Should I force myself to be in the present when I catch myself ruminating, or should I just let myself be present naturally? I find that even when I’m not ruminating, I end up having other thoughts for example about things that happened in my day which have nothing got to do with OCD
I think you should stay present to focus on reducing your underlying anxiety and stress you have. Our obsessive thoughts mainly come from one or two sources of big things in our lives, thats whats making our brain overthinking and then we latch onto a thought, emotions or sensation.
I would say do not force yourself to block the thoughts out but try to do little things that bring you to the present. For example, I identify five sounds I can hear around me e.g. the traffic outside, someone moving around in the house, the television, and it really centres me.
See it like this. If your anxiety increases = thoughts increase. Remember on a very calm day, was you overthinking much?
This might sound weird, but I am of the opinion that you are never really not present in a moment, your mind is only telling you you aren’t. A simple exercise that might help is to write down all of the basic things you did in a day. - brush your teeth, drive to work, eat lunch, etc. Then write down everything your HEAD is telling you is happening during those same situations and just compare them. I think just the awareness you have right now of what’s going on in you is the first step to change. Possibly check on some non-duality stuff on YouTube, some of the info has helped me. Unrelated answer to OCD though
