Welcome to our 200th episode, and I wanna just say a thank you to all who completed our listener survey. This is really important to me. It just helps me so much get to know you and what your struggles are. And of course, you can always reach out and email me, contact me through our website. We do have people that do that.
And of course, I love to read your messages and your thoughts about the podcast and episodes that we’ve had. Sometimes people will respond to my emails too. That’s always welcomed. And the day this comes out, we’re gonna be announcing via email the winner of our $200 prize in honor of our 200th episode.
Now, just a short note, we’re not putting on an episode next week due to Thanksgiving. We usually skip Thanksgiving week and Christmas week around here on the podcast for sure. But I want you to stay tuned ’cause we have lots more episodes planned for you. That I’m excited about. It’s the middle of November, and let’s face it, you might be feeling a little gloomy.
The weather is just not as favorable, let’s say as warmer seasons. Depending on where you are in the world. You may be having some warmer weather than some other folks, but the reality is. We have less daylight in the winter. We’re having to get up before the sun, and that kind of does something to our circadian rhythm.
I’ve heard people say, try to get sunlight first thing in the morning when you wake up. I’m like, well, in an ideal world when it’s, I don’t know, summer or spring even, that’s quite practical. But however, getting up now to work out and go to school, not even work out, but for kids to go to school or parents to go to work, you’re having to get up before the sun.
You might feel a little bit of seasonal depression, like getting sad that it’s dark so early. But let’s face it, even if you’re not struggling with the weather particularly, you might find yourself just in this season of discouragement, maybe it just feels like nothing’s going right and you’re trying so hard, you’re spinning your wheels.
Just getting nowhere, and I wanted to put this episode out there for you because I know we all go through these seasons, and if you’ve been around on the podcast for any length of time, you have probably heard me discuss. So even if you’re not struggling with the weather in particular, you might be going through a season of discouragement.
Let’s face it, we all go through those seasons from time to time. Maybe there’s just a life tragedy that has happened that you’re wrestling with and struggling through. Maybe you’re just really down that things have not gone the way that you hoped for in life or in relationships. And that can be tough to deal with and to wade through until things start to get a little bit better, until the sun comes out, so to speak, on your circumstances or on your situations that you’re dealing with.
Now, believe it or not, this podcast is actually five years old. We only have 200 episodes because there was at least a two year span in there where we were only producing two episodes a month about every other week while my daughter was young. And if you’ve been following along, you know that there have been more than one time where I definitely wanted to throw in the towel on this whole thing. Podcasting. People talk about pod fade, which is basically where most of the podcasters, they start out really strong, but they never get past 10 episodes. And even some that go past that, they’re not gonna make it past 50 episodes because it’s tough sometimes, like speaking into the void, people think it’s gonna be easy.
Like, oh, you just plug this microphone into your computer and you start yaking and, and everything’s great, but. Life happens when you’re podcasting. Of course, and I know that I definitely wanted to give up when both my parents died in just a six month span while my husband went on disability and we had a baby.
Just so much happened during that period, multiple trips back and forth to Florida to see family. That’s just one of those life periods that you look back on and you don’t even know how you made it. Like it was just God. That’s the only thing that I can say is like, God sustained us through that whole time.
I’m so happy that he did and just so thankful. We, interestingly enough, what kept me going during that period was I had already signed up to exhibit for the podcast at the American Association of Christian Counselors. That was in 2023, which was probably at that time, about six to eight months after my father had passed away.
That was probably about five months after my father had passed away, and I thought, well, I can’t give up on this podcast now because I’ve already paid all this money to go exhibit it at this Christian counseling conference. And there’s gonna be a lot of people there that could potentially benefit from this.
Interestingly, and I don’t know if this person is still listening or hanging around on our email list, but someone came up to me and asked me about the different manifestations of OCD at the conference when I was in the exhibitor hall. I didn’t think a ton about it, but I said, oh, you know, there’s these different types of things people can obsess about.
Here’s some examples of each of the different categories. Here’s some examples of compulsions. I’m pretty sure the lady like touched my arm or something and she said, Kiri, I just want you to know that what you have shared with me is absolutely life changing. And I was like, wow, okay. And that’s something that really sticks out to me.
I don’t know if that was the moment, maybe that she realized that she was dealing with OCD. I don’t know if she realized maybe that one of her family members or a child is possibly having so of these symptoms. But I just really see how through all of the hard times, like there’s a purpose and there’s a reason and there’s a calling that I’m here.
And I think that’s something that I’ve always gone back to. Difficult times is like, God called me to this work and this ministry, and the day that God says, I don’t want you to do this anymore. That’s a different story. I don’t perceive that happening at this point in time, just because the need is so great out there for these kind of messages of hope, encouragement to the Christian OCD community, and I don’t see a ton of people putting them out.
