10 Overall Keys that Helped My OCD Healing Process

hi everyone and welcome to this broadcast mark dejesus here looking forward to sharing some great insights for your healing and freedom journey especially when it comes to the area of ocd if you didn't get the chance to watch the broadcast of my story you can check it out at mark dejesus.com or you can go over to my youtube channel to go to the video directly there what i what i did was i initially did a a broadcast where i covered a bunch of ground and we had we had some technical glitches and so i rebroadcast my story i was still working through some of those glitches but it's all right and but the audio was fantastic you get a great great representation of my story and i'll probably at other times represent it and tell more of my story more aspects because really that's the big thing that i'm basing so much of what i do is what god has done in my life and i think that's the most powerful way to help people and to strengthen the lives of other people is what has happened in your own life and in your own journey so what i decided to do was i i split up what i was initially presenting and i said you know what after doing that that first time and then i shared my story i said you know i want to separate out these keys and i i've narrowed it down to 10 and uh 10's a good number and what i want to do in this broadcast is i want to okay if you're somebody that says i'm recognizing i may have some ocd issues or or i've been i've been told or been diagnosed or whatever again i'm not i'm not a doctor i'm not your doctor i'm not a psychologist i'm not your psycholo psychologist i'm not a psychiatrist um i'm your brother in christ i've years of pastoral experience i've years of working with people coaching people being in in all kinds of settings and working through the issues of people's lives but the biggest thing that i come from is the experience of what has helped me and what makes sense in helping others so if there's something that is just a theory but hasn't been able to put into practice i'm not going to teach it that's kind of my policy that's kind of what i what i do but if it's if it's shown fruit in my life and if it's shown fruit in some people's lives that i've helped then i'm gonna keep talking about it and i believe that the church should have lots of discussions about mental health we we put mental health in like a category it's like over here really mental health is life it is how we think how we do relationships how we receive love how we struggle with love how thoughts affect us our belief systems all this comes into play in what we often call mental health and i believe the bible has so much to say about it i believe there's so much sanity and peace and groundedness that we can find in the scriptures so it's a delight for me to to share with you and and to just give you that this is kind of an an overview it's kind of like a a start when you kind of go where do i start don't get overwhelmed with everything i'm going to share here because there's each thing that i'm going to share with you kind of gives opportunity for a dive okay now um what i want to do up front is address a couple questions that people have upfront which is this concept of totally healed were you totally healed from such and such and i think that that question leads down to some dangerous pathways because people will say i was totally healed from depression and that's great that's wonderful that's awesome i i i celebrate with you but we have to look over the long period of time because depression comes in seasons at times sometimes it can be very very prolonged or you know people will say i got instantly healed from bipolar and it's like this like instantly and and full you know completely i i like to take that pressure off of people and let's look at this as a journey because the journey the journey for mental health battles is that it's a journey and i do not like promoting quick fixes i do not like setting people up i think that takes advantage of people's vulnerability i think it sets them up for a false expectation i've seen many people go deeper into depression because they were promised something and believe and this all going to happen at once and we're talking about our thinking here we're talking about thinking patterns we're talking about life experiences how we do relationships let's stop putting the pressure on ourselves and each other to snap our fingers and expect that you're gonna think totally differently all your emotions are just going to be perfect and you're going to do life totally different and relate to everyone totally different it's just not it's not a healthy expectation because life doesn't work that way and god's not a puppet he doesn't he doesn't all of a sudden fix every way that you see things and force you to think a certain way no he's a god who says here's health here's wholeness and he says so much about how we think and working through that and i really believe so much of what we struggle with in mental and emotional health areas has to do with our thinking our belief systems our relationships and whether or not we were loved properly were we set up to understand love and grace i'm such a big believer in that and so um sometimes people ask me you completely heal well i am not where i was ten years ago i'm not where i was five years ago um i live in a great deal of freedom do i have my battles and struggles of course but these areas of ocd and these areas made me so anxious they don't own me anymore now i have i have my wrestling where things come and i have thoughts and we'll i'll get more into that in other resources but i want to invite you to take a journey if you battle with ocd and i'm going to mention this in in one of my points is um this is this is going to be a process we got to take the pressure off in our expectation because really this is a learning and if you'll invite the learning it'll be a much more fruitful experience sometimes people ask was deliverance helpful there's a lot of deliverance ministries that promote hey you know in a deliverance session you're going to be free of ocd um i i have found that um one thing that a deliverance mindset helped was recognizing hey these thoughts that you're battling they're not your own because one of the things that happens with ocd people is you think every thought is your own and you think it means something about you so if you if you make yourself one and you establish your identity with all your thoughts then we're all sunk because we all have thoughts that come through that are intrusive they're they're unwanted they are things that we don't want to have as our thoughts but they're very disturbing that's the nature of ocd there's one aspect of the obsession which is it's an intrusive unwanted thought system something that's disturbing it creates anxiety creates guilt and then there's there's an obsessive aspect to it because you narrow in on it you fixate on it and and and you stare at it and it's like there's a lot of attention brought to it then there's a compulsion that forms and this is typically what we do to feel safe and maybe um there's certain patterns that you fall into i got into that my first video i'll talk about that more in other videos but that's kind of a like a basic premise it's like what you do to avoid the discomfort so maybe you feel a great deal to a great deal of guilt about something and you always have to confess it always have to confess it or maybe you have to do a certain ritual or maybe you just you have an avoidance thing ah get it out of that and you're afraid of that thought system right many people are afraid in their own thoughts so the the and and some of you may go i don't know i don't know if i go for the whole deliverance don't worry about it it's don't worry about it take and even if you're as you're watching this if if something you're like doesn't line up or you're like i don't know how i feel think about that just put it on the side burner don't get hung up on things that don't stick pay attention to what does because god's he's working layer by layer in our lives anyways so so don't sweat it but people will ask me about deliverance and i find that deliverance modalities can make people more obsessive and um i i think it's somewhat ignorant for us to say we're gonna pray something out of you or pray something off of you and all of a sudden you're just gonna think differently it doesn't it doesn't put into context how god has made us that we have an ability to choose and decide and to think to renew our minds and ocd is a conglomerate of a structure of thinking and how you think and how you perceive it's how you react to thoughts it's how you believe about thoughts so this isn't necessarily something to get out of you now i'm