Waiting and anxiety

I haven’t been very active in the blogging world lately, and I apologize for that. I miss you!

I thought I was on the road to recovery, but the cough and other symptoms came back with a vengeance. I just haven’t felt very good.

But life goes on, doesn’t it?

I am waiting to hear some news that would create a change in my life.

I applied for a job that would actually be for less hours than I work now, and would still allow me time for my editing business. And the new job would pay significantly more.

I had my interview Wednesday (thank goodness I didn’t have a coughing fit at the same time). And now I’m waiting.

And I’m not good at waiting.

It’s all wrapped up with OCD and my craving for certainty. I want to know right now that everything is going to work out, that everyone is going to be OK, that the change I want to happen is going to happen.

But that’s not how life works, is it?

I’ve been trying some mindfulness techniques to help me deal with my anxiety. All I have is right now, I remind myself. I focus my senses on what’s around me right now, the sounds especially.

I also try to accept what is. I have done all I can in the matter. The rest is out of my control, and I have to accept what the outcome will be.

And I focus on what’s most important to me regardless of anything else that goes on in my life: Larry, Chase Bird, my spiritual life, writing, service to the world.

My techniques to help with the waiting and uncertainty aren’t perfect, but they are helping me to be able to deal with the anxiety so much better than I used to. I love that there are things I can do to help myself in that way.

Do you have a hard time waiting for news, good or bad?

Happy 2015!

Chase Bird allowed me to make one more silly “dress-up” photo of him to wish you all a Happy New Year.

This is a time when many of us resolve to do more, be more, be different, do differently during the next year. I tend to do that, too.

But as I wrote in my journal this morning, I am going to try to remember that we have the opportunity to set new goals, to start over, every single day, every single moment. We don’t have to pressure ourselves to perfectly live up to resolutions we make on any one day.

That said, I am making some plans and setting some goals. What I’d like to share with you today is my word for 2015.

I usually focus on choosing a guiding word for myself in the new year. The word that has come to me over and over is “Quiet.”

I need and crave quiet. I need time to stop the activity, to instead meditate and think and read and learn.

I also need to take quiet to allow the clamor of my thoughts to calm down. That’s not an easy task for me. In many ways, OCD and anxious thoughts—obsessive, relentless, continuous—are more familiar to me than a quiet mindfulness of the moment.

I need quiet to stop obsessing over the past, to stop worrying about the future, and t stop generally staying stuck. I need quiet to figure out how to move forward.

Do you ever find that once you start mulling over something, you begin to find others talking and writing about the same things?

I was fortunate to recently find a wonderful On Being program called “The Last Quiet Places: Silence and the Presence of Everything.” In the program, Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, is interviewed. The introduction to the program states that Hempton “defines real quiet as presence — not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise.”

Yes! That is what I want to experience. An absence of noise.

I hope 2015 will find me learning ways to experience quiet.

May 2015 be a joyful year for each of you!

Thankful

I'm obviously very thankful for this little critter. He's lounging in front of the gas logs.

This time of year, my thoughts, like many others’, turn to the things that I’m thankful for. I could give you a list of what I’m thankful for. But I thought instead I would tell you a story about a little adventure Larry and I had yesterday.

We went to Lynchburg to do some shopping and decided to eat lunch at a Japanese restaurant we haven’t tried before.

We’ve both had Japanese food before, and Larry loves sushi, but compared to what we were served and the way we were served Sunday, we got more of the “real” food we were looking for.

As we walked through the dining room towards our seat, I saw a lot of people using chopsticks and eating dishes I didn’t recognize.

Then the host left us with menus plus a paper sushi menu with pencils.

What were we supposed to do with these?

The waiter, a very nice young man who looked like he probably attended one of the local colleges, appeared to take our drink orders. I decided to be straight-forward.

“We’ve never been here before,” I said. “What do we do with these little menus?”

The waiter said we would order any sushi by filling out the paper menu. Everything else would be ordered off the other menu.

So Larry and I looked over the menus. We didn’t recognize a lot of the dishes. We laughed at our own confusion. Then I remembered I had my phone. I Googled a few things on the menu to find out what they were. For example, I learned that sashimi is raw meat or fish thinly sliced.

Larry wanted sushi with salmon, and I wanted a vegetarian roll with cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber. We filled out our papers. Then we decided on the main dishes: teriyaki steak and shrimp for Larry, vegetable tempura for me.