There are a few people here and there that are speaking into this space, but it’s just more rare in general. Another time I. I wanted to give up. I shared previously, probably on our rebrand episode, that had to do with just feeling like the podcast wasn’t growing and it was actually declining, and there was some kind of shift in the way that Apple Podcasts did things that made it look like it was declining, or actually it’s really the other way.
We had inflated numbers previously. But all of that aside to say that I definitely hit a breaking point where I felt like, why am I still doing this? It’s not producing the fruit, really, that I was hoping that it would. And God really led me on that process of rebrand to go from focusing on anxiety and OCD to specifically focusing on OCD.
And that is probably the best thing that ever could have happened to this podcast, to my business. And I guess all that to say, I didn’t really plan to say most of this to be honest with you. I had a few notes on a couple things, but the reason I’m sharing this on a message on discouragement is that this has been a five-year journey.
And obviously I can look back right now and see the hard points. However, when you’re in the midst of it, it feels like it’s never ending. Some of you feel this way with OCD, like it’s never ending. It’s gonna last forever. It’s gonna be terrible, horrible, awful the whole time, and I really want you to challenge that.
That doesn’t have to be the story and typically is not people’s story. Typically, you’re not in a period of intense suffering for a long, long time. There definitely may be months or even sometimes years of suffering with something, but it’s not at the same level of intensity. You learn to manage it or you learn to deal with it differently, or God gives you more strength.
God gives you more grace to get through it. But what I’ve learned through the process is. So much of this is just about showing up and doing what you believe God has called you to do and what he is asking you to do at this point of obedience right now. And that may really hit some of you like, okay, what is it that I have felt like God has been wanting me to do?
And I’ve just kind of stalled out like, oh yeah, that might be nice. Well, I could do that, but I’m not really sure. But like, you know, the Holy Spirit’s been speaking to you that you need to do the thing, and so I just encourage you to do the thing, whatever that is, because there’s blessings on the other side of obedience, even though definitely it’s not always easy.
So I wanna give you today two secret weapons that I have found to escape discouragement. I want you to think of these things as muscles. They’re like muscles. The more that you engage with them, they can be developed, they can be strengthened. And the first is contentment. So many of us are familiar with Philippians War 13, right?
I can do all things through him. His strengthens me. And we may quote that verse in all kinds of contexts. However, do you know what verses 11 and 12 say that are right before that where Paul says, I’ve learned in whatever situation I am to be content, I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.
I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him. He strengthens me. Paul says he has learned, that’s a really interesting word there, right? Because. I think a lot of people perceive contentment as, oh, it’s like this feeling and you just have it somehow.
Like, I don’t know, it just magically appears. But Paul says he’s learned and that lesson probably didn’t come easy for him. I know for me in my own life, the lesson of contentment has not come easy and probably I really started to learn this. During my divorce process from my first husband way back in 2015, I used to be a very discontent person.
I was definitely focused on a lot of things that I didn’t have. Oh, I wish I had this, or I wish I made more money or lived in this kind of place, or I wish I had this type of like professional accomplishment would become jealous of other people and all of that. It’s just a lesson that I’ve had to learn.
Over time and through various situations. And when my first husband left, he took half the furniture, which of course is fair. And I’m not saying that like he left me without furniture. Don’t hear it that way. We had agreed upon like what he was gonna take, what he was gonna leave. The things were pretty amicable overall.
And I remember looking out into the living room. I got home from work one day and I had. Like a love seat in there and maybe an end table. My roommate at the time had like positioned it diagonally to take up somehow more space in the room. Like I don’t remember if she put something on the end table. I don’t even remember if the end table was mine or hers, but maybe she put some type of like base or fake plant on it.
And this was her way of being really kind. And she was trying to make it kind of sort of look nice in there, but there was no way really to hide like, Hey, you visibly have no furniture. And now not only that, like you don’t have a dining room table where you can sit and eat. So over time we found things on Facebook marketplace and rented a little truck from Home Depot to go pick up this used furniture.
My friends were really gracious. I found this couch. I don’t remember if I paid like 50 bucks for it or if it was free. I don’t remember. But my poor friends, we had all these stairs in the house and they trucked this really heavy couch upstairs. They were just like huffing and puffing and panting by the time they got done with it.
And I felt so bad. I was like, oh my. But thank you for bringing this couch up here. I know it was a lot and super heavy. It was one of those like old heavy duty, like solidly built couches, super comfy. Kind of an eyesore. You know, one of those couches, he was like, it’s a little bit of an eyesore, but it’s actually really comfortable.