not saying it couldn't happen i've seen some stories i don't know them personally where they've they've said that now i have practiced a lot of deliverance aspects modalities in in some of my work i believe in it i believe it's it's needed um but i think that we portray something of i'm going to pray with you we're going to meet and you're going to be all free and it's like i've watched people someday talk like that and it's like those obsessive patterns seem to still kind of be there we're presenting something that is not um that is not accurate and not helpful to people okay and so so what i want to share with you here is just real ten main areas oh i was i was finishing my thought on on on deliverance i have found that ocd can often in in using deliverance people can get worse they can get more obsessive about fixing themselves they they can struggle with i have this thought so it has a root source in me i gotta close the door gotta close the door gotta close the door because that's where ocd really gets leverage is this thought means something and it has an origin in a way of life that you're in and that's why it's there and people start crumbling under these thoughts it can also make you very introspective now here's something that i'm very concerned about as many people that that that immerse themselves in deliverance mindsets they can get very legalistic and law based because everything has has an issue and an evil spirit in this and the enemy and everything has an open door and you got to do this and and now we have a new form of legalism which is you got to get all these rules and all these things like narrow down and get them right so you can be free and that's actually what ocd does is tries to get you into a perfectionistic kind of mentality and pulls us into law so what i'm going to do is i'm going to encourage you into love i'm going to encourage you to nurture i'm going to encourage you into grace i'm going to encourage you to get free from shame get judgment i'm gonna help get to the root system get to your heart get to the real issues that are driving ocd patterns versus chasing symptoms all the time okay so if if you're somebody that says you know what i wanna experience more freedom well i'm gonna share with you what has helped me these 10 areas have many sub points in their own they're they're they're whole topics in themselves so today's going to kind of be an overview of sharing in these areas i pray it's a blessing you know for your life and for your journey um if you um by the way i think i have i think i have it on a slide let me check here one second because i want to make sure i can put this slide up for y'all about how you can sign up because i want to remind people about this yeah there it is mark dejesus.com ocd help you can utilize that to take advantage it's a it's a separate mailing list that i'm developing and cultivating and here's what i'm thinking i have some emails i'm going to send you give you the opportunity to fill out a quick little survey it's anonymous and it gives you the opportunity to share with me your journey and where you struggle to help me in my video content now i may not be able to reply to everybody now i have an idea that i'm marinating on i don't know if i'll do this or not but some of the emails when i when they come in i go man i would love to just take this email take your name out take some of the like maybe super personal aspects of it so i can you know kind of keep it general but use it and break it down and kind of give feedback of like all right here's some things i would really recommend and i think that in my worst of days i would have loved that i sent emails to people asking for help and insight and their feedback made things worse so i just uh so my heart goes out to all of you and he struggle in this area because it it needs some specific insight and it needs some specific understanding otherwise a lot of christian feedback can make things harder so i don't wanna do that i wanna release you from the pressure release you from the burden because you're already carrying a lot of burden and a lot of exhaustion in your thoughts but here's here's the 10 keys that help me a whole lot and i'll walk through these number one is i ha this is going to sound really simple but it's very very important i had to recognize the ocd patterns for what they are they're ocd at first when this word got tossed and and it was brought up to me and it's like hey you kind of sound like you're a little you're obsessive you're you're um i wouldn't i i didn't hear the word neurotic but i felt like people wanted to like highly neurologically obsessed over trying to the first way it came out to me is you're obsessed with trying to fix yourself and getting super introspective and that was some of the early signs then over time i had to realize okay this isn't about me getting delivered this isn't about me getting free this is an obsessive compulsive pattern this isn't about um where this thought comes from these intrusive thoughts that drive me crazy this is an ocd pattern and i needed to just admit it and and why is this so important because a lot of people that i interact with and work with they're still defending their patterns well i gotta pray and i gotta do this repentance because if i don't god i won't be what if i'm not saved what if i'm going to and they have this maybe religious ocd or maybe they're like they have these sexual unwanted thoughts maybe i'm a sexual deviant or what if i don't do or they become relationally obsessed and i'm i get a lot of emails and interaction even coaching sessions people relationally obsessed and and and they're having these obsessive and and they relate relationally in obsessive ways and they have compulsive behaviors and even impulsive behaviors i can talk about that in in other content and so you don't have to live in ignorance and you don't have to be alone and you don't have to suffer in silence and so what you have to it's a it for me is a very basic basic thing that helped me is i went like this okay not only is this thing ocd my guilt confession these intrusive thoughts and i feed them and then i i feel guilty and i've got to talk them out and i over talk them and i focus and i get into a ditch and then i have um and then i have these other patterns and i i want things to be just right and i struggle with things feeling just right and i can't settle okay it's all ocd all right because once you start to recognize it you're gonna see and you settle into it and it's not a label it's not like like i'm labeling you not that and it's not shaming you it's none of that and that's why i teach so much about compassion and grace it's just about recognition and going okay this is where i'm at and this is what i struggle with because if you can get there it's gonna settle you a bit and you start to go oh yeah i see that pattern once you start to see something you can see where it gets infectious into everything and how you think about things what thoughts you pay attention to how you pay attention to them so recognition is very very important now back like i said back in the the 90s and early 2000s you know i type in all these things about how i did relationships and how i there's nothing there maybe some obscure website someplace you can go to in the mountains for some retreat and i don't even i don't even know these people you know like what are they going to talk about so so you can actually look up some of these things you can look up relationship ocd religious ocd you can look up scoop velocity you can look up uh guilt confession ocd you can write these and you'll find other people that struggle with them as well so kind of gives you a sense of like okay not alone because i thought i was crazy and i was very ashamed but when more and more i recognized the battle it helped me help me to do this that's what i encourage you to do as a starting point get familiar with what your obsessions are and even in your journal create a list create a list of these are the things that become obsessive well i have intrusive thoughts well what kind what kind are they some people are even afraid to do this exercise because they're afraid oh if i write it i'm going to stimulate that thought and i'm going to get lost in it well part of it is we got to face the fear and we got to help you to stop being afraid of your thoughts because once you once you disarm the fear the the thought process starts to lose its power write one column of the obsession the patterns what you do relationally you're checking you're you're editing you're fixing uh what you try to you know what you what you get hung up on then in the other column put compulsion and put what you typically do so people write to me say i have a sexually unwanted thought okay when that