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Author: Carrie Bock

Carrie Bock is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Smyrna, TN who helps people get to a deeper level of healing without compromising their faith. She specializes in working with Christians struggling with OCD who have also experienced childhood trauma, providing intensive therapy for individuals who want to heal at a faster pace than traditional therapy.

160. You Can’t Touch It!: Contamination OCD

Welcome to the Themes and Treatments for OCD series! 

In this segment, Carrie breaks down contamination OCD and shows why it’s not simply about fearing germs. 

Learn how ICBT can offer you a way out of the compulsive behaviors and bring true relief from contamination obsessions.

Episode Highlights:

  • The complexities of contamination OCD and how it goes beyond a simple fear of germs.
  • How contamination OCD can manifest through fears about illness, bodily fluids, or even specific diseases.
  • The importance of understanding your personal story behind OCD to help break the cycle.
  • The power of ICBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) in addressing compulsions and obsessional doubts.

Episode Summary: 

Welcome to the first segment of Themes and Treatments for OCD series! 

Today, we’re diving into contamination OCD, one of the most common yet often misunderstood themes. You’ve probably seen it in movies—people constantly sanitizing or avoiding germs—but it’s much more complex than just a fear of getting sick.

Contamination OCD can show up in many forms, such as fears about germs, diseases, bodily fluids, food spoilage, or even allergies. It can also involve the intense worry that you’ll pass contamination onto someone else. The compulsions—like excessive hand washing, cleaning, or avoiding specific places or foods—can become ritualistic and deeply ingrained over time.

What makes contamination OCD tricky is the emotional reasoning behind these compulsions. Sometimes it feels like there’s a “right” way to clean or protect yourself, and if it’s not done exactly right, you just don’t feel safe. That’s where ICBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) comes in. Unlike traditional approaches, ICBT helps uncover the reasons behind your obsessions and compulsions, digging into the personal stories that fuel your fears, not just the behaviors.

Changing old habits isn’t easy, especially when it feels like these routines are keeping you safe. But with time and practice, it gets easier. Whether traditional ERP has worked for you or not, ICBT could be a great alternative. Learn more about it at icbt.online or check out past podcast episodes for more insights. If you’re looking for a Christian perspective, join the waitlist at carriebock.com/training. You’re not alone—there’s always hope!

Tune in to the full episode for more on managing contamination OCD with ICBT and overcoming it!

Explore Related Episode:

This is the first segment in our Themes and Treatments for OCD series. When I was coming up with podcast ideas for this year, I thought we really should break down the different themes and maybe do a podcast episode on each theme. So today we are talking about contamination OCD. This is probably the most well known OCD theme.

It’s the one that gets portrayed in all the movies and TV shows. It’s the monk type person. You know, I can’t touch something or I need a sanitizing wipe. I need my hand sanitizer with me all the time, and now I’ve gotta wash my hands. Even though it’s portrayed a lot, I feel like most people don’t fully understand it.

They just see it kind of as a, oh, you have a fear of germs, you’re a germaphobe, and you don’t wanna get sick, so you don’t wanna touch anything. It’s more complicated than that, and there’s a wide variety even within the contamination OCD theme. So, you can have obsessions about germs, getting sick, and that may be you, or it may be someone else.

Maybe you’re afraid that your child is going to get sick, or your spouse is going to get sick, that you are going to somehow pass that on to someone else. Sometimes that can be more distressing than actually being sick yourself. You can have fears surrounding catching certain diseases, like HIV, or hepatitis.

Maybe you’re concerned about being contaminated by certain bodily fluids such as urine, feces, blood, or semen. This may lead to concerns about becoming pregnant or you causing someone else to be pregnant. There may be concerns surrounding food, specifically food spoiling, going bad, concerns that certain foods you’ll all of a sudden become allergic to or won’t be able to eat, and these concerns specifically don’t have anything to do with concerns about weight or body image.

Common compulsions for the contamination theme include hand washing, Excessive hygiene where you’re just in the shower for two hours, cleaning, avoiding, that could be avoiding using public restrooms, avoiding. Eating certain foods, avoiding going to certain restaurants you believe are contaminated, may involve using gloves or lots of sanitizer, and the challenge is that with contamination OCD that the routines tend to be very ritualistic.

