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Speaker 1: I'm all for goals, I'm all for setting high targets,
Speaker 1: but I think mindfulness of being more present as a
Speaker 1: central key to wellness as a whole. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Paul McCarroll. He's an
Speaker 1: O c D and anxiety specialist, therapist and coach and
Speaker 1: mental health trainer from County Antrim in the North of Ireland.
Speaker 1: Paul also has a unique backs worry where he works
Speaker 1: as a trainer in the same hospital where he was
Speaker 1: once an impatient. He uses this story to inspire hope,
Speaker 1: reaffirm that recovery is possible, helping clients to stop struggling
Speaker 1: and start living. Hi, Paul, Welcome to the show. It's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be here. Eric, thanks for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're welcome. I'm excited to have you on. You and
Speaker 1: I have known each other a number of years since
Speaker 1: very early when I started the show, and you were
Speaker 1: the person that introduced me to acceptance and commitment therapy,
Speaker 1: which you know, as we talked about before the show.
Speaker 1: I've had a number of the founders on and has
Speaker 1: been very influential in the way I view the world,
Speaker 1: or even to say it slightly differently just aligns with
Speaker 1: the way I see the world, and I know you're
Speaker 1: a practitioner of that also, So we're going to get
Speaker 1: into all that as well as your journey. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna start like we always do, with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which are resense
Speaker 1: things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other
Speaker 1: is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 1: hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second. He looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. So, firstly, Eric, I think it's a great parable,
Speaker 1: and I can see why it's lasted the test of time.
Speaker 1: I think for all of us we almost have nearly
Speaker 1: two wolves, or at times the way I look at it,
Speaker 1: as you know, we have a lot of positive and
Speaker 1: helpful thoughts, we have a lot of negative thoughts, difficult memories,
Speaker 1: and sometimes urges show up which aren't so useful. So
Speaker 1: for me in my personal life and in terms of
Speaker 1: the work I do. How that resonates that it's not
Speaker 1: so much you know, trying to eradicate one and sort
Speaker 1: of you know, mente in the other. For me, it's
Speaker 1: about paying attention to something that matters. Pay attention to
Speaker 1: those things which actually mean the most to you. So
Speaker 1: you know, we can have these difficult thoughts, we can
Speaker 1: have these difficult feelings, but we can learn in a
Speaker 1: way to almost let them play like a wed in
Speaker 1: the background. But we learned to pay attention to those
Speaker 1: things that really matter to us. And are we going
Speaker 1: to have struggles? Are we going to have times where
Speaker 1: it feels like the bad wolf has has taken charge
Speaker 1: and taken over. Absolutely, But over the test of time,
Speaker 1: the more we're gonna pay attention to that good wolf,
Speaker 1: those more helpful thoughts and feelings that hopefully we can
Speaker 1: navigate life and be the offer of the life that
Speaker 1: we really want to live. Very well said, So you
Speaker 1: are a mental health practitioner, Now you are a coach.
Speaker 1: You do a lot of work with people around O
Speaker 1: c D. We're going to spend a fair amount of
Speaker 1: time talking about that, but you also are a mental
Speaker 1: health trainer at a hospital that you were a patient
Speaker 1: at absolutely, and by patient I mean a mental health
Speaker 1: patient at that hospital, And so I want to start
Speaker 1: there because it's a really inspiring journey from Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: a patient at this hospital too, I'm now training the
Speaker 1: people who are helping it to ask. But it's a
Speaker 1: long way to go. So tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about what life was like in those days. Well for me, Eric,
Speaker 1: I mean I generally it was quite fortunate, growing up
Speaker 1: a really karen love and supportive family, very working class background. Um,
Speaker 1: my sort of problem seemed to develop in sort of
Speaker 1: teenage years, where you know, I went to a very
Speaker 1: academic school which was really really pushing academia, and to
Speaker 1: be fair, I would have described myself as someone who
Speaker 1: was sort of reasonably intelligent, but I just thought the
Speaker 1: rigor and the actual focus exclusively on academia as opposed
Speaker 1: to sports and the creative world, which I was very into,
Speaker 1: very stressful and overwhelment, and I seemed to develop, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, if you can think about this, Eric,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're talking over twenty years ago, where
Speaker 1: mental health just wasn't talked about. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of stigma around and to be honest, at fifteen year generase,
Speaker 1: I didn't really know sort of what was going on.
Speaker 1: So I had to actually leave school at this point,
Speaker 1: didn't get some home school, and but just things didn't
Speaker 1: seem right it. In hindsight, I had the early symptoms
Speaker 1: of what we will probably go on to discuss eric
Speaker 1: of o c D, and it took a while to
Speaker 1: get a proper diagnosis of that, possibly because I was
Speaker 1: a little aware and afraid of the stigma. I just
Speaker 1: thought that that was going for as I just thought
Speaker 1: I had all these thoughts which were just not making sense.
Speaker 1: And it did take of him be an all of
Speaker 1: a sudden transparent a hospital admission for me to get
Speaker 1: the right treatment, the right support that I needed to
Speaker 1: try and get myself on the road to recover it.
