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Hi, everyone, I'm Ali Graymond. Today I wanted to talk to you about how to properly disregard OCD thoughts and to clarify some confusion between different ways of doing so. So when you disregard OCD thought, first of all, it's not supposed to work. It's not supposed to make the thought instantly go away when you disregard it. Because if you have this kind of outlook, like I was disregarding and the thought didn't go away, this means I'm doing something wrong. The thought will stay there. When you're disregarding. What you are doing right now is you're programming your brain, how it's going to function, say, a few weeks from now. So you're saying to your brain that whenever I get this thought, it's not important, I'm not going to pay attention to it, and in the future, the brain will start throwing less of this thought to you. The programming that was happening in the past is what's causing you to feel the way you feel right now. So the fact that you feel very anxious, the fact that you feel like you need to solve it, it feels like the end of the world. Is this past programming. There's nothing you can do in the moment to make yourself feel better, because the brain is giving you these feelings on autopilot based on the past programming. The only thing you can do in the moment is reassurance. And when you do reassurance, it says to the br, yes, this is right. You're right to send me these thoughts. You're right to make me feel anxious. I will continue to protect myself. Please send some more. And that's how you get stuck in ocd. So in order to change how the brain is viewing this thought, it is very important for you to say, yes, I see this thought, I see it there, but I'm not touching it, I'm disregarding it. It's over there. I'm over here. I have my plan for the day. I'm focusing on what I need to do in the day, all the while hearing my annoying neighbor scream obscenities. But I am going to stay over here and continue with my day. And that has to be your outlook all day long. Now, in terms of saying, this is ocd, I'm disregarding, should you say it different people say different things. Different. I can give you my opinion on it. My opinion is that when you are starting out doing recovery work, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to just say nothing. So a person without ocd, in some situations, they will also say, ah, no, this is a Silly thought. I'm moving on, you know, so this is a person who's never had OCD and just has an intrusive thought. So even they are not saying nothing a lot of the time. Okay. To say nothing, it's kind of a. It's a harder task. So start out just saying it's ocd, I'm disregarding. But it cannot become a mantra where you're saying these magical words that make you feel better, that make the thought neutralize, because that becomes a reassurance, a compulsion behavior. So if you do say it's ocd, try to say it in different ways or. But it's still doing that is still better than obviously doing reassurance behaviors and getting into the thoughts. I mean, it's not even. It's not a little bit better. It's, you know, night and day. So you're saying it's ocd. Whatever. I'm moving on to my annoying neighbor. That's totally fine. When your anxiety goes down to five to four, to three, you won't feel like you need to say it. You'll just say nothing and move on. So it's. It's. I said, I find that this is just a stepping stone. So I really don't have any problem with that. Again, just don't make it. Don't make it become a mantra and a magical thing that you say to make yourself feel better. Now, in terms of being more aggressive, if you are in a situation where you want to recover from OCD faster, maybe you're in a time crunch. Who knows, right? So if you are in that situation, then saying, for example, if your OCD tells you maybe you've killed somebody and forgot, your more aggressive response. So you could say, oh, yeah, that's just ocd, right? You can say, oh, whatever. Nothing. Right? Say nothing. That would be better. But the best thing would be to say, yeah, of course. Of course I killed someone. And for. I've killed many, many people and forgotten, and I will kill again and forget as well. You know, just really kind of. It's. It's lying to you. It's trying to sell you a lie. So just be sarcastic with that lie. You know, don't take the thought seriously. Take it sarcastic, even though you feel like you're taking it seriously. But play the role of somebody who's not taking it seriously, who's being sarcastic with it. A lot of it, especially in the beginning, when you're going through the first stages of ocd, recovery, will feel like you're faking it. That's absolutely normal. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how everybody starts out. So if you feel like, well, but I still care underneath it all, I still worry and I still care, that's fine. That will go away over time as your anxiety goes down. But you need to play the part of somebody who's just saying, whatever, it's ocd, I'm moving on as much as possible. Or at least I think it's ocd. I'm delaying to do, analyzing, ritualizing, whatever, for a certain amount of time. So if you feel like you can't dismiss it entirely, at least delay for as long as possible. But the most aggressive approach would be to see the thought head on. Like, oh, you're telling me I killed someone and forgot? Clearly, clearly, you know, that would be the most aggressive approach, which will get you the faster results, the fastest results. I would say the only thing faster than that would be to actually bring up more of these thoughts. So when you don't have a thought in your mind, which I guess for people with 10 out of 10, OCD is never, because OCD is 24 7. But as you start to feel better, you know, kind of, oh, you didn't tell me about how I've killed people this morning. How come? Let's think about it, but not think about it, reassurance way, but think about it. And like, okay, let's bring it up. You know, things like that. Oh, you know, I used to be scared of watching the news, here comes the news. You know, things like that. So that would be even more aggressive. But guys, don't go too ambitious with this. Always remember that the goal of exposure and response prevention is the response prevention. Anybody who has OCD is always in exposure. The problem is that they're not doing response prevention. They're responding with fear instead. So if you do exposure, you need to be confident that you will be able to do response prevention. If you feel that you probably won't be able to do response prevention in specific exposure, then that exposure is too much for you. Don't do it. So work up to things as you're ready to face them. And again, you know, I always kind of give this word of caution that when we're talking about exposure just for new people listening, we're talking about things that people without OCD do every single day, but a person with OCD cannot do. So we're not talking about anything abnormal. We're talking about normal, everyday life things that other people can do but you can't because of ocd. Thank you for listening. I hope you find my videos helpful. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, please subscribe. I do daily videos about all things related to OCD recovery. If you would like to do one on one recovery program with me, all the information is on youhubocd.com. you can sign up from there and you can book your appointment from there as well. Thank you for watching. I'll see you tomorrow.