OCD and Difficulty with Emotions

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] hey everybody and welcome to this broadcast mark dejesus here looking forward to getting into today's subject and many of you have been giving me some great feedback on these areas that have to do specifically with obsessive-compulsive issues and i don't know i just feel like we could all benefit from some of the stuff that i'm talking about here and we're gonna get into the seventh distortion today which is a struggle with emotions it's kind of a big part of this battle isn't it like what do i do with all these emotions i'm feeling i got my thoughts telling me this i got this telling me that what i do with all that and one of the battlegrounds that ocd sufferers need is they need some mentoring when it comes to how to process emotions and i think that's where coaching therapy counseling just everyday feedback from people who love you can be very very helpful especially if they understand that you have obsessive compulsive tendencies is the ability to navigate and work through your emotions and i would say if there's uh one thing i would i would say as a takeaway of understanding is that most ocd suffers in my opinion and i think this shows true in a lot of observations is that they struggle processing their emotions they have a hard time processing pain emptiness they have a hard time processing um things that aren't black and white uh things in life that are just trying to work through they the struggle of emotion everything's it's kind of an all or nothing it goes back to the the perfectionistic thing and and i've been i've been going through seven key distortions and if you'll notice my approach to subjects like this is not just a quick little hey put a little video and go on your day i tend to take my time like we're sitting down and we're talking because i want to get you into a relational mode where we're going to start working on some deeper things the tendency for obsessive-compulsive is you will obsessively focus on a particular issue a religious issue a spiritually related issue a about your salvation about your sins in your life over a guilt-ridden thing over an intrusive thought some kind of crazy thought that comes your way some kind of imagery or video that comes your way and because those thoughts create such an emotional response the tendency is we get so wrapped up in that thought that that's what we think we need to get help for so you wonder if you're saved so you go to somebody say how am i know him i'm i'm saved and the problem is not the problem you're focused on the problem is the deeper ways of how you see yourself how you see your thoughts your beliefs about your beliefs it's how you approach life the pressure you come under perfectionism so often my encouragement to people is you see this obsessive issue it's a call to a deeper dive in some things here's the struggle and this happens over and over again is that i'll share my heart sure here's the deeper issues and many ocd sufferers will respond like this so yeah but what about this issue [Laughter] right and it's like okay you you have you you got to be willing to see the battle that you have is not the battle because you'll you'll many people even comment or i'll see other people's content and things i see in comment section yeah but i have and here and here this work this is where i can get worse i'll give examples and because my example doesn't perfectly match because here's the thing ocd goes into like millions of different areas so you're not you're not always going to find like the perfect match of the exact ocd pathway you go into you might you might because they're they're out there everybody has them but you need to see the deeper patterns okay i have that pattern and i need to see the deeper thing because otherwise you'll look for reassurance in that specific area and then you'll just keep spinning about it and spinning about and spinning about it the the call for healing is the deeper root system of what's really going on and i think these seven distortions are a good place to start they're a good place to recognize because they're often there they're often there in significant ways again go to marcajus.com forward slash ocd help if you want to get on the mailing list where i will update you on all these materials let you know keep you keep you posted keep you updated on anything and everything that i do regarding this subject this is number seven and i've talked about the pathway and it's kind of a there's kind of a flow to this but it's something that we all have to recognize when it comes to ocd there's a perfectionistic pressure that's a setup perfectionism is the setup many people say i don't have perfectionism well it takes some time to to realize that it's that feeling of something is not right something is just not right something that that little i got to pay attention to that and so then there's an uncertainty that comes in i talked about uncertainty and how finding perfect certainty is a myth so that's not going to be the pathway to healing then there's a distorted meaning of thoughts we we get a hijacked interpretation oh this means something about me because i have the thought pass by it means i did it or i could do it or it came from me and this says something about me then we overestimate the threat if i don't listen to this or do something about this now i could go to hell i could be cursed i could hurt someone i could hurt myself i could do terrible things i could i could have a terrible life i could not be loved i could be shamed there's all kinds of things and then in the overestimating of threats we feel very responsible and it's not healthy responsibility it's inflated and then i talked about the control issue that comes in that intense need to control the thought and so we think that in order to be healthy we got to control everything that comes in and we don't realize that you can't control what thoughts arrive what you can learn is a more gentle and kind response to your thought life and that really leads into the subject of dealing with your emotions is do you have a kind gentle and compassionate response to your thought life because for the ocd sufferer it can be hard to make sense of your thoughts and emotions because those emotions are very very strong they're they're difficult to interpret they're difficult to process so you have this conflict with inside of you now the emotions drive you to narrowly focus on a symptom to narrowly focus on a subject well meanwhile you're neglecting what you really need and and this is an important thing that i'm going to go over and say many different ways in today's broadcast because many many times even ocd suffers they can go into swings with their emotions many suppress their emotions some of you may be super sensitive where you're emotionally connected but your emotions go all over the place that that is the category i'd kind of put myself in where my emotions would swing from here to there it's like an animal in the jungle just like swinging from the trees right i would swing from this emotion to that emotion would swing over here i'd feel this intense anxiety then i'd kind of crash into depression and then i'd crash into this place and go into that place right and it's like you don't know where to land and that's a that's a common pattern or you may have ocd issues and and you don't know how to connect really um a whole lot to emotions it can be kind of a disconnect and your your your the deception is you put your emotional energy into whatever the obsessive subject is figuring it out why did i have this thought what is going on what's happening here because your biggest driving forces are fear guilt shame fear guilt shame fear guilt shame fear guilt shame your daily life revolves around that and pulls you into that fear being anxiety worry you know ruminating um obsession all those kinds of of thought patterns that are fear rooted then there's the guilt