The service was so nice. We got our sushi and rolls, then onion soup, which I had never had but found delicious. A green salad followed with a dressing that tasted good even though we didn’t know what kind it was.

When the main meal came, it was on a tray, with a bamboo mat covering the bottom. It was a multitude of food.

I loved the dishes—the small ones for the sauces, the soup spoon perfectly shaped, the pretty plates.

No, I didn’t get any photos. I was concentrating on the food and atmosphere, but now I wish I had snapped a few.

I wanted to try the chopsticks and took them out of the wrapper. I couldn’t figure out at first that I was supposed to pull them apart (don’t laugh). I fiddled with them a little, but I couldn’t seem to get the hang of it.

Larry brought his chopsticks home and practiced this afternoon. I think he wants to go back soon for more food.

So why is this something to be particularly thankful for? I spent time with my husband, we ate good food, and we had fun experiencing something new. We might have been a bit embarrassed by our lack of knowledge, but we just joked about it and had a good time.

These little adventures—these moments of life—they mean so much to me nowadays. I no longer wait for the perfect time to have the perfect day. Any day can be made an adventure, don’t you think?

Blessings to all of you, and if you celebrate Thanksgiving, have a wonderful holiday!

Note: This week, instead of posting on Thursday, I’ll post on Friday.

The dentist and OCD

Do you dread dentist appointments? Do you hate the thought of sitting in that chair with the fear of needles, drills, and other scary looking tools?

Yes, me, too.

Though I don’t dread it like I used to do. And I consider that lessening of anxiety a triumph over a bit of OCD in my life.

I went to the dentist this week for my six-month check-up. I’ve been seeing the same dentist for 29 years, and I wouldn’t trade him for another. He understands my teeth: their thin enamel, their hyper-sensitivity. He’s good at what he does.

And he’s very kind. The other day, the dental hygienist did the cleaning, as usual, then the dentist came in to look things over. As is usually the case now, he pronounced everything fine and told me he’d see me in six months.

“But if you need anything before then, you know we’re here for you,” he said.

I have spent a lifetime being vigilant about brushing my teeth and, as an adult, flossing. But I’ve had cavities and have had to have several root canals. We’re not sure why I have such problems. Perhaps the lack of fluoride as a child. Perhaps the thin enamel. Perhaps just bad genes.

When I started having OCD symptoms, the trips to the dentist became part of my obsessions.

As a dentist appointment drew closer, I felt very anxious. More importantly, I felt like I couldn’t relax, couldn’t NOT worry, until the visit was over.

If I had to return to the dentist for a cavity filling or a root canal, I tried to get an appointment as soon as possible. The sooner it was, the sooner I could get it over with and be OK.

If the appointment wasn’t soon enough (in my opinion), then I would call the dentist office multiple times, asking about cancellations.

When I grew in understanding that fear of uncertainty is a big part of OCD, I began to see that I would have to live with the idea that painful, uncomfortable, scary things were in my future, were in everyone’s future. That’s life.

But in the meantime, I was wasting the present by not allowing myself to enjoy life until the “big event” was over. I’ve learned that the present, right now, is so important.

Life is to be enjoyed and appreciated now.

Also, as my OCD improved overall, the improvement included a lessening of that belief that I couldn’t be OK until all worries were taken care of.

So I go see the dentist every six months. I still feel a little trepidation at the thought of something being wrong with my teeth. But I get through it. And if I need to go back for some work, I no longer obsess over getting the work done immediately.

It’s nice to be able to enjoy the present as best as I can.

So, what’s your relationship with the dental office?

Bringing along my camera

I got my camera out yesterday.

I decided the night before that I would take pictures outside around our yard before going into the newspaper office, and then more when I got home.

I have had a hard time lately following through with my intentions. But this time I did it. Something in me wanted to get outside and see things in ways I do only when I have a camera in hand.

Acorns scattered on the driveway. Larry cleans them off, but more take their place.

A pile of acorns here. Maybe it's a nature-made buffet for the deer and squirrels.

A close-up of the acorns that seem to fall almost constantly. I'm glad to see them. Last year there were very few for the animals.

The leaves aren't changing as quickly as I thought they were. This tree in the backyard is starting to show some red.

This tree in the neighbor's yard is going to be lovely once it all turns.

It was drizzly when I took my morning pictures. By the time I got home from the office, it was pouring. So I didn’t get my after-work pictures. But I worked around that.

Earlier, I had to drive out into a rural part of the county to interview a person for a story. On the way to this person’s house, I noticed some things I wanted to photograph.