So I have a certain way that I get ready in the morning or I have a certain way that I need to take the trash out or a certain way that I need to respond after I pump gas. The other challenge with hand washing and other compulsions is that there can be a little bit of just so mixed in, like I can’t really stop because it has to feel a certain way.

I have to feel clean. So what’s interesting about even something like hand washing, if you were to look at a traditional behavioral exposure and response prevention approach, they would say Do something and then don’t wash your hands or you’re only allowed to wash your hands if they visibly look dirty You’re about to eat.

You’ve just used the bathroom like in those settings you could wash your hands one time the cool thing that I love about inference based cognitive behavioral therapy or hereby referred to as ICBT So we actually care about the story and the reasons of how did you come to believe that washing your hands is the solution?

What obsessional doubt are we trying to resolve by doing this? It’s very different for different people. So you may say, well, I’m washing my hands this way because I used to work in a hospital and I saw someone who contracted MRSA, and I know how bad that can be. Or you may say, I wash my hands so much because I’m a single mother and there’s no one else to take care of my children if I go down and get sick.

You might say, I wash my hands so much because how can I be really sure that they’re clean? I don’t see dirt on them, right? But there may be germs because germs are invisible and how would I know when they’re all off my hands? By really uncovering the reasonings behind your obsessional doubt, which ICB tells us that there are reasons that OCD uses to support these doubts.

Sometimes they make more sense to you than others. There are facts mixed in inside the inferential confusion process. It is a fact that we should wash our hands in certain situations to prevent illnesses from spreading. We also all lived through COVID, which was a very scary time, where we were told repeatedly to wash our hands, make sure you’re washing them for 20 seconds.

There was a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, and for some people, that has carried over. That fear has never gone away. The long term goal in ICBT would be to look at the arguments that OCD is making, the story that it’s drawing you into, and convincing you that these compulsions are absolutely necessary in your life in order for you to maintain a sense of safety.

Once we know more about that story and understand it a little bit better, then we can start to find cracks in OCDs. reasoning process. Not to argue back with it. I think that’s a big misnomer about ICBT is people say you’re arguing with the OCD. No, we’re finding cracks in the OCD reasoning process. We’re identifying inferential confusion so that we can retrain the brain to notice these obsessions as irrelevant To our present sense data, the goal is to be able to trust your senses that your hands are clean or trust your internal sense that you’re not a dirty, awful person.

I want my clients to be able to have a certain sense of confidence that they would be able to handle situations if they did get sick or if their loved ones did get sick. And they may have gone through some things in the past where somebody was sick or they were sick and they felt like they couldn’t handle it or they didn’t handle it very well.

There may have been some medical trauma in the family history. These are the types of things that a very traditional behavioral approach, I feel like, doesn’t take into consideration. Being trauma informed is very important when it comes to OCD. So I would encourage you, if you’re dealing with contamination, look at what is contributing to that story in your mind.

How do you or other people or objects become contaminated? How does that contamination spread from one person to another person? When you do that, you may be able to recognize that some of this defies common sense data. That’s another aspect that ICB talks about, is trusting in the senses, and one of those is not just your five senses, that you can see that something is clean, you can smell something is clean, you can know that you’ve taken the steps to clean something, but really trusting common sense data.

and internal sense data as well. What does it mean about you as a person if you are contaminated or get sick? This might help you identify what you would call the feared possible self or the vulnerable self. It’s not really you, but it’s who OCD says that you are. I’m excited one of my colleagues is going to come on and talk about this concept in more detail in a future episode, how this interplays with Christian faith, which is really exciting.

I know it can be super challenging and scary. to do something differently than OCD has told you that it always has to be done. For example, if you have a certain ritualistic compulsive routine after you use the bathroom and now you are trying to make changes to that, or eliminate aspects of that, just know that that’s going to be very challenging, especially in the beginning, but the more that you are able to gain a little bit of ground, the easier and easier that it’ll be.

The most important thing that I would want anyone to know is that there is hope regardless of the OCD theme that you are dealing with. Maybe you’ve been highly advised to do exposure and response prevention if you have contamination OCD. If that has worked well for you, awesome. We’re all for it. Love that.