God bless me with some used furniture, and was able to find people that could help me carry it up and put it in over time. But it was just this sense of recognizing like, whoa, life is really, really different. And here’s a picture, like, welcome to a picture of how your life has changed and you don’t have a choice in that situation, it’s just like, okay, well.
Here we are. Back when we had foster children, like y’all are just hearing half the life story. If you’re new to the podcast, I’m like, here we go. I had a foster child one time and he had stolen something from one of our friends at church and his justification for stealing, it was interesting. He was like, well, he just has so much stuff and so it’s not a big deal if I take this.
And of course like after we go through, the ceiling is wrong, and this is why conversation. I said to him, I was like, look, here’s the thing you’ve gotta understand in life, there’s always going to be people that have more than you. That’s just the reality. But it’s also the reality that there’s always gonna be people who have less than you.
And so it’s really important for us to be content and to be thankful for what we have. That’s the place that we wanna be in. And I, I think that’s a good reminder for all of us when we look at our situation, and my husband will say that quite a bit. Yes, I have a disease. Yes, there’s a lot going on with my health, but there are people that are in a bed and can’t walk, or there are people in a wheelchair that can’t walk.
And so just trying to be content with where you’re at and the blessings that you have that God has given to you. First Timothy six through eight. But godliness with contentment is great gain for, we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content.
I think we struggle so much with contentment in America because we’re constantly bombarded with advertising where people are telling us like, Hey. You don’t have this thing, and if you would just go get this thing, somehow your life is going to be astronomically better, and it’s just gonna be amazing.
And then you’re gonna feel really good. You’re gonna feel good about yourself and life. We know that things ultimately don’t make us happy. They may make us happy for a short period, like we get that little burst of excitement and this is how some people get into like shopping, addictions and things like that, right?
It’s like, oh, here’s a little bit of an excitement, and like my brain’s firing off Happy Chemical. But then I get the thing and I may or may not use it, it may provide a little bit of joy for a small period and then we’re done with it. And it’s funny ’cause it doesn’t really matter, I think like what the cost of the item is.
You can get really excited over like a $2 yard sale item and think, oh yeah, this is great. It’s only $2 and I’m totally gonna try this out and use it. And then you bring it home and you don’t use it and next thing you know it ends up in your yard sale next year. It’s funny how those things happen. I really don’t like clutter and try to be more on the minimalistic side, so I’m pretty careful about what I bring in the house, and if I don’t think I’m gonna use it than I say, man, that’s nice, but I don’t think I’ll actually use it and try to leave it there if I don’t end up using it.
Or maybe I used it a lot in the past and don’t need it anymore, then I try to get rid of it, give it away, or something of that nature. Now our second secret weapon goes along with contentment, and that is gratitude. So gratitude really helps us get into a different head space. Not only are we told to be thankful in scripture, but I’ll talk with you a little bit about their science that backs this up, that when we are grateful, it helps us shift off of what we don’t have or what’s not going well.
To what we do have and to what is going well in our lives, even in the difficult times. One Thessalonians five 18 tells us to give thanks in all circumstances. Oh, ouch. That’s hard for This is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. All circumstances do I have to be thankful even when I don’t get that promotion at work, and that could be a blessing.
You may not know what God is saving us from sometimes do I have to be thankful when I get that diagnosis of something that I didn’t see coming? Do I have to be thankful when I have a child who’s rebelling or having behavior problems? And then that really brings us back to James one, considerate, pure joy.
Whenever you face trials of many kinds, because we know that God is at work in these hardships, that God is shaping the character of other people, gratitude, being thankful. It doesn’t mean that we’re not paying attention to the suffering or pretending like it’s not there. You’re faithful in the midst of what I’m going through.
Like you are still good. That can be super hard to hold onto at times. I know for me, that was definitely something that was challenging for me to hold onto in the hard times. Like, okay, God, this is a really, really bad situation, but I’m supposed to believe that you’re so good in the midst of this. Like even though, hey, we struggle so much with God’s sovereignty, it’s like, well, why did you allow X, Y, Z to happen?
I can’t answer those questions for you ’cause I wish I could answer them in my own life, right? Like, God, why’d you allow this? Or why’d you allow that? But at the same time, I know that God sees much more than I can see, like my viewpoint, my VantagePoint on this. Life in this world is very, very limited. God sees everything past, present, and future, and he exists outside of time.
It’s like he knows how all of these things are gonna work, and they’re gonna work out for his good and his glory, and that’s ultimately what’s most important. I’ve had to learn to be intentionally thankful in those challenging times, and I can remember just driving in my car and being really thankful for my car, being thankful for seeing a sunrise, being thankful for just little glimpses of God’s blessings.
