly what you're saying. I've been there. This urge to do whatever that compulsion is that's going to alleviate your discomfort, your brain is convincing you that it needs to be done. It's telling you that if you don't do this compulsion to alleviate your discomfort, that something bad is going to happen. It. In reality, you're just trying to avoid discomfort, and that's why they feel so strong. The more you do the compulsion, the stronger that they're going to get. The reality is, compulsions are a choice. You need to have the awareness that you're doing them and make them conscious. You need to identify what your compulsions are. I kept relapsing because I was doing compulsions that I didn't realize were actually there. They are a choice. We don't like that uncomfortable feeling that comes when we don't do the compulsions. You see the reason why you're struggling with anxiety and OCD in the first place is because you don't know how to cope or deal with discomfort. Maybe that's uncomfortable thoughts, maybe that's uncomfortable feelings. Maybe it's imperfection or life not looking the way that you want it to be. But it's a problem in dealing with discomfort. It's not about the thoughts. It's not even about the feelings. And it's really not about the life circumstances that you are attaching to. It's all about your response. And the great news about that is once you change your response, you'll stop obsessing, you stop compulsions, and then you no longer struggle with symptoms of ocd. So stopping compulsions is crucial to getting to the recovery stage, and then keeping them at zero is what keeps you in the recovery stage. And that's what I help people do. Learning how to do it and supporting you to get through it. In recovery from ocd, we're learning to tolerate discomfort. I know it's hard. I know it's scary. I've been there. We've been running away from discomfort for so long, but you can learn to tolerate it. It can't hurt. You, I know it feels uncomfortable, but the really good news is the more you allow it to be there, the more it's going to fade. Your body's going to process through that discomfort, you're going to get distracted, you're going to get busy with something, and all of a sudden you're going to notice, wait a second, it's gone. I didn't really need to do that compulsion, and I actually feel a lot better. As you know, when you do compulsions, it just sends you right into that OCD cycle and you loop and loop and loop, looking for certainty, looking for perfection, looking, looking to alleviate your discomfort. And it actually gets worse. Stopping the compulsions is what makes OCD better. You might get relief in the short term, but in the long term, I promise you, the discomfort is going to be a lot worse. You're going to allow yourself to be imperfect here. You're not going to go from doing a ton of compulsions to not doing any. That's not the way that recovery works. You're going to slowly reduce compulsions over time, and most people need help and support to do this, and that's okay. We. I would not have been able to reach the recovery stage without the help of someone to guide me there. Both educating me on what to do and just emotional support through the process. Remember, your goal isn't to get rid of the discomfort. The goal in recovery is to learn to tolerate it. And the more you allow discomfort, you learn to tolerate it and you learn not to focus on it so much. You're actually going to get less of. Sounds very counterintuitive, but I promise it works every single time. So make your goal to move towards discomfort and you are going to see your life completely change as you recover from ocd. People who go through my programs experience life changing relief and, and skills that helps them with all kinds of uncertainties and imperfections in life. Yes, we're talking about ocd, but we also don't deal very well with life's uncertainties and discomforts. And my programs will teach you how to do that. So here's a recap. How do you stop compulsions? You choose not to do it. And when the urge comes five minutes later, you choose not to do that. One pick. And what do you do with the discomfort? You allow it to be there. And then what do you do in this uncomfortable moment? You choose to tell yourself this discomfort can be here. I'm going to go focus on something else and I want you to go do something. Take action. Go do anything. Other than something that has to do with your OCD subset. Bring yourself into the present moment, get out of your head, get out of the past, get out of the future and and be in the present. Exposure is also a wonderful tool to help stop the compulsion. I want you to watch this next video that I have that's going to teach you why exposure is so helpful for not only recovery but to help you stop doing the compulsions. Please comment like subscribe. Let me know what you think of this video. Let me know what topics that you want to hear about. Click the link below in the description to explore my recovery programs. You're going to learn how to recover from OCD so that you no longer have to experience symptoms of obsessions and compulsions and everything that comes with it. And I'm going to teach you how to do this for life so you don't end up on the roller coaster of ocd. We'll talk to you soon.