Speaker 1: And it's something in Italy are like I probably would
Speaker 1: have refrained from telling people and was once an impatient,
Speaker 1: but ironically this is something which has been at the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of the work that I do. I have always
Speaker 1: resonated with the sound that the wounded becomes the healer,
Speaker 1: and like you said, it has been a real journey
Speaker 1: since then, but it sort of began an adolescence and
Speaker 1: really took a hospital miss some of the right support
Speaker 1: to get me on the road to recovery. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that phrase, the wounded becomes the healer. Makes me
Speaker 1: think when I was in treatment, it was the last time.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly how many there were before that,
Speaker 1: but the last time I remember there were a couple
Speaker 1: of professionals there and they were both highly trained, really
Speaker 1: knew what they were doing, but one of them was
Speaker 1: also of recovering addict, and that person, to me, just
Speaker 1: had a level of credibility to me that the other
Speaker 1: person just didn't have. Now I shouldn't say not level
Speaker 1: of credibility, level of relatability. And I felt like they
Speaker 1: would understand me, and they did. That's not to say
Speaker 1: that people who don't understand to some degree, but there's
Speaker 1: that connection. And you know, I think the most powerful
Speaker 1: thing A figured out really early on was how powerful
Speaker 1: one alcoholic talking to another was. And so I'm happy
Speaker 1: to see you have turned the corner to embracing Here's
Speaker 1: where I come from, because I think it really lends
Speaker 1: credence to the work that you do and makes you
Speaker 1: understandable to the people you work with. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think Eric, you know, looking back at it, I mean
Speaker 1: I left the hospital when I was seventeen and supposed
Speaker 1: to just to put that in a in a bit
Speaker 1: of context for people, I mean, I was seventeen. Most
Speaker 1: people may be beginning to go to university. Most people
Speaker 1: have gone through sort of high school and you know,
Speaker 1: out of place where you know, maybe their well world
Speaker 1: is sort of opening up. And and to be fair,
Speaker 1: it was opening up for me. Yes, and the fact
Speaker 1: of that this was not my recovery journey, but I
Speaker 1: had not one qualification to my name. It was quite
Speaker 1: a scary place. At the same time, the one thing
Speaker 1: that I had which has always stayed with me is
Speaker 1: a belief in my own ability to get well, and
Speaker 1: sort of beneath that was a real determination and almost
Speaker 1: a motivation that when I got well, the stuff that
Speaker 1: I would hopefully learn, as I've done my professional work
Speaker 1: to develop to use that to support others, so maybe
Speaker 1: people don't have to go through similar stuff that I
Speaker 1: went through. I see on that journey, in the initial stages,
Speaker 1: I would have called myself a bit of a sealth
Speaker 1: help junkie. Where I find I was always looking for
Speaker 1: the answer or the magic bullet or the magic want,
Speaker 1: always looking for a way to eradicate, minimize diminishment, difficult
Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings, and paradoxically I seemed to think that
Speaker 1: seemed to make things worse. You know, I did come
Speaker 1: across a lot of good materials and some of the
Speaker 1: stuff which we'll probably get into, but the mental health
Speaker 1: recovery to a journey. I really love the Japanese proverb
Speaker 1: fall down seven times, get abe it, you know, because
Speaker 1: for me, recovery is an awful lot like that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a linear process where you know everything is
Speaker 1: just gonna be one way, one positive trajector. It's about,
Speaker 1: you know, as somethimes we're going to fall, but we
Speaker 1: can get back up again, and every time we get
Speaker 1: up again, it's opportunity to learn what went wrong. But
Speaker 1: I suppose I've just given a bit of context that
Speaker 1: for me to get where I am, it took time.
Speaker 1: It's been a process. But I think what I've learned
Speaker 1: over the years, especially some of the feedback and testimonials
Speaker 1: I get from clients, is that one of the things
Speaker 1: that resonate with is my own lipped experience and being
Speaker 1: able to reliate the people going through similar issues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: makes sense. You said a couple of things there that
Speaker 1: I think are interested in. One is this idea of
Speaker 1: sort of being a self help junkie. If listeners have
Speaker 1: listened to a whole bunch of this show, they probably
Speaker 1: fall into that category a little bit, right, And I
Speaker 1: think it's just the classic double edged sword, right. I
Speaker 1: guess the Buddhist phrase of licking honey off a raiser
Speaker 1: comes to mind, because on one hand, it's that passionate
Speaker 1: desire to get better and to grow and learn that's
Speaker 1: so powerful and so useful, and it is a key
Speaker 1: element in the process, and there's a certain amount of
Speaker 1: learning to say, Okay, here's where i'm at. Let me
Speaker 1: be where I'm at without always thinking it needs to
Speaker 1: be someplace differ, Right, I need to think differently, I
Speaker 1: need to feel differently. It's this paradox of doing both
Speaker 1: those things. Yeah, I want to keep growing, I want
Speaker 1: to keep learning. I believe I can be better, life
Speaker 1: can be better, and I'm okay right here where I sit.
Speaker 1: Balancing that paradox has been certainly one of my big challenges.
Speaker 1: I agree Eric, and I think especially in today's society
Speaker 1: where you know, I'm a big advocate un user of
Speaker 1: social media, but I also think sometimes it inhabits problems.
Speaker 1: We're we're sort of always, you know, putting ourselves up
Speaker 1: against sometimes unrealistic medium where we're always trying to reach
Speaker 1: these at times levels which are nearly unreachable. I like
Speaker 1: a Jordan Peterson quote which I don't know what word
Speaker 1: for word, but it's about, you know, trying to be
Speaker 1: a better version of who you were yesterday, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes, I mean that's more realistic than
Speaker 1: trying to sort of set these unrealistic sort of targets
Speaker 1: which end up it's very difficult to be present because
Speaker 1: you're always and the next thing, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think it is about, as you said, Eric, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to find that sort of sense of equilibrium where
Speaker 1: you can be okay where you are, you can try
Speaker 1: and of course set goals that you want to you know,
Speaker 1: improve and do better in life. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think you can get on that sort of you know,
Speaker 1: trail where you end up completely missing the moment and
Speaker 1: actually it really seems to be anything that you do
Speaker 1: or achieve. You're never really fully present for because you're
Speaker 1: thinking of the next thing and the next thing. And
Speaker 1: there's a quote that I really like, should for the
Speaker 1: moon even if you miss your land among the stars.
Speaker 1: And what I interpret that to mean, eric is that
Speaker 1: I can aim high. Yes, I can try and be
Speaker 1: my best, but if I don't get to the right
Speaker 1: top that maybe social media is tell us that we
Speaker 1: have to go to that even if you're laying them
Speaker 1: on the start, I'm still landing pretty high. You're still
Speaker 1: doing well. So I'm all for goals, I'm all for
Speaker 1: certain high targets, but I think mindfulness and being more
Speaker 1: present is a central key to wellness as a I agree.
Speaker 1: I always like to try and reorient if I can,
Speaker 1: away from external targets to behavior based targets. So the
Speaker 1: joke I've been making lately is that Bruce Springsteen and
Speaker 1: Barack Obama started a podcast, right, and so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm like, I'm competing with them, And I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. That's ridiculous, Like I can't, right, So that's
Speaker 1: a target that is simply out of range. But I
Speaker 1: can't control how much we grow, how big we are
Speaker 1: what I can do is just continue to put my
Speaker 1: effort week after week into making the best show I can.
Speaker 1: And when I reorient that way, I have a place
Speaker 1: to put that energy, that energy that does seek better,
Speaker 1: that does want to grow, I have a place to
Speaker 1: channel it constructively, versus having it just always drive me
Speaker 1: towards these external rewards that my experience is for me
Speaker 1: when that's where my orientation is. As soon as I
Speaker 1: hit him, I just redraw the line. You know, if
Speaker 1: you told me once we'd have half the number of
Speaker 1: downloads we had, I would say, I'll take it. I
Speaker 1: would be happy forever with that number. Of course, I
Speaker 1: hit that number, I was like, well, that's nice, but
Speaker 1: what's next? You know, Oh that's good. But and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear you. And so that being present has become
Speaker 1: something that's it's a cliche in our days mindfulness and
Speaker 1: yet is so critically important. And I remember when I
Speaker 1: was first introduced to the idea of my influence in
Speaker 1: my own head. I I was just thinking of Buddhist
Speaker 1: monks on the top of the Himalayas and chanting and
Speaker 1: spending all day in silence, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: could not have any influence, impact or import in my
Speaker 1: everyday life. I was so wrong and that Eric, because
Speaker 1: it's probably been one of the biggest factors in terms
Speaker 1: of my recovery journey and actually stand well and a
Speaker 1: big central component in terms of working with clients. And
Speaker 1: I think this whole idea of my influence what it
Speaker 1: helps with me in terms of, you know, the clients
Speaker 1: I work with, specifically with struggle with anxiety and O
Speaker 1: c D and O c D was and that has
Speaker 1: been something I've carried for the gods to twenty years.
