The One You Feed - Paul Mc Carroll on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

Paul Mc Carroll is an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety specialist, therapist, and mental health trainer from Belfast, Ireland. As someone who once struggled greatly with OCD, Paul’s story is unique: he now works as a mental health trainer in the hospital in which he was once a patient. He uses his story to inspire hope, reaffirm that recovery is possible, and help clients to stop struggling and start living. In this episode, Paul and Eric discuss OCD, including what it is, what it’s like to suffer from it, and various treatment options that exist that can help someone to heal from this disorder.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!Registration for the Spiritual Habits Group Program is open now! Visit spiritualhabits.net to sign up and learn more about how to bring forth real transformation in your life!In This Interview, Paul Mc Carroll and I discuss Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and…Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)His experience suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) beginning in his teenage yearsHis truth and life story of “the wounded becomes the healer”The Japanese proverb, “Fall down 7 times, get up 8” as it relates to recovery being non-linearWhat to do with intrusive thoughts when they show upThe difference between extreme worry and OCDRuminating thoughtsTreatments for OCDHow somatic mindfulness ties into OCDWays to relate differently to our thoughts so that we suffer lessPaul Mc Carroll Links:Paul’s WebsiteTwitterInstagramIf you enjoyed this conversation with Paul Mc Carroll on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, you might also enjoy these other episodes:David K. Reynolds on Constructive LivingAmy CloverSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We know that things like meditation and mindfulness practices are life-changing, but we usually can't stick with them consistently enough to really see their benefits. We read inspirational authors, listen to podcasts like this one, and get fired up to apply what we've learned, and then inevitably we fall back into old patterns. It's so frustrating. When we can stick to our spiritual practices, their benefits are guaranteed to develop over time. But without enough traction, we barely scratch the surface. This is why any spiritual practice needs to become a habit for it to transform our lives. In the Spiritual Habits Group Program, I apply behavioral principles to powerful spiritual wisdom

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which support you all along the way. Go to spiritualhabits.net to learn all about this opportunity for us to connect and dive deeper into how spiritual habits can transform the way you experience your day-to-day life. That's spiritualhabits.net. I hope to meet you in this special program very soon. I'm all for goals. I'm all for setting high targets,

but I think mindfulness and being more present is a central key to wellness as a whole. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.

Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. We'll be right back. and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B, as we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives

dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Paul McCarroll. He's an OCD and anxiety specialist, therapist and coach, and mental health trainer from County Antrim in the north of Ireland. Paul also has a unique backstory where he works as a trainer in the same hospital where he was once an inpatient. He uses this story to

inspire hope, reaffirm that recovery is possible, helping clients to stop struggling and start living. Hi, Paul. Welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here, Eric. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. I'm excited to have you on. You and I have known each other a number of years since very early when I started the show. And you were the person that introduced me to acceptance and commitment therapy, which, you know, as we talked about before the show, I've had a number of the founders on and has been very influential in the way I view the world, or even to say it slightly differently, just aligns with the way I see the world. And I know you're a practitioner of that also. So we're going to get into all that as well as your journey, but we're going to start like we always

do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. So firstly, Eric, I think it's a great parable and I can see why

it's lasted the test of time. I think for all of us, we almost have nearly two wolves or at times the way I look at it is, you know, we have a lot of positive and helpful thoughts. We have a lot of negative thoughts, difficult memories, and sometimes urges show up, which aren't so useful. So for me in my personal life, and in terms of the work I do, how that resonates that it's not so much, you know, trying to eradicate one and sort of, you know, maintain the other. For me, it's about paying attention to something that matters, paying attention to those things which actually mean the most to you. So, you know know we can have these difficult thoughts we can have these difficult feelings but we can learn in a way to almost let them play like a radio in the background

but we learn to pay attention to those things that really matter to us and are we going to have struggles are we going to have times where it feels like the bad wolf has taken charge and taken over absolutely but over the test of time the more we're going to have times where it feels like the bad wolf has taken charge and taken over. Absolutely. But over the test of time, the more we're going to pay attention to that good wolf, those more helpful thoughts and feelings that hopefully we can navigate life and be the offer of the life that we really want to live. Very well said. So you are a mental health practitioner now. You are a coach. You do a lot of work with people around OCD. We're going to spend a fair amount of time talking about that. But you also are a mental health trainer at a hospital that you were a patient at. Absolutely. And by patient, I mean

a mental health patient at that hospital. And so I want to start there because it's a really inspiring journey from, okay, I'm a patient at this hospital to I'm now training the people who are helping at that hospital. That's a long way to go. So tell me a little bit about what life was like in those days. Well, for me, I mean, generally, I was quite fortunate growing up, really caring, loving, supportive family, very working class background. My sort of problems seemed to develop in sort of teenage years where, you know, I went to a very academic school, which was really, really pushing academia. And to be fair, I would have described myself as someone who was sort of reasonably intelligent. But I just thought the rigor and the actual focus exclusively on academia, as opposed to sports and the creative world, which I was very into, very stressful and overwhelming. And I seem to develop, you know, at the time, if you can think about this, Eric, you know, you're talking over 20 years ago where mental health just wasn't talked about.