If you felt like ERP just wasn’t for you, or you’re interested, I would encourage you to look into ICBT. There’s a good amount of information at icbt. online. You can also search the podcast for previous episodes on ICBT that we’ve done. And if you happen to be interested in learning all of this from a Christian perspective, you can join the waitlist by going to carriebock.com/training. I’ll add this part in after I talked about being concerned about HIV. You may have concerns about being in touch with bleach, other chemicals, some type of chemical or radioactive waste.

159. Parenting a Child with OCD? SPACE coaching with Katie Wetsell

In this episode, Carrie welcomes Katie Wetsell, a parent coach and mother of four, to discuss how parents can support their children who are navigating the challenges of OCD.

Episode Highlights:

  • What it’s like discovering your child has OCD and the challenges parents face in supporting them.
  • The key principles of the SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) approach to supporting children with OCD.
  • How parents can gain confidence and tools to support their children, even if they aren’t currently in therapy.
  • The role of faith in providing strength and comfort for both parents and children navigating OCD.

Episode Summary:

I’ve been part of the inference-based cognitive-behavioral therapy community for a while now, and that’s how I came across a concept called SPACE. I wanted to bring this to the podcast because it’s something so helpful for parents out there supporting their kids—especially those struggling with OCD. 

Joining me today is Katie Wetsell, a parent coach and mom who knows firsthand what it’s like to support a child with OCD. Katie’s journey began when her son was diagnosed with OCD during the pandemic, and this experience not only reshaped her family but also inspired her to become a parent coach. Now, Katie helps parents all over by offering practical tools and emotional support.

Katie breaks down the SPACE protocol, showing us how parents can find the right balance between empathy and confidence in supporting their children. By focusing on small, manageable goals, the SPACE protocol helps parents avoid enabling OCD compulsions while also tending to their child’s emotional needs.

Katie shares valuable insights on how parents can create a nurturing, supportive environment at home without feeling overwhelmed. 

Tune in to learn how you can implement these strategies to help your child thrive and step into your role as a confident, compassionate guide, supporting them through their struggles with OCD, anxiety, or other emotional challenges.

Related Links and Resources:

parentingwithhope.org

Explore Related Episode:

Faith: Hello…

Carrie: That is my almost three year old debut on the podcast. She was in my recording space and wanted to know what’s that? And so I was showing her a few things on how the microphone works. It’s kind of cool to have my daughter on because today’s episode is for the parents out there. I know that we have a lot of people who listen to the show who are parents or a loved one of someone who has OCD. And it’s really great that you’re listening to the podcast in order to try to understand them better. As you know, I’ve been involved in the inference based cognitive behavioral therapy community for a little while now. And it was through that community that I found out about something called space for parents and I wanted to put this on the podcast for all of you parents who are struggling out there wondering, how do I best support my child or adolescent, maybe even young adult that’s living with me, who is struggling with OCD, what can I do to help them and kind of point them in the right direction?

The thing that I love about this treatment is that it doesn’t matter whether or not your child or adolescent is in therapy. There are still positive things that you can do as a parent to help nurture and support them towards a growth process. Stay tuned because I absolutely love how our guest Katie Wetzel really integrates this treatment with our faith.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Keri Bach. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Carrie: Katie, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into parent coaching.

Katie: I am first and foremost, a mom of four kids, so I am parenting a lot and actually benefited from a parent coach. Gosh, about 10 years ago and really helped us through a difficult season, particularly with my son, who ended up years later being diagnosed with OCD. He had a really rough time around six. We reached out for a parent coach and were really helped and then trade was a pediatric nurse Practitioner and was working as a nursing professor. Okay, then the pandemic hit and I had four kids virtual schooling. My youngest was starting kindergarten.

My oldest was starting high school. I was like, I can’t go back. My husband was a pharmacist, so he needed to be there full time. Anyway, then I basically retired from nursing. I still do a little bit, but. Then decided to get certified as a parent coach. And mainly because those last few years of nursing, I found like I was really gravitated towards parents and more passionate about parents and more able to see that I’ve always loved kids, but kids love their parents. And if I can love their parents, well, I can also love that kid well.