Speaker 1: The hallmark of that is these interests of which is
Speaker 1: basically another word for unwanted thoughts which are shown up
Speaker 1: which people believe when they're in that sort of fused
Speaker 1: manner where basically they're just completely blinkered, and they believe
Speaker 1: that those interests of thoughts that somehow something bad could happen,
Speaker 1: that somehow they could do something which is completely out
Speaker 1: of character to them, or that they have to maybe
Speaker 1: do something another time to make themselves fail right or
Speaker 1: fail a certain way. But all that is going on
Speaker 1: at a very internal level. It's all going on in
Speaker 1: the mind, you know, and it's all project into the future.
Speaker 1: It's catastrophizes and then really jump into all these worst
Speaker 1: case scenarios. You're you're going along the worst case scenario
Speaker 1: treein And I think what mindfulness helps us to do
Speaker 1: is to try and being more present help us to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that, yes, we have this brand. You know. I
Speaker 1: know that Steven Hey is the co finder of accept
Speaker 1: as a commitment therapy, you know, would use this idea
Speaker 1: that it's like we have this sports car between our years,
Speaker 1: but no one ever gave us a manual of how
Speaker 1: to use it, you know, And I think that that's
Speaker 1: true that I mean, I don't see our mind as
Speaker 1: you said, it's almost like a double edged sword. It's
Speaker 1: not our friend, but it's not our enemy either. It's
Speaker 1: about learning how to handle it. And I think mindfulness
Speaker 1: is a skill that we can use this sort of
Speaker 1: handle and begin to regulate some of these difficult thoughts
Speaker 1: and experiences that can show up for us. All. So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about O c D. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that's the diagnosis you were given when you're in
Speaker 1: the hospital and you have gone on to deal with
Speaker 1: that and now you help people with that. And I
Speaker 1: want to get into how we diagnose O c D
Speaker 1: in a minute, But I want to start with how
Speaker 1: do you talk about O c D as far as
Speaker 1: do you consider that you still have O c D?
Speaker 1: You just are treating it pretty well. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like it's something that you had and you don't have anymore?
Speaker 1: I think there's people in recovery. This is an interesting question.
Speaker 1: Am I an alcoholic or am I an ex alcoholic?
Speaker 1: And some of it's semantic, but some of it's not.
Speaker 1: And and so I'm kind of curious about that. And
Speaker 1: also what things do you do in your life now
Speaker 1: that keep you healthy? That's a very good question, Eric,
Speaker 1: I suppose for those listeners who maybe aren't particularly familiar
Speaker 1: with those citing and maybe give a brief synopsis of
Speaker 1: what it's sort of involved. So as as what A
Speaker 1: touched on there, you know, it's primarily people will get
Speaker 1: some difficult thoughts, difficult feelings, difficult urges that that will
Speaker 1: show up. And I use that word interested, and it
Speaker 1: basically means unlanted. So an example, I used to try
Speaker 1: and explain this to someone who would sort of have
Speaker 1: more obsessive type tendencies versus someone who doesn't. Say you
Speaker 1: and a friend decided to go up a hike up
Speaker 1: your local mountain and you get to the top. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not, it's not uncommon to have the thought
Speaker 1: would be like a jump. One person may be able
Speaker 1: to say people, that's a bit of a weird and
Speaker 1: random thought, but I need to focus on getting down
Speaker 1: this mountain before it's dark. So they've noticed the thought,
Speaker 1: they've noticed it a little bit strange and and and
Speaker 1: weird and uncomfortable, but they realize that almost it's just
Speaker 1: the thought, and let's get all of what we need
Speaker 1: to do. We just get down the mind and the
Speaker 1: other person can have that same thought, but it's almost
Speaker 1: like a constellation of other thoughts come around it, like
Speaker 1: what does this mean about me? Why am I having
Speaker 1: this thought? Am I weird? What's wrong with me? Am
Speaker 1: I suicidal? There's no way my friend could be having
Speaker 1: the same thought. So almost the distinction, I sort of
Speaker 1: say there is in the first instance, that person knownly
Speaker 1: or not as able to sort of have that thought,
Speaker 1: acknowledge that it's there, but we get recognized it's not
Speaker 1: worthy of their attention. The other person has had that thought,
Speaker 1: and almost by paying attention to it and almost being
Speaker 1: afraid by it, it's created more thoughts and have become
Speaker 1: more entangled, more ensnared. So over time that can build
Speaker 1: up into you know, maybe someone washes their hands. It's
Speaker 1: quite a generic example, and they'll have the thought that
Speaker 1: even though they've seen that their hands are washed, that
Speaker 1: the hands are clean, they may still have the thought
Speaker 1: that they don't fail clean, so I need to wash again,
Speaker 1: and that can lead into cycle where people can be
Speaker 1: at a sink for a long period of time and
Speaker 1: maybe developed things like red hands and things can can
Speaker 1: turn very uncomfortable. So really, what people do in terms
Speaker 1: of these interests of thoughts is what's called compulsions, will
Speaker 1: do some sort of behaviors are trying to alleviate the anxiety,
Speaker 1: like in that example wash their hands again. So really
Speaker 1: the work that I do and in terms of how
Speaker 1: I have managed to actually stay well myself, eric to
Speaker 1: sort of come around out the answering your question is
Speaker 1: I don't see O c D in terms of cure.
Speaker 1: I see managing O c D in terms of that
Speaker 1: we break the cycle. And the reason why I use
Speaker 1: that example about two people going down the mountain or
Speaker 1: going up the mountain and then coming down is that's
Speaker 1: a very good way. I see recovery in the fact
Speaker 1: of that sometimes I still get difficult thoughts, sometimes I
Speaker 1: still get urges to do things that I would rather
Speaker 1: not do, but I don't do those things that would
Speaker 1: be urged to do anymore. And I think that you
Speaker 1: can really then take almost whether you are dealing with O.
Speaker 1: C D or dealing with depression or addiction, you know
Speaker 1: when you can learn to partial it in that way
Speaker 1: that you can have the thought, you can have the urge,
Speaker 1: you can have the difficult experience, and you have the
Speaker 1: choice in terms of how you respond. I think that
Speaker 1: opens up a whole different ball game, And for me
Speaker 1: that's about it's a lot more liberating than you have
Speaker 1: a thought, you have a failing you have to act
Speaker 1: on it. First. We have this thought, but we have
Speaker 1: a choice of what we do with it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sort of the fundamental starting point for so much of
Speaker 1: making life better in countless ways. Is that basic understanding, like, well,
Speaker 1: I think it, I feel it. A that doesn't make
Speaker 1: it true and be I don't need to do it.