There was a lot of stigma around it. And to be honest, at 15 15 years of age I didn't really know sort of what was going on so I had to actually leave school at this point and get some homeschooling but just things didn't seem right it in hindsight I had the early symptoms of what we will probably go on to discuss Eric of OCD and it took a while to get a proper diagnosis of that possibly because I was a little aware and afraid of the stigma I just thought that I was going crazy I just thought I had all these thoughts which were just not making sense and it did take if I'm being honest and transparent a hospital admission for me to get the right treatment the right support that I needed to try and get myself on the road to recovery and it's something initially, Eric,

I probably would have refrained from telling people, oh, I was once an inpatient. But ironically, this is something which has been the cornerstone of the work that I do. I've always resonated with the saying that the wounded becomes the healer. And like you said, it has been a real journey since then. But it sort of began in adolescence and really took a hospital admission with the right support to get me on the road to recovery. Yeah, I love that phrase, the wounded becomes the healer. Makes me think when I was in treatment, it was the last time, I can't remember exactly how many there were before that, but the last time I remember there were a couple of professionals there and they were both highly trained, really knew what they were doing. But one

of them was also a recovering addict. And that person to me, just had a level of credibility to me that the other person just didn't have. Now, I shouldn't say not level of credibility, level of relatability, and I felt like they would understand me. And they did. That's not to say that people who don't understand to some degree, but there's that connection. And, you know, I think the most powerful thing AA figured out really early on was how powerful one alcoholic talking to another was. And so I'm happy to see you have turned the corner to embracing here's where I come from, because I think it really lends credence to the work that you do and makes you understandable to the people you work with. Yeah and I think Eric you know looking

back at it I mean I sort of left hospital when I was 17. I'm supposed to just to put that in a bit of context for people I mean I was 17 most people may be beginning to go to university most people have gone through sort of high school and you you know, are at a place where, you know, maybe their whole world is sort of opening up. And to be fair, it was opening up for me, yes, and the fact of that this was not my recovery journey, but I had not won qualifications in my name. It was quite a scary place at the same time. The one thing that I had, which has always always stayed with me is a belief in my own ability to get well and sort of beneath that was a real determination and almost a motivation that when I got well the stuff that I would hopefully learn as I've done my professional work to develop

to use that to support others so maybe people don't have to go through similar stuff that I went through. You see on that journey in the initial stages I would have called myself a bit of a self-help junkie where I found I was always looking for the answer or the magic bullet or the magic wand always looking for a way to eradicate, minimise, diminish my difficult thoughts and feelings and paradoxically, I seem to think I seem to make things worse. You know, I did come across a lot of good materials and some of the stuff which we'll probably get into. But mental health recovery is a journey. I really love the Japanese proverb, fall down seven times, get up eight. You know, because for me,

recovery is an awful lot like that. You know, it's not a linear process where, you know because for me recovery is an awful lot like that you know it's not a linear process where you know everything is just going to be one way one positive trajectory it's about you know sometimes we're going to fall but we can get back up again and every time we get up again it's opportunity to learn what went wrong but i suppose i've just given a bit of context that for me to get where i am it took took time. It's been a process. But I think what I've learned over the years, especially some of the feedback and testimonials I get from clients, is that one of the things they resonate with is my own lived experience and being able to relate to people going through similar issues. Yeah, makes sense. You said a couple of things there that I think are interesting.

One is this idea of sort of being a self-help junkie. If listeners have listened to a whole bunch of this show, they probably fall into that category a little bit, right? And I think it's just the classic double-edged sword, right? I guess the Buddhist phrase of licking honey off a razor comes to mind. Because on one hand, it's that passionate desire to get better and to grow and learn that's so powerful and so useful and is a key element in the process. And there's a certain amount of learning to say, okay, here's where I'm at. Let me be where I'm at without always thinking it needs to be someplace different. I need to think differently thinking it needs to be someplace different.

I need to think differently. I need to feel differently. It's this paradox of doing both those things. Yeah, I want to keep growing. I want to keep learning. I believe I can be better. Life can be better. And I'm okay right here where I sit.

Balancing that paradox has been certainly one of my big challenges. I agree, Eric. And I think especially in today's society where, you know, I'm a big advocate and user of social media, but I also think sometimes it can have its problems where we're sort of always, you know, putting ourselves up against sometimes a unrealistic medium where we're always trying to, you know, reach these at times levels which are nearly unreachable i like a jordan peterson quote which i don't know word for word but it's about you know trying to be a better version of who you were yesterday you know and i think sometimes i mean that's more realistic than trying to sort of set these unrealistic sort of targets which end up it's very difficult to be present because you're always chasing the next thing you know and i think it is about as you said eric you know trying to find that sort