where there's constantly feeling guilt and then when you don't feel guilty you feel guilty for not feeling guilty and then you're very easily pulled by guilt and then at the end shame just wallops you because shame is deeper than guilt shame is like really hitting at your identity you're a bad christian you're bad person you're a bad parent you're a bad wife you're bad and just hammers you and hammers you that's why i i've done a whole series on shame on my website you go to my youtube channel there's a whole series there you got to do work on that because the interpretation of how you see yourself really gets hammered when it comes to emotions i'd also encourage some of my material in the heart healing journey and in fact i did a volume one course that you can sign up for and there's also a volume two next level in the volume two i go through there's a whole section there where i do in long form working through emotions the need of how to work through emotions and some of that can be very very helpful for you if what i'm talking about makes sense to your life into your journey but if you're if you're in this place and you go man i need this i've got some ocd issues and again i'm not trying to be your doctor your psychologist psychiatrist none of those things i'm your brother and i've gone through a lot i've gone through a lot in my life i know what it's like to have it have it so bad you don't know where to turn but god's helped me on a journey but it was a journey and it continues to be a journey i'm growing i i have a remarkable sense of freedom in my life there's more to go and each day i learn new layers of the healing process and so i like that i don't have to feel like i've arrived and i don't have to have the pressure of that that i get to walk this as your brother and say hey come along with me let's do this let's go we you can be free you just doesn't have to be a death sentence it doesn't have to be but it's not going to be a snapping of the fingers it's not going to be one day you pray and the next day you wake up and your whole thinking patterns change and you think differently and you have a whole new set of beliefs and you have a whole new perspective that's not how thinking works we have to learn how to think and we have to learn how to think in the love of god without love our thoughts will go haywire and so every thought that is disconnected from love has the potential to go into anxiety guilt shame negativity destruction heaviness so if you look at all your thoughts that you struggle with listen to me all your thoughts you struggle with what they first need is compassionate love i know i know i know you think they need fixing but what they need is any compassionate love because that is what's causing them to go so haywire and so many of you that struggle with your emotions you feel this lack of peace and you feel this lack of sense of joy in your life and you get lost in all the emotions and thoughts you're trying to fix and then you just judge yourself right and that is going to need a reset and i'll talk about some of those pathways and emotions all right let's get into that here's some observations i'm going to get into just some simple observations i want you to think about here's the first one is ocd sufferers often lack the nurture nurture is such an important word very important word what is nurture nurture is the love of comfort it's the love of helping you work through your emotions and and ocd suffers they lack the ability to nurture because when you have nurture it doesn't matter what thought comes through it's met with compassionate love so it puts the thought into context and unwanted thoughts or intrusive thoughts or whatever kind of thoughts they float through because they don't need to own the microphone because love is here and you're okay we're okay and so they often lack the nurture of identifying identifying emotion and working through it identifying emotion and working through it very very difficult they identify an emotion of anxiety guilt conflict they identify that but they often don't know how to identify some of just the deeper things that are going on in their emotions so i'm going to talk about the root system a little bit you see because nurture goes back to our father-mother relationship and people go ah why are we always getting into that i don't want to deal with that i got i got to figure out if i'm saved [Laughter] the problem is not the problem we get to the deeper root system i've yet to this day maybe they're out there i've yet to this day met people that have significant ocd issues that had a strong father upbringing and a strong mother relationship in their life in the area of emotions being loved and being equipped in love now both father and mother are are are aspects of nurture in your life they're the first people you experience relational processing and so let me ask you a question at the start when you look at your father relationship how was your father's what was his response to your emotional life just take a second and think about that what was your father's response to your emotional life what did he do to help you through your emotions did he give you any emotional feedback did he criticize you when your emotions were off did he tell you to just get over it did he tell you just be better did you just say just stop thinking that way or did he actually walk you through in understanding how because you can't as a parent you can't just tell your kids stop thinking that way you have to help them work through what is it that you're feeling what does it mean and how do you flow through that what is the thought what does it mean and how do you flow through that and that whole process for an ocd sufferer is is hijacked what they're feeling what it means and and how to work through it is all off the rails and it reveals the lack of nurturing because a father is meant to create a safe covering a safety where you can be you can be not okay and you still know you're loved you're equipped and work through that that is is a calling of my life that i don't dismiss my kids emotions but i recognize them i create safety and they have room to process and learn and it's my job to help equip them they're not going to just figure this out on their own they if not somebody else including the enemy is gonna tell them what to do with their emotions okay so ask yourself that question ask yourself what that looks like so second aspect is your mother relationship how did your mother relate to you when you were in pain when you were struggling what did she say to you when you said you know i had a bad day today was it just get up and move on just positive pep talk or were your were your difficult emotions met with compassion it's okay let's sit down let's talk share how you're feeling see family is hard work it's the work of relationship and i have a firm conviction that many many of our battles now it doesn't mean that if you grow up with a strong father and a strong mother relationship that you won't have any problems and you won't have any struggles that's not what i'm saying at all but i'm saying that when those areas are not places of equipping you're you're under attack in so many areas of thought and you're trying to find your way when when you've not been equipped so think about that a little bit think about that what were you giving now for most people it's like hey yeah my father is my blood but i'm fine i'm fine i understand that mentality we all have that we have to get to the place now i am not saying i'm blaming your parents for your ocd issues let's not do that that's shame that's shame game blaming people we're not blaming but it's recognizing what where we didn't get what we need so that we recognize it in a way to god to go god i need to learn in this area and i need you to meet me in this because i don't have a loving response someone says what does compassionate love look like or sound like um you'll have to tune in to to more of my materials