happens what do you do what do you do um and and the connection between one column and the other column your obsession and how you react to it right in the middle is the meaning and interpretation you attach to it because if you put an interpretation to it that this means something and it means something about me and i have to pay attention to it that's gonna drive your compulsion so if you have a thought maybe i'm not saved and you obsess about it what are you gonna do you're gonna probably compulsively re-ask jesus into your life you're going to do rituals of repentance and you're going to go through these hula hoops right and right in the middle of that what glues those things together is the meaning and interpretation that you create and that's where the healing process can really happen is when your beliefs about your beliefs begin to get healed psychologists call them metacognitions there are these belief structures that get formed you see why i'm not so much interested around like let's pray off of you in the name of jesus and you know freedom and and one moment one session with you right he's like well we're talking about your whole belief system and so so i'm a big proponent of when i have a battle god redo my whole foundation in this area i don't i don't do this like patching fix this one thing many people believe a myth if this one ocd thought was no longer a problem i would be so much better my friend it would shift to another area trust me because the root system needs to be addressed in your life so that's kind of a starting thing your obsession your compulsion then start to be aware what's the belief that drives it what's the what's the what's the belief systems that reinforce that those things need to be challenged okay and i'll get to that i'll get to that part in just a second so first i had to recognize it this is ocd i'm gonna stop defending it i'm gonna stop you know just sitting down and arguing with people about it or debating this is ocd i need and i need help in that kind of perspective the second thing is i had to be willing to do whatever it takes and i mentioned this in one of my q as admittingly i was pretty mentally and emotionally lazy i don't say that in a condemning way i say it just in honesty and what i mean by that is i just reacted to whatever thought came my way i'd wake up in the morning how i felt i kind of just oh man i woke up on the wrong side of the bed i just oh what a terrible morning and then i'd have these anxious thoughts and these obsessive thoughts and i was a reactor all day long just reacting i didn't know how to set my compass i didn't know how to set my attitude because the one thing you can control you can't control hardly anything except one thing and that's where you point the direction of your heart some people could say that's your attitude sure it's setting your compass where am i headed it's not where you are it's not what you've been through it's not your current predicament it's where are you pointing and many times we wake up in the morning and we beat ourselves up because we're evaluating our situation terribly but i had to ask myself do i really want to be well and this is a question jesus asked the man that he prayed for and i had to answer that question honestly do i really want to be well now i had to learn how to overcome i had to learn how to develop my spiritual muscles i had to learn how to be resilient learn how to encourage myself to be quite honest i had to learn how to be more positive because i had a very negative bend how many you relate to that like just a negative bent like if you if you wake up and do nothing it's just like the the the train goes off the rails into negativity right and i had to learn how to cultivate a more optimistic perspective and let let love be built and let hope be built on that love that god has for me and then faith is the substance of things hoped for god's done a tremendous work of faith hope and love i talk about those three and how important they are right but if you just want the symptoms fixed you're going to be very frustrated you need a whole you have to see this just like if you're helping somebody who wants to lose weight right somebody who wants to lose weight has a problem they think if i just lose weight i'll be better and any nutritionist would know that's not what it's about we got to get you healthy the weight will come off as you get healthier and and and the healthy is not a diet it's a lifestyle you got to treat this like somebody who has an addiction many addicts say oh if i just stopped having this cocaine habit or if i stopped having this drinking problem or addiction to pornography or addiction to whatever addiction to my phone you know there's so many addictions they think things will be better no no you need a whole lifestyle change and any addict recovery worker knows you need a whole lifestyle change how you believe how you see things how you live your lifestyle everything needs restructuring and to a lot of people they go that's scary that's overwhelming but it it it's it's it's often because we've not been taught what transformation looks like i had to welcome the whole renovation so if even if you struggle with depression because a lot of people with ocd underneath they've got some depression and and they're spinning in all these things that they're anxious about and and and really if we peel back and and calm the obsessive pathways there may be some depression there that's not been really looked at and intended to and even if people recovering from depression or anxiety it requires a lifestyle shift how you think how you perceive things how you believe how you see yourself how you see god how your past experiences affect your present and how you see your relationships right all of that is a part of what you're thinking right now so right now every thought every emotion is a culmination of your whole life and people get overwhelmed right ah no but god created you with neuroplasticity where you can form new pathways and form new thoughts he created you where your emotions can be healed you can have a new perspective and layer by layer if you'll be kind to yourself and safe in how you see yourself boy you will have a much more fruitful journey so i had to ask the question do i really want to be free now ocd sufferers let me tell you something one of the things that you will struggle with in your life is you will go get help when your thoughts are bad and you'll slow down in getting help when you feel better for a moment and then you hit another round because many times these ocd things can happen in roller coaster you're doing well and oh you're going like a nightmare for a week and then you kind of hold on to the rails and the roller coaster maybe calms down you go i'm good i'm good good okay back to life back to life time out we got to continue this journey we got to continue this journey because it's once you start focusing on the root systems it won't be just to focus on i had this obsessive thought what do i do about it because if you're if you're always focused on i have this obsessive thought what do i do what do i do what do i do if that's always your focus it's going to be limited it's like okay what is this really about it's really about love are you able to be loved there's empty places in your broken heart that need the father's love for you to feel safety is not in fixing your thoughts safety is in being loved right where you are right now it's about god's grace and not all the pressure being on you to fix anything because god's grace is working in and through us but we got to tune into that frequency and get out of all this pressure this perfectionism and performance stuff we need nurture and many of you your ocd issue is a cry for nurture you've never been nurtured so the way that you feel safe is you got to fix all this stuff going on it's your sense of control but it's fake because we don't have control over anything really except for what we decide and where we point our compass that's about it but in our pain we try to get control and we're gonna get these thoughts fixed right and what does it do it pushes us farther away from love because we're in a control mode and you can't experience love when controls in the atmosphere you're never going to have a real relationship when you try to control someone or when you're trying to control every thought and get this all just right what love does is it settles things and it goes i don't have to fear these thoughts and they lose their power in the presence of god's unconditional magnificent ongoing love in your life in your journey but anyways i had to say i'm hungry and i'm going for the long haul so i am in the midst of a lifelong journey and i'm inviting you to take you with me maybe i can be an encouragement