of sense of equilibrium where you can be okay where you are you can try and of course set goals that you want to you know improve and do better in life but at the same time i think you can get on that sort of you know trail where you end up completely missing the moment. And I'd say it nearly seems to be that anything that you do or achieve, you're never really fully present for because you're thinking of the next thing and the next thing. And there's a quote that I really like, shoot for the moon, even if you miss your land among the stars. And what I interpret that to mean, Eric, is that I can aim high, yes. I can try and be my best. But if I don't get to the very top that maybe social media is telling us that we have to go to,

that even if you land them on the start, I'm still landing pretty high. You're still doing well. So I'm all for goals. I'm all for setting high targets. But I think mindfulness and being more present is a central key to wellness as a whole. I agree 100%. I always like to try and reorient, if I can, away from external targets to behavior-based targets. So the joke I've been making lately is that Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama started a podcast, right? And so all of a sudden I'm like, I'm competing with them.

And I'm like, no, I'm not. That's ridiculous. Like, I can't, right? So that's a target that is simply out of range. But I can't control how much we grow, how big we are. What I can do is just continue to put my effort week after week into making the best show I can. And when I reorient that way, I have a place to put that energy, that energy that does seek better, that does want to grow. I have a place to channel it constructively versus having it just always drive me towards these external rewards that my experience is for me when that's where my orientation is. As soon as I hit them, I just redraw the line. You know, if you told me once we'd have half the number of downloads we had, I would say,

I'll take it. I would be happy forever with that number. Of course, I hit that number. I was like, that's nice, but what's next? You know, oh, that's good, but... And so, yeah, I hear you. And so that being present has become something that's, it's a cliche in our days, mindfulness, and yet is so critically important. And I remember when I was first introduced to the idea of mindfulness, in my own head, I was just thinking of Buddhist monks on the top of the Himalayas and chanting and spending all day in silence. And I was like, how could that have any influence, impact or import in my everyday life? I was so wrong in that, Eric, because it's probably been one of the biggest factors in terms of my recovery journey

and actually staying well and a big central component in terms of working with clients. And I think this whole idea of mindfulness, what it helps with me in terms of, you know, with the clients I work with who specifically would struggle with anxiety and ocd and ocd was and that has been uh something i've carried for for the guts of 20 years a hallmark of that is these intrusive which is basically

another word for unwanted thoughts which are showing up which people believe when they're in that sort of fused manner where basically they're just completely blinkered and they believe that those intrusive thoughts that somehow something bad could happen that somehow they could do something which is completely out of character to them or that they have to maybe do something another time to make themselves feel right or feel a certain way but all that is going on at a very internal level. It's all going on in the mind, you know, and it's all projecting to the future. It's catastrophizing and really jumping to all these worst case scenarios. You're going along the worst case

scenario train. And I think what mindfulness helps us to do is to try and be more present, help us to acknowledge that, yes, we have this brain. You know, I know that Stephen Hayes, the co-founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy brain you know I know that Stephen Hayes the co-founder of acceptance and commitment therapy you know would use this idea that it's like we have this sports car between our ears but no one ever gave us a manual of how to use it you know and I think that that's true that I mean I don't see our mind as you said it's almost like a double edged sword it's not our friend but it's not our enemy either. It's about learning how to handle that. And I think mindfulness is a skill that we can use to sort of handle and begin to regulate some of these difficult thoughts and experiences that can show up for us all.

So let's talk a little bit about OCD. I'm assuming that's the diagnosis you were given when you were in the hospital and you have gone on to deal with that and now you help people with that. And I want to get into how we diagnose OCD in a minute, but I want to start with how do you talk about OCD as far as do you consider that you still have OCD? You just are treating it pretty well. Do you feel like it's something that you had and you don't have anymore? I think there's people in recovery. This is an interesting question. Am I an alcoholic or am I an ex-alcoholic? And some of it's semantic, but some of it's not. And so I'm kind of curious about that. And also,

what things do you do in your life now that keep you healthy? That's a very good question, Eric. I suppose for those listeners who maybe aren't particularly familiar with OCD, I'll maybe give a brief synopsis of what it sort of involves. So as what I touched on there, you know, it's primarily people will get some difficult thoughts, difficult feelings, difficult urges that will show up. And I use that word intrusive and it basically means unwanted. So an example I use to try and explain this to someone who would sort of have more obsessive type tendencies versus someone who doesn't say you and a friend decided to go up a

hike up your local mountain and you get to the top believe it or not it's not uncommon to have the thought would i be able to jump one person may be able to say to people that's a bit of a weird and random thought but i need to focus on getting down this mountain before it's dark. So they've noticed the thought. They've noticed it's a little bit strange and weird and uncomfortable, but they realize that almost it's just a thought, and let's get on with what we need to do, which is get down the mountain. The other person can have that same thought,

but it's almost like a constellation of other thoughts come around it, like, oh, what does this mean about me? Why am I having this thought? Am I weird? What's wrong with me? Am I suicidal? There's no way my friend could be having the same thought. So almost the distinction I sort of see there is in the first instance, that person, knowingly or not, is able to sort of have that thought, acknowledge that it's there, but recognize it's not worthy of their attention the other person