because that's a theme i talk about all the time all the time and i'll get into that here in in today's talk but the compassionate response to your thoughts is is huge in everything so that's kind of one of the first things that we got to look at is there's a lack of nurture nurture is the nurture of love that meets your problematic thoughts with compassion and what does it say what does it say what does compassionate nurture say it is okay that you're not okay right now it's okay you're still loved you're still received you're still connected to relationship i'm here with you and you're loved you're accepted that's where it starts that's where it begins now the ocd suffer has not been taught to begin there they're taught to fix these thoughts fix them and the more you try to fix them the worse it gets what you need is love and so what happens is when it comes to emotions ocd suffers get lost in the emotions surrounding their particular ocd subject you have a focus of solving whatever it is you have an you have an unclean thought you have a sexual thought you have a harm thought you have a thought of contamination you have a thought that seems blasphemous you have a thought that says uh you're gonna you're not saved and you're gonna or you're gonna lose your salvation or you did something terrible and so the focus now becomes that you get absorbed into that and so what happens is you're not always able to see the real emotions that you're going through because quite often what's happening is there's pain or there's emptiness or there's a lack of love here okay listen take take your time put your phone down just think for a second okay just look look at me on the screen if you can if you're driving just keep your eyes on the road there's things going on here what happens is these ocd pathways are firing off here and they go wherever the subject is now there's stuff here that needs to be dealt with but you're not there you're lost over here so take whatever your subject is whatever your ocd subject is i don't care what it is it's right over here and you're lost in your mind in it meanwhile your heart is going i need love i need nurture i need safety i need to work through some some things over here because there's probably some stuff in your life transitions difficult times things going on things that need to be grieved but your mind doesn't compute that no no no i don't need to grieve i need to fix this and that the issue is not the issue and so we get surrounded by the anxiety and the guilt of all these things and so we're not able to then see the real things that need to be tended to in our hearts so so what happens is um the self-analysis in your life because becomes one that is very harsh and very judgmental your self analysis often becomes very harsh and very judgmental so what happens is you see the thought you obsess about it you spin about it and then you judge yourself quickly and you're very harsh to yourself notice your pattern take your pattern whatever you tend to fall into it's usually you have a quick reaction to it and a very harsh judgment for many religious ocd sufferers it's a hard it's because you're not saved it's because you don't read the bible enough it's because you don't pray enough right and it's a surface evaluation and it doesn't let you take a step back and see what you're really going through so many times for example i i just it's an observation this isn't an across-the-board kind of thing i'd see many ocd sufferers underneath their ocd they're struggling with depression right and so they interpret those low feelings as they're not a christian they're not a good enough christian you're a bad person you don't do this enough and they're just beating and beating and beating themselves up and it's like no he's not you're a bad christian you're going through a hard season you're going through a hard season and you've got to be willing to go okay i've got to give myself permission to work some through some emotions i've never been taught on how to work through these emotions right you're not some crazy person and sometimes we go well my brain is broken you know and and and could we could we look at and is there evidence that there are some faculties in the brain that are are hijacked sure but here's here's the truth about your brain your brain is very very flexible it is not in a fixed position through some loving nurturing mentoring now it's going to take time if you'd be willing to be mentored and be invested in and be willing to take the long journey to go i need to learn because i refuse to believe my brain is in a fixed position that cannot grow and enhance it's not even scientifically true i mean all evidence points to the mind can be renewed new ways can open up new responses can take place with inside we don't give enough time to learn and grow because we're so doggone hard on ourselves when i saw that when i saw how harsh i was to myself i realized what i had been conditioned under so i didn't give any room for processing i didn't give any room for that and in many ways you'll have to come to terms that there is um you get lost in the emotions that surround the ocd subject and you get very very harsh and very judgmental and so i want to encourage moving away gently moving from the obsessive thought to going what's really going on some of that takes coaching some of that takes some council work yeah that's what i find i i you know in my own life i've had to take in the feedback of what's really going on because there's something inside of me that says no it's this issue it's like no it's deeper issues sometimes we're so focused on ridding ourselves of unwanted emotions like we just want to get rid of these anxiety when get rid of this guilt we don't actually know what it is that's really going on because we go i got anxiety i gotta fix this i gotta fix this how do i get rid of this anxiety i get rid of that mark mark how do i get rid of this what about this been there been there right and sometimes we go to people that don't understand our battle in a rush and we ask for feedback and and they don't get how these battles are and so their feedback sometimes make things worse right because they don't understand here here's what i often find you tell me if this is this is true in your life you get so fixated on the fix so sometimes i will ask an ocd suffer we're looking at a look a certain area of their life and i go what is it that you're feeling about all this what's really going on and they give a very harsh judgmental inaccurate story of themselves so their response is usually what they think is the prescription okay what i mean by that it's like okay i just i kind of feel that like harshness and that depression they're going through so i said so tell me a little bit about how you're feeling going through this season well i am not trusting in god enough like i didn't ask you that i didn't ask you that how are you feeling about what you're going through well i am not living a pure thought life again how do you feel i'm looking for emotions i'm sad i'm tired i'm weary see that's a start then we start going deeper what's happening under here well i don't read my bible enough my thoughts are not stop stop stop stop stop you went back into judgment mode and back into prescription mode what are you feeling because then now we're going to get more to the place that hasn't been nurtured and that's actually emotions actually identifying emotions beyond just i'm anxious beyond just i feel guilty i feel bad i'm spinning those are kind of the surface symptoms it's not the deeper issues and so then sometimes they'll go well i feel like i might be going through depression and then they instantly they instantly prescribe it's because i'm a bad person because i don't have good thoughts because i'm a bad parent because i'm not saved because i'm going to hell because nope you are you you if you don't know how to identify your feelings and emotions in an accurate compassionate way you