​Do you own your thoughts, or do your thoughts own you?  Every thought you have has validity of who you are and what you wanted to think of...right?

Errrrr Wrong!

There is a point where you have to look at the behaviors you're doing because of the thoughts and see who has ownership. Here is what I mean! The thoughts that cross you remind predict your actions. We either are going to push a thought away or do an action or a behavior because of the thought. 

Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that we don't really want but we have them anyway. They come and go as they please. The thoughts we give attention to are the ones that want to stick around. 

But we don't always react to our thoughts. If we did, wouldn't we really be our thoughts? For example...I'm sitting at a restaurant and am looking at someone's food. I'm hungry, my food hasn't gotten here yet. I have the thought, I should go over there and take a piece of bacon. I wonder what would happen. I have feelings, I have thoughts....you know what I don't have....the action. 

This tells us that we ACTUALLY have a choice. I can see that thought as random noise. meaningless. Because a thought is a thought. 

Here is a literal definition of a thought. It is merely an idea or opinion created by your mind. It is sudden and spontaneous and has no particular origin. Wow. think of that. This thought has no home. It's a random collection of thoughts that can cause real emotions which make us doubt and question something. 

So who is owning your thoughts? Well in one way, you do. In another way. No-one does. It has no where to go until we do an action to put it in it's place or just let it fly on by. When it comes to these intrusive thoughts, they can be about anything and cause extreme doubt, which make you believe they are valid. These random thoughts can be toward relationships, getting sick, possible harm, memories, and even responsibilities. 

When these thoughts don't match your value system we need to treat them as fluff. Nothing. Garbage. A random signal. Meaningless. Once we attach to it and attempt to figure it out, it's going to happen more and more and more. That is when these thoughts own you. You're doing behaviors to remove the thought or perceived threat. 

Let me tell you why it's important to recognize that you aren't your thoughts. If I take every random thought and run with it. I'm going to be convincing myself that I'm a monster pretty darn quick. If I pass by a girl and my brain says, "wow, she's cute" my brain tries to make sense of this. It's going to say, "well, you must not love your spouse" or you "just cheated" OR I could say, "hey, thanks for the thought today brain." 

Ultimately, we need to stop taking our brain so seriously. It's screaming out thoughts just to get your attention and says they all mean something, but you're not going to fall for it anymore. 

Let's actually own these thoughts by giving these types of responses:
"sup thought" "coolio, thanks for that." "yep, I guess that could happen" "maybe, maybe not." "you're welcome to stay thought" You're also practicing now pushing them away or making since of them.

You're not giving them a good home to burrow into. Once you say, this thought has meaning. It just snuggles right into bed with you. Taking the opposite and not giving it a great answer and just letting it pass on by...it moves over to the neighbors.....no neighbor. It may stick it's head over the fence to try a few more times. But that response of "I do not care" is important so it knows, "man, you can keep trying, and I'm willing to listen to you, but I'm giving you nothing."

But Nate! How will I know when it's a thought I actually need to pay attention to? Well, here's my indication. Anxiety mixed with an urge to know. It's a trap! Anxiety always tell the brain the thought is dangerous, BUT here's the kicker. If you don't actually see the danger right in front of you, and I mean it. RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. It's not super obvious. Then, we're treating a thought as a thought and allowing it to pass. 

If you treat a thought as a thought, but try to push it away, you're saying it has value. We don't want to do this. Give yourself more grace for having a thought. No really. Enjoy your life. Enjoy your brain and all the processes it does. the positive thoughts and even the negative ones.

Our brain isn't trying to hurt us. Instead, it's actually attempting to help. It's just not doing a great job at it at times. Our job is to retrain it by the responses we give. That response is the most important thing in all of this. Think about this with the next thought you have that causes some distress. My action right now is going to determine if this is important or not. Choose wisely. 

The next time you have intense intrusive thoughts and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do with them....remember that you don't have to do anything. You have a choice if your thoughts are going to own you or if you're going to own your thoughts. 

Did you know there are at least 3 types of intrusive thoughts? I made a video about these and how to actually get them to slow down. You're going to need to enhance these skills so you can become even more of a boss! 

I talk about exposure and response prevention quite often as the best, in my opinion, treatment for OCD and anxiety. I mean you are actually facing your fears. Retraining your brain. You are essentially becoming a researcher. You are doing experiments. You are testing theories. 

You are willing to take the risk that the fear that you currently have may be a false signal.
 I’m going to go through how you can do these experiments better when it comes to your treatment.

So how to do better exposures for experiments. One of the first things  is to be aware of what the perceived threats are the come to your mind. Something like, if I don’t check the door one more time someone can break in.  If I don’t pray, God will smite me. If I don’t put those knifes away I might react and do something. If I get close to that person, what if I like it or them.  If I look at somebody else, maybe I don’t really love my partner. If I touch this item, I will get sick.

 This is how you are keeping track of your fears. What does it mean if you don’t follow through with your compulsion?  What does it mean because you have a certain intrusive thought? 

 This shows exactly how we can do experiments. Your brain already came up with the threat if you don’t follow through with the compulsion.  Now it’s your time to test the theory out. Each one is going to feel very real. It’s going to feel very important. It’s even going to feel risky.

 But just like any experiment, we do not know the outcome until we tested. So what I would do is take one of my fears, and I would test the theory out. My brain says if I don’t check the stove, I will start my house on fire. So guess what I’m going to do, not check the stove. I’m also going to pay attention to all the compulsions that my body wants to do. Maybe it wants to listen for a fire, maybe in researching online the chances of the fire happening.

