← Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Bonus Episode: 5 Self‑Compassion Exercises That Support ERP & OCD Recovery
00:14:46
Loading summary
Transcript11 lines
- [00:03]
Kimberly Quinlan
Hey my loves.
- [00:03]
Just in case you didn't hear, on Wednesday's episode, I just wanted to let you know that we are doing a very special launch next Tuesday which will be April 21st and 22nd, just for 48 hours. If you were to sign up for Euro CD Toolkit, that is our comprehensive step by step course for ocd. If you wanted to sign up during that time limit, we will be adding a bonus live Q and A that will be several weeks later again. So you will have plenty of time to take the course and get as much information as you have. Then we will meet on a weekend. It's usually a weekend. On a Saturday around 10am, we meet via Zoom and you can ask me
- [00:51]
any question that you have.
- [00:53]
So if you have been waiting for an opportunity to actually ask me questions, get me live. This is going to be an amazing opportunity. We did this for the rumination reset. We did it for your self Compassion Toolkit. It was such a beautiful group of people and I had such a great time. I was like, you know what, I want to do this with my OCD folks as well. So again, April 21st and 22nd, 48 hours only. You can head over to CPT school or get the links in the show notes and I would love for you to sign up and come and have some time live with me.
- [01:32]
We can chat, we can giggle, we'll
- [01:34]
tell stories, we'll do some exercises together. It will be a beautiful time. Okay, Just wanted to let you know and I know you're here to enjoy the episode. So I hope you love it as much as you've loved every other one. Again, thanks so much for being here.
- [01:51]
Welcome. My name is Kimberly Quinlan. I'm an OCD and anxiety specialist. I'm on a mission to help over 10 million people manage their anxiety with evidence based strategies. There are too many people out there who do not have access to helpful, effective science based skills. And so I figured if it's the one thing I love doing, I might as well do it. So I'm here to help you as much as I can. Now, before we get started, a lot of people worry that self compassion is only going to equal laziness. They might worry that self compassion will weaken their ERP and their OCD recovery. They might be afraid that self compassion will make them more self absorbed or they might be afraid that practicing kindness is just letting themselves off the hook. But here is the thing you have to know. When you criticize yourself, you actually are increasing your anxiety. When we are mean to ourselves, we judge ourselves, we criticize. It actually increases the sympathetic nervous system, making us have increased levels of physiological anxiety in our body. It increases our negative self talk, it increases our hopelessness, and it reinforces the obsession when you criticize yourself. It actually feeds the OCD cycle. And last of all, and I know you know this already, it is incredibly exhausting and overwhelming, and it causes way more burnout. So here at your anxiety toolkit, of course, I want to give you as many tools as I can. Now, before we get started, there is one key thing I want you to know, and that is under no conditions do your thoughts mean anything about you. Usually the most prominent, biggest reason people with OCD punish themselves and beat themselves up is they're so ashamed of their thoughts. So let's just get it out of the way and acknowledge that your thoughts mean nothing about you. You do not deserve to be punished for the intrusive thoughts that you have. There's no ifs or buts. I know you're probably having some kind of, like, rebuttal in your head. Under no conditions do we beat you up for the thoughts that you have. Okay, so there are five self compassion exercises I want you to know that are going to support your OCD and ERP recovery. Number one is to acknowledge. Acknowledging means that we acknowledge the discomfort that you have when you have an intrusive thought or an intrusive sensation, an intrusive urge, an image, whatever it might be, we have to stop and acknowledge, wow, this is hard. Even before you practice exposures or you use any of the skills that you get here at your anxiety toolkit, we want to be able to acknowledge that that might be you saying, wow, this is hard. Or it might be you saying, it makes complete sense that this scares me, or it might be you saying, I'm allowed to feel this and still move forward. This is you acknowledging that you're uncomfortable. And then it gives you a choice to pivot in a direction that is helpful instead of unhelpful. Number two is we want to then soften around these sensations. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let's do a little exercise, you and me. So what I want you to do here with me right now is I want you to notice where is your discomfort? Is it in your chest? Is in your head? Is it in your shoulders? Is it in your tummy? I want you to first just soften around that area. Is there anywhere where you're contracting, squeezing, tightening? And then I want you to practice dropping your shoulders. Now, I caught you on that because often when we relax one area we tighten the other, right? Like it's natural for us to sort of like we have to feel like we're gripping somewhere. So you're going to soften the area where you feel that discomfort. Then you're going to work to drop your shoulders. Go ahead, do it now. Then you're going to soften your jaw again. Go ahead, do it now. Loosen it up, shake it out, right? Maybe you smile, catch yourself in that, you're holding that tension. Okay. Now you're going to soften your eyebrows. Okay. Like again, take that tension away and notice anywhere where you are in fact contracting. One of the kindest things we can do when it comes to safety in your body is to practice not contracting. Number three is where you're going to encourage yourself instead of blaming when things get hard. Our default is to blame. Well, you shouldn't be this way, you shouldn't feel that way. Why do you feel this? You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't have done that. We blame instead of encouraging ourselves through the discomfort because a part of having OCD and have part of having any mental struggle or being a human on this world means that we do have discomfort. So wouldn't it be cool if we could practise the self compassion skill of encouragement instead of blame? Now that might sound like keep going, you're doing great. It might be saying, it's so cool that you're learning to have these thoughts while doing nothing about them.