will not even know what kind of prescription you need you will falsely diagnose yourself do you know how difficult it is when when you're misdiagnosed like let's just talk about like if you go and you know you're having fatigue issues and they diagnose you with you know this condition and it's not it's this and you're taking all these prescriptions for this other thing and it's making things worse right it's really over here that's what happens with ocd you misdiagnose yourself all day long because the first step to working through your journey is loving compassion i have a battle right now and it's okay i'm loved i'm loved where i am at right now i know that's easier said than done it's a journey so i'm going to give you one of one of my examples because this gets into like even some of how i how i did ministry uh i would when you're a pastor and you do pastoral work you run into a lot of moments where you get hurt it's part of it it's it's you you don't even know because you're you're dealing with people who they volunteer they come to church because they've chosen to and many times in their brokenness they can make harsh decisions harsh statements and then they just leave you know if they're hurt and won't work through issues um what happened to me is whenever there was conflict it would hit this obsessive thing where i would obsess relationally over the fact that they had an issue with me they were mad at me and i would obsess and obsess and anxiety over it my compulsion was i gotta fix this i've seen your healing journey it's it can be helpful to identify your obsession and identify your compulsion i've talked about that in other videos i'll talk about that in future videos what is your obsession which is the subject that you narrowly focus in on creates it creates creates discomfort anxiety guilt all that kind of stuff and the compulsion becomes what do you do in response to that and that creates a loop that you just stay in over and over and over again so my loop was anxiety obsessed spin about the person being upset with me and i needed them to be better and feel better and i needed them to not be mad at me it goes but now this goes back to stuff in my upbringing but i can't see that in the moment i can't see that in a moment because my compulsion is i gotta fix this so there's something i need to do to fix this relationship so i would quickly feel the need to call set up a meeting do something to talk about and a lot of conflict you can't just rush into reacting sometimes you got to let it be a lot of times you got to just let it be pray and consider what god's saying and sometimes people need their space time and a lot of times people don't want to be fixed they don't want to be helped they don't want to work through things but i would follow that loop and then what would happen is we'd meet and i think well if we just talk things out maybe things can get better okay so now i'm lost remember so far i've not addressed anything in my heart because what i'm really going through is i'm hurt in this relationship and i haven't acknowledged the hurt and been compassionate about you know i'm i'm working through some things so then it doesn't let me see this is my tie to my upbringing is as when people are mad at me mom dad like there's a deep wound going back i can't see it i can't see it because i'm like i got to do the right thing because i'm a pastor and i got to make sure i'm a leader i'm fixing this situation meanwhile i'm not dealing with this right here in my heart so i get lost in spinning and then what would happen is many times my work to try to fix sometimes i feel like oh it'd feel better and really it was about me feeling like the person was better with me it wasn't really about wasn't so much yes i wanted to make the relationship better but there was a motive that i wasn't aware of and it was i need to feel better and and and you be okay with me and then there are many times where it make matters worse because really it was about serving a compulsion it was really about serving this thing that was driving me and and i think that ocd suffers have to be honest we follow a lot of patterns to relieve guilt more than it is getting to the real heart of the matter the real heart of the issue is this making sense i know there's a there's a bunch of comments some good feedback yeah um somebody i'm just glancing over and i see somebody saying i've realized i'm way too hard on myself i think deep down i need to be perfect or else i'm not okay that that summarizes a big part of it big big part of it big part of my journey and ocd manifests as dwelling on beating myself up for past mistakes huge or even perceived mistake mistakes others say there's nothing for me to beat myself up for yeah when you get that feedback it's it's a sign the ocd's kicking in when you get feedback from other people like it's all right it's all right it's like oh yep that ocd's kicking up again it feels so alone no one really understands this how do you deal with the loneliness when you're in social circles i when i feel that which i have felt that quite often i'd be compassionate to myself because i got to learn i got to learn to be compassionate to me be kind to me in how i respond to my thought life um thoughts distracts you from what your heart need yes thank you for saying that because it shows me you're you're hearing what i'm saying you are not crazy that's right this can heal shift and it takes time yeah the battle is feeling swallowed up in fear over the thoughts and it makes it very hard to see focus on anything else but i realize it's possible it takes practice yep it takes practice it it the only way through a more healing journey is it takes practicing and adjusting as you go okay you're describing exactly how i feel about conflict with someone good that's great because that's just one example i could go into a bunch of others right but um so okay so so i never really addressed the issue of the heart that needed to be addressed right which is you know this relationship hurts and i need to kind of grieve it a little bit um i also noticed too that when ocd would ramp up for me it was always for me always in seasons that just felt a little more uncertain a little more difficult you know when i left a church i'd worked at for 12 years and was entering into a whole new territory ramped up heavy you graduated high school and had heavy responsibilities in ministry when i left pastoral ministry launched out into more of what i'm doing now even even moving from connecticut to north carolina you know all those transitions you could feel more of the things ramp up when i noticed that pattern i was like oh i'm on to something here and then i started sharing this with others and they go yup yup i see that too you know that those transitionary periods and so then uh even loneliness right what's that loneliness you're in a season where maybe you're moving from some relationships and you're disappointed because they they haven't been great and you're trying to move into new but there's this empty space it's the wilderness right you're like you're like you thought maybe you got out of that toxic relationship you thought another one would just appear right and it didn't or you look at world events or you look at things and and you feel that uncertainty rise up it triggers the anxiety and it triggers the intense pressure and now here comes these unwanted thoughts right because you're under a pressure valve when you're under a pressure valve you're more sensitive to thoughts you're almost looking for them because you become hyper vigilant are my thoughts okay is everything okay now you get into checking mode right which is a pattern i had checking checking checking am i okay am i all right is there am i free am i here oh that checking pattern was really unproductive for me i take a step forward and then i'd look back and check check check check check am i okay i don't feel anxious today am i really not anxious right and so as you