has had that thought and almost by paying attention to it and almost being afraid by it it's created more thoughts and become more entangled more ensnared so over time that can build up into you know maybe someone washes their hands it's quite a generic example and they'll have the thought that even though they've seen that their hands are washed that their hands are clean they may still have the thought that they don't feel clean so i need to wash again and that can lead into a cycle where people can be at a sink for a long period of time and maybe develop things like red hands and things can can turn very uncomfortable so really what people do in terms of these intrusive thoughts is what's called compulsions they'll do some sort of behaviors to try and alleviate the anxiety, like in that example,

wash their hands again. So really, the work that I do and in terms of how I have managed to actually stay well myself, Eric, to sort of come around to answering your question is, I don't see OCD in terms of cure. I see managing OCD in terms of that we break the cycle. And the reason why I use that example about two people going down the mountain or going up the mountain and then coming down is that's a very good way I see recovery in the fact of that sometimes I still get difficult thoughts. Sometimes I still get urges to do things that I would rather not do, but I don't do those

things that I'm being urged to do anymore and I think that you can nearly then take almost whether you are dealing with OCD or dealing with depression or addiction you know when you can learn to parcel it in that way that you can have the thought you can have the urge you can have the difficult experience and you have the choice in terms of how you respond I think that opens up a whole different ballgame. And for me, that's about, it's a lot more liberating than you have a thought, you have a feeling, you have to act on it. Versus we have this thought, but we have a choice of what we do with it.

Yeah, that's sort of the fundamental starting point for so much of making life better in countless ways, is that basic understanding like, well, I think it, I feel it. A, that doesn't make it true. And B, I don't need to do it. I can exist. These thoughts and feelings can do that and that separation. So a question that often I have when you think about OCD, and I'm always a little wary of diagnosis in general, but I'm also particularly leery of it on, you know, asking you to sort of make a diagnosis. I don't know, that's not what I'm doing. Like take somebody who's a real extreme worrier. They're just always worrying. does it cross the line from I'm just a real worrier to I have obsessive compulsive thoughts? And maybe to say cross the line is the wrong way to say it because all this stuff is on a gradation. So maybe there's not an exact line, but how would someone sort of go, well, okay, I do have a lot of thoughts that are difficult and unpleasant and negative versus maybe I need to seek help for OCD?

That's a very good question, Eric. And I think it's something which, I mean, in the work that I do, that I would get asked also by people who maybe are showing, you know, maybe sort of more minor symptoms versus those who it's majorly affecting them. And really what it comes down to, Eric, is in terms of in what way is it affecting your life? You know, I think all of us as human beings it's part of the human condition sometimes that we worry that we have challenges

and we have difficult thought processes which show up for us but sometimes we as human beings are generally able to sort of manage that and regulate that in some sort of capacity where OCD is involved you know it can become so debilitating that it actually becomes a cornerstone of people's lives you know some clients I work with maybe in the initial stages most people when they go and take a shower or they have a wash or they have a bath it's not an issue for them you know I have worked with clients who maybe you know are spending two or three hours in the shower because of the rituals that they have to do there's other clients who will develop issues for a lot of listeners who may be thinking oh he's just

talking about the stereotypical OCD stuff but for a lot of people it can be literally just in the realm of there's a theme within OCD called pure O where it just consists of obsessive thoughts where someone is like continually thinking you know I like the idea of rumination or if you think about the cow chewing on the cud chewing something over and over and over again where it's completely taking them away for their quality of life that they can't be present that they are maybe going to work but they're completely not present because they're so consumed with this stuff that's going on within their mind so generally clients will come to see me eric when it's getting to the place of where it's affecting things like their work their family life their hobbies their quality of life to the point where they're finding that unmanageable and i think that for most people

whether it's me or another professional they get a bit of relief when they start to realize that this is a problem which i can get help and support with because i know that as I mentioned at the beginning I mean the thoughts I was having and I said I thought what's wrong with me like it's just you sort of get into this whole look you're just uh almost a maniac or you're going insane when actually you have a real diagnosical problem and with the right support right help that you can actually get the place of where you can live a life of meaning and purpose. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about some of the treatments for OCD, because one of the most common ones is exposure and response, often referred to as ERP. But I don't think that's the only treatment for OCD. I think there are mindfulness-based treatments. I think acceptance and commitment therapy can be used for OCD. So talk to me about how those sort of work together or ways that they differ from each other. I think exposure and

response prevention is probably and still is to this day gold standard. And for those listeners who maybe are unsure what it involves, you know, say if someone has developed this idea of like they have to wash their hands 10 times before they have to leave their house in the morning. So they've developed this almost anxiety and fear that if they were to do that less times, that that would be insurmountable, that would be too anxiety provoking so what i would do with a client like that is we would try and grade that in terms of like what's called a hierarchy of anxiety so the exposure part and exposure response prevention stands for let's begin to expose the client to that thing that they are afraid of but we're going to do it