to your life in some really cool ways number three is i had to be willing to be taught and corrected i had to develop a more teachable spirit in my perspective because i defended my o c d patterns so for example i talk about a very unhealthy pattern of relationship reassurance and you know i'd get in a dating relationship be obsessive is this the right one is this the right person god is the right one and i would feel so anxious over it that i i i was like i don't know i i can't be in this relationship and then i break up and i get away and so this is what i did and a lot of people do this believe it or not is i said you know that must be god god is preserving me for the perfect woman so now i'm i have this avoidance issue this discomfort with intimacy and now this perfectionism is creating this unattainable whatever kind of thing in life so it's always going to make me withdraw and then i attach god to it and so the interesting thing is 100 of the people i told this to you know i'm just waiting on the lord i'm just waiting for the right person and i'm just you know god's got i even used like abraham you know i've sacrificed this marriage thing on the altar just like abraham did with isaac i'm giving it to the lord and everyone believers 100 we're like yeah that's great amen mark until i'd sit down one day and a friend of mine said you may want to just can i just encourage you to rethink some of that and anger kicked up how dare you how dare you challenge my god my god voice he spoke to me this is him right and i remember other people saying and even my dad saying you know and even people saying to me if you stay in this pattern you're going to be 50 and alone you're going to be 60 and alone and it made me mad at first you know because sometimes the truth hurts and yeah i know people don't always say stuff in the safest ways i get it but sometimes we can't just eliminate something just because it wasn't said in love sometimes it's like yeah i got some really bad patterns so it made me surrender and go god i'm humble my heart to be taught now i was humble in other areas i teach i'd be teachable in so many areas of my life but in this area i created this rigid protection around it and so i tell people this in my coaching work i said i need you to understand i'm not going to argue with your obsessive thoughts i'm not going if you're if you're ocd about your salvation i'm not going to sit here and go well roman says this in the world is and the bible says this it's just going to feed your feedback loop the argument is about salvation and really what it is is you don't feel loved and you've never felt safe and you lack nurture in your life that's where i'm going to focus because we're going to build the structure of your heart and it's like yeah but what if i stand before god someday and he says depart from me there's there's nothing i can say that's going to fix the direct argument of that to an ocd mind i know that enough so i go i'm not going to argue with that we're going to redirect you back here and it frustrates the ocd system right it's like i'm i'm talking about this thing over here i've got a sexual unwanted thought hmm tell me about your relationship with your dad they love you do you set you up to to know who you are you speak love over your life but wait a second what are you talking about i have these unwanted thoughts and but then as we as we keep moving and keep moving keep moving we see the emptiness and the brokenness all ocd is is a pattern that rises up many times because of unhealed pain emptiness it's a way of trying to feel safe but it's a trap and when i learned what i really got is a broken heart grew up in church you know got saved when i was four years old my only memories growing up in church the struggle to know the love of god in my heart and know he's a father who who adores me and loves me my whole foundation was on i got to get this stuff right make sure i obey everything and when you're disconnected from love it's a trap it'll pull you right into what paul taught on he said you're getting bewitched so i i i have to i had to allow the correction though and i believe a key to mental health number one is learning to be loved by god love yourself and allow that to process and how you do relationships i believe that's a cornerstone but number two major in improving mental health is allowing other people that are safe that know my heart and know my battle allowing them to chant to challenge my my reality because ocd will lead you into a false reality it'll lead you into one of one person i've worked with says this way he said it leads me into a world that's not real but i believe it and it becomes my reality and you become like in this isolated place where you feel like you're in a plexiglas room looking at the world but you don't feel connected to it because you're disconnected in a reality that has formed and i see major breakthrough when someone goes all right like i did and i said god's not telling me that god's not telling me that i had to be willing to hear that or i would not be married today i would not have children i would not be doing what i'm doing i wouldn't be where i am had i not said you know i'm willing to hear input that's i'm not talking about input from people on social media or people on your you know whatever i'm talking about those that they know you know your battleground and they're they're connected with you and you and i share things i go tell me i do this to stay tell me tell me what this you know and i value uh just yesterday i had something that i was i was put i could have potentially was spinning about and my wife and i had a conversation i see this is what i'm thinking and she gave me feedback and i listened to it i said i appreciate that you know i do that in friendships like like that hearing that feedback now it has to be done in love we we that's a whole different subject but i had to receive and this is where many get stuck because your ocd needs belief system restructuring you got to be open to that if not you're going to defend and then you know you know and then we develop a lot of people they become like know-it-alls right and then they're like yeah you know and they're arguing with people that's why i don't do any arguing i used to i used to argue and debate and all this stuff and i've let go of that one because it's not healthy for my mental health it spins me out and stuff i don't need to it's a waste of time waste of energy and two it doesn't change people's hearts arguments don't change people's hearts so i wait when there's opportunities and there's openness it's like all right let's dive in together because i've had to do that and i've had to learn and so that helpful correction is really really important now number four is i had to plug in for the journey no more instant fixes because i need an overall rewiring i need a new lifestyle i need a new approach i said to myself i need to relearn who god is from scratch i even said one time god i do not know you as a father but i wanna learn will you teach me and i i i place that prayer out there to put it on the canvas of my life to learn what is a good father what is a father like what is it what is it like to be loved unconditionally to know he has my back to know i don't have to fix all these thoughts i don't have to fuss i can let thoughts go i can let stuff go because i'm loved and i had to let go of quick fix orientation no more no more assessing myself that well i'm not free it's been 20 years and i don't care i don't care if you've been 30 years i don't care if you've been 60 years and you've been ocd for 60 years i i that doesn't matter to me plug in for the process the more you put pressure on your deadlines the more you're going to gunk up the gears it's like putting peanut butter in your engine when it needs oil and there's nothing more troublesome to the engine of your heart than putting pressure on you to hurry up and get well by yesterday it's gonna leave you stuff it the engine of your heart will flow and purr like a ferrari if you will stop putting the pressure on yourself to have to get a quick fix take the journey this is not the long distance in mind okay the problem is not the ocd pattern you fall into the problem is that there's a journey that your heart needs and it'll take as long as it takes i talk about that my book the heart healing journey about loving acceptance and patience and kindness and that's it's a great resource to help you walk through that if that'll you know be a help to your life and journey i'm always going to be plugging resources and materials so just be aware of that um i want to resource you i'll mention something and if i if it triggers something i've written or done i'm going to send you over to it get in there some of you saying