take your steps forward there's gonna be that compulsion to check wow i took a step out of guilt am i out of guilt and you check and then you go no i am in guilt right because you looked back and you you checked on and you stimulated that thought again so then you think you're going backwards you're not you're not going backwards you're moving forward but this is layers we're going through layers so take the pressure off of this black and white free or not free this this messes up christianity you know people ask me mark did you get completely healed from mental illness like what kind of question is that like like what does that even mean that like or just bulletproof like what does that even mean like it gives no room for a process and no room for journey like where human beings learning this just we're talking about how we think i will be growing in this for the rest of my life and it's great it's an adventure it's a journey and i'm learning and growing and there was a point in time where i didn't think i could live another minute but now i have hope because just one day at a time of just being kinder to myself hey got this crazy thought and it's screaming at me there it is right there screaming i'm not gonna feed it i'm not gonna i'm not gonna continue my compulsive reaction i'm gonna starve it i notice it's there but i'm gonna keep taking steps forward and learning to be loved oh there it is i'm feeling anxious i'm feeling guilty i feel like i want ah i'm redirecting myself back to the step forward i'm taking right literally each day every day but it had it and this process then made me more aware of what was really going on and so then it helped me to get help for the the issues of my heart and personal processing through i was obsessed about all these things i needed to do perfect and i didn't see my broken heart i was wounded or traumatized in certain situations and as i followed not feeding the obsession and compulsion and taking steps forward i go oh my i didn't even realize this i needed some healing in this area right and then as i began to get help in that but the first step is gonna be compassion responding to your thoughts so whatever your whatever your subject is whatever like whatever the issue is that you have it needs to be met with compassion and the the compassionate statement is okay you're not okay it's okay that this thought came to you now you're gonna feel an impulse to dive into the subject and most likely if you recognizing ocd in your life you've dove you dove into the mariana trench of the pacific ocean into that thought and so you're miles down into the ocean in that thought and so you know the deeper down the ocean the darker it gets right and the more discouraging it gets what i'm encouraging is encouraging the ability that you can come up out of that trench but it takes time it takes process okay and and you'll have to be aware of of layers in your life that need some need some compassionate work so here's another thought processing pain emptiness and wounds can be very challenging because i want to encourage the healing of your broken heart the healing of emptiness and you will have at first a hard time seeing what the pain and emptiness is in your life because you're judging yourself all the way judging yourself judging yourself judging yourself you jump to what you should be doing you're already like on these pathways and you never get to what's really going on so let me give you like a simple example because this fits modern day culture right there's many people that are overweight okay they're overweight they stand in front of the mirror and they look at themselves and they glance for a second man i'm overweight and the next thought they jump and they judge it quick you know what you're fat because you're lazy right so this is a really good example what did i just do one you're fat so there's the harshness you're lazy there's the judgment now anyone who knows anything about nutrition knows just because someone's overweight does not mean they're lazy in fact there are many many many many many many overweight people that are actually very active and they could run marathons every single day and still not lose weight in their life why because there's deeper issues that need to be understood but they can't see it because they go i'm fat and i'm lazy so they prescribe for themselves because i'm lazy i need to go to the gym it's because i'm not going to the gym that's the problem right so they sign up for a gym membership now gym memberships create advertisements online that pull on that shame and pull on that feeling and you need to change your life around and basically people will like you if you join this and you'll feel better and they show these people that actually have great genetics but it makes it appear like because they worked out at this place they look that way and it pulls on your shame because you don't look that way and you go i need to go to the gym so then you sign up for the gym membership in january and by january 20th you stop going why because the whole decision was built on self-hate not on love so let's rewind back to the beginning the overweight person looks at themselves in the mirror and goes you know it's okay that i'm at where i'm at right now i lovingly accept myself where i'm at this doesn't mean it's permanent but this is where i'm at and i'm going to let compassionate love even though it's hard because i see the way i see the heaviness the lethargy and i'm going to learn something so i can learn about what's really going on because you see their weight problem might be tied to a slow metabolism because of chronic stress in their life and they have so much chronic stress they could run a thousand marathons but cortisol is cranked up and cortisol crank up and fight or flight causes you to retain fat because it gets you into survival mode right and when you're in survival mode you don't lose weight or maybe they have terrible sleep patterns and their sleep pattern needs to be fixed or there's certain things they're eating that don't agree with their system they're just not aware of yet or they probably have sugar cravings and and and sugar is just as addictive and and if not more addictive than cocaine in some studies so and you know and then all there's all the false advertising of what we should do to to be healthy and all that that really takes education right so in compassion you start to go you know what i'll get some feedback i'm gonna get some help because it's not about just me being lazy i gotta get to the deeper issue okay then you start to go you know what i'm gonna i enjoy taking walks i'm gonna take walks because i enjoy that i'm gonna take walks every day i'm not gonna fuss about running and lifting weights on stuff i'm just going to take walks every day and now i'm going to i'm going to follow some new eating patterns and i'm going to learn to enjoy it as an act of love to myself okay it's a it's an easy example i can use because you know many of us you know have can relate to health fitness and that kind of stuff in the same way you've got to look at your ocd issues with compassion you've got to look at them and go listen these are some battles i have and i'm on a journey and i'm going to be discipled in some of these areas and it's okay i've got a lot of guilt going on god doesn't use guilt i got a lot of anxiety going on god doesn't use anxiety but i'm struggling with it and i'm gonna learn to love myself the way that god loves me i'm gonna look at all my thought battles with love not judgment are you those you that want biblical language i'll give you what paul said mercy triumphs over judgment it's easy to judge isn't it judge judge judge we do it to each other we do it to ourselves all day long judge judge judge right it's easy to do that you don't can't get your thought life together you don't pray enough you don't read your bible enough that judgment could be passed on anyone you could tell anyone they don't pray