in a gentle manageable manner so in that example i gave where the person is washing their hands 10 times okay next and let's try doing it nine and where the response prevention piece comes in is where you don't do the response of washing them again you don't go and wash it to the 10th time so what that treatment does in the initial stages it can be quite challenging and you need to get the client on board and that's where you need to think about values and things eric you know of where you want to go with this is that it can be anxiety provoking that you can sort of feel those physiological feelings of anxiety and all you want to do is wash your hands out one more time. But as you begin to refocus your attention on something as simple as,

okay, I'm going to leave this sink, I'm going to get out of the bathroom, and I'm going to go and think about the next task I have to do, nearly between that time and by the time you've gone on to your next task, the anxiety diminishes. And over time, if doing ERP, whether it's in that example or others, clients begin to see that their anxiety reduces by itself without having to do these ritualistic behaviors. So that's the sort of ERP quality. And I suppose how we bring acceptance and commitment therapy into that, which is this

idea of trying to be more willing to sort of have your experience as it shows up as opposed to fight suppress and get rid of it and and base our life on our values and what we care about is that we're not just saying the client okay does this wash your hands sorry nine times just for the sake of it we're saying it because we value and i value your life and i want you to spend less time at the sink and more time with your kids or more time pursuing the things that you care about you know and I think then that's a completely different conversation because initially when you talk about exposure and response prevention you're met with resistance but when clients can see well you know what this is going to help me to go where

I want to go whether I can get back to university or I can spend more time with the kids that I can go back and do that job that I want to do and clients then can be more on board. There are similarities there to addiction recovery too, right? In that at some point with addiction, if you say I'm not going to pick up the substance, you got to face the feeling that's there. And that fundamental sort of shift of I'll wash my hands one less time, even though I really want to do it another time, or I won't pick up the drink, even though I really feel like it. And so there's that.

And then I think the next thing you point to is so important, which is why? Why am I not picking up the drink? Why am I not washing my hands the next time? And that that's where we tie into what matters to us. What do we really want? What do we value? And turning our attention in that direction. So I think there's a lot of similarity there. I guess with mindfulness, I'd be curious if obsessive and compulsive thinking is, let's talk about it from just the obsession, the thinking part, because again, I think that a lot of people have this racing mind, and I think it's on a continuum. But mindfulness almost feels like, well, wait a second, I'm turning my attention to these thoughts. So talk about how that helps with OCD, or does it sometimes get confusing and that's the wrong direction to turn? Say a little bit more about how mindfulness ties in.

I generally try and bring mindfulness in, not in terms initially of formal meditation practice. Generally, it's helping to see clients. I would try and explain in very much sort of basic terms of what it involves and how it can be helpful so I think as you mentioned you know people with OCD even take the diagnosis out of it people with a racing mind a lot of difficult thoughts and feelings they're spending a lot of time in the future and jump into worst case scenarios that are very rarely present and when you sort of bring

this idea up you know would you like to try something that could help you to be a bit more present, which could help you to spend less time in that ether of the future where, you know, there are these things that could happen, but also different things could happen also. You know, but the only really time we can make a difference is the here and now. you know clients start to see mindfulness as not this big abstract term that's only for people who can afford two-day silent retreats or you know can go and do a fancy big room yoga class you know it brings it down to everyday individual and how i try and get clients on board is the recognition i'll bring in something in my own lived experience that for me being mindful has probably been one of the things along with acceptance of commitment therapy and constructive living also which we may get into which keeps me well you know as you said at the beginning it's almost like my own wellness toolbox I can pick

these things out and being mindful is something which clients can resonate with once I get that idea of what it involves and how it can be applied to everyday life and making a difference then I'll bring in some sort of meditation practice generally involving some sort of mindful breathing technique and I will do maybe a minute or so initially of helping people get more into their body and less into their mind because that's what OCD involves. An awful lot of Eric is spending so much time in our minds and we're so disconnected to our body. And when we can come back to that, none of this as well as just a caveat is going to magically make this stuff go away. But what mindfulness does, it helps it to be more manageable. And as I know in Dan Harris's book, 10% Happier, it can make things a lot more

manageable and make life more livable. Cognitive behavioral therapy is, for listeners who aren't familiar, the basic idea is that you try and examine your thoughts for distortions, ways that you're not seeing the world correctly. And thus, if you can see those distortions, ideally, then you see the world more clearly and you suffer less. So it's a technique that I have found very useful in a lot of ways. I think it has limitations, but I want to talk to you about where some of those limitations are, particularly when it comes to obsessive thinking. So at first glance, it seems like, well, this would be a great thing

to apply to somebody who's having obsessive thinking, but I don't think it really always is. Can you share why that is and when maybe it is a useful tool and when it's not? Yeah, Eric, and again, another great question. And I think, I mean, I'll probably bring a bit of my own personal experience in here. I mean, in terms of my recovery and in terms of when I left the hospital I would have went to an outpatient clinic and I would have seen a very good very robust working there a long time cognitive behavioral therapist and we work really well together developed a really good rapport exposure and response prevention ERP which you've just talked about is a big component of cognitive behavioral

