Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCDRecovery/comments/17xyp7i/my_pipeline_to_recovery_how_i_completely/

Hello everyone!

You may recognize me from the post that I made around 3 years ago, “My Pipeline to OCD Recovery”.  The post was a resounding success, and so I had hundreds of you reach out in gratitude and appreciation.  I am so happy that I was able to positively affect so many of you and even challenge existing notions on recovery from mental health diagnoses in an optimistic way.  It puts a huge smile on my face to think that even one person may have benefitted from that post! 

Many of you also reached out asking for more information, asking for updates, and asking how things are for me now.  And so: I am back after 3 years to give an update on the journey and all the things that I’ve learned since that post. 

So, this post is here to serve two purposes: To give an update on where I am at in my own journey and inspire knowledge that making a change in your life and how you deal with inward and outward compulsion is not just possible, but the beautiful secret to living a full life!

Life Update

The first thing that I will say is that life is great!  I have moved to Tokyo, I am engaged in friendships and hobbies, I have had many new experiences that I would never have guessed I would be involved in.  I’ve made friends, some of which I’m sure will last for life, and lost friends that I thought would be around much longer.  I’ve started hobbies, some which I’m sure will last for life, and quit hobbies that again, I thought would be around much longer.  In many ways my life has grown tremendously simpler and more peaceful, and in other ways there is a complexity to it that is marvelous and such an adventure.  Right now, I am very happy with where my life is and how everything has led to me being here.

I am not saying that my life is perfect and that I have some kind of complete emotional mastery or anything like that.  My life has many challenges, but the difference now is simply that I am willing to meet them and be there for myself to support myself through them the best I can.  I have built many new life and mental fitness skills over the past 3 years since that previous post, which I will be sharing with you later.

The one thing that I want to say more than anything else is that life is a journey, and in that journey we will always have a multitude of emotions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences that we can use in a direction of growth and positive change.  OCD has been the greatest teacher in my entire life.  Through OCD, I’ve been able to learn what it means to really be a human, to understand suffering, to have compassion, to understand the beauty of the present moment, to have gratitude, and more than anything, to be able to let go and just have faith.  Even through all of the pain I’ve experienced (and trust me, there was lots of pain), I would not go back to before I was diagnosed.  Peace is not just a feeling of being okay, peace is the capability to be okay with any feeling.

So, where am I at now?

Well, after studying a vast array of psychology, spirituality, and philosophy over the past several years, I am working on two separate projects.

The first is a book that applies the practical aspects of all three to shape and encourage change in individuals towards a life that is more full. It will be titled "Your Mind is a Garden."

The second is the development of a community of friends who share a common goal: setting down judgment, avoidance, and compulsions while cultivating a life that is full of joy, honesty, and adventure, not just for themselves, but for those around them as well. The name of the community is "Garden of Life," and if you're reading this and interested in cultivating that kind of life, I would love to invite you to come and join us.

So now, I will go over the skills that I’ve learned to be vital since my last post.

Life Skills

Skill 1: Mental Cultivation

Learning how to be aware of the inner activities of my own mind has been such an extremely vital part of this journey.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they are not aware of the patterns of inner compulsions.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they do not have something to change it to.  This may be one of the most important areas of recovery that I see rarely get talked about, frankly because I believe most recovery experts don’t have a strong understanding of the inner workings of the mind.  On my previous post I talked a lot about not responding to “intrusive thoughts” and so on, and I still take that to be good advice, but much more nuance can be offered that I think is much more helpful.  I will break down this skill into four sections:

1)      Wake up and see what you are doing in your own mind.  This means practicing being aware of what is going on in your mind at any given moment whenever you remember.  This is the basic skill of mental awareness.  Knowing what you are doing and remembering to pay attention to what you’re doing.  This does not mean all of the time. Trying to be aware all the time is just another form of perfectionism.  Simply make it whenever you remember.  That’s good enough.  Apply the principal of non-striving here, always.  Don’t force anything. 

It is best to do this through simple noting.  “Ah, worry is here again.”  Or “I see you, despair.”  Acknowledging it mentally is the first simple stop to come out of the old pattern.  You are now developing a form of metacognition, or a way to think about your own thoughts and mental activities.  Note again, this does not mean to “always” do this, just do it often enough when you remember and even then, it can be the simple mental recognition that you know the pattern is there, we don’t have to get super stuck on doing the same ritual each time.  Keep the attitude of non-striving.

2)      Allowing what is there to be there.  Simply mentally noting “It’s okay for that feeling/thought/emotion/sensation to be there.”  Anything.  What you’re learning here is how to stop hating on your present moment experience.  There are two forms in which suffering arises.  The first one is because you’re hating on something that is here, such as a thought or emotion or feeling or idea.  The second one is because you’re wanting something that isn’t here, such as when you were peaceful or some food or other sensual delight.  If instead we can say “It’s ok that sensation is here!” we begin to rewire the way the brain relates to things.  We can make this even more simple: “Everything here is just fine.” Or “Everything is okay, nowhere to go, nothing to do.”  Remember that these words aren’t magic spells, pay attention to the quality of your intention and attitude; the purpose is to loosen the clinging to the mental activity going on.  Non-striving, allowing, acceptance, self-nurturement are keywords you can keep in mind here.

3)      (Optional) Intentional cultivation of something that is more skillful, like joy or gratitude or self-compassion (nurturement).  Note the word “skillful” here, none of this is being categorized as “good” or “bad”, but instead through the moral-neutral term “skillful”.  Why?  Because “good” and “bad” are easy words that entail hating on experience.  Joy is not “good” and anxiety is not “bad”, these are both simply emotions.  But we may find that being in a joyful or self-compassionate state is a skillful and rather nice way to live life.  Note that even the thought “It’s okay for this to be here” is already a very kind and generous thought to give yourself!  So this step in some ways is optional.  If you’ve become aware of a thought in a non-judgmental, non-hating, non-striving way, you’re already cultivating a healthier state of mind.  Great work!  But you can go further by intentionally cultivating more joy and more gratitude and more compassion if you so choose.  Play with this using curiosity and intuition, don’t turn this into another compulsion.