you know this father thing you're talking about i need that experiencing god's love is your father that is a a passionate uh writing of my heart to bring to to seek to bring healing to the hearts of people and because of the father wounds and mother wounds there's a rejection mindset that really gets fueled in ocd the rejection issues get ramped up and i'm a professional in understanding these areas because i've had to work through them and allow them to get processed in my life so number five is what i'm going to park here for just a few minutes because this is going to be important i had to become aware of the distorted thinking patterns it's the kind of stuff i'm talking about and what i'm going to give you is i'm going to give you a list of some things and psychologists affirm this and research has affirmed this but um they've these are great points of learning for myself and they're also great points of just references these are patterns that pretty much anyone who has had ocd i go man i've seen this there's not a person who's who says they've got some ocd issues that um and please understand too when i talk about ocd there's some people that you may not be diagnosed with it but you relate to some of those patterns you can still be helped by this and blessed by this that's what i love about teaching this stuff the people that people come to me all the time they go man you don't really have like chronic anxiety all the time but what you share about fear and anxiety man that really helps or even ocd and they're like man i actually have some of those patterns and this is kind of helping me to to practice some some more effective tools so i had to be i had to become aware of um the distorted patterns and this is where you want to you know buckle up for the for the journey and to allow yourself to experience the healing process and there's seven of them and i recommend being aware of each of these and i'm gonna actually teach on each of these in uh in separate fashion to just give you some application for each one and um i everything i do i try to provide insight that is is heart connected and practical application so that perfectionism many many will say i'm not a perfectionist because they think of perfectionists as like a type a achiever only perfectionism for ocd is basically feelings of unsettledness or incompleteness or or something's not right and it leads you to this chronic cycle of trying to get things to feel just right so your religious ocd you struggle with feeling like you're saved and you're you're searching for feeling just right so then you'll be saved but it's like chasing this carrot that just never you never really never really seemed to find it or you need you need things in your house to be just right or in your thoughts to be just right or you're checking and fixing relationship patterns and things like that because you need them to feel just right so that perfectionism is right in you're unsettled you feel uncomplete or there's this this like you feel this like check you know in in yourself and many times people attribute that to the holy spirit they attribute their gut to the holy spirit it's like well it's you know it can be fear it can be perfectionism it can be and perfectionism was round one in a major overhaul in my life when i was i'd happen to just be researching it and one day just was reading just some simple articles and i went oh my oh my and i um took my whole church through teaching on perfectionism i'm like man i'm i'm getting i'm getting awake into something and i gotta get you i gotta get you all awakened to it too i started teaching them through it and many of them were like man you're reading my mind with what you're talking about here so the second one is the struggle with uncertainty ocd strugglers they don't know what to do with any uncertainty and any any doubt that kicks in any kind of sense of uncertainty now we have a vast amount of uncertainty in our life it's a part of life and um there's this struggle to emotionally land and feel safe because it can't handle that uncertainty and so maybe they're in a relationship and they're having uncertainty or they you have uncertainties about your walk with god and certain doubts they become inflamed it's like oh my number three is the distorted meaning of thoughts and i want you to write that down highlight it i want you to tattoo it on your forehead backwards so when you look in the mirror you see it i'm kidding but um this is really important because this is interpretation how you interpret the thoughts these intrusive thoughts need to just gently fly on by and keep flying on by and you need to gently redirect yourself to new thoughts it's a practice and an art you're going to need to learn but if you interpret them in a distorted way then you're always going to focus back to them because you because if there's a certain meaning to it then of course so i'm going to do a whole session just on this because if you have an intrusive thought and you're like i need to pay attention to that because it means something you know if it's an unwanted thought it's like oh my now the meaning you attach so like i did the illustration of the knife taking the knife out of the door you have a thought of stabbing someone with it if you interpret that as oh my i'm a murderer i could murder someone then of course you're gonna be terrorized by these thoughts because your association with that thought created a meaning this is huge if you get this it could really help save your sanity so we have to move into new meanings is why challenging your beliefs and your interpretation is so important remember i talked about the two columns obsession compulsion right in the middle is that interpretation how you interpret the thought if you dismantle the fear i don't need to be afraid of that thought and that thought doesn't have to mean anything about my identity and who i am you just float on by and i'm going to redirect myself to something fruitful right now and that takes time that's not like a switch fly by boom i'm good nope it takes practice it's like it's like a fly fisherman that just keeps you know you know a lot of people would go crazy fly fishing right because it just takes this patient kind of or even just regular fishing you know just sitting there and just being patient right in the process and that's and that's where the the practical application the intrusive thought comes in instead of being afraid of it i don't recognize and practice i don't need to be afraid of you so float on by and gently not harshly not in panic gently redirect yourself back because we're moving into the flow of love and love says it's alright look at that crazy thought crazy thought it's all right i'm not crazy that thought's crazy but i'm not crazy i'm just gonna redirect myself back to love i'm loved and i'm safe right now and i'm gonna get out of my head right now and i'm gonna talk to this person who's my friend i'm gonna stay focused with them right now oh i'm having a weird thought about them right now oh my you know that's okay it's okay it's a silly thought i'm loved and i'm just gonna i'm gonna you know i'm gonna get out of here and get here in my heart and just and really listen to what they're saying let me tune my frequency to listening oh yeah i'm listening i really care about them and i love them we're going to build the connection here and i'm getting more secure now in my relationships i'm getting more secure in in who i am see this takes practice it takes practice and now i'm getting into your self-talk you see all that i was saying that's the self-talk now i'm not telling you to sit there and like get all heady and you're talking yourself but but we're interrupting the normal self-talk and and inviting a loving self-talk in there okay and so this this is a key area challenge those distorted interpretations challenge you've committed the unpardonable sin challenge that you're some sexual deviant no no don't argue with it don't argue and debate but confront the belief because that belief needs to die and there's a new loving interpretation most people i see their ocd you are such an enemy to yourself and i say this a lot it's like i'd have to call child services because in your mind to yourself you're abusive and i want to i want to encourage you you don't have to do you can be your own best friend you can be your own best friend now there's ocd aspects of healing in every resource every book i've published but a really helpful one for me was the day i realized when times got tough ocd kicked up really intense for me and i was really hard on myself it was in that season the insights of god loves me and i love myself became a major thesis for my life and for my healing journey and i want to encourage you to learn how to become a better