enough you could tell anyone they don't read their bible if you could tell anyone they're not spiritual enough you could tell anyone you're not pure enough you could tell that is all just perfectionistic language you could tell anyone that it takes compassion to go hmm what's really going on in the heart so jesus is there and the fair the the the religious people of the day come to him say we caught a woman in the act of adultery judgment she needs to be stoned and jesus pauses there's a little drawing in the sand because it takes pause to withhold judgment hmm not going to judge to judgment anymore now in past episodes i talked about firing your interpreter right many of you need to fire your interpreter what you do is just pause from that quick judgment and judging yourself what does jesus do he goes hmm there's a lot of shame and condemnation here these guys are all disconnected from their sin and they're taking their shame out on her so they can feel better about themselves right that takes pausing and not just rushing to judgment and they all drop their stones and walk away and healing comes to her life everyone was obsessed about the adultery jesus was like if she gets free of shame she's gonna actually stop sinning what would that do for your ocd life if you paused and looked at yourself with kindness now for me and my discipleship journey and you might relate to this maybe you won't you might relate to this in in certain ways in your life but for me i had to learn how to detox guilt guilt was a major driving force in my life major major i listened to guilt i thought god used guilt i felt guilty all the time i felt guilty for not feeling guilty and when i didn't feel guilty i would check for anything to see if i needed to feel guilty about it which would make guilt come back in it took time to get free from guilt and when i first started to really make some strides i thought it was too good to be true it's too good to be true can't be free this is not freedom this i mean this this can't be it there's got to be something i got to do and it took time to detox the compulsion the addiction to guilt ladies and gentlemen the addiction we're addicted to guilt christians are so addicted to guilt can some of you relate to that think about this you know i don't know what stream of christianity you come from whether you're baptist pentecostal or non-denomination whatever but any of you have those those services you've been to where it was like oh that sermon hit me hard yeah that was good all right you know we were obsessed with feeling guilty like if we just felt that like and we welcomed it oh that sermon was hard you know and it's not that we shouldn't have strong and convicted sermons but it takes more work to go i got to learn how to be compassionate in the midst of these tough subjects and speak the truth working through grace working through love right it's easy to just yell at people it's easy to just yell at people about their sins and their struggles right so we became addicted to guilt and many people say oh that sermon really i was really convicted right now you weren't you were ashamed and guilted it's not going to produce change in your life you just really felt bad and then you got addicted to feeling bad [Laughter] i i feel like i'm the only one like confessing that this is what happens i know i'm not the only one other people are you know calling this out too do you know why we were christians were were so prone to guilt because guilt is an easy motivator so if i get if i sit down with you for an hour and we talk about a subject that you're struggling with if i love you and access grace and work with you that's harder work because if i use guilt we can end the conversation in five minutes i make you feel bad get you to respond yeah i don't do it enough and now you follow guilt to love you that takes a lot more work not works i'm not talking about earning salvation earning i'm talking about work of heart ah man this is an easy answer as we're working through this and loving you all the way through right so i had to realize wow most of my christian life is driven by guilt most of it and and ocd thrives off of guilt you did that bad did that wrong got to fix this would you have that thought why'd you have that thought yeah this talk is something to me right go on all these different [Laughter] yes yes because everything you guys are saying and stuff i've had and i've battled this and i'm spinning over guilt meanwhile god's not in guilt because he's not a manipulator he's not a manipulator he does the hard work of loving you through whatever you're struggling with i also had to realize too that i had a lot of fear-based thinking because anxiety comes in and combines with guilt to just keep you in conflict and here's the lie that we come into agreement with the anxiety and guilt will never leave unless you do something about it that's the disconnection that needs to happen that becomes very challenging you have the anxiety and guilt it becomes obsessive you become compulsive and it's like this will never end because detoxing from it is like an addict coming off of a drug that's the best way i can describe it you're coming off of a drug the drug is guilt the drug is addiction to anxiety those are the those are the drugs of choice that come in so to speak you know what i mean when i say the drugs of choice right we start to go i don't think this is ever ever ever gonna end and it can you can get free from it but it's going to take learning it's going to take growing so here's a take home this is where the application comes into play you can have a hard time moving forward when your emotions seem to tell you otherwise you have a hard time moving forward when your emotions seem to tell you otherwise and this is where the rubber meets the road so we'll need to respond with compassion loving grace over our lives so that we we we get god's loving interpretation over our struggle his mercy right and so we're gonna have to step into a new direction and it means leaving that obsession compulsion behind the problem is is that your feelings don't agree with it and the struggle with emotions comes right here and here's what is the problem we think our emotions need to line up then we'll move forward confidently and i if you don't hear anything i've said in this whole thing listen to this i've had to learn how to step forward in what is true when my feelings are not a hundred percent lined up in agreement with it yet because my feelings have been trained to go in all these faulty directions and many of them are inaccurate and i realize my emotional radar is not very accurate and i need learning help to line them up anyways but i'm going to step into what is true without my emotions fully lining up just yet and so you know whether it comes to your salvation whether it comes to thoughts whether it comes to relational reassurance am i in the right relationship all right not the right relationship you know the guilt reassurance i feel like i need to keep confessing confessing okay i'm going to move in a new direction where i don't have to do that but the feelings go no no no no and you're stepping forward no no no and people say i want that thought to go away it's not the thought going away it's you creating a new focus and learning over time to renew that because it's not like it goes no no and then disappears you stepping forward and the thought goes no no no no no no no no the volume gets turned down over time as you learn to take the step in the new direction it's the best way i can explain it and so that becomes the struggle with emotions because you're not lined up with it yet and it is action that actually helps emotions to line up the most sitting and thinking i think i can't i think it can only go so far actually acting in the new direction in the healthy direction in what is needed away from where that thought has pulled you is where over time you start your faculties come into agreement with it okay