therapy and it's something which is used an awful lot in the treatment of OCD but to answer your question to answer it first of all personally what I find difficult about CBT especially the cognitive element especially that bit you were mentioning about sort of trying to challenge trying to rationalize trying to look for the evidence almost trying you know if you have a negative thought let's try and look for the positive way on it sounded all very nice and paper and i think in the short term it had a little bit of benefit but in the long term i still didn't stop those negative difficult challenging thoughts from showing up ross harris uses the term and offer of the happiness trap another sort of act guru

you know if you go and learn spanish you're not going to forget english you know if you go to a positive thinking class sometimes you're still going to get these negative thoughts which show up so for me in my own personal life and as i said before very openly and honestly i really was somewhat of a self-help junkie i mean if you could look around my room now there's there's from mindfulness to act to CBT to logotherapy, whatever, you name it. But in my journey, for me, trying to spend too much time trying to figure out, change, rationalize, dispute thoughts nearly got in my own way. It nearly paradoxically got me more stuck. The behavioral part of CBT is very useful.

And I think in other therapeutic models, I think that's lasted the test of time because it really is. But for me, it was about trying to get out of my own way, which helped me the most. You know, I suppose I'm bringing that in terms of the professional context, in terms of how I work with clients in that way, Eric, where a lot of clients come to me and their number one thing is they want to get rid of those difficult thoughts and feelings they are causing them distress their lives are terrible this is not

what they want anymore and first and foremost I validate that because it's a horrible place to be when you feel that distress that you don't know where to turn and once a rapport is built and once we sort of get comfortable with each other i usually do the the thought experiment and we could do this here together very quickly as you know as hard as you can do not think about a pink elephant and nine times out of ten some resemblance of a pink elephant will show up in your mind so why am i even mentioning that because it's this idea that when you try not to think about something, which happens in a lot of anxiety problems, or you try and avoid certain thoughts, paradoxically you seem to think about them more. So CBT has its uses, but I think it also has its limitations. So I think that's where the likes of acceptance and commitment therapy

and some of these mindfulness present moment based processes can be helpful. A way I often think about it, and I'm curious kind of what your opinion is, I sometimes think that that CBT approach is a really good first step to see if the thought, if I just examine it and I go oh god that's not true sometimes i can see right through it and it all changes there's a famous uh stephen covey story that i love where he's on a train and there's these kids running up and down in the train i tell this story in my spiritual habits course kids running up and down on the train and they're yelling and disturbing everybody in the car. And Dr. Covey sitting there, he's just getting more irritated. And the dad of the kids is just sitting there not doing anything. And these kids are yelling, they're bumping into people, he can't take it anymore. You know, this story,

you're shaking your head. And he finally goes up to the man, he says, Excuse me, sir, your kids are disturbing everybody here. You know, maybe you could tone him down. And the guy looks up kind of dazed and says, oh, I'm so sorry. We just left their hospital and their mother just died and they don't know how to handle it. And I guess I don't either. And in that moment, everything change, right? You can feel it when you hear that story instantly. You go from thinking, what's wrong with that guy? He's a jerk to like, oh my God, story instantly. You go from thinking, what's wrong with that guy? He's a jerk to like, oh my God, what can I do to help that man? So that cognitive approach can be really powerful. I always find it worth exploring. Is there a different way I could see this? What am I making it mean? But then after that, I often find like, okay, well that cleared away a little debris,

maybe, but now I'm just stuck in the debate loop. now I'm just stuck in the debate loop. Now I'm just stuck in the debate loop with this negative thought. And that's then where I think pivoting towards a little bit more of a, okay, these thoughts are going to be here. How do I relate to them differently? How do I relax around them differently? Does that resonate with your way of approaching it? Absolutely. I think you couldn't have said it any better that, you know, it's a great story.

And sometimes, you know, I mean, I've experienced it in my own life. It's, you know, where maybe you could be walking down the street and maybe you wave at a friend and they don't wave at you back. And your maybe first initial thought is that ignorant pig, you know, didn't even wave at me back. We find out later that day that didn't even you know, didn't even wave at me back. Maybe find out later that day that they didn't even see you. Didn't even see you. Or maybe that they were caught up in their own world and, you know, they had so many things going on. And sometimes our, I know in CBT they use that word, ants, your automatic negative thoughts. The automatic thought that shows up for you there is that that person is ignorant.