There aren’t many good places to pull over on these country roads. The ditches are often too near the roadside for a safe pull-over, and trees and other foliage tend to hug the road.

But a fence I wanted to photograph happened to be across the road from a church, so I pulled into the driveway and took photos.

 

A fence in rural Campbell County. You can barely see the barbed wire because of the growth around it.

The fence must not be keeping anything in or out right now. It ended with a post wrapped in extra barbed wire.

A few weeks ago, in a comment, my friend Janet from ocdtalk shared a link to an article called “Photography as a Balm for Mental Illness,” by Aimee Lee Ball. It’s discusses the reasons that photography can be so helpful for those struggling with mental illness. You can read the article HERE.

I can relate. It feels so good to create something. And focusing on what I want to capture, and how, puts me in the moment, with a mind too busy to focus on anything negative or fearful.

Since I finally captured a photo of a fence, I’m linking up with Theresa’s Good Fences meme on her blog, TheRun*Around*Ranch Report.

It’s fun to see the fences and gates that people have found on their daily adventures. To link up yourself or to see some fun photos, follow the link HERE.

Do you enjoy photography? Why or why not?

Mindfulness and mushrooms

Do you ever get in the mode where you see something every day but don’t really notice it?

I do. For example, I walk out to the car every day to go to work or to go elsewhere. I look around the yard, but I don’t really see it.

Lately, we’ve had more rain than usual, and even when the rain isn’t falling, the days have been cloudy.

The other day, I walked across the backyard for the first time in several days, and I couldn’t believe the number of mushrooms I saw.

An abundance of mushrooms. Brown, red, yellow, off-white. Big, small, alone, in groups.

I don’t remember ever seeing this many at one time.

I took a few photos with my phone. But I knew I needed to do a real study of what was going on in my yard. And that required my big girl camera.

So I spent some time wandering around in the yard with my camera, trying to capture the oddly shaped fungi among the grass.

It has been a while since I’ve taken the camera out. I just haven’t felt motivated. The mushrooms provided me with a nudge. And I knew I needed to get outside and behind the lens of the camera and see what I could see.

It calms me to take photos. I think it’s because I have to be in the present moment when I’m taking photos. I have to concentrate on the object I’m photographing and on how I want the picture to turn out.

I don’t ruminate about the past. I don’t get anxious about the future.

In other words, I practice mindfulness.

What’s been going on in nature where you live?

Back in nature

I had a busy start to the weekend. I had to work Friday night into Saturday morning. (I will tell you the story behind that, but it will have to wait until this Friday.)

I got home early Saturday morning and found that though I was very tired, I couldn’t fall deeply asleep. I dozed off and on until it was time to feed Chase Bird about 6 a.m. Then I went back to bed and tried again.

Saturday passed in a blur of sleep, going out for a late lunch, reading, and more sleep.

Sunday I knew what I wanted to do. I had been eying some Queen Anne’s Lace along the street across from our house. I wanted to get some close-ups.

My camera has been sitting in its bag for much of the summer. I just haven’t felt the energy or desire to capture slivers of the world.

The Queen Anne’s Lace was my get-back-into-it bit of nature.

It felt good to use my camera to get out of my own mind for a while. And being out in nature reminds me—if I am mindful—that I am not the center of the universe.

That’s a pretty good thing to remember, don’t you think?

Focusing on the emotions that are

I am afraid of snakes. Very afraid. I’m so afraid of them, I have a hard time looking at pictures of them. I feel anxious just hearing other peoples’ stories about encountering them.

Larry has found about five snake skins in the yard this summer. For a few days after he finds them, I move carefully when I go outside. I examine every stick from afar before I venture into the yard.

When he saw a live snake in the side yard near his truck, I could barely listen to his story. I thought about it later, feeling anxious and worried. I wished for winter.

So why am I including with this post a photo of a snake skin?

I made myself take the picture. Though I felt fear, I made myself walk up to the skin. I held up my phone and took several photos. I made myself look at the photos.

I’m not sure if this “exposure” did much good. When I was flipping through the photos on my phone earlier this week, I shuddered—I did that “jump out of my skin” move—when I unexpectedly saw one of the snake skin photos.

But still, I keep looking at the photo. And I’m sharing it with you.

I’ve been dealing with anxiety over life issues in a similar way. Life has been hard lately, as you know. Bedtime is probably the hardest time because I have less to distract me.