4)      Return to what you value in the present moment.  If you were going for a walk, return to your walk and engage your senses in the walk, see the trees, feel the breeze, and so on.  If you were doing a sitting meditation, return to the breath and enjoy the breath!  If you were having a conversation with a dear loved one, be fully present and engaged with them in a loving and kind way.  The point here is to not get stuck on what’s going on inside our head but instead be fully engaged in the lives we are living.  This is, after all, what life is about.

Understanding that in any given moment we can choose what to grow is the primary practice of not just OCD recovery, but of any life worth living.  We can choose what we want to grow moment by moment in every moment whenever we remember.  Mental cultivation, meditation, mindfulness and so on are not about trying really hard to be okay, striving really hard to be kinder to ourselves, hating on ourselves for being judgmental or anything like that.  It’s actually about being okay with not being okay, being kind to ourselves when we fail to be kind, and being non-judgmental towards our judgmental minds. 

Think of your mind as having well-worn neural pathways as a result of the actions you’ve taken many times in the past.  If you have OCD, it’s probably tons of roads of worry and doubt.  If it’s depression, tons of roads of despair and self-hate.  So you can see that the specific themes of these things aren’t very important.  It’s a matter of how these roads have been worn down again and again so often that they are the natural pattern for your remind to return to.

If you hate on any of these roads while you’re on them, then when you think about it, you’re actually just continuing down that same road.  Hating on the fact that you’re ruminating is in essence more rumination!  More pain, more judgment, more resistance.  Any action of resistance to present moment experience is actually just more of the same old painful mental patterns.  It’s a decision to grow new neural pathways of allowance, non-judgment, kindness, and compassion to ourselves and others that we come out of those old roads on the spot and make a detour into new territory. 

Recovery is not about hating on OCD, hating on intrusive thoughts, or in any way wishing we were anywhere besides right where we are.  Recovery is about seeing that right here, right now, we can be totally okay with everything that is here and in this moment. Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience.  Allowing a negative experience is a positive experience.   

So I invite you to try a practice on your own right now.  Can you close your eyes, sit comfortably where you are, and with a form of mental attention and intention that is kind and compassionate, inhale deeply and fully, and allow everything to be exactly the way it is?  Go ahead and try for yourself… Perhaps even for a few breaths, or a few minutes.  And if you notice yourself hating on something, or a scary thought arising, you can note it: “Ah, there’s anxiety/worry/fear/despair.” And you can allow it “And that’s okay.” And you can encourage acceptance and allowance. “Everything here is okay, in fact.  How nice to be here and now.”  And you can return to your breath with an attitude of kindness and self-compassion.  And stay there, until a thought takes you away again, which it will, which is totally, totally okay.  That’s the entire practice.  Everything here and now is okay, and if a thought takes you out of that understanding, you can see that thought and see even that is okay.  Seeing that it’s okay to have fear, anxiety, and so on is the wholesome change, the wholesome cultivation that is the purpose of practice and the very act of letting go. 

And what a practice it is.  I went from being someone that couldn’t sit for 5 minute with my eyes closed without panic to someone that enjoys sitting around and just enjoying being okay in silence for long, long stretches of time. 

Practice doesn’t begin or end sitting down or standing up.  This is something that again, can always be practiced, whenever you remember.  Be present with what you’re doing. Be aware.  If you are doing something that you know is unhelpful, unskillful, compulsive, note it gently, allow it, nurture yourself with something skillful or helpful, and return your attention to whatever you choose.

Now, this isn’t always easy or comfortable because these new roads really are unfamiliar territory, and this is why I believe community is so, so important for growth, especially a community of like-minded friends aiming towards the same goals.  So again, I invite you to join the community if you are interested in such a thing! We are set up on Discord.

Skill 2: Values Work

Values are the orientation towards which we are living our lives.  Before someone says “But I don’t have any values!”, it’s important to see that everyone has values that they are living out, but sadly many of us have learned to live towards these values with a lack of understanding or wisdom, causing us to hurt ourselves and others around us.  One could even say that someone stuck in all day uncertainty-based compulsions very much values having certainty and control over their own life or reality.  So identifying new values to live towards and learning to allow uncertainty and not need to control everything so strictly is a very kind thing to do for ourselves.  The question, then, is deciding what kind of values to live towards.

So, learning how to simply allow ourselves to just be, to be still and be okay, is what is taught in the above section.  But understanding what we want to do with that quality of intention is definitely an important thing to identify.  Figuring out what orientation you want to live your life towards is something that takes a sense of gentleness as well as curiosity.  It’s definitely not something you want to clench up against and turn into a new compulsion.  I’ve found that using the forementioned attitudes such as non-judgment, kindness, compassion and so on talked about in the above section are great guiding values towards other places we may want to take our lives.  Afterwards, identifying your particular skills and passions and combining them with the essence of compassion and kindness is a really great direction to take.

What helped me, personally, in deciding the direction I wanted to go was just that.  Seeing the qualities of mind that made peace and joy possible and then applying them to the gifts that I already had.  I knew that I greatly enjoy helping and uplifting others and explaining concepts in simple words and bringing people together, so I made it my orientation to help others come to a place of safety and security and then walk towards their own gifts and values in the midst of those qualities. 

Skill 3: Recovery Beyond “OCD” Compulsions

One thing on this journey that you will see is that the compulsion mountain goes far beyond just typical “OCD” compulsions.  What I’ve learned is that the mountain of what can be called “compulsions” is far beyond simple certainty chasing.  There were so many things in my life that went far beyond simple checking or worry or rumination compulsions.  Actually, around the time of my OCD diagnosis, I would say about 95% of my life was orientated towards trying to control what other people thought of me.  A person that is mentally unfit has, in essence, propped up its entire sense of personhood through mental projections of how it thinks other people see them. 

Freedom, then, was found in learning to let go of control of any kind of self-image.  Seeing that I don’t have to be any certain kind of way is extremely liberating.  I don’t have to be an attractive person.  I don’t have to be a kind person.  I don’t have to be a moral person.  These are all expectations that are dependent upon performance.  Feeling like you absolutely have to do something (beyond food and shelter) to maintain some kind of security or success in the world is a very solid idea of what a compulsion is.  If instead we can see and freely decide to act out of compassion and kindness because we value these things without being attached to who we think they make us is a great way to live your life, because then you are living in cohesion with others without turning it into another self-improvement (compulsion) project.

