Like many people, all of my life I’ve had a lot of voices in my head filled with judgment, criticism, and self-hate. I’ve had voices telling me what to do or not do. I’ve had voices reviewing my every move. Additionally, I’ve always had repetitive loops in my head and paralyzing voices that lead me to obsessive worrying.
Recently I heard the Guide talking about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I began to wonder if there was a difference between the usual kinds of voices and OCD kinds of voices— those repetitive and paralyzing ones. The question arose, “Do I have OCD?” And then, “Well, what would that mean if I did?”
So I called in to Open Air to speak with the Guide. The Guide confirmed that it probably doesn’t matter what we label something. If it is causing suffering, then we can bring awareness and compassion to it. In fact, she confirmed what I was hoping she’d say: “I don’t think there are any issues that we can’t address with awareness practice if we want to.”
You see, the voices had been talking to me about the voices. And they were on a campaign to convince me that there was “really” something wrong with me. Not just the garden variety of something wrong, but a “disorder.” They wanted me to think I needed drugs. They wanted me to think I was hopeless.
As you might expect, after speaking with the Guide, I was determined to bring as much awareness, kindness, and compassion to myself as possible regarding this issue.
The Guide had suggested “the first process is bringing awareness to the process.” So I enlisted the Mentor to help me pay close attention to one particular aspect of these OCD tendencies: repetition of words when I was feeling anxious or fearful.
I started recording when I noticed that a voice was repeating words in my head. If I was with other people, I would silently just note, “repetition.” And always, I would stop the voices from trying to beat me up about this or make me feel bad. I was just noticing.
Then an idea dropped in. What if, whenever I heard this repetition, I would take a few long, deep breaths and replace the conditioned word loop with the words, “thisherenow.”
Breathing. “Thisherenow.” Breathing. “Thisherenow.”
Not surprisingly, conditioning (costumed as OCD) upped the ante. It started doing this repetition of words more and more frequently. Now instead of happening two or three times a day, it was happening seven or eight times.
But ha! Joke’s on it. I win. Because without the beatings or reviews, all this meant was that more often during the day I remembered to practice: breathing, breathing, “thisherenow.”
I realized that I had always been told by conditioning that the repetition of words was soothing. Conditioning had convinced me that “it” was soothing. When I began focusing on my breath whenever I noticed the repetition, I saw clearly that being present to life is what is truly soothing.
Life even dropped in the little rhyme that I’d heard the Guide use: “This isn’t me; it’s OCD.” I remembered that a Sangha member had also added: “This isn’t me; it’s EKC.” I expanded on those rhymes and came up with this:
This isn’t me; it’s OCD.
This isn’t me; it’s EKC.
Listening to voices is not
How I want to be.
And so I do most deeply vow
To train to live in thisherenow.
Thanks to Practice, I feel like I’ve got yet another tool to bamboozle ego. It can repeat all the words it wants. As for me, I’m just gonna keep focusing on my breath and training to live in thisherenow.
Gassho,
Sherry