Speaker 1: I can exist these thoughts and feelings can do that,
Speaker 1: and that that separation. So a question that often I
Speaker 1: have when you think about o c D. And I'm
Speaker 1: always a little ware of diagnosis in general, but I'm
Speaker 1: also particularly leery of it on you know, asking you
Speaker 1: to sort of make a diagnosis, and that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Like, take somebody who's a real extreme worrier,
Speaker 1: they're just always worrying. Where does it cross the line
Speaker 1: from I'm just a real worrier. Two, I have obsessive
Speaker 1: compulsive thoughts. And maybe maybe to say a cross the
Speaker 1: line is the wrong way to say it, because all
Speaker 1: this stuff is on a gradation, so maybe there's not
Speaker 1: an exact line. But how would someone sort of go, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I I do have a lot of thoughts that are
Speaker 1: difficult and unpleasant negative versus maybe I need to seek
Speaker 1: help for o c D. That's a very good question, Eric,
Speaker 1: and I think it's something which I mean in the
Speaker 1: work that I do, that I would gass also by
Speaker 1: people who may be are showing, you know, maybe sort
Speaker 1: of more minor symptoms versus those who's majorly affect on them.
Speaker 1: And really what it comes down into, Eric, is in
Speaker 1: terms of innote ways that affect in your life. You know,
Speaker 1: I think all of us as human beings. It's part
Speaker 1: of the human conditions sometimes that we worry that we
Speaker 1: have challenges and we have difficult thought processes would show
Speaker 1: up for us. But sometimes we as human beings are
Speaker 1: generally able to sort of manage that and regulate that
Speaker 1: in some sort of capacity. Where O c D is involved,
Speaker 1: you know, it can become so debilitating that it actually
Speaker 1: becomes a cornerstone of people's lives. You know, some clients
Speaker 1: I work with, maybe in the initial stages, most people
Speaker 1: when they go and take a shower or they have
Speaker 1: a wash, or they have a bath, it's it's not
Speaker 1: an issue for them, you know. I have worked with
Speaker 1: clients who have maybe you know, are spending two or
Speaker 1: three hours in the show because of the of the
Speaker 1: rituals that they have to do. There's other clients who
Speaker 1: will develop issues. For a lot of listeners who may
Speaker 1: be thinking all like just talking about that the stereotypical
Speaker 1: of O c D stuff, but for a lot of
Speaker 1: people can be literally just in the realm of there's
Speaker 1: a theme with an O c D called pure oh,
Speaker 1: where it just consists of obsessive thoughts where someone is
Speaker 1: like continually thinking, you know, I like that idea of
Speaker 1: rumination or if you think about the ki tune on
Speaker 1: the cud turn something over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: where it's completely taken them away further quality of life
Speaker 1: that they can't be present, that they or maybe going
Speaker 1: to work, but they're completely not present because they're so
Speaker 1: consumed with this stuff that's going on within their minds.
Speaker 1: So generally clients will come to see me Eric when
Speaker 1: it's getting to the place of where it's affect on
Speaker 1: things like their work, their family life, their hobbies, their
Speaker 1: quality of life to the point where they're finding that unmanigeable.
Speaker 1: And I think that for most people, whether it's me
Speaker 1: or another professional, they get a bit of relief when
Speaker 1: they start to realize that this is a problem which
Speaker 1: I can get help and support with because I know
Speaker 1: that as I mentioned at the beginning, I mean thoughts,
Speaker 1: I was having a nice lea thoughts you what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me? Like it's just you sort of get into
Speaker 1: this whole that you're just almost a maniac, or that
Speaker 1: you're going and seeing when actually have a real diagnosical problem,
Speaker 1: and with the right support, right help, that you can
Speaker 1: actually get the place of where you can live a
Speaker 1: life of mean and purpose. Let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the treatments for o c D, because one of the
Speaker 1: most common ones is exposure and response, often referred to
Speaker 1: as e RP. But I don't think that's the only
Speaker 1: treatment for o c D. I think there are mindfulness
Speaker 1: based treatments. I think acceptance and commitment therapy can be
Speaker 1: used for o c D. So talk to me about
Speaker 1: how those sort of work together or ways that they
Speaker 1: differ from each other. I think exposure in response prefense
Speaker 1: and is probably it still is to this day, gold
Speaker 1: stands and for those listeners who maybe are unsure what
Speaker 1: it involves. You know, say, if someone has developed this
Speaker 1: idea of like they have to wash their hands ten
Speaker 1: times before they have to leave their house in the morning,
Speaker 1: so they've developed this almost anxiety and fear that they
Speaker 1: were to do that less times that that would be insurmountable,
Speaker 1: that would be too anxiety provoking. So what I would
Speaker 1: do with a client like that is we would try
Speaker 1: and great that in terms of like what's called the
Speaker 1: hierarchy of anxiety. So the exposure part and exposures response
Speaker 1: prevention stands for let's begin to expose the client to
Speaker 1: that thing that they are afraid of. But we're going
Speaker 1: to do it in a gentle, manageable manner. So in
Speaker 1: that example idea of where the person is washing their
Speaker 1: hands ten times, okay, next, and let's try doing at nine.