I decided that I would try an experiment. Instead of trying to immediately change my thoughts or cover up the bad emotions with visualizations or calming recitations, I would focus on experiencing the anxiety.

I feel the anxiety the most in my chest. It’s like a weight in the center of my chest. When panic comes, my chest physically hurts.

I have focused on the hate I’ve felt, too. I’m not proud to say that, but that’s what I’ve felt at times. It, too, is a heavy weight.

Anxiety, hate, anger, hopelessness—they all settle in my chest. I feel like it’s going to burst.

I want to get up and move or talk or read or listen to music.

But I try to lie there and be mindful of how I’m feeling, even for just a short while.

My hope is that the more I face my emotions, the less afraid I’ll be of them and the less I will do to avoid facing the issues that are causing the emotions in the first place.

My focus on emotions is not a new idea. There is a lot of good information out there about living mindfully and accepting our emotions. I did an online search and found some good, science-based information HERE and HERE.

One good thing that has come out of my experimentation with this is that I’ve become less afraid of being still and alone with my thoughts and emotions. I hope this leads to more calmness and peace.

And the snake skin photo? I hope from now on the only snake skin I see will be in a picture. That’s about as far as I want to go with that exposure.

How do you deal with uncomfortable emotions?

Another way of seeing

“In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

― Bertrand Russell

This is a small story about a small change in perspective.

It was a Tuesday night, and I had worked late. After work, Larry and I went to a little diner in town for supper.

This is the kind of diner that still offers service to people who drive up and wait in their cars for the server to come outside and take their order.

It serves food like hot dogs, hamburgers, Westerns, chuck wagons, fried bologna sandwiches and breakfast all day.

Seating inside is limited: there are five booths and a counter with stools lined up in front of it. On the counter are napkin holders and condiments and a covered cake plate with the cake of the day inside.

When one particular server works, everyone finds out what I ordered, just as I find out what they ordered because she calls out the food from her written ticket as she moves towards the kitchen behind the counter: “Two hots and a fry.” Or “Egg plate over medium with toast.”

Larry and I like eating there.

On this particular Tuesday night, I ordered two hot dogs (I’m eating meat again for now) and Larry ordered a country ham plate.

I saw another couple come in and sit at the counter, but I didn’t take note of what they ordered. I did notice her cool tennis shoes with gold sequins on them. Maybe not something I could necessarily pull off, but they looked good on her.

Then I heard them ordering something else.

“We saw you carrying one by and thought that looked good,” the woman said. “We’ll eat it here.”

A few minutes later, the server brought her and her companion a takeout bag along with two unwrapped hot dogs topped with chili.

“Oh, this is so good,” she said. “We’ve been looking for good hot dogs.”

“Well, now you know where to find them,” the server said. “Where are y’all from?”

“Atlanta. He’s working up here,” she said, pointing to the man.

A moment later, the woman looked up and said, “This is amazing.”

Amazing? Really? I thought about the hot dogs I’d just eaten. Mustard, onions, relish. The mustard tasted like it had horseradish in it. The onions tasted fresh and hot.

I had eaten them automatically, without much appreciation. I was tired and hungry and just wanted to get the meal over with and go home.

But those hot dogs had been good, I thought. Delicious, in fact. So tasty and satisfying after a long day.

Yes, they were amazing.

Has your perspective changed lately about something you’ve been taking for granted?

Tuesday Muse: A moment

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”

― Eudora Welty

I’m joining Nancy of A Rural Journal for Tuesday Muse.

Photo: Sunday afternoon

I don’t usually post on Tuesdays, but this week I decided to join Tuesday Muse, a meme hosted by Nancy of A Rural Journal, who also hosts Random 5 Friday.

I’ve been taking more photographs for the last several months. In doing so, I’ve begun to notice things I never noticed before.

With that extra attention comes more opportunities to practice mindfulness, being in the moment, seeing what’s in front of me.

That’s a very positive thing for me because anxiety and worry are often centered not on the present but on the past or imagined future.

Here’s my first photo for Tuesday Muse. Thanks for hosting, Nancy!

 

"Broad Street, Sunday afternoon."

This is a view of Broad Street in Altavista. I took the photo looking down from the library, which is perched at the top of the street.

If you follow the yellow lines all the way to the end of the street, and cross the step-bridge over the railroad tracks, you’ll be in English Park and just a short walk from the Staunton River.

What sights have you enjoyed lately where you live?

Absentmindedness

“You need to pay more attention to me,” said my husband as he walked into the room.

