We all need support. Professional help to address your obsessive compulsive disorder can be very valuable.
Some of the people I correspond with about OCD live in countries with even more of stigma attached to mental illness than in the United States. Seeking professional help under those conditions can be tough. And in hyper-capitalist countries like the U.S., paying for mental health treatment can be a barrier.
If circumstances prevent you from getting the help you need from a therapist, there are still a lot of healthy ways to address your symptoms successfully that you can try on your own. And, if you are fortunate enough to have access to a mental health professional, that doesn’t preclude you from doing additional work on your own to improve your life.
My approach to reducing my OCD symptoms centers on manifestation, and I have three basic parts to that work. I don’t consider there to be one magic formula; there are a lot of valid ways to approach these three components.
1. Calming
Calming your out-of-control mind can allow your higher-functioning brain, the cerebral cortex, to take charge from your panicking OCD-addled amygdala — the primitive “flight or fight” part of your brain.*
Methods include:
- Deep, slow breathing
- Affirmations
- Meditation to calm and feel grounded
- Qigong/Tai Chi
- Yoga
- Walking, running, exercise
- Dance
- Herbal extracts/teas
2. Brain Training
Priming your brain for manifesting a life free from OCD
Methods include:
- Listening to tones & music based on solfeggio frequencies, such a 936Hz and 528Hz
- Reading books and blog posts on manifestation
- Gratitude
- Practicing avoidance of OCD rituals
3. Envisioning
Training yourself to believe in your ability to live OCD-Free
Methods include:
- Meditation to envision and feel your desired future
- Qigong moves designed specifically for manifestation
- Practicing everyday manifestation
This isn’t meant as a cookie cutter approach; some people will not dance or do yoga but might enjoy practicing qigong in their own homes, others would never consider taking herbal supplements but can get into meditating. And, there are endless methods I haven’t listed and that I’m not even aware of, to achieve the same effects.
It may be that the reason all of this can be so effective has more to do with brain chemistry than spirituality. Slow movement synchronized to deep breathing might help stimulate the production of dopamine that you had been reliant on OCD to produce.
What’s important is that you can, with or without professional help, take steps to improve your life and to free yourself of the constraints of obsessive compulsive disorder.
*There is some recent dispute about the separation of functions based on brain morphology.