Speaker 1: And with the response prevention peace comes in as where
Speaker 1: you don't do the response of washing them again, you
Speaker 1: don't go and wash it to the tenth time. So
Speaker 1: what that treatment does in the initial stages that can
Speaker 1: be quite challenging, and you need to get the client
Speaker 1: on board, and that's where you need to think about
Speaker 1: values and things. Eric, you know of where you want
Speaker 1: to go with this is that I can be anxiety provoking,
Speaker 1: that you can sort of fail those physiological feelings of
Speaker 1: anxiety and all you want to do is wash your
Speaker 1: hands at one more time. But as you begin to
Speaker 1: refocus your attention on something as simple as Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave this, think I'm going to get out
Speaker 1: of the bar from and I'm going to go and
Speaker 1: think about the next task I have to do. Early
Speaker 1: between that time and by the time you've gone onto
Speaker 1: your next task, that anxiety diminishes. And over time of
Speaker 1: doing the ARP, whether it's in that example or others,
Speaker 1: clients begin to see that their anxiety reduces by itself
Speaker 1: without having to do these ritualistic behaviors. So that's the
Speaker 1: sort of e r P quality and suppose how we
Speaker 1: bring acceptance and commitment therapy into that, which is this
Speaker 1: idea of trying to be more willing to sort of
Speaker 1: have your experience as it shows up as supposed to
Speaker 1: fight suppress and get rid of it and and base
Speaker 1: our life on our values. And what we care about
Speaker 1: is that we're not just saying the clan okay, does
Speaker 1: this wash your hands, storry nine times just for the
Speaker 1: sake of it. We're staying up because we value and
Speaker 1: I value your life and I want you to spend
Speaker 1: less time at the SYNC and more time with your kids,
Speaker 1: or more time pursuing the things that you care about,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think then that's a completely different
Speaker 1: conversation because the necessarily when you talk about exposure and
Speaker 1: response prevntion, you're met with resistance. But when clients can see, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is going to help me to
Speaker 1: go where I want to go. That I can get
Speaker 1: back to university and I can spend more time with
Speaker 1: the kids, but I can go back and do that
Speaker 1: job that I want to do and clients send can
Speaker 1: be more on board. There are similarities there to addiction,
Speaker 1: recovery to right in that at some point, with addiction,
Speaker 1: if you say I'm not going to pick up the substance,
Speaker 1: You've got to face the feeling that's there and that
Speaker 1: fundamental sort of shift of how wash my hands one
Speaker 1: less time even though I really want to do it
Speaker 1: another time? Or I won't pick up the drink even
Speaker 1: though I really feel like it. And so there's that,
Speaker 1: And then I think the next thing you point to
Speaker 1: is so important, which is why why am I not
Speaker 1: picking up the drink? Why am I not washing my
Speaker 1: hands the next time? And that that's where we tie
Speaker 1: into what matters to us, what do we really want,
Speaker 1: what do we value? And turning our attention in that direction.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot of similarity there. I
Speaker 1: guess with mindfulness, i'd be curious if obsessive and compulsive
Speaker 1: thinking is Let's talk about it from just the obsession
Speaker 1: the thinking part, because again I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have this racing mind, and I think it's
Speaker 1: on a continuum. But mindfulness almost feels like, well, wait
Speaker 1: a second, I'm turning my attention to these thoughts, So
Speaker 1: talk about how that helps with O c D or
Speaker 1: does it sometimes get confusing and that's the wrong direction
Speaker 1: to turn. Say a little bit more about how mindful
Speaker 1: this ties in. I generally try and bring mindfulness and
Speaker 1: not not in terms in this lay of formal meditation
Speaker 1: practice generally is helping to see clients sort of. I
Speaker 1: would try and explain in very much sort of basic
Speaker 1: terms of what it involves and how it can be helpful.
Speaker 1: So I think, as you mentioned, you know, people with
Speaker 1: o c D even take the diagnosis ode of it.
Speaker 1: People with a recent mind a lot of difficult thoughts
Speaker 1: and feelings, they're spending a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: future and jump in the worst case, and I was
Speaker 1: that they were very rarely present, and you sort of
Speaker 1: bring this idea up, you know, would you like to
Speaker 1: try something we could help you to be a bit
Speaker 1: more present, which could help you to spend less time
Speaker 1: in that ether of the future where you know there
Speaker 1: are these things that could happen, but also different things
Speaker 1: that could happen also, you know, but the only really
Speaker 1: time we can make a difference as the here and now.
Speaker 1: You're trying to sort of put it in those terms.
Speaker 1: You know, clients start to see mindfulness as not this
Speaker 1: big abstract term that's only for people who can afford
Speaker 1: two days silent retreats, or you know, we can go
Speaker 1: and do a fancy, big room yoga class. You know,
Speaker 1: it brings it down to everyday individual and how I
Speaker 1: try and get clients on board as the recognition I'll
Speaker 1: bring in something of my own lived experience that for me,
Speaker 1: being mindful it's probably been one of the things along
Speaker 1: with acceptance of commitment, therapy and constructive living also which
Speaker 1: we may get into which keeps me well. You know,
Speaker 1: as you said at the beginning, it's almost like my
Speaker 1: own wellness toolbox. I can pick these things out, and
Speaker 1: being mindful is something which clients can resonate with. Once
Speaker 1: I get that idea of what it involves and how
Speaker 1: it can be applied to everyday life and making a difference.
Speaker 1: Then I'll bring in some sort of meditation practice generally
Speaker 1: involved in some sort of mindful breathing technique, or will
Speaker 1: do maybe a minute or so initially of helping people
Speaker 1: get more into their body and less into their mind,
Speaker 1: because that's what we see the involved awful lot of
Speaker 1: Eric spending so much time in our minds and we're
Speaker 1: so disconnected to our body and when we can come
Speaker 1: back to that. None of this, as well as just
Speaker 1: to just the caveator, is going to magically make the
Speaker 1: stuff go away. But what mindfulness does. It helps it
Speaker 1: to be more monageable, and as I know and Don
Speaker 1: Harris's book Temperson Happier, it can make things a lot
Speaker 1: more moniteable and make life more livable. Cognitive behavioral therapy
Speaker 1: is for listeners who aren't familiar. The basic idea is
Speaker 1: that you try and examine your thoughts for distortions, ways
Speaker 1: that you're not seeing the world correctly, and thus if
Speaker 1: you can see those distortions ideally, then you see the
Speaker 1: world more clearly and you suffer less. So it's a
Speaker 1: technique that I have found very useful in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. I think it has limitations, but I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about where some of those limitations are,
Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to obsessive thinking. So at first glance,
Speaker 1: it seems like, well, this would be a great thing
Speaker 1: to apply to somebody who's having obsessive thinking, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it really always is. Can you share why
Speaker 1: that is and when maybe it is a useful tool
Speaker 1: and when it's not. Yeah, and again another great question.
Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, I'll probably bring a bit
Speaker 1: of my own personal experience in here. I mean, in
Speaker 1: terms of my recovery and in terms of when I
Speaker 1: left the hospital, I would have went to a person clinic.
Speaker 1: I would have seen a very good, very robust, working
Speaker 1: a long time cognitive behavioral therapist, and we worked really
Speaker 1: well together, developed a really good rapport exposure and response
Speaker 1: prevention the ARP, which you've just talked about as a
Speaker 1: big component of cognitive behavioral therapy, and it's something which
Speaker 1: is used an awful lot in the treatment of O
Speaker 1: c D. But to answer your question, to answer it
Speaker 1: first of all personally, but I find difficult about CBT,
Speaker 1: especially the cognitivelopment, especially that bit you were mentioned about
Speaker 1: sort of trying to challenge, trying to rationalize, try and
Speaker 1: look for the evidence, almost try and you know, if
Speaker 1: you have a negative thought, let's try and look for
Speaker 1: the positive way on that. It sounded all very nice
Speaker 1: and paper and I think in the short term it
Speaker 1: had a little bit of benefit, But in the long
Speaker 1: term I still didn't stop those negative, difficult challenge and
Speaker 1: thoughts from showing up. Ross Harris used the term and
Speaker 1: offer of the happiness trap, another sort of accory. You know,
Speaker 1: if you go and learn Spanish, you're not going to
Speaker 1: forget English. You know, if you go to a positive
Speaker 1: thinking class, sometimes you're still going to get these negative
Speaker 1: thoughts which show up. So for me in my own
Speaker 1: personal life, and as I said before, very openly and honestly,
Speaker 1: I really was somewhat of a self help junking. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you could look around my room now, there's there's
Speaker 1: books from mindfulness to act to CBT, to logo therapy, whatever, union.