This is something that you struggle with. If you struggle with contentment and you struggle with gratitude, really encourage you maybe to start writing some of these things down maybe in the morning or before you go to bed. Just jot a couple notes down. You can even put it in a planner. I’ve done that in the past, just writing, and a lot of times what I would do is write something specific about that day, like a specific area where I saw God working.
Or a specific thing that I was thankful for regarding that particular day. I think that can make a difference because a lot of times we just wanna be very global in our Thanksgivings, like, oh yeah, I’m thankful for my family and I’m thankful for my, that I have a place to live. I mean, all of those things are good.
But I just think it helps your brain and your relationship with God if you’re able to get much more specific about what particularly it is that you’re thankful for. Now, let’s look at the science. Regular gratitude practice increases activity in the brain, reward centers boost serotonin and dopamine levels.
Studies show that gratitude journaling for even two weeks can significantly lower depressive symptoms and increase optimism. I remember working with somebody one time and was really trying to get her to see if she could come up with any. Positives about her circumstance and literally nothing. Actually, I’ve worked with a couple people like that and I have found probably some of the most challenging to work with because there’s always some type of something positive here, some type of silver lining, even if it’s just like this isn’t gonna last forever.
Or, or I’m getting closer to God through this. I’m getting closer to relationships with others through the situation. Learning to be mindfulness can lower cortisol a stress hormone and just help with nervous system regulation, which I talk about mindfulness quite a bit because I think it can be. Super helpful for OCD, allowing you to slow down your thought process, become more aware of what’s happening to you internally, and that is what I believe is a crucial component in terms of OCD treatment and recovery, regardless of what route you go down, if you go down a exposure and response prevention route, I mean, you have to.
Be aware of your triggers. You have to be aware of what’s OCD and what’s not OCD. If you’re doing ICBT, I have a self-help course on that. But if you’re doing ICBT, you have to really look at the thought process and the sequence of thoughts that are leading up to engaging in a compulsion. And it can be hard to trace that backwards and slow down.
But over time people learn how to do that and they recognize which types of thoughts and the sequence of thoughts, particularly the reasoning process and the order is important. That leads to someone feeling like, oh, this is urgent. I’ve gotta do this. I’ve gotta engage in this compulsion, like it has to happen in order for me to be okay somehow.
I’ve talked about this before as well, but it’s been a little while. Mindfulness can help us reduce secondary suffering. So primary suffering would be the intrusive thoughts themselves. Actual physical pain. Mindfulness is really great for chronic pain. That would be a primary suffering. That’s something that we can’t necessarily intervene on or doing anything about right away.
Secondary suffering is taking you out of the present moment. So it’s those thoughts like, oh gosh, how long am I gonna have to deal with this? I can’t believe I’ve been going through this for so long. What if this lasts forever? I’m just never gonna get through this. I’m never gonna get better. All of that secondary suffering, if you’re able to bring in mindfulness and recognize like, okay, what’s actually happening right now?
Is usually not as bad as what we have like forecasted into the future or what we’re projecting. The meaning that we’re making about this suffering is sometimes more painful than the actual suffering itself, if that makes sense. And so mindfulness allows us to hone back on all the present moment what’s actually happening here that can really reduce that secondary suffering.
In closing, I want you to think about what does this look like for you? What does contentment and gratitude, those working together, how can you cultivate this practice more in your life that when you find yourself becoming discontent about something. To say, you know what? I’m actually really grateful for what I do have actually really grateful for this.
Over here, I’m going to intentionally choose not to focus on what I don’t have so that I can intentionally focus on what I do have. Know that your season of discouragement, if you’re going through that at all, know that doesn’t have to last forever. That there will come a time where the sun will shine again, where things get a little bit better, where God will open up some different doors for you.
It may be tough in the midst of that growth process. We come out on the other side of suffering, hopefully a different person, a person that is more aligned with Christ and who he wants us to be. More connected to other people in our life who, whether those are people that God wants us to love or serve more deeply, um, or just people that we need to develop more intimate relationships with.
I strongly believe that there is hope for your situation regardless of what you’re going through. And the reason for that is because I have seen people who felt really, really stuck, whether it was stuck in trauma, stuck in OCD, stuck in difficult situations, who were able to move through that. Get the help, support, treatment, whatever it is, they need to come out a different person on the other side, and if there’s any way that I can support you in that process, I would love to do that.
I am currently booking intensive sessions into 2026. Just had some amazing results with those lately. And if that’s something that you think, Hey, I just need to get away for a few days from all my environmental triggers and really focus in, hone in on my trauma, then I would love to support you through that.
You can reach out via the contact page at carriebock.com.