That person is basically not giving me the time of day. actually that particular thought wasn't rational wasn't accurate and like you said I think in instances like that sometimes reframing and looking things a bit differently can be very useful I think where it can have its drawbacks especially in terms of working with people who have obsessive and anxiety type problems is that the thoughts keep coming back even in its name obsessive is that there is a chronic quality to whatever sort of treatment model is applied sometimes the thoughts will come back and show up again so it seems to be what works really well with clients with those types of problems let's face eric we all get anxious sometimes we all have difficult thoughts and feelings but it's more as you alluded

to what do we do when they show up do we get completely blinkered and we basically give them all our time our energy and attention and dictate what they do where oh yeah i have the thought i have to wash my hands again so i go and wash my hands again or because i'm for some people they may have a thought that maybe when they're cutting up vegetables that somehow cause harm to myself or others you pay attention to that thought you give it a full 100 percent believability what do you do you stop using knives so thoughts in my opinion are very much like the world i'm jason alexander and i'm peter tilden and together on the really no really podcast our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to

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They're in that, they're constantly present, but also they're ever changing. So with that response, you know, if it's raining, you bring your umbrella and you try and get on with your day. If it's sunny, you put on a nice pair of shorts and t-shirt and try and do the best that you can with the situation. And when I'm working with clients, I try and validate what they're going through, but also giving the choice that they can choose to do what's meaningful for them. And in truth, Eric, it's how I try and live my own life where sometimes I'll get difficult thoughts. I'll get urges to do things which aren't aligned with my values. But I've got the place of where a bit like the radio in the background where you can be at a restaurant and you can be having a meal. It's something I look forward to when the COVID restrictions ease here where I'm at.

And you can be fully engaged in your meal and the people you're with. You're not noticing that music in the background. It's still going on, but you're still engaged in your meal and the people you're with you're not noticing that music in the background it's still going on but you're still engaged in what you're doing you're focusing on that when that good song comes up that abba or that bon jovi you notice it but when it's not you just let it play in the background and you put your time and energy into your meal and those who you're with and i think we can actually learn to do that in our everyday life when a thought shows up which is useful let's give it our our time. Let's give it our attention. Let's let it navigate what we do. But if it's unhelpful, if it's sort of encouraging us to do things which aren't aligned with our values or could make

things worse, let's just let that play away in the background while we focus on doing what matters. So that's an analogy which I and some of my clients have found useful. I think it's a really useful analogy. And I'm curious about that. That's one of those things also that at least initially sounds good on paper and is really hard to do. Like, okay, you're having the thought, just don't give it a lot of attention. And yet it's getting all the attention. There's a lot of energy bound up in it. So what are some techniques that people can use to, all right, there's that thought again, whether it's calling me to a compulsion or it's just, I'm worried about the mortgage payment for the 750th time today,

right? I realize that that's no longer a useful thought. There's nothing I'm going to do about the mortgage payment at this point. I've done what I can do. It's just recycling. So what are some ways, some techniques of going, all right, how do I, in acceptance and commitment therapy, we would say, get a little distance from it. In Buddhism, we'd say a very similar thing, sort of just observe it, don't engage with it. So what are some techniques for doing that? Because that's really easy to say and really hard to do a lot of times in reality. Absolutely. And I think when we can get to that place where, you know, thoughts and feelings can show up and we have a choice in terms of how we respond, it's a very liberating place to

be. But, you know, I think you have to be very careful the way you partial that, Eric, because it can almost seem quite invalidating, honestly, for some people where it's like okay well you haven't dealt with what I've dealt with or you aren't thinking what I'm thinking you aren't feeling what I'm feeling you know and people initial reaction is almost like see just tell me to sort of dismiss or ignore what I'm sort of experiencing and ironically it's completely the opposite it's about helping the client to get to a place of where they can acknowledge and be aware of what's showing up, but choosing to put their time, energy and attention onto something which is more meaningful. So I think the first part of that, Eric, is to help get thoughts from a place where they're completely dominant

and completely at a place where they are dictating what you do behaviourally. So let's try and get a wee bit of wiggle room. Let's try and see, right, instead of the thoughts being up here, covering our eyes, that's all we can see. Okay, we've got a bit of choice here. Now we can choose to go there or we can choose to do something else. And within acceptance and commitment therapy, that would be known as this idea of cognitive diffusion, of trying to get a bit of distance, trying to get a bit of of space a bit of separation from those difficult thoughts and feelings that are showing up one way i would do that with clients is a i would call it a three sentence exercise you pick a thought generally if i say zero the thought basically is is producing no

anxiety and 10 it's like a hot thought you wouldn't go near it it's trying to pick a thought which shows up regularly for you but it's maybe about halfway through the sort of anxiety sort of richter scale and we'll put the thought out there so say it might be the example you gave about the mortgage payment that i have this huge mortgage payment i'm never going to finish it or pay it off so what you do is you begin that always the first sentence you'll write that out the first sentence is I can't pay this payment. What we're going to do in the second and third sentence, we're going to add a couple of words to that. And the second sentence you'll add, I'm having the thought that I can't make the mortgage

payment. And the final sentence being, I notice I'm having the thought that I can't make the mortgage payment. Obviously that's something which I would encourage clients to do to give a go obviously if you type that in in YouTube there's a lot of great videos that talk you through that but it's that idea and even as I say it myself I'm working with clients it can help to create a wee bit of distance help to get that thought from 100% believability to okay there's that thought and