“What?” I asked as I looked up from my book.

I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

“You need to tell me when I have food on the front of my shirt,” he said.

Then he began laughing as he told me he had found dried salsa on the front of the shirt he had been wearing all morning. Evidently, he had spilled it the night before, and neither one of us had noticed.

Of course, Larry was teasing me, and he hadn’t gone out in public with the dirty shirt.

But I was reminded once again: I’m very absentminded.

***

The American Heritage Dictionary defines absentminded as, “Deep in thought and heedless of present circumstances or activities; preoccupied.”

***

“Deep in thought” sounds nice—rather cerebral, refined. But for me, deep in thought has often meant I’m mulling over something I did or didn’t do or that I need to do, thoughts that stir up anxiety, obsessions that lead to compulsions.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder can keep those of us with the disorder in our heads, obsessing about harm or cleanliness or morality, reviewing compulsions we’ve done to determine if we’ve done them right.

OCD takes up time. But there are also the lost conversations, the lost movies, the lost sunset, the lost smile—all the things “out there” that we’ve lost because we’ve been deep in OCD thoughts.

***

When I was in college, my mother took me to an ear, nose and throat doctor to have my hearing checked. She said I asked others to repeat themselves too often. “Huh?” and “What?” were too standard for me.

The doctor checked my hearing and said I could “hear grass grow.” He said I needed to start paying attention to people when they talked to me.

***

I think some of my absentmindedness is also related to my introversion. I’m quiet. I often feel more comfortable listening and watching than I do talking. I can easily float away on my imagination, on a story I’ve made up in my thoughts as I people watch.

I forget where I am. I can take a 20-minute shower, walk out in front of cars in the parking lot, forget what I was going to say, walk into a room and not remember why—because I’ve gotten lost in my imagination or memories.

During dinner recently, my husband tried to tell me something, and when I asked “What did you say?” for the third time, he stopped talking until I looked up and paid attention.

***

So I have been brainstorming ways to help me focus better and be less absentminded:

*Do one thing at a time.

*Be intentionally mindful of the moment: notice the sounds, the smells, the sights around me.

*Look at people when they talk to me.

*Remember the river of thoughts and let troublesome thoughts float on by.

*Designate times to daydream and ponder.

I think I’ll always be somewhat absentminded. But maybe next time I’ll be the first to notice the salsa on my husband’s shirt.

Are you absentminded? How do you focus your attention where it needs to be?

Anxiety, depression and a way to live with the river of thoughts



The Staunton River, running along the edge of Altavista, Virginia.



How sly they can be. How quietly they slip amongst the other thoughts, seeming to fit in at first. It’s only after they’ve taken a foothold that you realize what they are: the negative thoughts. The old, familiar negative thoughts.

I’m stupid. I’m useless. I’m a waste of time. I can’t do anything right.

They are the kind of thoughts that used to run through my mind with abandon. I thought they were normal. I thought they were true.

Everybody hates me. God hates me. I hate myself.

Even after therapy, medication for the OCD and depression, self-help books, getting older, meditation, prayer, faith—all the things that have helped me through the years—it’s still possible for me to get caught up in negative thinking. The kind of thinking that makes me feel hopeless and helpless and depressed.

I’m a failure. Things will never get better.

What all the treatment has done for me, though, is to help me recognize what I’m doing and stop it.

What I’ve learned helps me to talk back to the thoughts, to engage new, more positive thoughts. It helps me to realize that a thought is just a thought.

Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because I think it doesn’t mean that I wanted to think it. Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s any more important than any other thought floating down that river.

I learned that water imagery from my therapist.

He showed me a photograph of a river with a bridge arching over it. He told me to imagine that the river was the flow of my thoughts. I was to imagine that I was on the bridge, looking down on the river, on the thoughts.

In the same way, I could distance myself from my thoughts and observe them: the words, the feelings, the images.

I didn’t have to engage with them.

I didn’t have to believe them.

I could just observe them, from afar, from high up on the bridge.

Just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s true.

What do you do when negative thoughts creep in?

Anxiety and slowing down



Sam enjoys slowing down a bit by lying in her new bed.



It’s possible to find a lesson in any situation, and the situation with my broken foot is providing plenty of lessons. One of them is the importance of slowing down.

There are 14 steps up the front of my office building. There’s a ramp in back, but it’s a long one, and it takes me seemingly forever to go up it using crutches. I’ve got my protective, giant boot on. So I’m taking the steps.

