Be Busy Be Brighter

I once joined The Linden Method many years ago after watching a video with Charles Linden that was totally illuminating. No one before had described back to me my symptoms so eloquently and poignantly as Charles did in that YouTube video. I used to get a feeling that I had a marble stuck in my throat for example. It was hideous and all consuming and not one Dr was able to tell me that it was just a simple part of one of the the body's many reactions to anxiety and not something stuck there at all. So I joined up. As I remember it was just over £100 and you would have lifelong access to their support so seemed like quite a good deal.

The main aspect of The Linden Method that stuck with me and that I use to help support my journey to this day is the idea of keeping busy. (I should add there was a lot of information and other help that was useful). Now I know that it's possible to be busy and to still have raging uncontrollable thoughts simultaneously and so its not a total fix but the act of giving over your mind space to something else when you are suffering with OCD is totally magical. What's more its actually quite difficult to do.

Erkhart Tolle (Power of Now author) sometimes talks about the fact that many of us are 'addicted to thinking' and I think that that is an amazing observation. I know I am. Even now, even though my OCD is on a pilot light setting, I still find it difficult to give up thoughts that I want to think about. Thoughts that I have thought about many many times before. I want to roll them around this way and then that way, as maybe I missed something last time. I just want to think them again but extract more from them. When I confront myself with this and say 'hey why don't you just 'be' and give up these thoughts then it's usually a bit of a battle! 

So giving up flights of fancies and rumination's are difficult to do, it maybe true that we are addicted to them, but when you are suffering from OCD its like a Herculean task.... 

"What do you mean, start thinking about something or occupying my mind with something that isn't OCD, are you crazy, I haven't worked it all out yet! "

And so looking back at my year so far I realise I have been busy, really, really busy and it is definitely helping me to not obsess about my relationship. It used to feel like I was a traitor to myself by not giving my every waking moment over to the thoughts but I have learnt to realise that there is never any useful outcome to the excess thinking. I think that in my case, useful thinking accounts for way less than 1% of the thoughts that I have. So thats over 99% of my thoughts that are throwaway useful junk.And by the way that's fine as I don't identify myself with my thoughts, they are just jetsam and flotsam flowing uncontrollably through my mind. 

When you are hectic with OCD as I mentioned it can be difficult to get busy with other tasks but getting busy will really help you in a very practical way. I always think of OCD as certain highways (neural pathways), over heating with repeated traffic. Back and forth the thoughts go along my OCD superhighway of panic and hotter and hotter they heat up until I feel ill. And so I have learnt to turn my attention away and to another task in hand and to allow that circuit to cool down.

It used to be a list made up of simple things such as 'Wash Up' ' Go the Post Office' 'Read 30 minutes of your book' 'Tidy the upstairs room' .. you know the sort of activities that you can just about handle. And to be honest I sometimes go back to the simple things if I am feeling overwhelmed or frozen with anxiety. But the salient point is to get busy. And this year has been busy with work, busy with sport, busy with music, busy with holidays, busy with boozing, busy with a podcast I do,  busy with relationships, busy with a charity I'm part of, busy with DIY, busy with reading, busy with....well you get the picture, I'm been pretty busy. This has allowed me to pay less attention to my thoughts and yes I still get the ROCD thoughts (and I accept that may always be there) but where it used to be weeks, months and days before I could move on its now minutes and seconds and for that I am very very grateful. 

A few great quotes for contemplation:

'Get busy living or get busy dying' (Stephen King)

'Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look for it' (Thoreau) 

and a great one from Socrates that gives some balance to being busy :

'Beware the barrenness of a busy life'.

I think its important to include that one as I am not suggesting that being busy cures all ills and there is definitely a place for contemplation, meditation, sleep and just plain idling, I just think that getting busy with activities that engage the brain and body outside of the normal OCD routine can only help you on your recovery!