sometimes it hooks me as we will say and sometimes it sort of feeds there's nothing else that I can do but when you get that wee bit of wiggle room it's like oh choice comes in the room and then it's about them bringing in those behavioral things like what can I do on a practical level is there a debt agency that I can speak with? Is there some support I can get financially? Is it a case of I need to try and look for work? Is it a case that I'm able to get all the benefits that I'm entitled to? So it's not just that we, oh, let's have this thought about demorganizing, let's do something. It's not doing anything about it. It's about recognizing, yeah, there's many things that need to be done here, but we can't make progress if we're just

consumed by the negativity and the overwhelming nature of that thought. Yeah, I like that one. I'm having the thought that, and then I notice that I'm having the thought that it's just these degrees of separation, similar to that idea often of, instead of saying like, I'm anxious, you just say, well, anxiety is present. You know, it just changes the orientation a little bit. Like, okay, it's here, but that's not what I am. So those are all ways. Another one of my favorites that comes from acceptance and commitment therapy

is to sort of think those thoughts in a different voice. I found this one to be really helpful because I think one of the hardest things is that our good thoughts, or maybe I won't even say good, our positive thoughts, our negative thoughts, our accurate thoughts, our inaccurate thoughts, they all think in the same voice. It's the same voice. It's like, Eric, you should go murder people and take heroin. It's the same voice that's like, Eric, I think you should probably go donate your life savings to that orphanage. It sounds like the same person. I'm like, well, wait a second. So this idea of being able to put it in a different voice, and I don't know if I've shared it on the podcast. I certainly share it with coaching clients a lot. But my inner voice, one of the ones I use is Eeyore, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh.

You know, my inner Eeyore. Everything's just so sad. You know, it's not much of a tale, but I'm not much of a donkey. The minute that I take whatever I'm thinking and I hear it in that voice, it makes me smile. You know, now I don't remember to do it often, but almost every time I do,

if I'm like, oh yeah, there's Eeyore again, boom, I have a different relationship. A hundred percent. It helps you get that bit of distance in wiggle room. And to be fair, I was laughing at how accurate you were able to do that Eeyore voice, Eric. I have a different tone some people use maybe a president's name that they don't like throw a voice that they don't like or maybe a sports commentator or maybe you know people will sing it into the theme of happy birthday and it's about trying some of this stuff Eric you know I think that for me even in my own acceptance and commitment therapy training as I got really involved in the work there was a wee bit of stuff i was a bit hesitant of and that wouldn't work for

me and writing out three sentences how's that going to help or you know saying that i'm not going to do this thing to the sound of happy birthday but actually when you give these things a go you start to see that they can have benefit and they can be useful and another one which probably you've maybe touched on before in previous podcasts eric is that idea of sort of word repetition um and how that can actually be helpful the the sort of milk milk exercise um i know that stephen hayes and who you've had on the show as well and one of the co-founders of act basically uses an example of that he was at a seminar and given a talk and basically one of the figures he was given was something like four and a half billion pounds when actually the answer was four

and a half million pounds and he actually remembers going home that night to his apartment and just berating himself for saying this where i am sitting in my burial yard it seems maybe a minor thing in the grand scheme of things but for, this was massive and mammoth. And he woke up in the middle of the night and he was, again, sort of overwhelmed by this. And feeling you're such an idiot. You're such a stupid. You're supposed to be a professor and this is the sort of stuff you're doing. You're getting it wrong.

And he said, well, maybe this is an opportunity to practice what I preach. Let's try a wee diffusion exercise. And really what it involves, for 30 seconds, you say a word which is troubling for you. And for 30 seconds, he went stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, to the point that the word becomes almost meaningless nonsense. And he just uses that and just basically says, oh, and after that, I felt okay, I went back to sleep. And I think it's that idea that there are skills that we can use that can really

diminish the impact of some of the language that shows up within our head and i know that in my life how i generally try and live both personally and professionally is i've tried and started my own way i know that sometimes thoughts are going to show up that i don't approve or like but i also know there's going to thought show up that are really useful to me and I find that having that approach of almost letting that play out you know and choosing which thoughts to pay attention to again like you said is a skill Eric and does take time but it's a place that a lot of clients that I work with and me personally and I think Eric in your own life you've touched on in your own issues and challenges that you can get the place of you can live a life of meaning and purpose even with this stuff that

shows up sometimes I love all those examples as we were talking there it occurred to me maybe the one you feed should offer a service Chris will record a voiceover of whatever your negative thoughts are and whatever ridiculous voice you want and we we'll send it to you. He's a very talented voiceover expert. If you need an inner Eeyore voice, give me a ring. No, those are all really great. You and I are going to talk a little bit in the post-show conversation about values, because that's a big theme is, you know, living according to our values. Well, I'd like to talk about, well, okay, how do I find my values and how do I know what they are without getting lost in another world of thought that feels confusing? You and I will do that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like access to that, as well as ad-free episodes, a weekly episode I do called A Teaching, A Song, and A Poem, and a pleasure of supporting an independent podcast that needs your support, go to oneufeed.net slash join. Paul, thanks so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure to finally get to have

this conversation. You're very welcome, Eric, and thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.

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