- [07:20]
Sponsor Representative
Now as you know, I have a private practice. I have six amazing therapists in Calabasas, California. However, we do not take insurance. Now if you are looking for insurance covered OCD or BFRB treatment, I want to let you know about nocd. NOCD provides face to face live video sessions with specialized licensed OCD therapists. Now their therapists use exposure and response prevention. We know this is the gold standard for ocd. So you can be absolutely confirmed that you're in the right place there. And. And they have a clinically proven app that helps you stay connected to your therapist and others who have OCD between sessions so you'll always feel supported. Now the cool thing is NOCD is available in all 50 US states and even internationally and they accept most insurance plans making it affordable and accessible. We love that. Now if you think you might have OCD or you're struggling to manage your symptoms, you, you can book a free call. Just click the link in the show notes@nocd.com I am honored to partner with NOCD. I want to remind you that recovery is possible. Please do not forget that. Now, big hugs and let's get back to the show.
- [08:39]
Kimberly Quinlan
It might be you saying, whoa, girl, look at you go. I see you. Wow. Again, you're acknowledging that you have the discomfort. You're softening around it and now you're cheering yourself on instead of going, why did you have that thought? You're so lame for having that. Then we celebrate. We celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. We say, I love that you're handling this. I love that you're even trying. I can see what you did. Again. Often people with OCD will go, well, yeah, I did it, but, you know, everyone else can do it, so there's nothing really to celebrate. And I'm over here being like, we've got to celebrate it. Whether it's easy or hard, we celebrate every single win. Number four is treat yourself like you would treat a loved one or someone you deeply care for or someone you have very gentle, easy feelings about. Maybe a pet or a movie star that you really like. Treat yourself like that loved one. Now, let's do an exercise here again, together. I want you to ask yourself, if someone I deeply loved and respected was going through this, what would I say to them? Think about that. What would you say? What tone of voice did you use? Did you touch them? Did you hug them? Did you, you know, wipe their tears away? Did you lean forward? Were you leaning back? Was your voice soft? Was it firm? Was it kind? Was it funny? What did you. What was it like? How were you showing up for them? And last, what was the tempo? Did you go through really quick, like, oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry you're feeling this way, but let's keep going? Or did you go, wow, hun, I'm so sorry you're going through that. That's acknowledgement. How can I support you? You know how amazing you are. Let me cheer you on. That tempo really matters as well. Now, when you're ready to really dive into this, I'm going to strongly encourage you to head over to CBT school and take a look at our course called your skill Self Compassion Toolkit. This is where I take you step by step through the skills I teach my clients. There is a workbook, there are. There are scripts you can use. There is so many ways here that you can start to really dive in and make sure that you're being as kind as you can so that you can have less anxiety, so that you can suffer less. This is such an important part of your recovery and I strongly Encourage you going over and checking that out. Now, when we get to number five, if you. It's really normalizing. Setbacks. Setbacks are going to be a normal part of your OCD recovery. We want to practice. No shaming statements. It's totally normal to have setbacks. You will sometimes avoid things that you know you shouldn't avoid. You will sometimes do compulsions that you know you shouldn't be doing. Sometimes you will feel like you're back at square one. But I want to promise you, you are never at square. Square one. It is completely normal to have setbacks. What's most important, and I'm channeling my dad right now, is that you get back on the horse. I grew up on a farm. We would ride horses. When you got bucked off that horse, you weren't allowed to go home. You had to get back on the horse because then the horse knows that you're in charge and you don't leave their feet being afraid of horses. You leave there feeling like you were the master. You overcame that and you got back on the. So please just normalize setbacks. It is a normal part of recovery. Now, self compassion practices would sound like this is just a part of recovery. It's not a sign I failed. Or I can begin right here. Right? That's what this is all about. That's what OCD recovery is all about. It's falling off the horse, getting back on, continuing to practice. And over time, you will overcome this condition. Now here is what I want you to take away. You're not weak for struggling with OCD and erp. You're not doing it wrong because it's hard. In fact, if it's hard, it means you're doing it the right way. You're doing one of the bravest things humans can do. And I am so incredibly proud and impressed by you. Now, I want you to remember, self compassion is not a luxury in this process. It is a necessity. And so here is your homework. I want you to practice just one of these exercises, not all five. Five. Let's just start with one. And I want you to see how it feels. You deserve to be kind to yourself. You are doing brave, hard things that deserve a tremendous degree of self compassion. Now, as always, thank you so much for being here. I cannot tell you how honored I am that you spend your time with me. Now, I have the perfect next step for you. If you're here on YouTube, please stay. I'm going to link you to the next video which will be a mindfulness exercise for OCD and this this is what you'll use when you're feeling super overwhelmed so do go over and enjoy that if you're listening here on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I want you to also know if you like being taken through a slide deck and me training you and teaching you in real life with visuals, head on over to YouTube because all of these episodes have slide decks and presentations and me teaching you in real time. They will be there for you so you can do and be on whatever platform serves you best. Thank you for being here. I cannot tell you how grateful I am and please do share this with people you love. My goal is to help reduce suffering and I hope it brought you some peace today. Please note that this podcast or any
- [14:24]
Sponsor Representative
other resources from CBTSchool.com should not replace
- [14:28]
Kimberly Quinlan
professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day and thank you watching for for supporting CBTSchool.com.