So learning to pay close attention to when I was trying to live up to some kind of standard and instead seeing what my values are in that specific situation have led to the abandoning of all kinds of stress and suffering that I wasn’t even really aware I had.  Whereas before I was living a life centered around impressing others and chasing things I didn’t really care about, now I get to pursue and spend time on things I actually enjoy and will help others.  Before life was its own form of slavery, and now life is a gift.

Skill 4: Non-Attached Action

As we practice good mental fitness, we can start to become more nuanced in our understanding of our own mind and the quality of our own intentions.  I slowly became aware that much of my life was orientated around getting something.  This is a small form of suffering in itself.  Wanting to get done with work so I can go home and play.  Wanting to get done with washing the dishes so the dishes are clean.  Wanting to get done with my night routine so I can get some sleep. 

Learning how to carry a gentle and generous quality of attention with each action is a life skill that carries into everything else. 

Can you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes?  Be engaged with each and every moment?  Clean each piece of silverware with your full attention?  Notice when thoughts come up about getting something, about wanting something you don’t have, or wanting to get rid of something that is in your experience, and then gently redirecting your attention back to the dishes?  Even if you were ruminating for several minutes, can you then say, “Oh, that’s okay.  Let’s go back to the dishes, no problem.” Or you notice yourself saying “Ah, gotta hurry and get this done, I wanna watch Netflix!” and then go “Oh, there’s that rushing again.  This here and now is just fine… back to the dishes.”

This quality of allowance, of self-nurturement, of seeing that we never have to be anywhere other than where we are is the key idea here… This doesn’t mean we can’t make a change or move towards something else!  It means we do it without hating on our experience or thinking it should be different.  Most people’s lives are lived entirely out of reactivity, out of judgment and hating on how things are.  Can you instead live your life out of discernment and wisdom?  Sure, that could be better with a small change.  But do you have to hate on it while making the change? 

Skill 5: Engaging in Community and Friendship

A man once mentioned to his wise teacher, “It seems as if friendship is half the path!” and his teacher responded with “Never say that, never say that.  Friendship is the whole of the path.”

Community is capable of so much nurturing and also of showing us where pain still lives inside of us.  Learning how to be a friend to ourselves walks in step with learning how to be a friend to others.  Learning how to set healthy boundaries for ourselves is also a walk in learning how to set boundaries in our relationships with others.   

Showing up in community was tremendously important for me, especially coming from a background where I didn’t have the best relationships or examples of human kindness.  Joining a few different communities and learning what manner of people are really in the world was eye opening in many ways… And also seeing where my own defense mechanisms of old would come up and perhaps not be so accurate and in need of updating was a very good practice.  I learned and grew so much from engaging in new communities, and I would recommend the same to anyone looking to learn and grow. 

Of course, selecting a community that will be beneficial for our growth must be done with careful discernment. It is not wise to open up to just anyone. Seeing that we can choose the people we are open with deliberately and with wisdom is very important. So choose people you believe you can trust! And choose people that have the proper orientation in mind. Finding a good mental health community can be very difficult. Many forums are much more orientated around practicing and maintaining poor mental health rather than practicing mental fitness. Be careful with what communities you are in!

Final Conclusion and What’s Next

Ultimately, I really hope that this post can be of help to those who are in a dark place right now.  I remember being in that dark place.  And my heart goes out to you.  I know the fear, pain, and confusion are not easy to handle.  But what I do want to say, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that there is a way out, and that way out is in and through it with acceptance, compassion, curiosity, and courage.  Being willing to face these things inside of us, to really touch them and allow them in the here and now, and then move towards what we care about anyways.  That is the essence of recovery.

Please, feel free to ask any questions that you may have about your own experience or my experience.  I will refrain from offering compulsive reassurance, but I will certainly encourage wise action and development.

And one last time, if you are interested in joining a community that is focused on growing something new inside themselves, please visit my website here.  You can also join my newsletter there and browse articles as I post them. 

Thank you very much for your time and I hope this post was of aid to you!

- Caleb

Original post here on my profile!

Hello everyone!

You may recognize me from the post that I made around 3 years ago, “My Pipeline to OCD Recovery”.  The post was a resounding success, and so I had hundreds of you reach out in gratitude and appreciation.  I am so happy that I was able to positively affect so many of you and even challenge existing notions on recovery from mental health diagnoses in an optimistic way.  It puts a huge smile on my face to think that even one person may have benefitted from that post! 

Many of you also reached out asking for more information, asking for updates, and asking how things are for me now.  And so: I am back after 3 years to give an update on the journey and all the things that I’ve learned since that post. 

So, this post is here to serve two purposes: To give an update on where I am at in my own journey and inspire knowledge that making a change in your life and how you deal with inward and outward compulsion is not just possible, but the beautiful secret to living a full life!

Life Update

The first thing that I will say is that life is great!  I have moved to Tokyo, I am engaged in friendships and hobbies, I have had many new experiences that I would never have guessed I would be involved in.  I’ve made friends, some of which I’m sure will last for life, and lost friends that I thought would be around much longer.  I’ve started hobbies, some which I’m sure will last for life, and quit hobbies that again, I thought would be around much longer.  In many ways my life has grown tremendously simpler and more peaceful, and in other ways there is a complexity to it that is marvelous and such an adventure.  Right now, I am very happy with where my life is and how everything has led to me being here.

I am not saying that my life is perfect and that I have some kind of complete emotional mastery or anything like that.  My life has many challenges, but the difference now is simply that I am willing to meet them and be there for myself to support myself through them the best I can.  I have built many new life and mental fitness skills over the past 3 years since that previous post, which I will be sharing with you later.

The one thing that I want to say more than anything else is that life is a journey, and in that journey we will always have a multitude of emotions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences that we can use in a direction of growth and positive change.  OCD has been the greatest teacher in my entire life.  Through OCD, I’ve been able to learn what it means to really be a human, to understand suffering, to have compassion, to understand the beauty of the present moment, to have gratitude, and more than anything, to be able to let go and just have faith.  Even through all of the pain I’ve experienced (and trust me, there was lots of pain), I would not go back to before I was diagnosed.  Peace is not just a feeling of being okay, peace is the capability to be okay with any feeling.