friend to yourself stop being an enemy to yourself because god's not called you to be an enemy to yourself and so that distorted you know meaning of thoughts um there's some other things i'll get into too like the concept of thought action fusion which means because i have a thought it means i did it because i had a thought it means i'm capable of it sometimes people even think because i have the thought it means i did it so they're scanning their memories in their history right and they're obsessing over their memories or they're evaluating hyper-evaluating their memories and and like well maybe that did happen that did that really happen did it not happen right and so then you're scrambled and even like where where you're at in your journey so so that's the um that's the third one there the next one is is this overestimating threats meaning that you have a heavy intensity of the danger and consequences if you don't pay attention to these thoughts so many people will struggle and go if i don't like if you think that you have blasphemed the holy spirit and you're like no i'm fine god loves me i'm safe and you start starving that thought this overestimating of threats goes well yeah but here comes the interpretation yeah but if i ignore this i could be banished in hell for eternity right and so that's that's where uh we need to be open to to when others that we you know we love and respect go you you don't have to fuss over that you're you're all right you're all right but this overestimating threats and inflated responsibility this really makes way for the compulsion to form inflated responsibility means you got to be responsible for every thought that comes through take responsibility take responsibility and ocd people they're they're over the moon with responsibility they feel responsible for every thought and emotion they have they feel like they got to do something with it so it doesn't allow them to kind of go through life you have your ups and downs you have your bad days and that that lack of nurture that they have in their life where they've not been nurtured there's a lot of mom wounds and things like that that that that come out here it's like you know you feel bad and guilty and shameful for what you're struggling and then you feel like i gotta fix it so this number six is a myth it's an intense need to control thoughts and i wanna tell you up front you you can't necessarily control the thoughts that come to you that's a myth all kinds of thoughts are gonna come your way it's um it's what our setup is and how we react or what we set our compass on that's really the two things a how i react to them and b what is my compass set on and if i spend my day setting my compass in a certain direction um i'm good my mind is going to be filled with that focus so it makes me less vulnerable to the intrusive because i'm just very active now even in that i'll have intrusive thoughts but i have a i have a a response uh cultivated in my life that i've exercised enough that i know oh just go on through it's all right it's all right silly little thought you see see you see my language um um i'm uh i'm minimizing the power of those thoughts oh look at that silly thought oh i just go on through oh that silly thought telling me i'm going to hell and i'm not even saved oh silly thought just keep on going by right when you disempower the fear you you gain the upper hand uh and number seven is where a lot of um mentoring and discipleship is needed and where i do a lot of my work is difficulty with emotions you don't know how to process your emotions and then when you have certain emotions you interpret them really harshly so it's like uh i feel like i'm depressed you know why it's because i'm probably not really born again you know and there's a lot of people they were told that they come somewhere depression oh it's because you're not really born again it's like oh that's so abusive and so wrong to to put that kind of mindset on people you know i've had i'm having anxiety or i'm struggling with this and and and and then the equation what does that mean okay and one we attach meaning to thoughts we don't even need to think about and two when we do attach to the thought we create this really harsh very damning kind of interpretation and it takes what am i feeling it's okay to process what i'm feeling and i may need some help in interpreting it because i feel like some people say you know i feel like i'm um i'm just low i have no motivation you know it's because i'm lazy and it's like that's a that's an easy way to just shame yourself let's look a little deeper and it's like oh you got some layers of disappointment and years of heartache and why you got a lot of stuff taking energy out okay let's let's let god heal on those areas let's let what could it look like for you to experience his love in those areas right now we're getting productive now there's movement because we got out of the shame and condemnation and we got helpful movement for your life and for your heart and for your journey okay let me get back to my um overall points here and i'm going to land this and pray that you get blessed by this and i'm going to be doing more of this stuff so stay tuned lord willing and the creek don't rise i'm going to be doing a lot on this subject and in some days even daily lives if i can so uh number six is i had to get to the root and stop chasing symptoms the symptom is whatever pattern you're focused on whatever subject and whatever pattern that's a symptom it's not the root issue the problem is not the problem the issue you are focused on the argument you're focused on the intrusive thought that you're trying to dissect that's not the issue it's a it's a it's a core issue so even you're like oh um a lot of people say i have all these sexually unwanted thoughts it must mean i'm just a lustful you know sex addict now you may have some some sex addiction kind of things there is an addiction component i do see in ocd that and i'll get to that in just a second but the problem is really where you find love the problem is your broken heart all sex addictions anyways are rooted in a broken heart and a lack of love and a lack of nurture and so you're looking to fill a place of pain and emptiness with something that gives you a rush and then you become addicted to it and it disconnects you from really addressing the key pains and key areas of emptiness in your life so the root system is the core issues are things like this processing pain in your life emptiness brokenness moving from just head knowledge to heart learning to experience love and there's going to be some key areas that i'm that i would encourage three main areas when it comes to experiencing love one is the love of the father two learning to love yourself three is nurture nurture is the love of recovery it's allowing you to feel what you're feeling you're having a bad day it's okay you're loved these are important things and and there's there's core issues in our faith walk with god with was grace what does it really mean to live in the grace of god i spent years just studying that and learning that and realizing i wasn't living in grace i was living in condemnation all the time i was living in works and the ministry paul calls it the ministry of condemnation just based on the law and and that was my my process make sure i'm i'm doing the right things right not doing the wrong things and it would always land me into burnout and exhaustion and a lack of fruit so the root system is going to involve those areas how you process safety and even redefining it because ocd redefines your safety you'll be safe when you fix all these things and god says you'll be safe when you just learn to be loved as my child and i gotta let go of need to control and all kinds of stuff like that right so that's a whole area and we'll we're gonna do a lot of work in that air if you're interested if you are go to the um go to the ocd mailing list and i'll let you know when i'm doing something or working on something or producing something and we'll we'll try to have some interaction in those areas number seven is i allow god to heal the challenging transitions of the past i really believe that a lot of ocd springs up in seasons of transition i talked about this in my previous talk where usually during significant transitions maybe it's 11 to 13 um the puberty area the area of 17 to 20 where where it's time to move on into adulthood and in into your move out of the house into your own life and journey marriage having children um older in years your children get older your children leave the house there's always pivotal transition and that's where i find many times the spiritual battles ramp up because we're vulnerable the uncertainty increases right in seasons of transition your sense