 I cannot do an experiment, and then mess with the data in between. Instead I’m practicing staying uncertain. Choosing to  see what the outcome is going to be. I’m living my life, if there is a problem I will solve it. If there’s not there’s nothing to solve.

  While I am sitting with this uncertainty, I might be practicing statements tell me through. The house may or may not set on fire. Yep, might be my fault.

 Here’s the cool part, after a few hours, maybe the next day. Your brain looks that moment and says,  hey, I told you that you were in danger. The house is supposed be on fire, it’s not, maybe throughout all false signal your way.

 You did this experiment to see what was going to happen. You tested the theory out. Your brain needs to know that you are testing these fears out, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It will finally get it.

 The thing is though, we can never be hundred percent certain that our fear won’t come true. But we are willing to take that risk,  it might be the only way to retrain the brain and for you to enjoy life more freely. 

 I know what you might be thinking, yeah I can test the theory out for something like your example. But mine is different. Mine is more dangerous. Might involves my child, mine involves my salvation, mine involves death.  That’s one of the biggest pieces to get past, you are not special in that your OCD or anxiety is different. It’s all false signals. The only way for you to retrain the brain is to do these experiments.  Do these experiments with meaning. It’s not,  I’m going to avoid checking,  and that I’m going to rock back and forth staring at a wall for the next five hours.  It’s continuing to live life despite of this uncertainty that you’re living in. And anytime a threat comes up,  but is a house going to start on fire?  Your answer is,  yeah man,  maybe maybe not.  I guess we’ll see after the experiment.

My question to you is this….Has your fear EVER come true? Really think about it, the thing your brain threatens to you day after day. 

Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time. ​

You are not special!  WAIT! Don’t don’t run away!  I needed to get your attention for a moment. If you leave now you think I’m just a big jerk.  Here’s what I mean by this! 

So here is what I mean by you not been special. First of all your special.  You matter in your feelings matter. Because you’re even watching this video right now it shows a lot of strength. 
 So what I’m really meaning is that the OCD that you are experiencing is not different.  Individuals can often think that the topic or theme that they are going through this special, it’s different,  no one understands exactly what they are going through,  its untreatable,  I hear all these videos online I see all this advice but it doesn’t apply to my theme. 

Errrrrr!  Nope!  Your OCD is not special or different.  This to me is one of OCD’s biggest lies.  If it can make you believe that you are untreatable and that you are different from what you are experiencing then it’s got you.  Individuals will often tell me that exposures they hear the specific theme just don’t apply to them.  That if people really knew all the details of everything there experiencing they would change the treatment. 

  So this is something that is important to note,  something to tell your OCD even if you think it is different than everyone else’s to remind yourself that OCD is OCD.  That follows the same route as everybody else. It’s making you doubt in question yourself and who you are as a person. It’s making you question the threats in the future and if they can come true or not.  It’s giving you an intrusive thought putting a lot of meeting on this thought making you feel anxious that’s wanting you to do something to fix it. 

 Simple as that.  When we see OCD simply becomes simple. If you see OCD is complicated,  different,  or special,  than it has the upper hand.  To take control is to see it simply. Do not see yourself as different or special.  Like I said you as a person are unique and special.  Your  OCD does not get to join this party. 

 So as you’re seeing the videos that I have, your hearing advice given,  and you think it doesn’t apply to your theme. Remember that this is a lie.  Give yourself more credit.  You can even remind your OCD that it’s not special when it’s trying to take the light.  Give yourself the opportunity to do treatment.  I know what people say, “but if you only heard what I’m going through you’d be shocked.  You would say that mine is different.”  Don’t even allow your brain to go there. Instead he focus on living life and enjoying. 
 This tactic the OCDs using is no longer going to be something you fall for.  Treatment is available if you’re looking for a specialist. 

​So here’s my question for you,  have you ever felt that your OCD is different than everyone else’s? 

mination is essentially trying to problem solve the perceived threat or fear. It’s not as easy to just say, “stop ruminating”, so here are some tips for you when you feel like you’re stuck in the OCD rumination. ​

​We often talk about what to do when you're having OCD symptoms. But, what does it look AFTER you go through treatment? Do you stop treatment? Are you cured? Let's go through this so you can have a good perspective of what "recovery" looks like.

If you're working through exposure and response prevention; these 25 tips are GOLDEN. Originally presented by Fred Penzel, Ph.D. of Western Suffolk Psychological Services. Dr. Penzel gave me special permission to present his 25 tips to you. ​

🖐🖐Check out my ONLINE self-directed program for OCD🖐🖐
👉👉 https://www.OCDandAnxietyOnline.com 👈👈

OCD is LOUD! It tries to rattle you and the more you "fight" or try to make sense of it the more it becomes louder. Both competing to see who wins or who can be the loudest. Instead of competing what if you tried being quieter?⠀ 

Topics discussed:⠀⠀

• Learn to no compete with OCD⠀
• What to do when your OCD gets LOUD⠀
• How OCD tries to overpower you⠀
• What it looks like to stop competing with your OCD⠀
• Learn your job with OCD⠀
• How to get the voice of OCD to be quieter⠀
• What it looks like to sit through an exposure⠀ ⠀
• What do you do to teach your OCD that you are no longer reacting to it?⠀ ⠀

Remember, when it comes to your OCD; it is your job to "Face The Unknown".⠀ ⠀⠀

DISCLOSURE: Although I am a licensed therapist. This video is not intended to replace medical advice. This is for information purposes only and should not be used to replace the guidance of a local mental health professional.⠀⠀