So, where am I at now?

Well, after studying a vast array of psychology, spirituality, and philosophy over the past several years, I am working on two separate projects.

The first is a book that applies the practical aspects of all three to shape and encourage change in individuals towards a life that is more full. It will be titled "Your Mind is a Garden."

The second is the development of a community of friends who share a common goal: setting down judgment, avoidance, and compulsions while cultivating a life that is full of joy, honesty, and adventure, not just for themselves, but for those around them as well. The name of the community is "Garden of Life," and if you're reading this and interested in cultivating that kind of life, I would love to invite you to come and join us (DM me if interested)!

So now, I will go over the skills that I’ve learned to be vital since my last post.

Life Skills

Skill 1: Mental Cultivation

Learning how to be aware of the inner activities of my own mind has been such an extremely vital part of this journey.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they are not aware of the patterns of inner compulsions.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they do not have something to change it to.  This may be one of the most important areas of recovery that I see rarely get talked about, frankly because I believe most recovery experts don’t have a strong understanding of the inner workings of the mind.  On my previous post I talked a lot about not responding to “intrusive thoughts” and so on, and I still take that to be good advice, but much more nuance can be offered that I think is much more helpful.  I will break down this skill into four sections:

1)      Wake up and see what you are doing in your own mind.  This means practicing being aware of what is going on in your mind at any given moment whenever you remember.  This is the basic skill of mental awareness.  Knowing what you are doing and remembering to pay attention to what you’re doing.  This does not mean all of the time. Trying to be aware all the time is just another form of perfectionism.  Simply make it whenever you remember.  That’s good enough.  Apply the principal of non-striving here, always.  Don’t force anything. 

It is best to do this through simple noting.  “Ah, worry is here again.”  Or “I see you, despair.”  Acknowledging it mentally is the first simple stop to come out of the old pattern.  You are now developing a form of metacognition, or a way to think about your own thoughts and mental activities.  Note again, this does not mean to “always” do this, just do it often enough when you remember and even then, it can be the simple mental recognition that you know the pattern is there, we don’t have to get super stuck on doing the same ritual each time.  Keep the attitude of non-striving.

2)      Allowing what is there to be there.  Simply mentally noting “It’s okay for that feeling/thought/emotion/sensation to be there.”  Anything.  What you’re learning here is how to stop hating on your present moment experience.  There are two forms in which suffering arises.  The first one is because you’re hating on something that is here, such as a thought or emotion or feeling or idea.  The second one is because you’re wanting something that isn’t here, such as when you were peaceful or some food or other sensual delight.  If instead we can say “It’s ok that sensation is here!” we begin to rewire the way the brain relates to things.  We can make this even more simple: “Everything here is just fine.” Or “Everything is okay, nowhere to go, nothing to do.”  Remember that these words aren’t magic spells, pay attention to the quality of your intention and attitude; the purpose is to loosen the clinging to the mental activity going on.  Non-striving, allowing, acceptance, self-nurturement are keywords you can keep in mind here.

3)      (Optional) Intentional cultivation of something that is more skillful, like joy or gratitude or self-compassion (nurturement).  Note the word “skillful” here, none of this is being categorized as “good” or “bad”, but instead through the moral-neutral term “skillful”.  Why?  Because “good” and “bad” are easy words that entail hating on experience.  Joy is not “good” and anxiety is not “bad”, these are both simply emotions.  But we may find that being in a joyful or self-compassionate state is a skillful and rather nice way to live life.  Note that even the thought “It’s okay for this to be here” is already a very kind and generous thought to give yourself!  So this step in some ways is optional.  If you’ve become aware of a thought in a non-judgmental, non-hating, non-striving way, you’re already cultivating a healthier state of mind.  Great work!  But you can go further by intentionally cultivating more joy and more gratitude and more compassion if you so choose.  Play with this using curiosity and intuition, don’t turn this into another compulsion.

4)      Return to what you value in the present moment.  If you were going for a walk, return to your walk and engage your senses in the walk, see the trees, feel the breeze, and so on.  If you were doing a sitting meditation, return to the breath and enjoy the breath!  If you were having a conversation with a dear loved one, be fully present and engaged with them in a loving and kind way.  The point here is to not get stuck on what’s going on inside our head but instead be fully engaged in the lives we are living.  This is, after all, what life is about.

Understanding that in any given moment we can choose what to grow is the primary practice of not just OCD recovery, but of any life worth living.  We can choose what we want to grow moment by moment in every moment whenever we remember.  Mental cultivation, meditation, mindfulness and so on are not about trying really hard to be okay, striving really hard to be kinder to ourselves, hating on ourselves for being judgmental or anything like that.  It’s actually about being okay with not being okay, being kind to ourselves when we fail to be kind, and being non-judgmental towards our judgmental minds. 

Think of your mind as having well-worn neural pathways as a result of the actions you’ve taken many times in the past.  If you have OCD, it’s probably tons of roads of worry and doubt.  If it’s depression, tons of roads of despair and self-hate.  So you can see that the specific themes of these things aren’t very important.  It’s a matter of how these roads have been worn down again and again so often that they are the natural pattern for your remind to return to.

If you hate on any of these roads while you’re on them, then when you think about it, you’re actually just continuing down that same road.  Hating on the fact that you’re ruminating is in essence more rumination!  More pain, more judgment, more resistance.  Any action of resistance to present moment experience is actually just more of the same old painful mental patterns.  It’s a decision to grow new neural pathways of allowance, non-judgment, kindness, and compassion to ourselves and others that we come out of those old roads on the spot and make a detour into new territory. 

Recovery is not about hating on OCD, hating on intrusive thoughts, or in any way wishing we were anywhere besides right where we are.  Recovery is about seeing that right here, right now, we can be totally okay with everything that is here and in this moment. Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience.  Allowing a negative experience is a positive experience.   