of uncertainty rises so for example when my family and i moved from connecticut to north carolina was a major season of uncertainty i mean we even began the process and we hadn't even found a home yet and we'd already had um we already had made movement on what we were doing with the condo that we lived in connecticut this stuff's already happening great level of uncertainty so i had to be aware of being kind to myself because i know enough to know in seasons of transition uncertainty rises ocd is going to kick in gotta control got to feel safe and a lot of times we're not aware that the patterns kick up in the transition so for me that 8 17 to 20 time period i believe it really ramped up i think it i think it had beginnings in in childhood and in in 11 to 13 there's certain patterns i can look back going up i see them beginning there those distortions those seven distortions sometimes you know that can they can start real early but in 70 to 20 it ramped up i get hired to be on a church staff i'm youth pastoring the expectations intense the leadership requirements all this stuff is now and so i become like a you know a 40 year old in an 18 year old person's body so i skipped as a bunch of problems the transition was intense and i skipped a bunch of seasons that i needed we need the seasons don't skip them you know let your kids be kids don't make them be like these you know prodigies of things i don't care how smart and genius they are like let them be kids let them process their their even you know some of those immature stages because they need to work through them to develop because the tran the the the killer is in the turns we got these sharp turns that we hit in life and we're on the racetrack and we're wondering why the car is stalling and it's uh you know and it's like why isn't this car running well you smashed into the wall on the transition did you know that oh i don't know it just happened so fast everything happened so fast i don't know right the ocd things ramp up and so i had to allow god um to heal and to let me process through i've had many um sudden transitions hard transitions at times traumatic and i just kind of kept going forward kept going forward going forward then down the road i'm like man these pattern thinking patterns are kicking up and as i went uh all right that that time had an effect on me and god would you do some work on that and it may need some counsel someone to work through trauma or work through some of those transitions to get some new perspective so you can look at it with compassion and then help redeem your story because if your story is um disempowering then it's it's gonna infect us a lot of shame comes over stuff i think a lot of christians too they struggle with this god where are you you know in their battles and i and i i think a lot of it comes out of they were neglected and not equipped during certain transitions in life and of course it infected their grit of god because mainly it was they weren't equipped they were abandoned they they were not mentored and fathered okay so a few more here number eight is i got equipped to confront fear anxiety and worry struggles in my life and that birthed the first book that i actually ever wrote i now have a second edition out that's um called i will not fear i have a second edition and um when i wrote the first edition it was my first initial writing that uh took place and it was i was getting illuminated with how fear and and fear is really an umbrella word for anxiety stress worry concern you know all that stuff that we say we use certain terms i'm not in fear i just i'm just worried i'm not in fear i'm just stressed those are all repackaged words under the umbrella of fear so i had to get some clarity on i had a lot of fear-rooted patterns in my life so it would cause me to either fight or flight and as i got free from fear in layers and fear is again fear is not just something that you just bump it's gone and now you're just fearless it's a journey okay and so once i got greater understanding i i i learned to move towards things rather than avoiding them because i was nervous it's like oh what's this thought saying oh i'm not going to run and hide anymore i'm going to face it right and and and not let shame win and all that kind of stuff so i recommend that it's it's just i try to write everything simple as possible be transparent vulnerable and then give you some application and so um that was helpful for me so what i recommend for you is whatever pops to the surface in this talk don't just document everything take notes on everything although if you do i get you because i do the same thing but look at it and kind of go okay what sticks out the most what's the what's the thing that you put a highlighter on that and go that's the thing because that may be the theme that god is currently wanting to do some healing work in your life because because healing work um is not complicated simple i didn't say it was always easy but it's not complicated it's simple you know being loved learning identity forgiving taking peace learning to rest living in grace you know stuff like that that's usually helps us to identify those areas right so i had to get that's major that's major because ocd has a lot of anxiety connections to it and um that's going to be important i i also had to face addiction patterns in my life now i have addictions that run in my family um my father's on story and journey is a really powerful story because he was um he was a drug addict involved in drugs and selling drugs and a whole lifestyle around that and went to went to went to prison went to jail and and there he got saved and came to know christ and he went through what uh the teen challenge program i don't know if you're familiar with that and um so i'm really grateful for that because it set a foundation where um in the program he met my mom they got married and um and years later mark dejesus is born right and so my dad's from puerto rico that's why the last name dejesus um that's actually the proper way to say it but anyways he went through the teen challenge program the point being is that there's a lot of addictions on his side of the family and um not saying there isn't on my mom's side but there's a lot and i saw how those addictions affected him and and you know i knew not to go into a lifestyle of drugs and those things but i feel that addictive kind of patterns inflame ocd now that is my opinion that is my perspective but i find in a lot of people i work with that have ocd the more i talk to they either have addiction patterns in their life or they have addictions in their family tree like maybe they grow up with an alcoholic father or there was drug addiction in the family or there was some kind of uh you know allison alcoholism workaholism or you know many families have you know sex edition hidden where the fathers you know had a pornography stash that you know he kept that all that stuff hidden or they're you know all you get what i'm saying i think but anyways many times that specific addiction doesn't repeat in the generations but it goes into an ocd pattern and i noticed a lot of addicts i even worked with were very obsessive compulsive too and so i think i believe that the addiction fuels it combines with fear and it combines with the distorted thinking and it fuels this this driving force to obsess and to then have a compulsive it creates a a dopamine pattern now in a drug addict they're taking a drug gives them a dopamine rush and then they're always chasing that rush right so it's like it's kind of difficult to go is that how does that apply to ocd well you're addicted to the ocd pattern even though you hate it it's like you're addicted to the self-sabotaging pattern of it right and so how do we know it's an addictive pattern we'll try to stop it that's how you know oftentimes right so when you understand addictions then you can understand okay two things addictions have a have a cluster of areas that need healing how we receive love how we see ourselves self-esteem love we're not able to receive love in a healthy way we're always looking for a fix right well in the same way ocd has a cluster of areas that need healing and many of them overlap two is when you begin practicing the process of healing uh letting go of the compulsion starving the compulsion feels like withdrawing from a drug like you'll have withdrawal symptoms some people say oh my goodness i feel such anxiety i'm at a ten like right like a drug addict right now so it's all right hold on to the rails don't serve the compulsion and just keep going i am going to be loved today god loves me and i don't feel it right that's what we say i don't feel it right yes correct and it doesn't mean because he doesn't love you there's a disconnect and we want to work