Thoughts About Obsessions and Other Thoughts 1 of 2

Once OCD enters your life, you understand the power of thoughts. Obsessions—the O in OCD—are nothing more than thoughts. They’re sentences in your brain. And they can erode lives.

In today’s article, we’ll talk about why thoughts are important, where your thoughts come from and how your thoughts create the results in your life—with or without OCD.

You have thoughts all the time. You have thoughts about the weather, the state of your health and who you want to see as President. You have thoughts about the person at the store who held the door for you when your hands were full—and the person who cut you off in traffic on the way home from the store. You have thoughts about the praise from your boss and the snarky comment from your coworker and your uncle’s conviction that  the world is flat.. You have thoughts about how the world should work, and what people should say or do. You even have thoughts about your thoughts!

Your thoughts are powerful. You know this from your experience with OCD.

In fact, it’s my experience helping my son manage his OCD that inspired me to invest in skills to help people think on purpose to get what they want. And I share these ideas and skills with my physician clients whom I help get what they want.

One of the first questions someone with OCD asks me is “How do I make the obsessive thoughts STOP?”

Adam described his experience with his first obsessions and compulsions. One day on his drive to work, Adam thought, “Maybe I left the stove on and the house will burn down.”

Then he had a thought about this thought.

He said to himself, “That's a valid concern. I can be so absent-minded as I rush out of the door in the morning. I could see myself leaving the stove on after I made my coffee!”

So Adam turned the car around and headed for home, where he found that the stove was off.

The next week he had the same thought, “I could have left the stove on and the house could burn down.” Then he remembered that the family went out to dinner the night before, so they didn’t cook dinner.

Then he had another thought. “My wife made tea to drink with her evening bath. Maybe she forgot to turn the stove off.”

He turned the car around again and headed home where he found the stove off.

A few days later the scene repeated. He went back home and all was well. On his second attempt to drive to work, he had a thought, “Maybe when you checked you missed the burner that’s still on.” Now he headed home a second time.

The leaving and checking rituals all begin with a thought, “I could have left the stove on, and unless I take action, the house could burn down.”

Then he had the thought, “I need to pay attention to this truth bomb. My brain has identified a valid threat that warrants action.”

Adam knows that in the absence of these thoughts, he would not experience the anxiety that accompanies these thoughts. Without these thoughts he would be freed from the increasingly elaborate and time-consuming checking rituals.

NO obsessive thoughts mean no anxiety and no need to take action. Back to normal life.

OCD is a special case that illustrates the ways all human brains.

Our senses bring information about what’s happening in the outside world.

Our brains make meaning of this information. These are your thoughts.

Different thoughts create different feelings. Feelings are nothing more than sensations you experience in your body that offer information about what’s going on in your inner world.

Your feelings drive your actions, and your actions create the results you experience in life.

So, your thoughts create your life results. This is not a woo-woo spiritual idea. This is simply the way brains work— with or without OCD.

I’m watching the Olympics. While it’s amazing to watch the athletic performances, I’m fascinated by the stories behind the performances. Both Simone Biles and Suni Lee overcame great health challenges to compete in the 2024 Olympics. Simone’s last Olympics was set back by the Twisties. She didn’t know where her body was in space, representing true danger to her. Sun Lee overcame two different disorders with her kidneys.

You could listen to those stories and think, “Wow, How inspiring. If these athletes overcame those profound health setbacks, maybe I could overcome smaller adversities in my life and not give up on my goals and dreams.”

That thought might make you feel optimistic. When you’re optimistic you look around me for evidence that other people can move forward in the face of setbacks. The optimism could help you get back to things you found challenging. You would act more courageously. This would help you move closer to your goals.”

Let’s say someone else thinks, “Athletes like Simon Biles and Suni Lee are made of different protoplasm then we normal people. They’re certainly different than I am. I can’t twist and turn like they can, and I can’t bounce back like they can.” That thought makes this person feel resigned to their reality. They don’t act courageously. They give up on their dreams because they’ve tried before and been disappointed.

Where Do Thoughts Come From?

Thoughts are. Powerful.

This begs the question, “Where do they come from and why do we think them? “

Thoughts come from different places.

Biology

First, our biology shapes our thoughts.

Safety-related thoughts often happen below the level of conscious thought. We get a funny feeling when we’re around someone. The hair on the back of our neck rises. We may not consciously think, “I’m not safe with this person.” We may just feel the urge to get away. This is part of our biologic imperative to identify and escape danger.

Adam describes his OCD story. He said, “I’ve always had weird thoughts pop into my head. Before I had OCD, I would think,‘That’s a weird thought.’ Then I would go about my day. Then in my 20’s something happened in my brain. It was like a switch was turned on. I would have a weird thought and think, ‘That’s a weird thought—or maybe not. Maybe it’s true. I can’t prove it’s not true, so I’ll go with it.’” For Adam, his different thought about weird thoughts changed his life, and not for the better. We don’t know exactly what happens that explains why this switch Adam described is turned on.