So I invite you to try a practice on your own right now.  Can you close your eyes, sit comfortably where you are, and with a form of mental attention and intention that is kind and compassionate, inhale deeply and fully, and allow everything to be exactly the way it is?  Go ahead and try for yourself… Perhaps even for a few breaths, or a few minutes.  And if you notice yourself hating on something, or a scary thought arising, you can note it: “Ah, there’s anxiety/worry/fear/despair.” And you can allow it “And that’s okay.” And you can encourage acceptance and allowance. “Everything here is okay, in fact.  How nice to be here and now.”  And you can return to your breath with an attitude of kindness and self-compassion.  And stay there, until a thought takes you away again, which it will, which is totally, totally okay.  That’s the entire practice.  Everything here and now is okay, and if a thought takes you out of that understanding, you can see that thought and see even that is okay.  Seeing that it’s okay to have fear, anxiety, and so on is the wholesome change, the wholesome cultivation that is the purpose of practice and the very act of letting go. 

And what a practice it is.  I went from being someone that couldn’t sit for 5 minute with my eyes closed without panic to someone that enjoys sitting around and just enjoying being okay in silence for long, long stretches of time. 

Practice doesn’t begin or end sitting down or standing up.  This is something that again, can always be practiced, whenever you remember.  Be present with what you’re doing. Be aware.  If you are doing something that you know is unhelpful, unskillful, compulsive, note it gently, allow it, nurture yourself with something skillful or helpful, and return your attention to whatever you choose.

Now, this isn’t always easy or comfortable because these new roads really are unfamiliar territory, and this is why I believe community is so, so important for growth, especially a community of like-minded friends aiming towards the same goals.  So again, I invite you to join the community if you are interested in such a thing! We are set up on Discord.

Skill 2: Values Work

Values are the orientation towards which we are living our lives.  Before someone says “But I don’t have any values!”, it’s important to see that everyone has values that they are living out, but sadly many of us have learned to live towards these values with a lack of understanding or wisdom, causing us to hurt ourselves and others around us.  One could even say that someone stuck in all day uncertainty-based compulsions very much values having certainty and control over their own life or reality.  So identifying new values to live towards and learning to allow uncertainty and not need to control everything so strictly is a very kind thing to do for ourselves.  The question, then, is deciding what kind of values to live towards.

So, learning how to simply allow ourselves to just be, to be still and be okay, is what is taught in the above section.  But understanding what we want to do with that quality of intention is definitely an important thing to identify.  Figuring out what orientation you want to live your life towards is something that takes a sense of gentleness as well as curiosity.  It’s definitely not something you want to clench up against and turn into a new compulsion.  I’ve found that using the forementioned attitudes such as non-judgment, kindness, compassion and so on talked about in the above section are great guiding values towards other places we may want to take our lives.  Afterwards, identifying your particular skills and passions and combining them with the essence of compassion and kindness is a really great direction to take.

What helped me, personally, in deciding the direction I wanted to go was just that.  Seeing the qualities of mind that made peace and joy possible and then applying them to the gifts that I already had.  I knew that I greatly enjoy helping and uplifting others and explaining concepts in simple words and bringing people together, so I made it my orientation to help others come to a place of safety and security and then walk towards their own gifts and values in the midst of those qualities. 

Skill 3: Recovery Beyond “OCD” Compulsions

One thing on this journey that you will see is that the compulsion mountain goes far beyond just typical “OCD” compulsions.  What I’ve learned is that the mountain of what can be called “compulsions” is far beyond simple certainty chasing.  There were so many things in my life that went far beyond simple checking or worry or rumination compulsions.  Actually, around the time of my OCD diagnosis, I would say about 95% of my life was orientated towards trying to control what other people thought of me.  A person that is mentally unfit has, in essence, propped up its entire sense of personhood through mental projections of how it thinks other people see them. 

Freedom, then, was found in learning to let go of control of any kind of self-image.  Seeing that I don’t have to be any certain kind of way is extremely liberating.  I don’t have to be an attractive person.  I don’t have to be a kind person.  I don’t have to be a moral person.  These are all expectations that are dependent upon performance.  Feeling like you absolutely have to do something (beyond food and shelter) to maintain some kind of security or success in the world is a very solid idea of what a compulsion is.  If instead we can see and freely decide to act out of compassion and kindness because we value these things without being attached to who we think they make us is a great way to live your life, because then you are living in cohesion with others without turning it into another self-improvement (compulsion) project.

So learning to pay close attention to when I was trying to live up to some kind of standard and instead seeing what my values are in that specific situation have led to the abandoning of all kinds of stress and suffering that I wasn’t even really aware I had.  Whereas before I was living a life centered around impressing others and chasing things I didn’t really care about, now I get to pursue and spend time on things I actually enjoy and will help others.  Before life was its own form of slavery, and now life is a gift.

Skill 4: Non-Attached Action

As we practice good mental fitness, we can start to become more nuanced in our understanding of our own mind and the quality of our own intentions.  I slowly became aware that much of my life was orientated around getting something.  This is a small form of suffering in itself.  Wanting to get done with work so I can go home and play.  Wanting to get done with washing the dishes so the dishes are clean.  Wanting to get done with my night routine so I can get some sleep. 

Learning how to carry a gentle and generous quality of attention with each action is a life skill that carries into everything else. 

Can you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes?  Be engaged with each and every moment?  Clean each piece of silverware with your full attention?  Notice when thoughts come up about getting something, about wanting something you don’t have, or wanting to get rid of something that is in your experience, and then gently redirecting your attention back to the dishes?  Even if you were ruminating for several minutes, can you then say, “Oh, that’s okay.  Let’s go back to the dishes, no problem.” Or you notice yourself saying “Ah, gotta hurry and get this done, I wanna watch Netflix!” and then go “Oh, there’s that rushing again.  This here and now is just fine… back to the dishes.”

This quality of allowance, of self-nurturement, of seeing that we never have to be anywhere other than where we are is the key idea here… This doesn’t mean we can’t make a change or move towards something else!  It means we do it without hating on our experience or thinking it should be different.  Most people’s lives are lived entirely out of reactivity, out of judgment and hating on how things are.  Can you instead live your life out of discernment and wisdom?  Sure, that could be better with a small change.  But do you have to hate on it while making the change? 

Skill 5: Engaging in Community and Friendship

A man once mentioned to his wise teacher, “It seems as if friendship is half the path!” and his teacher responded with “Never say that, never say that.  Friendship is the whole of the path.”

