Sitting w/ uncertainty and your thoughts..then ?

Hi! Ugh, this feels never-ending. Something that has worked for me recently is to out my hand on my chest and tell myself “I am safe.” And then take a deep breath and: yoga, garden, write, dance, chores….

Hiiii! Firstly I am so proud that you have been utilizing your tracking skills and that you’ve grown in your erp confidence. I have the same issue from time to time still but after I have recognized I’ve become trigger I try to practice externalization and mindfulness. After that you start looking at all the different possibilities of things you can choose to go do. Whether that’s going drinking water or eatting a small snack to keep your body fueled up. The beautiful thing about erp is that once you build awareness you can start to choose what you want to go do. On days where I’m just struggling with being sticky or having a consistent hum of anxiety I chose to become aware of my body language and I throw my shoulders back and do the opposite of what ocd wants me to do.

Allow yourself to feel it. Don’t try to force it away, accept and allow the feeling to be there without putting meaning or a label on it. Feel where it’s at in your body and focus on that area. Let it flow and let it through instead of resisting. Example, I feel anxiety in my chest usually. So I just sit with myself and feel the tightness on my chest and focus on it, what does it feel like? Where does it want to go? I usually have some sort of release when this happens, sometimes by a cry or sobbing. I always feel better allowing the feeling to be there and accepting it rather than ignoring it, because then it’ll be there all day. The key: don’t try to pull yourself back to reality, let the feelings be there even if they are uncomfortable and see if your body needs something from you. I often try to do what you’re saying like find a hobby or a distraction, but it’s only me running from the feeling. The only way to free yourself is to accept and feel it.

Yes those feelings can be awful. The whole thing is to tolerate the feeling . You know how to recognize the thought . If you want you can respond with an uncertain response .After that just listen to thoughts and feel the feelings. You don’t have to distract yourself . Whatever you were doing, keep doing that . If you were running keep running, if you were talking keep talking, if you every laying down with the tv off keep doing that . I think of ocd as the person who comes uninvited to my house . I keep doing whatever I was doing , no special treatment for Ocd. OCD Better just follow along and whatever I was doing or ocd can leave

Totally know what you’re talking about. Honestly I view the thought of “oh I’m anxious wtf” as another intrusive thought. Like hey you may be anxious like this and will it ever end? My response is: “yes I’m anxious and will this last forever? Hmm I don’t need to know that right now”. It sucks because when you feel like you overcame a hurdle, there’s still this anxiety. I just notice the feeling and name it and also look at what is actually *real* to me in the moment. Am I anxious because of bills, school work, relationships? Maybe. But I’ll take this stuff on as it comes. Hope this helps.