Speaker 1: But in my journey, for me, trying to spend too
Speaker 1: much time trying to figure out change, rationalized dispute thoughts
Speaker 1: nearly good in my own way, you know, it nearly
Speaker 1: paradoxically got me more stuck. The behavioral part of CBT
Speaker 1: is very useful, and I think in another therapeutic model,
Speaker 1: I think that's lasted the test of time, because it
Speaker 1: really is. But for me, it was about trying to
Speaker 1: get out of my own way, which helped me the most.
Speaker 1: You know, I suppose I'm bringing that in terms of
Speaker 1: the professional context, in terms of how I work with clients,
Speaker 1: and that way Eric where a lot of clients come
Speaker 1: to me, and their number one thing is they want
Speaker 1: to get rid of those difficult thoughts and feelings they
Speaker 1: are causing them distress. Their lives are terrible. This is
Speaker 1: not what they want anymore at first and foremost ibility
Speaker 1: of that, because it's a horrible place to be when
Speaker 1: you feel that, the stress that you don't know where
Speaker 1: to turn. I want to re poor is built. And
Speaker 1: once we sort of get comfortable with each other, I
Speaker 1: usually do the thought experiment, and we could do this
Speaker 1: here together very quickly. As you know, as hard as
Speaker 1: you can do not think about a pink elephant, and
Speaker 1: nine times to attend, some resemblance of a pink elephant
Speaker 1: will show up in your mind. So why am I
Speaker 1: even mentioning that? Because it's this idea that when you
Speaker 1: try not to think about something, which happens in a
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety problems where you try and avoid certain thoughts,
Speaker 1: paradox would seemed to think of with them more So.
Speaker 1: CBT has its uses, but I think it also has
Speaker 1: its limitations. So I think that's where the likes of
Speaker 1: acceptance and commitment therapy and some of these mindfless present
Speaker 1: moment based processes can be helpful away. I often think
Speaker 1: about it, and I'm curious kind of what your opinion is.
Speaker 1: I sometimes think that that CBT approach is a really
Speaker 1: good first step to see if the thought. If I
Speaker 1: just examine it and I go, oh God, that's not true.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I can see right through it and it all changes.
Speaker 1: There's a famous Stephen Covey story that I love where
Speaker 1: he's on a train and there's these kids running up
Speaker 1: and down in the train. I tell this story in
Speaker 1: my Spiritual Habits course. Kids running up and down on
Speaker 1: the train and they're yelling and disturbing everybody in the car.
Speaker 1: And Dr Covey's sitting there. He's just getting more irritated.
Speaker 1: And the dad of the kids is just sitting there,
Speaker 1: not doing anything, and these kids are yelling, they're bumping
Speaker 1: into people. He can't take it anymore. You know this story.
Speaker 1: You're shaking your head. And he finally goes up to
Speaker 1: the man. He says, excuse me, sir, your kids are
Speaker 1: disturbing everybody here. You know, maybe you could tone them down.
Speaker 1: And the guy looks up kind of dazed and says, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. We just left their hospital and their
Speaker 1: mother just died and they don't know how to handle it,
Speaker 1: and I guess I don't either, And in that moment
Speaker 1: everything change, right. You can feel it when you hear
Speaker 1: that story. Instantly you go from thinking what's wrong with
Speaker 1: that guy? Is a jerk? To like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what can I do to help that man? So that
Speaker 1: cognitive approach can be really power or full. I always
Speaker 1: find it worth exploring a different way. I could see this.
Speaker 1: What am I making it mean? But then after that
Speaker 1: I often find like, Okay, well that cleared away a
Speaker 1: little debris maybe, but now I'm just stuck in the
Speaker 1: debate loop. Now I'm just stuck in the debate loop
Speaker 1: with this negative thought. And that's then where I think
Speaker 1: pivoting towards a little bit more of a Okay, these
Speaker 1: thoughts are going to be here. How do I relate
Speaker 1: to them differently? How do I relax around them differently?
Speaker 1: Does that resonate with your way of approaching it? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I think you couldn't have said it any better that
Speaker 1: you know, it's a great story, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I've I've experienced it in my own life.
Speaker 1: It's you know where maybe you could be walking down
Speaker 1: the street and maybe you we have a friend and
Speaker 1: they don't believe at you back, and you're maybe first
Speaker 1: initial thought is that ignorant pig, you know, don't even
Speaker 1: we have may back we find it later that day
Speaker 1: they didn't even see you, didn't even see you, or
Speaker 1: maybe that they were caught up in the world and
Speaker 1: you know that there's so many things going on and
Speaker 1: sometimes are I know when CBT, they'd use that word
Speaker 1: and to your automatic negative thoughts, the automatic thought that
Speaker 1: shows up free there is that that person is ignerant,
Speaker 1: that person is basically not giving me the time of day.
Speaker 1: When actually that particular thought it wasn't rational, it wasn't accurate.
Speaker 1: And like you said, I think in instance is like
Speaker 1: that sometimes reframing and looking at things a bit differently
Speaker 1: can be very useful. I think where it can have
Speaker 1: its strawbacks, especially in terms of working with people who
Speaker 1: have obsessive and anxiety type problems, is that the thoughts
Speaker 1: keep coming back, even in its name obsessive is that
Speaker 1: there is a chronic quality to whatever sort of treatment
Speaker 1: model is applied. Sometimes the thoughts will come back and
Speaker 1: show up again. So it seems to be what works
Speaker 1: really well. But with clients with those types of problems,
Speaker 1: Let's face Eric, we all getting to sometimes we all
Speaker 1: have difficult thoughts and for hands, but it's more, as
Speaker 1: you alluded to, what do we do when they show up?
Speaker 1: Do we get completely blinkered and we basically give them
Speaker 1: all our time or energy and attention and dictate what
Speaker 1: they do? Where oh I have the thought after wash
Speaker 1: their hands again, so I go and wash my hands again.
Speaker 1: Or because I'm for some people, they may have a
Speaker 1: thought that maybe when they're cutting up vegsibles that actually
Speaker 1: somehow cause harm to myself or others. You pay attention
Speaker 1: to that thought, you give it full believability. What do
Speaker 1: you do you stop using night So thoughts, in my
Speaker 1: opinion of very much like the weather in that they're
Speaker 1: constantly present, but also they're ever changing. So with that response,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have its raining, you bring your
Speaker 1: umbrella and you try and get on with your day.