Community is capable of so much nurturing and also of showing us where pain still lives inside of us.  Learning how to be a friend to ourselves walks in step with learning how to be a friend to others.  Learning how to set healthy boundaries for ourselves is also a walk in learning how to set boundaries in our relationships with others.   

Showing up in community was tremendously important for me, especially coming from a background where I didn’t have the best relationships or examples of human kindness.  Joining a few different communities and learning what manner of people are really in the world was eye opening in many ways… And also seeing where my own defense mechanisms of old would come up and perhaps not be so accurate and in need of updating was a very good practice.  I learned and grew so much from engaging in new communities, and I would recommend the same to anyone looking to learn and grow. 

Of course, selecting a community that will be beneficial for our growth must be done with careful discernment. It is not wise to open up to just anyone. Seeing that we can choose the people we are open with deliberately and with wisdom is very important. So choose people you believe you can trust! And choose people that have the proper orientation in mind. Finding a good mental health community can be very difficult. Many forums are much more orientated around practicing and maintaining poor mental health rather than practicing mental fitness. Be careful with what communities you are in!

Final Conclusion and What’s Next

Ultimately, I really hope that this post can be of help to those who are in a dark place right now.  I remember being in that dark place.  And my heart goes out to you.  I know the fear, pain, and confusion are not easy to handle.  But what I do want to say, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that there is a way out, and that way out is in and through it with acceptance, compassion, curiosity, and courage.  Being willing to face these things inside of us, to really touch them and allow them in the here and now, and then move towards what we care about anyways.  That is the essence of recovery.

Please, feel free to ask any questions that you may have about your own experience or my experience.  I will refrain from offering compulsive reassurance, but I will certainly encourage wise action and development.

And one last time, if you are interested in joining a community that is focused on growing something new inside themselves, please visit my website (DM me).  You can also join my newsletter there and browse articles as I post them. 

Thank you very much for your time and I hope this post was of aid to you!

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCDRecovery/comments/17xyp7i/my_pipeline_to_recovery_how_i_completely/

Hello everyone!

You may recognize me from the post that I made around 3 years ago, “My Pipeline to OCD Recovery”.  The post was a resounding success, and so I had hundreds of you reach out in gratitude and appreciation.  I am so happy that I was able to positively affect so many of you and even challenge existing notions on recovery from mental health diagnoses in an optimistic way.  It puts a huge smile on my face to think that even one person may have benefitted from that post! 

Many of you also reached out asking for more information, asking for updates, and asking how things are for me now.  And so: I am back after 3 years to give an update on the journey and all the things that I’ve learned since that post. 

So, this post is here to serve two purposes: To give an update on where I am at in my own journey and inspire knowledge that making a change in your life and how you deal with inward and outward compulsion is not just possible, but the beautiful secret to living a full life!

Life Update

The first thing that I will say is that life is great!  I have moved to Tokyo, I am engaged in friendships and hobbies, I have had many new experiences that I would never have guessed I would be involved in.  I’ve made friends, some of which I’m sure will last for life, and lost friends that I thought would be around much longer.  I’ve started hobbies, some which I’m sure will last for life, and quit hobbies that again, I thought would be around much longer.  In many ways my life has grown tremendously simpler and more peaceful, and in other ways there is a complexity to it that is marvelous and such an adventure.  Right now, I am very happy with where my life is and how everything has led to me being here.

I am not saying that my life is perfect and that I have some kind of complete emotional mastery or anything like that.  My life has many challenges, but the difference now is simply that I am willing to meet them and be there for myself to support myself through them the best I can.  I have built many new life and mental fitness skills over the past 3 years since that previous post, which I will be sharing with you later.

The one thing that I want to say more than anything else is that life is a journey, and in that journey we will always have a multitude of emotions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences that we can use in a direction of growth and positive change.  OCD has been the greatest teacher in my entire life.  Through OCD, I’ve been able to learn what it means to really be a human, to understand suffering, to have compassion, to understand the beauty of the present moment, to have gratitude, and more than anything, to be able to let go and just have faith.  Even through all of the pain I’ve experienced (and trust me, there was lots of pain), I would not go back to before I was diagnosed.  Peace is not just a feeling of being okay, peace is the capability to be okay with any feeling.

So, where am I at now?

Well, after studying a vast array of psychology, spirituality, and philosophy over the past several years, I am working on two separate projects.

The first is a book that applies the practical aspects of all three to shape and encourage change in individuals towards a life that is more full. It will be titled "Your Mind is a Garden."

The second is the development of a community of friends who share a common goal: setting down judgment, avoidance, and compulsions while cultivating a life that is full of joy, honesty, and adventure, not just for themselves, but for those around them as well. The name of the community is "Garden of Life," and if you're reading this and interested in cultivating that kind of life, I would love to invite you to come and join us.

So now, I will go over the skills that I’ve learned to be vital since my last post.

Life Skills

Skill 1: Mental Cultivation

Learning how to be aware of the inner activities of my own mind has been such an extremely vital part of this journey.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they are not aware of the patterns of inner compulsions.  One cannot change the patterns of inner compulsion if they do not have something to change it to.  This may be one of the most important areas of recovery that I see rarely get talked about, frankly because I believe most recovery experts don’t have a strong understanding of the inner workings of the mind.  On my previous post I talked a lot about not responding to “intrusive thoughts” and so on, and I still take that to be good advice, but much more nuance can be offered that I think is much more helpful.  I will break down this skill into four sections:

1)      Wake up and see what you are doing in your own mind.  This means practicing being aware of what is going on in your mind at any given moment whenever you remember.  This is the basic skill of mental awareness.  Knowing what you are doing and remembering to pay attention to what you’re doing.  This does not mean all of the time. Trying to be aware all the time is just another form of perfectionism.  Simply make it whenever you remember.  That’s good enough.  Apply the principal of non-striving here, always.  Don’t force anything. 