so we got to first see our emotions with compassion withhold judgment withhold our harsh assessments and look at it with loving kindness you say well i don't know how to do that all my material experiencing god's love is your father exposing the rejection mindset god loves me and i love myself the heart healing journey you need all of it it's like the learning of the love journey what it looks like right all that is is a part of it um in the heart healing journey i've got three little chapters right in the middle that walk you through self-compassion you know it's okay it's not okay it'll take as long as it takes what does love say learning the kindness of god right if you haven't been in there get in there get that stuff i've got even free videos on youtube that explain it okay all my materials if you're new to this stuff get there so what i'm then there's a there's the aspect of letting go right let it go let it go and i know it's easier said than done i know i know i know okay because for the ocd person they're like let it go how am i supposed to let it go right it's a muscle it's a muscle that's learned because what we need to let go of here's what you need to let go of let go of harsh judgment let go of harsh pressure let go of black and white thinking let go of just always trying to fix you of yourself that that that inner critic right so what does it look like letting go it's like okay i let go of that thought pattern and then it comes back gently let it go because all transformation needs to happen in gentleness why is that important because when you activate harshness you activate fear you activate that intensity you activate judgment get out of here thought get out of here what's that gonna do well it made my whole table shake it's gonna make the thought grow gentle hey there's that thought it's all right i'm gonna come back over here here's that thought i'm gonna come back over here i'm loved and then we take it on again we take it out again we just learn to let go and then you go i'm so exhausted i'm so tired okay be kind to yourself in your tiredness see step one is always compassion you see where you are like you would if you saw someone else who's going through the same thing and you were connecting to compassionate love what would you do would you just yell at them would you now if you were if you were irritated with them and you were lacking love and grace yeah you'd probably just yell at him lose your patience right but when you're in that place of grace patience kicks in and god his patience doesn't end he's long suffering he is ever compassionate with us so seeing your emotions first with compassion when when you connect to that you'll now see them the way you need to see them then you start letting go of the harsh judgment letting go of the pressure letting go of the fix then it comes back and you let it go again it comes back and you let it go again what are you doing you're developing a muscle it's a spiritual emotional muscle because a big part of the christian life is learning to enter into the rest of god and in entering into the rest of god we have to let go of striving like the hebrew writer says enter into his rest and therefore cease from all these works cease from all this stuff well i can't cause i got it fixed right because we're bound under the law we're bound under performance driven christianity we're bound to fix right it's okay most a big portion of christianity is too now it may not go ocd for them but it goes in other areas right so taking these thoughts whatever they are and you notice it it's there but you don't feed it you don't try to fix it you step forward knowing that that thought is disagreeing with you that's where the work is so the thought that says oh because you're not saved well i've spun in that for 10 years hasn't done me any good and jesus didn't die on the cross for that so if i'm wrong then fine i'm stepping forward right it's like the illustration i gave when i thought i was going to hell and getting actually getting free of guilt and shame that was the thought that came to me was you get free from this you're going to spend eternity in hell because you're actually walking away from god so i understand how twisted it is so there's the thought so i actually embraced it when i say embrace it people struggle or were you agreeing with it you're going to i said fine if i'm going to hell then i'm going to worship god for eternity in hell i'm going to praise him in hell mark that's crazy it actually disempowered him so fine fine if this is crazy but i'm going to follow this and i'm just going to entertain i'm going to entertain this new pathway because i know this pathway is death torment so i'm going to walk in this freedom i'm going to put this behind me and i'm going to starve the compulsion to check facing it i was no longer afraid of the thought you see when you see the thought there and you notice it you learn to practice to stop being afraid of the thought you say how do i stop being afraid of a thought yeah just there it is i'm not hiding from you crazy dirty thought there you are right guilt confession thought you know relationship reassurance thought whatever it is i see you and i'm still moving in this other direction now and when you face the fear of it it starts to lose its power and the megaphone slowly over time starts to lose his amplification and so then what you do is you're allowing yourself to emotionally process through so now you can move on to other emotions that you have been neglecting that you haven't been addressing in your life move on to other things because this ocd has kept you distracted from what's really going on in your heart distracted distracted distracted distracted and so it's learning the process of moving in new directions when the feeling isn't 100 there and so i've mentioned this before in other ways you know we have two mindsets in christianity at war against each other one mindset is your heart is evil deceptively wicked above all things so don't listen to your heart then there's the mindset of god's given you a new heart a fresh heart you are new in him do you have a new heart and these two you know areas argue with each other so i bring a third solution how about we learn what is true and we learn to lead our heart and we say this is where i'm setting my compass now there might be areas my heart might be deceived but there is a confidence i can develop that god's given me newness and i'm going to learn to cultivate that and develo and i'm just going to lead my heart what does that mean i just set my compass i set my compass on my feelings are going this way and i'm going but this is where i'm setting my compass right it's like when i when i realized i spent most of my day in anxiety there was a thought i felt god used to speak to me about and it was this you need to learn what it's like to live without anxiety before anxiety is gone you need to learn to live without what it's like to live without anxiety before anxiety is gone i thought i got to get rid of the anxiety then i'll learn how to live but then i realized i don't know how to live without anxiety i was like this like an amoeba i don't know how to live without anxiety [Laughter] because i need anxiety that's how i think about things right it's like the person who detoxes negativity they're like what am i supposed to do all i talk about is how i hate the weather and the economy and politics and and this is a terrible day i'm so negative i don't know how to live without it so i had to learn how to set my compass when i was chock full of anxiety here's where i'm headed faith hope and love here's where i'm headed i'm going to put a smile on my face even though i'm struggling and my thoughts are telling me i'm a fraud and it's not about performing it's about practicing i'm practicing the new thought while the other thought is resistant i had to learn how to sing before the lord and sing and at times even dance and shout before god when i was so filled