Speaker 1: If it's suddy, you put on a nice pair of
Speaker 1: shorts and taster and try and do the best that
Speaker 1: you can with the situation. And when I'm working with clients,
Speaker 1: I try and validate what they're going through, but also
Speaker 1: given the choice that they can choose to do what's
Speaker 1: meaningful for them. And and the truth, Eric, it's it's
Speaker 1: how I try and live my own life, where sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll get difficult thoughts, I'll get urges to do things
Speaker 1: which aren't aligned with my values. But I've got the
Speaker 1: place oftwhere a bit like the radio in the background,
Speaker 1: where you can be at a restaurant and you can
Speaker 1: be having a meal, something I look forward to when
Speaker 1: the COVID restrictions sort of ease here where I'm at,
Speaker 1: and you can be fully engaged in your mail and
Speaker 1: the people you're with. You're not noticing that music in
Speaker 1: the background. It's still going on, but you're still engaged
Speaker 1: in what you're doing. You're focusing on that. When that
Speaker 1: good song comes up, that harbor or that bond you'll
Speaker 1: be you notice it. But when it's not, you just
Speaker 1: let it play on the background and you put your
Speaker 1: time and energy into your mail and those here with
Speaker 1: And I think we can actually learn to do that
Speaker 1: in our everyday life. With a thought shows up which
Speaker 1: is useful, Let's give it our time, let's give her attention,
Speaker 1: let's let it navigate what we do. But if it's
Speaker 1: unhelpful if it's sort of encouraging us to do things
Speaker 1: which are aligned with our values or could make things work.
Speaker 1: Let's just let that play away in the background where
Speaker 1: we focus on on the alb motel. So that's an
Speaker 1: analogy which I am some of my clients are find useful.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really useful analogy, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: about that. That's one of those things also that at
Speaker 1: least initially sounds good on paper and is really hard
Speaker 1: to do. Like, Okay, you're having the thought, just don't
Speaker 1: give it a lot of attention, and yet it's getting
Speaker 1: all the attention. There's a lot of energy bound up
Speaker 1: in it. So what are some techniques that people can
Speaker 1: use two? All right, there's that thought again, whether it's
Speaker 1: calling me to a compulsion or it's just I'm worried
Speaker 1: about the mortgage payment for the seven and fiftieth time today. Right,
Speaker 1: I realized that that's no longer a useful thought. There's
Speaker 1: nothing I'm gonna do about the mortgage payment at this point.
Speaker 1: I've done what I can do. It's just recycling. So
Speaker 1: what are some ways some techniques of going all right,
Speaker 1: how do I in acceptance of commitment therapy, we would
Speaker 1: say get a little distance from it. In Buddhism they
Speaker 1: would would say a very similar thing, sort of just
Speaker 1: observe it, don't engage with it. So what are some
Speaker 1: techniques for doing that? Because that's really easy to say
Speaker 1: and really hard to do a lot of times. In reality. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think when we can get to that place
Speaker 1: where you know, thoughts and feelings can show up and
Speaker 1: we have a choice in terms of high respond it's
Speaker 1: a very liberating place to be. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think you have to be very careful why you parcel
Speaker 1: out ARC because I can almost seem quite invalidate and
Speaker 1: honestly for some people or it's like, okay, well you
Speaker 1: haven't dealt with what I've dealt with, or you aren't
Speaker 1: think of what I'm thinking, you aren't feeling what I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: you know, and people in necessary reaction is almost like
Speaker 1: he just tell me to sort of dismiss or ignore
Speaker 1: what I'm sort of experiencing, and I relegate. It's it's
Speaker 1: completely opposite. It's about helping client to get the place
Speaker 1: of where no they can acknowledge and be aware of
Speaker 1: what's showing up, but choosing to put their time, energy
Speaker 1: and attention onto something which is more meaningful. So I
Speaker 1: think the first part of that ERIC is to help
Speaker 1: get thoughts from a place where they're completely dominant and
Speaker 1: completely you know, at a place where they are dictating
Speaker 1: what you do behaviorally, so that to try and get
Speaker 1: a wee bit of wigle room. Let's try and save right,
Speaker 1: instead of the thoughts being up here covering or eye
Speaker 1: that's all we can see. Okay, we've got a bit
Speaker 1: of choice here, and now we can choose to go
Speaker 1: there or we can choose to do something else, and
Speaker 1: within acceptance of commitment therapy, that will be known as
Speaker 1: this idea of cognitive diffusion, of trying to get a
Speaker 1: bit of distance, trying to get a bit of space,
Speaker 1: a bit of separation from those difficult thoughts and feelings
Speaker 1: that are shown up. One way I would do that
Speaker 1: with clients is is what I would call it a
Speaker 1: three sentence exercise. You pick a thought. Generally, if I
Speaker 1: say zero, the thought basically is producing no anxiety inten
Speaker 1: It's like a hot thought. You wouldn't go near it.
Speaker 1: It's trying to pick a thought which shows up regularly
Speaker 1: for you, but it's maybe about halfway through the sort
Speaker 1: of anxiety, sort of vector scale, and we'll put the
Speaker 1: thought out there. So say, it might be the example
Speaker 1: you give quite a mortgage payment, that I have this
Speaker 1: huge mortgage payment. I'm never gonna finish it or pair
Speaker 1: it off. So what do you do? If you begin that,
Speaker 1: always the first sentences you'll write that out. The first sentences,
Speaker 1: I can't pay this payment. What we're going to do
Speaker 1: in the second and third sentence, we're going to add
Speaker 1: a couple of words to that, And the second sentence
Speaker 1: you'll add I'm having the thought that I can't make
Speaker 1: the mortgage payment, and the final sentence being I notice
Speaker 1: I'm having the thought that I can't make the mortgage payment. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's something which I would encourage clients to do to
Speaker 1: give a goal. Obviously, if you type that in in YouTube,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great videos that talk you through that.
Speaker 1: But it's that idea, and even as I say it
Speaker 1: myself and working with clients, I can help to create
Speaker 1: a wee bit of distance, help to get that thought
Speaker 1: from believability to Okay, there's that thought, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: hooks me. Here's people say and act. Sometimes it's sort
Speaker 1: of phases, there's nothing else that I can do. But
Speaker 1: when you get that wee bit of wiggle room, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: choice comes in the room. And then it's about them
Speaker 1: bringing in those behavioral things, like what can I do
Speaker 1: on a practical level? Is there at that agency that
Speaker 1: I can speak with? Is there's some support I can
Speaker 1: get financially? Is it a case of I need to
Speaker 1: try and look for work. Is it a case that
Speaker 1: I'm able to get all the benefits that I'm entitled to.