on the disconnect and it's not you trying harder and doing more things well if you just prayed more well if you just did more no no no no no no no we're gonna stop the doing and we're gonna teach you how to be be loved right now let me see how do i do that well get a bunch of my videos because i talk about this endlessly i'm a non-stop talker about love and grace so go into all my videos and it's it's sprinkled in every resource or look up a specific thing how do you know how to connect to the love of father god um i've done a lot of work in in getting those kind of um key words type my name in google and then put you know whatever kind of way you're trying to learn to receive god love and god's love and you'll you'll find some things in there so i also had to learn how to put into practice the healing steps it's it's it's practice it's practice so you're learning a whole new thing so if we went onto the golf course and i gave you a bag of clubs and said go ahead and start swinging you know most people wouldn't wouldn't do very well and so what are you going to do you start practicing you know if i took you out water skiing or we went you know did something you haven't done snork scuba diving or something you know first time doing it but we're gonna practice and so i want to impart the grace and patience and kindness of god that he's he's lovingly inviting you into a journey to practice now the the practices are going to seem counter-intuitive at first you got to give it time don't practice this stuff and go mark it doesn't work you know the amount of people i say that say we live in a culture where they go oh um i tried that i tried that nutritional lifestyle or that that diet or whatever and it didn't work yeah how long well i did it for a week and a half uh talk to me after nine months of doing that and then see we don't understand process so the main one of the main things especially for intrusive thoughts and i'll do videos just on these each of these specific areas i talked about today but really we have obsession we have compulsion right with the obsession we gotta learn to be loved we gotta learn to be loved we gotta learn what it means to be love receive love to be loved by god and we have to learn to when the intrusive thought comes in redirect gently pay attention to my language gently redirect into a different direction now sometimes it may be just another thought maybe you're with someone and you said you know what let me get out of my head let me talk with him ask him some questions i get out of my head and get relational maybe it's just redirecting yourself back to the love of god god you know what i'm just safe and i'm just going to practice this right now and just learning to be loved learning to be loved i don't have to be afraid that perfect love casts out fear so i don't be afraid of that thought right so that's the battleground the obsessive area the compulsion that's the thing you do maybe it's up here and you do all these hula hoops in your head to try to fix it or maybe you argue with it maybe you confess it to somebody or maybe you do an action or maybe you tap three times or maybe you spin around or maybe you check the door or maybe you do something with your shirt or maybe you look up and down or maybe you say three prayers or maybe you go i gotta repent or maybe i gotta whatever it is whatever the compulsion is you gotta starve it you gotta starve it like a drug addict starves you to starve it like a sugar addict starves why because the compulsion is preventing you from receiving the love it's distracting you in ins you hear how i called it like starving like starving sugar if somebody wants to change their nutrition they realize you know what i mean a lot of candy bars and stuff like that and they're you know they're always eating and overeating what they are is malnourished and the sugar is a counterfeit it's terrible it's toxic for your body and so what we need to do is introduce healthy nutrition but there's you can't really go well just have sugar in moderation right this isn't a nutritional talk but that's that's that's a myth we're telling people just have sugar in moderation that's like telling someone you know what you can have cocaine every once in a while it's just sugar's just a socially acceptable one but it has studies have proven that it has a potent power just like cocaine in many cases depending on the concoction you know it's it's it's all that addiction component that that's kicking in right and what's happening that pathway is keeping you from what you really need the compulsion is keeping you from what you really need what you really need is to be loved what you really need is to be unconditionally loved and not have to be fixed because fixing yourself doesn't make god love you more fixing yourself doesn't make you in better standing with god i see there's even some ocd thoughts that wouldn't even agree with that right i hope you understand what i'm saying so it's starving the compulsion while learning to be loved and and and sometimes just letting yourself i'm anxious and i i'm so uncomfortable and just allow it i'm gonna allow myself i i know what it's like to be at a ten in anxiety and going i'm just gonna hang in there i'm just gonna hang in there because i believe god that this at some point it's never gonna end because the lies it's never gonna end it's always gonna be there and it's just showing you you've got a really really highly stimulated thought pathway and that thought pathway needs two things it needs to stop being stimulated because over time that thought pathway will begin to lose its power and a new thought needs to take over and that takes time now some people and finding studies in 28 days you can make that shift some people they can do it in a day sometimes during the moment some you'll be able to do within the course of a day some are going to take longer some are going to take rounds and rounds and rounds of you just continually redirecting depending on how much it's become a part of your way of life but we're talking about a lifestyle here what i want to introduce you into is a whole new world [Laughter] it's a whole new journey and it's gonna be great and you're gonna be okay but you just need to apply some things you seem to be taught there's nothing that it's like you're just something wrong with you or you just can't get it together you're like the rest of us broken people manifesting brokenness it just happens to manifest in this area for you so i pray that this resource a blessing to your life i pray gives you some things to to jump start your journey again use that link the markdaceas.com ocd help mark tasers.com forward slash ocd help please would you support this work we don't beg for money we don't manipulate we don't do all these you know kind of bells and whistles and tricks but i will be asking at this time we're getting to the end of the year and so we want to put out there some end of year giving to help us we're wanting to really gear up for the new year and and get some great things together we need to upgrade some of our materials i mean uh our equipment and things like that and if you've been blessed by this man we want to we want to resource you and so prayerfully consider one-time donation or become a monthly supporter and that would just mean so much to us get a hold of our books our training courses the heart healing journey is available in paperback audio ebook and now we have volume one and volume two i have jam-packed amount of material volume one is free completely free and volume two goes into some of the thicker stuff so um they're both available on my website my course section take advantage of that all that stuff helps us and please share this video share your comments and i appreciate appreciate so much that um you've been supportive and been so encouraging and your comments are just awesome so thank you so much i wasn't able to take a ton of questions in this one well i actually wasn't able to take any questions during this one but if if um if you did comment in the live and you have a question send it to me in an email get on the mailing list and maybe what i'll do is hot seat your question and address it i'd love to do that if you um if i get your permission because it would be awesome to just talk it out and you know take what you wrote and process it out and give you some feedback and then help others in that process too so i

Channel: Mark DeJesus

Views: 4,583

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: OCD, Heart Healing, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Mental Health, Biblical Mental Health, Christian Self Help, Religious OCD, Scrupulosity, Intrusive Thoughts

Id: OJ3F-5U60jQ

Length: 76min 0sec (4560 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020