with darkness and heaviness and depression i had to learn how to live in the new while the old was warring against me because i know that activating it is what's going to really help me the most i hope this is helping spot on somebody says that's great exactly what i was explaining above i didn't see above so sorry i wasn't able to keep up with all the comments they seem good though spiritual mess muscles developing today's been a difficult it's been a difficult week to do that next week will be better yeah next week will be better let and and it will be so much better when grace is applied loving grace is applied yep frozen comes in yeah unfortunately that song comes in a lot good stuff here good stuff here i'm just going to kind of take a moment and just go through your some of your questions let me scroll back guilt is the worst it is it's the worst it's the worst it's the worst it's a liar too thank god there's no condemnation in christ jesus he knows how to love us through our struggles and our sins he knows how to do that he's guilting us this is that's enemy territory just beating you up beating you up god knows how to empower you to get free he knows exactly what you're going through he knows why he knows what you need and he invites you in a journey on it so good so good but it takes time fear has a great hold on me i hear you i hear you i know what that means be compassionate about that i think i get stuck to on if i didn't focus on these thoughts all day what would i think about that right there is a very very good question that i asked myself and i was like wow i don't really know that's why we talk about like deliverance and freedom it's like let's say god came down and took all these thought patterns out of you which is what a lot of people pray for god deliver me but they don't understand how thoughts and beliefs work right so then we're taken away and we would all just we ourselves kind of go because our journey was built on those things you know what i'm going to be afraid of what i got to be guilty about okay what i'm going to be it's like negativity heaviness guilt fear like just kind of circle through them circle through them we have to learn the new and we take a step into the new and then we we get overwhelmed and then we take a step into the new then we get overwhelmed by the junk that comes our way right so excellent when i let love come in and ocd dies down i think wow i should be worried about something right we have to learn the new yeah learning that you're saved by grace this whole thing is grace the whole journey is grace i i i felt like a lot of times in church we did like a bait and switch you know you're saved by grace god loves you right where you are except you and then as soon as we came into the kingdom it's like okay you got to do this this and this god's really upset with you it's like wait hold on it's like um are we saved by grace and then grace ends i thought grace is the whole thing we're empowered by his power loved his sons and daughters yes sin is sin yes right is right and wrong is wrong but love comes in to walk us through the whole thing it's amazing anxiety has become a lifelong habit for me it was for me too i don't know how to live without it you can you can um it doesn't have to be a permanent sentence on your life in your journey so anyways i hope this is a help for your life i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to run but um you can go to mark dejesus.com today was number seven in the distortions go back and listen to one through six those are available you can work and process through you can also get the um get on the mailing list and it asks you some questions and you can fill out a survey that i have that tells me a little bit about your journey i'm going to be doing some future stuff i have a ton more to do on this on this area on this subject i'm gonna do some religious ocd scrupulosity kind of stuff i'm getting a lot of feedback on that and uh but these seven areas are areas god help us i just want to pray a prayer for everyone god i pray that you'd help heal these areas where we we get ramped up in perfectionism and we chase those feelings and father i pray that you'd help us in areas of uncertainty to know that we can land not in fixing our thoughts but in in in focusing our hearts on the fact that you love us right where we're at i pray that we would learn to see the the report of the lord and the scriptures talk about whose report will you believe and we have very distorted meaning over our thoughts and i pray father that you'd help us to learn the thoughts that you have about our future and what we're doing through the lens of faith hope and love and the greatest being love i pray father that the threats that fear bring because so many of us are owned by fear and a lot of it has to do with how we were brought up and we we feel disconnected from love and it's that perfect love that casts out fear it's that perfect love that will help us get more free from fear and so the threats of the enemy that tell us that we gotta look at this look at this look at this and do something about it and pressure pressure and these inflated responsibilities that god you teach us how to enter into rest that you've got us you're a good father and let go of the need to incessantly control every single thought because we're on a journey and this isn't a black and white thing and most of all i pray that you'd help us with our emotions because many people are are chasing obsessions but their hearts are broken they need love they need your love and god we live in a day and age where we need the safety of your love to know that we are under the care of a father we are not slaves we are sons that we can rest in you right where we're at that we can be loved that we can be received right now i am not cast out because i'm struggling i'm received because you love me i receive that right now i receive your love i say yes to it even though there might be areas of my heart that feel resistant towards it i receive your love i set my compass and i'm going to move into my day focused more on what it means to live being loved than just serving all the thoughts that keep me obsessed and i know you're going to meet us along the way and i pray for those watching that they they feel an impartation of that grace they'd feel a grace in their own life and their own journey god what you've given me i pray that you'd bless others with it i thank you for that in jesus name if these materials are a blessing to your life please consider donating supporting this is a full-time work it takes a lot of work it takes emotion it takes heart connection it's a journey and there are so many stories i'm reading and the struggles that are out there and we ask that you would prayerfully first of all get behind us in prayer pray for us pray for our family and pray for our journey but also consider supporting one time of any amount any amount or a monthly of any amount and we do have some partnership programs there's a level one level two where you can get a hold of some of our materials that can help you as well too that's just kind of an added support help to your life i mentioned many books that that can be very very helpful i want to encourage you to take part of if you enjoy them please write some great reviews on them online so i'd encourage other people to get it if you like the book write why so people can can connect to that a lot of people do buy books based on reviews and that helps so much but get a hold of these materials because they will help you process so much of what i'm talking about in the areas of healing freedom for your life thank you so much everybody love you and i look forward to seeing you and blessing you in future episodes god bless

Channel: Mark DeJesus

Views: 3,467

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: OCD, Healing OCD, OCD Emotions

Id: itzrY_fcfgg

Length: 75min 40sec (4540 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021