Speaker 1: So it's not just that we, oh, let's have this
Speaker 1: thought about the moor Egan, let's do so that's not
Speaker 1: dealing about it. It's about recognizing, yeah, there's be things
Speaker 1: that need to be done here, but we can't make
Speaker 1: progress if we're just consumed by the negativity and the
Speaker 1: overwhelming nature of the phone. Yeah. I like that when
Speaker 1: I'm having the thought that, and then I noticed that
Speaker 1: I'm having the thought that it's just these degrees of
Speaker 1: separation similar to that idea. Often instead of saying like
Speaker 1: I'm anxious, you just say, well, anxiety is present, you know.
Speaker 1: It just changes the orientation a little bit, like Okay,
Speaker 1: it's here, but that's not what I am so those
Speaker 1: are all ways. Another one of my favorites that comes
Speaker 1: from accepting it's a commitment therapy is to sort of
Speaker 1: think those thoughts in a different voice. I found this
Speaker 1: one to be really helpful because I think one of
Speaker 1: the hardest things is that are good thoughts or maybe
Speaker 1: I won't even say good art. Positive thoughts are negative
Speaker 1: thoughts are accurate, thoughts are inaccurate thoughts. They all think
Speaker 1: in the same voice. It's the same voice. It's like, Eric,
Speaker 1: you should go murder people and take heroin. Is the
Speaker 1: same voice that's like, Eric, I think you should probably
Speaker 1: go donate your life savings to that orphanage. It sounds
Speaker 1: like the same person. I'm like, well, wait a second.
Speaker 1: So this idea of being able to put it in
Speaker 1: a different voice, and I shared on the podcast. I
Speaker 1: certainly share it with coaching clients a lot. But my
Speaker 1: inner voice one of the ones I use as e
Speaker 1: or the donkey from Winnie the Pooh. You know, my
Speaker 1: inner e or everything's just so sad. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not much of a tale. But I'm not much of
Speaker 1: a donkey. The minute that I take whatever I'm thinking
Speaker 1: and I hear it in that voice, it makes me smile.
Speaker 1: You know. Now I don't remember to do it often,
Speaker 1: but almost every time I do if I'm like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's E or again boom, I have a different relationship
Speaker 1: helps you get that at a distance and by gild Ram,
Speaker 1: And to be fair, I was laughing at how accurate
Speaker 1: you were able to do that your voice. Eric, I
Speaker 1: know him, well, you're very skilled at at doing that voice.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's a very similar to that
Speaker 1: sort of three yet sentence exercise that I talked people through,
Speaker 1: same thoughts I allowed like that in a different tone.
Speaker 1: Some people use maybe a president's name they don't like,
Speaker 1: thrive voice that they didn't like, or maybe a sports
Speaker 1: commentator or maybe you know, people will sing it into
Speaker 1: the theme a happy birthday, And it's about trying some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. Eric. You know, I think that for me,
Speaker 1: even in my own acceptance of commitment therapy training, as
Speaker 1: I got really involved in the work, there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of stuff I was but hesitant off and
Speaker 1: that wouldn't work for me. And right now, three sentences,
Speaker 1: how's that going to help? Or you know, saying that
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do this thing to the signed
Speaker 1: a happy but actually when you give these things ago,
Speaker 1: he started to see that they can have benefit and
Speaker 1: they can be useful. Another one which probably you maybe
Speaker 1: touched on before in previous podcast, Eric, is that idea
Speaker 1: of sort of word repetition and how that can actually
Speaker 1: be helpful. They the sort of milk and milk exercise. Um,
Speaker 1: I know that's Stephen Hayes, who you've had on the
Speaker 1: show as well, and one of the co finders of
Speaker 1: Act basically uses an example of that. He was at
Speaker 1: a seminar and given a talk and basically one of
Speaker 1: the figures he was given was something like four and
Speaker 1: a half billion pounds, when actually the answer was four
Speaker 1: and a half million pounds. And he actually remembers going
Speaker 1: home that night to his apartment and just burying himself
Speaker 1: for saying this. Where I am sitting in where you are.
Speaker 1: It seems to maybe a minor thing in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, but for him this was massive and mammoth,
Speaker 1: and he woke up in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: and he was again sort of overwhelmed by this. Sally,
Speaker 1: and you're such an idiot, You're such a stupid You're
Speaker 1: supposed to be a professor, and this is the sort
Speaker 1: of stuff you're doing. You're getting it wrong. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is an opportunity to practice water prates. Let's
Speaker 1: try aw diffusion exercise and really what it involves. For
Speaker 1: thirty seconds you say a word which is troubling for you,
Speaker 1: and for thirty seconds he went stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,
Speaker 1: to the point that the word becomes almost meaningless nonsense.
Speaker 1: I just usedes and just business, he says, oh, And
Speaker 1: after that I felt, Okay, I'm back to sleep, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's that idea that there are
Speaker 1: skills that we can use that can really diminish the
Speaker 1: impact of some of the language that shows up within
Speaker 1: our head. And I know that in my life I
Speaker 1: generally try and live both personally and professionally as I've
Speaker 1: tranced out in my own way. I know that sometimes
Speaker 1: thoughts are going to show up that I don't approve
Speaker 1: or like. But I also know there's going to thoughts
Speaker 1: show up that are really useful to me. And I
Speaker 1: find that having that approach of almost let not play out,
Speaker 1: you know, and choose and which thoughts that pay attention
Speaker 1: to again, like you said, is a skill Eric and
Speaker 1: does take time, but it's a place that are a
Speaker 1: lot of clients that I work with a meat personally,
Speaker 1: and I think Eric, in your own life you're touched
Speaker 1: on and your own issues and challenges that you can
Speaker 1: get the place of you can live a life of
Speaker 1: me and the purpose even with the stuff that chows
Speaker 1: up sometimes. I love all those examples. As we were
Speaker 1: talking there, it occurred to me maybe the one you
Speaker 1: feed should offer a service. Chris will record a voice
Speaker 1: over of whatever your negative thoughts are and whatever ridiculous
Speaker 1: voice you want, and we'll we'll send it to you.
Speaker 1: He's a very talented voiceover expert. If you need an
Speaker 1: interview or a voice give me a ring. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: those are all really great. You and I are going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit in the post show conversation
Speaker 1: about values because that's a big theme, is you know,
Speaker 1: living according to our values. Well, I'd like to talk about, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I find my values and how do I
Speaker 1: know what they are without getting lost in another world
Speaker 1: of thought that feels confusing You and I will do
Speaker 1: that in the post show conversation. Listeners if you like
Speaker 1: access to that as well as add free episodes A
Speaker 1: weekly episode. I do call the teaching a song and
Speaker 1: a poem and a pleasure of supporting an independent podcast
Speaker 1: that needs your support. Go to One You Feed dot
Speaker 1: Net slash Joint Paul, thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure to finally get to have
Speaker 1: this conversation. Very welcome, Erica, Thanks for having me. It's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support
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