It is best to do this through simple noting.  “Ah, worry is here again.”  Or “I see you, despair.”  Acknowledging it mentally is the first simple stop to come out of the old pattern.  You are now developing a form of metacognition, or a way to think about your own thoughts and mental activities.  Note again, this does not mean to “always” do this, just do it often enough when you remember and even then, it can be the simple mental recognition that you know the pattern is there, we don’t have to get super stuck on doing the same ritual each time.  Keep the attitude of non-striving.

2)      Allowing what is there to be there.  Simply mentally noting “It’s okay for that feeling/thought/emotion/sensation to be there.”  Anything.  What you’re learning here is how to stop hating on your present moment experience.  There are two forms in which suffering arises.  The first one is because you’re hating on something that is here, such as a thought or emotion or feeling or idea.  The second one is because you’re wanting something that isn’t here, such as when you were peaceful or some food or other sensual delight.  If instead we can say “It’s ok that sensation is here!” we begin to rewire the way the brain relates to things.  We can make this even more simple: “Everything here is just fine.” Or “Everything is okay, nowhere to go, nothing to do.”  Remember that these words aren’t magic spells, pay attention to the quality of your intention and attitude; the purpose is to loosen the clinging to the mental activity going on.  Non-striving, allowing, acceptance, self-nurturement are keywords you can keep in mind here.

3)      (Optional) Intentional cultivation of something that is more skillful, like joy or gratitude or self-compassion (nurturement).  Note the word “skillful” here, none of this is being categorized as “good” or “bad”, but instead through the moral-neutral term “skillful”.  Why?  Because “good” and “bad” are easy words that entail hating on experience.  Joy is not “good” and anxiety is not “bad”, these are both simply emotions.  But we may find that being in a joyful or self-compassionate state is a skillful and rather nice way to live life.  Note that even the thought “It’s okay for this to be here” is already a very kind and generous thought to give yourself!  So this step in some ways is optional.  If you’ve become aware of a thought in a non-judgmental, non-hating, non-striving way, you’re already cultivating a healthier state of mind.  Great work!  But you can go further by intentionally cultivating more joy and more gratitude and more compassion if you so choose.  Play with this using curiosity and intuition, don’t turn this into another compulsion.

4)      Return to what you value in the present moment.  If you were going for a walk, return to your walk and engage your senses in the walk, see the trees, feel the breeze, and so on.  If you were doing a sitting meditation, return to the breath and enjoy the breath!  If you were having a conversation with a dear loved one, be fully present and engaged with them in a loving and kind way.  The point here is to not get stuck on what’s going on inside our head but instead be fully engaged in the lives we are living.  This is, after all, what life is about.

Understanding that in any given moment we can choose what to grow is the primary practice of not just OCD recovery, but of any life worth living.  We can choose what we want to grow moment by moment in every moment whenever we remember.  Mental cultivation, meditation, mindfulness and so on are not about trying really hard to be okay, striving really hard to be kinder to ourselves, hating on ourselves for being judgmental or anything like that.  It’s actually about being okay with not being okay, being kind to ourselves when we fail to be kind, and being non-judgmental towards our judgmental minds. 

Think of your mind as having well-worn neural pathways as a result of the actions you’ve taken many times in the past.  If you have OCD, it’s probably tons of roads of worry and doubt.  If it’s depression, tons of roads of despair and self-hate.  So you can see that the specific themes of these things aren’t very important.  It’s a matter of how these roads have been worn down again and again so often that they are the natural pattern for your remind to return to.

If you hate on any of these roads while you’re on them, then when you think about it, you’re actually just continuing down that same road.  Hating on the fact that you’re ruminating is in essence more rumination!  More pain, more judgment, more resistance.  Any action of resistance to present moment experience is actually just more of the same old painful mental patterns.  It’s a decision to grow new neural pathways of allowance, non-judgment, kindness, and compassion to ourselves and others that we come out of those old roads on the spot and make a detour into new territory. 

Recovery is not about hating on OCD, hating on intrusive thoughts, or in any way wishing we were anywhere besides right where we are.  Recovery is about seeing that right here, right now, we can be totally okay with everything that is here and in this moment. Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience.  Allowing a negative experience is a positive experience.   

So I invite you to try a practice on your own right now.  Can you close your eyes, sit comfortably where you are, and with a form of mental attention and intention that is kind and compassionate, inhale deeply and fully, and allow everything to be exactly the way it is?  Go ahead and try for yourself… Perhaps even for a few breaths, or a few minutes.  And if you notice yourself hating on something, or a scary thought arising, you can note it: “Ah, there’s anxiety/worry/fear/despair.” And you can allow it “And that’s okay.” And you can encourage acceptance and allowance. “Everything here is okay, in fact.  How nice to be here and now.”  And you can return to your breath with an attitude of kindness and self-compassion.  And stay there, until a thought takes you away again, which it will, which is totally, totally okay.  That’s the entire practice.  Everything here and now is okay, and if a thought takes you out of that understanding, you can see that thought and see even that is okay.  Seeing that it’s okay to have fear, anxiety, and so on is the wholesome change, the wholesome cultivation that is the purpose of practice and the very act of letting go. 

And what a practice it is.  I went from being someone that couldn’t sit for 5 minute with my eyes closed without panic to someone that enjoys sitting around and just enjoying being okay in silence for long, long stretches of time. 

Practice doesn’t begin or end sitting down or standing up.  This is something that again, can always be practiced, whenever you remember.  Be present with what you’re doing. Be aware.  If you are doing something that you know is unhelpful, unskillful, compulsive, note it gently, allow it, nurture yourself with something skillful or helpful, and return your attention to whatever you choose.

Now, this isn’t always easy or comfortable because these new roads really are unfamiliar territory, and this is why I believe community is so, so important for growth, especially a community of like-minded friends aiming towards the same goals.  So again, I invite you to join the community if you are interested in such a thing! We are set up on Discord.

Skill 2: Values Work

Values are the orientation towards which we are living our lives.  Before someone says “But I don’t have any values!”, it’s important to see that everyone has values that they are living out, but sadly many of us have learned to live towards these values with a lack of understanding or wisdom, causing us to hurt ourselves and others around us.  One could even say that someone stuck in all day uncertainty-based compulsions very much values having certainty and control over their own life or reality.  So identifying new values to live towards and learning to allow uncertainty and not need to control everything so strictly is a very kind thing to do for ourselves.  The question, then, is deciding what kind of values to live towards.