The steps seem too narrow to properly use the crutches, so I hold on to the railing and start up. My husband comes behind me, carrying my purse, camera bag and crutches.

“Take one step at a time,” he says. “That way, you’re not putting all your weight on your bad foot.”

Oh, one step at a time. One step at a time? That will take forever.

But I do it. Good foot up, bad foot up. Next step: good foot up, bad foot up. All the way to the top.

***

I sit watching TV in the den with Larry. Commercial time. I get up and check something on the computer.

Back to the den. I watch the show. Then I think about a soda.

I get up again and hobble into the kitchen.

Back to the den. Commercial time. I get up and go to the bedroom and put on my sweatpants.

Back to the den.

***

I’m showered, dressed and booted. I sit in the recliner, foot up, to wait for Larry to finish getting ready to go out to lunch.

I lean back. I lean forward, looking for the newspaper.

No, I’ll just sit here.

I lean back.

I lean forward, reaching for the TV remote.

No, I’ll just sit here.

I’ll sit here and breathe. And listen to the tick of the clock.

***

I’m not a high-energy person. But I do tend to walk fast. In fact, I hate moving slowly. I feel like I’m wasting time.

Being in a boot and on crutches has slowed me way down. I can’t run up the steps. I can’t hurry down the hall. It’s a big change.

And one thing I didn’t realize about myself was how much I moved around. I may be at home watching something on TV, but I’m up at every commercial, sometimes before the commercial, going into other parts of the house, doing this, doing that.

Even when I’m sitting reading, I get up often to get something to drink, see what’s going on in the rest of the house, get on the computer or do some other activity.

Just sitting is hard for me. I think anxiety plays into that.

But it’s become more necessary to be still. If I move around, I need to use the crutches. And if I don’t make time for the crutches, I’m putting more pressure on the healing bone.

So I’m staying in one place for longer periods of time. I’m still moving around, but I’m trying to be OK with sitting for a little while without having to get up.

And that sums up what I’m doing: trying to be OK with being slower.

There are good things about being slower:

*I’m relaxing a bit more.

*I’m able to stay in the moment longer.

*My attention feels less scattered.

Do you ever feel the need to slow down your life? What benefits have you experienced from slowing down?

What am I thinking now? Becoming more aware of my thoughts

It’s becoming increasingly important to me to be aware of my thought patterns because I’m recognizing the ways they can affect how I feel.

I may not be able to stop or control my thoughts, but I can add new ones and guide myself to dwell on the helpful ones, like I did in the “prove it” exercise I wrote about in my last post.

I still have a lot of confusion about the importance of/lack of importance of thoughts. But I’ve been doing some interesting reading that I thought I would share with you.

According to Jonathan Grayson, Ph.D., in his Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, one common OCD cognitive distortion is the over-importance of thoughts, also known as thought-action fusion (TAF): “If this disorder is part of your OCD, then you tend to consider thoughts equivalent to action. You spend your time trying to figure out why you are having such an awful thought and whether or not it means something terrible about you” (p. 99).

If you have TAF, you may have been “thinking that the goal of treatment is either to stop the thoughts or to know that they mean nothing of importance” (p. 99). But that’s not the goal of treatment. Rather, that “goal of treatment is to learn to accept the possibility of all these meanings—even the possibilities of the worst ones” (p. 99).

Another common OCD cognitive distortion is excessive concern about the importance of controlling your thoughts. The focus is “on the belief that you should be able to control your thoughts or avoid having certain thoughts” (p. 99). This belief doesn’t have any support, though: “Such thought control is not possible for anyone to achieve. Any and all thoughts that come into your mind, no matter how evil, twisted, or perverse they may seem, are normal” (p. 99).

Therefore, “the goal of treatment is not to stop these thoughts, but to learn to allow them to be on your mind without being upset about them” (p. 100).

For me, that’s where mindfulness comes in. In his book Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life, Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness in the following way: “Mindfulness is awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (p. 1).

Awareness of your thoughts is one aspect of mindfulness. Kabat-Zinn says, “We see that thoughts, when brought into and held in awareness in this way, readily lose their power to dominate and dictate our responses to life, no matter what their content and emotional charge. They then become workable rather than imprisoning” (p. 38).

When I become aware of my thoughts, whether it’s through mindfulness meditation, a writing exercise, a discussion with a therapist or friend, or some other way, I needn’t be alarmed or afraid. They are just thoughts.

How I respond to them is still my choice.

What are some things you’ve discovered when you started paying attention to your thoughts?