If you know someone with bipolar disorder, you might observe that the first sign of a manic spree is extravagant spending.  They have different thoughts about spending money.

It turns out that each of us—even those with neurotypical brains has a biologic propensity to be either a spender or a saver.

Scientists have identified a gene that codes for a biologic propensity to take risks or seek safety.

Our unique biology shapes our thoughts. You might have different thoughts when you’re tired or hungry or overwhelmed.

Your Family of Origin

Second your thoughts are also shaped through childhood lessons.

In the great book Scientist in the Crib, the author describes the amazing capacity of babies to learn things. She says a baby’s brain is a  learning machine. They learn both through observation and through direct instruction.

Parents teach them the difference between good and bad. The understand some thing like lying are bad and some things like keeping promises are good. They absorb beliefs about how the world works.

We arrive into adulthood carrying our childhood lessons.

Sometimes these lessons are so engrained that we simply accept them as true. 

Sometimes we use childhood lessons to decide to reject the ways of our parents. Beth said, “I remember thinking as a child, ‘When I’m a parent I’ll never say that to my kids.” I felt the pain their words inflicted. I was horrified when those same words came out of my mouth in the heat of the moment with my own kids!”

As another example, consider the thoughts you absorbed in childhood about money. Your parents taught you about the nature of money. Is money good or is it evil? You were taught about the purpose of money. Is it to help you enjoy a higher standard of living or is it to help other people less fortunate or is it a tool to help you serve in a bigger way? Then as adult these believes shape their behaviors around money. These beliefs can stand between a person’s current reality and their goals and dreams.

Beliefs are nothing more than thoughts we think over and over again.

Your Peer Group

As we become adults, we become members of groups. Often these groups are like-minded. They think similar thoughts. They act in similar ways.

Now we can find virtual communities of like-minded people.

In fact, we can construct our lives so we are surrounded with people who think the same thoughts we do. We can shield ourselves from people who hold different beliefs. And beliefs are nothing more than thoughts you think over and over.

If you saw the final of the 2024 Olympic woman’s balance beam competition, you witnessed almost every athlete fall. How and why does that happen? The athletes said that the absence of music was a distraction. They could hear themselves breath. Were all of them distracted? Is it possible that simply by witnessing your peers fall of the beam, you were at risk of falling yourself? Do these athletes look up at the beam and have the thought, “The beam is cursed today?” I don’t know the answer.

Marketing Messages

All day, every day, we are bombarded by marketing messages that try to persuade us how to think and how to act.

If you just buy this thing or take this pill or have this experience. You, too, can have the perfect life.

Then you can go on social media and see physical evidence of a envy-inducing curated life. We have thoughts, “This is what a good life looks like. My life falls short.”

We are exposed to messages that we come to believe are true. Our self-worth is tied to the number of likes or followers or even net worth. We get the message that we’re only as valuable as what we can contribute. The thought, “I can’t trust myself” inspires people to crowdsource important choices.

Racism and sexism and ableism are all thoughts about people who are different—usually from us. These prejudices—a class of thoughts— can be insidious.

You might remember the uproar when talking teen Barbie said, “Math is hard.” Then the president of Harvard University provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological differences.

George Floyd’s murder invited people into the question, “Could I be acting in a racist way even though I don’t think of myself as a racist?”

The nature of these thoughts and beliefs is that we simply accept them as true.

Why Are Thoughts Important?

So, why are thoughts so important?

The reason thoughts are so important is that they shape the lives we create.

When we don’t challenge our thoughts, our lives run on autopilot. We continue to create the same results, no matter how much we want to change.

One of the dangerous thoughts we have, for example, is that it’s dangerous to feel feelings.

No one wants to feel anxiety or pain or disappointment. One of the risks of competing in the Olympic is that you can fall off the balance beam. Athletes are willing to lose for the opportunity to win. They have the thought, “I can live through the experience of falling off the beam and not being on the podium.”

People with OCD have the thought “obsession-driven anxiety is intolerable.” They perform compulsions driven by that belief.

ERP offers evidence that anxiety will not kill you. You get evidence that you can, in fact, live through anxiety. It will not kill you. This thought leaves you more empowered to say no to comulsions. 

This new thought “I can live through any feeling” supports and empowered life.

Some thoughts get and keep you stuck in life. You may have the thought, “I won’t find a life partner because no one wants to commit to someone with OCD.” Or , “I’ll never lose weight because…” Or, “I’ll never get my dream job because…” These thoughts create feelings that inspire action that proves these thoughts to be true.

These thoughts are completely optional.

And if no one has told you yet today, I admire your courage. Managing OCD may be the hardest job I’ve taken on. Whether you’re an OCD Warrior or and OCD Champion, you’re not alone. There’s hope for a better tomorrow. You got this!