So, learning how to simply allow ourselves to just be, to be still and be okay, is what is taught in the above section.  But understanding what we want to do with that quality of intention is definitely an important thing to identify.  Figuring out what orientation you want to live your life towards is something that takes a sense of gentleness as well as curiosity.  It’s definitely not something you want to clench up against and turn into a new compulsion.  I’ve found that using the forementioned attitudes such as non-judgment, kindness, compassion and so on talked about in the above section are great guiding values towards other places we may want to take our lives.  Afterwards, identifying your particular skills and passions and combining them with the essence of compassion and kindness is a really great direction to take.

What helped me, personally, in deciding the direction I wanted to go was just that.  Seeing the qualities of mind that made peace and joy possible and then applying them to the gifts that I already had.  I knew that I greatly enjoy helping and uplifting others and explaining concepts in simple words and bringing people together, so I made it my orientation to help others come to a place of safety and security and then walk towards their own gifts and values in the midst of those qualities. 

Skill 3: Recovery Beyond “OCD” Compulsions

One thing on this journey that you will see is that the compulsion mountain goes far beyond just typical “OCD” compulsions.  What I’ve learned is that the mountain of what can be called “compulsions” is far beyond simple certainty chasing.  There were so many things in my life that went far beyond simple checking or worry or rumination compulsions.  Actually, around the time of my OCD diagnosis, I would say about 95% of my life was orientated towards trying to control what other people thought of me.  A person that is mentally unfit has, in essence, propped up its entire sense of personhood through mental projections of how it thinks other people see them. 

Freedom, then, was found in learning to let go of control of any kind of self-image.  Seeing that I don’t have to be any certain kind of way is extremely liberating.  I don’t have to be an attractive person.  I don’t have to be a kind person.  I don’t have to be a moral person.  These are all expectations that are dependent upon performance.  Feeling like you absolutely have to do something (beyond food and shelter) to maintain some kind of security or success in the world is a very solid idea of what a compulsion is.  If instead we can see and freely decide to act out of compassion and kindness because we value these things without being attached to who we think they make us is a great way to live your life, because then you are living in cohesion with others without turning it into another self-improvement (compulsion) project.

So learning to pay close attention to when I was trying to live up to some kind of standard and instead seeing what my values are in that specific situation have led to the abandoning of all kinds of stress and suffering that I wasn’t even really aware I had.  Whereas before I was living a life centered around impressing others and chasing things I didn’t really care about, now I get to pursue and spend time on things I actually enjoy and will help others.  Before life was its own form of slavery, and now life is a gift.

Skill 4: Non-Attached Action

As we practice good mental fitness, we can start to become more nuanced in our understanding of our own mind and the quality of our own intentions.  I slowly became aware that much of my life was orientated around getting something.  This is a small form of suffering in itself.  Wanting to get done with work so I can go home and play.  Wanting to get done with washing the dishes so the dishes are clean.  Wanting to get done with my night routine so I can get some sleep. 

Learning how to carry a gentle and generous quality of attention with each action is a life skill that carries into everything else. 

Can you wash the dishes simply to wash the dishes?  Be engaged with each and every moment?  Clean each piece of silverware with your full attention?  Notice when thoughts come up about getting something, about wanting something you don’t have, or wanting to get rid of something that is in your experience, and then gently redirecting your attention back to the dishes?  Even if you were ruminating for several minutes, can you then say, “Oh, that’s okay.  Let’s go back to the dishes, no problem.” Or you notice yourself saying “Ah, gotta hurry and get this done, I wanna watch Netflix!” and then go “Oh, there’s that rushing again.  This here and now is just fine… back to the dishes.”

This quality of allowance, of self-nurturement, of seeing that we never have to be anywhere other than where we are is the key idea here… This doesn’t mean we can’t make a change or move towards something else!  It means we do it without hating on our experience or thinking it should be different.  Most people’s lives are lived entirely out of reactivity, out of judgment and hating on how things are.  Can you instead live your life out of discernment and wisdom?  Sure, that could be better with a small change.  But do you have to hate on it while making the change? 

Skill 5: Engaging in Community and Friendship

A man once mentioned to his wise teacher, “It seems as if friendship is half the path!” and his teacher responded with “Never say that, never say that.  Friendship is the whole of the path.”

Community is capable of so much nurturing and also of showing us where pain still lives inside of us.  Learning how to be a friend to ourselves walks in step with learning how to be a friend to others.  Learning how to set healthy boundaries for ourselves is also a walk in learning how to set boundaries in our relationships with others.   

Showing up in community was tremendously important for me, especially coming from a background where I didn’t have the best relationships or examples of human kindness.  Joining a few different communities and learning what manner of people are really in the world was eye opening in many ways… And also seeing where my own defense mechanisms of old would come up and perhaps not be so accurate and in need of updating was a very good practice.  I learned and grew so much from engaging in new communities, and I would recommend the same to anyone looking to learn and grow. 

Of course, selecting a community that will be beneficial for our growth must be done with careful discernment. It is not wise to open up to just anyone. Seeing that we can choose the people we are open with deliberately and with wisdom is very important. So choose people you believe you can trust! And choose people that have the proper orientation in mind. Finding a good mental health community can be very difficult. Many forums are much more orientated around practicing and maintaining poor mental health rather than practicing mental fitness. Be careful with what communities you are in!

Final Conclusion and What’s Next

Ultimately, I really hope that this post can be of help to those who are in a dark place right now.  I remember being in that dark place.  And my heart goes out to you.  I know the fear, pain, and confusion are not easy to handle.  But what I do want to say, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that there is a way out, and that way out is in and through it with acceptance, compassion, curiosity, and courage.  Being willing to face these things inside of us, to really touch them and allow them in the here and now, and then move towards what we care about anyways.  That is the essence of recovery.

Please, feel free to ask any questions that you may have about your own experience or my experience.  I will refrain from offering compulsive reassurance, but I will certainly encourage wise action and development.

And one last time, if you are interested in joining a community that is focused on growing something new inside themselves, please visit my website here.  You can also join my newsletter there and browse articles as I post them. 

Thank you very much for your time and I hope this post was of aid to you!

- Caleb