Carrie: I love that.

Katie: And so parent coaching was a natural next step for me to further dig in and support parents who are navigating hard things with their kids.

Carrie: Yeah. This is a side note, but I love stories about career shifts because I think a lot of times people think that they’re stuck and that they can’t do something else or that their skills aren’t going to translate somewhere else.

So that’s sounds like it’s worked out really well for you. So you talked about having your own son who struggles with OCD or was diagnosed at a younger age. Was that a shock for you? Was that overwhelming like all of a sudden I need this new set of skills because I’m having things that I haven’t seen with my other children before.

Katie: My older son had like general anxiety Definitely was like, okay when around 10 or so I was like, oh, this is not what I’m used to This is something different, but he never would go to therapy or anything So I’d learned a lot about how to help him through anxiety And then my second son, around six this time, he was really struggling, got diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome.

And looking at Tourette’s, a lot of things, common comorbidities are ADHD and OCD. With his tics, I was always kind of curious, wait, is that a compulsion or is it a tic? It’s kind of confusing. So it was in the back of my mind and I had been watching like YouTube videos and learning Again, first anxiety because my older son, but then OCD with this question with my other child and it was when the pandemic hit, I knew he was doing some things in numbers.

Like he was like tapping and I was like, are you just tapping? Or is there a certain number? And he was like, oh, it’s a certain number. And our neurologist just called it OCD like behaviors. But didn’t actually do an evaluation and then in the pandemic, I said, Hey, buddy, seems like you’re not taking as much just kind of checking in.

Like, I noticed the Tourette seemed to be better. And he goes, yeah, but I’m counting a lot. What do you mean counting a lot? And so he was counting a lot in his head. And then we kind of asked more about it. Is it like just sometimes or all the time? Because he’s great at math, so I thought he’s just playing with numbers. And he’s like, yes, all the time. Wow. And so then we actually got an evaluation. Found out there was more going on. There were intrusive thoughts and things that we didn’t know because it was also internal.

Carrie: Yeah, I think that’s important for parents to hear who may have discovered they have a child struggling with OCD is that I think it can go on for a little while.

Before it actually externalizes and that your kids may be having certain obsessions that they’re afraid to tell you because they’re scary or they’re uncomfortable and they don’t want to tell their parents. And then I think also you have the opposite end of the spectrum where you may have children who have some confession compulsions and feel like they have to tell their parents everything.

So it really runs the symptoms kind of can run the gamut and I remember asking prior guests who had struggled with OCD when he was a child, I was like, how much of this did your parents actually know that you were obsessing about tucking in your stuffed animals a certain way when you were six years old?

And I think a lot of that just went unknown or I don’t want anybody to feel guilty if they miss something.

Katie: Oh, I was asking, I was going to specialists and it just took a while and I know that from being a nurse practitioner, sometimes it takes a while for it to ripen, to tell what it is, to be able to be clear what exactly are we dealing with but it’s still hard.

Carrie: Tell us about SPACE and that’s an acronym So, what does that stand for?

Katie: Actually, I found out about it while I was parent coaching and watching all the videos Came across it and it’s space is supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions And it’s parenting protocol that has been researched and studied for kids with anxiety disorders, including OCD.

And when I found out about it, I was like, well, these concepts are what I’m coaching through Connected Families. So Connected Families is the Christian organization that I was getting certified through as a parent coach. But this specific protocol that it fit right in with the concepts and the messages.

That we were helping parents with through connected families, but this was more specific for anxiety and OCD with more robust tools for that specific struggle, it was a lot of things that I had come to find were true as a nurse supporting other people’s kids, but also things I had to develop as a parent again, like I said, with my oldest, who would not go to therapy things I had to learn how to support him.

And then my son with OCD, when he was doing telehealth, because it was, like I said, the pandemic, and so I was always popping into his telehealth visits, being like, Hey, this happened the other day, and I handled it like this. Is that okay? Like, I was kind of stealing a little bit of time for how do I parent him the rest of the time?

I love the work he’s doing with the therapist, but like, what do I do? How do I support him? And so coming across this space protocol really just kind of solidified and gave me confidence.

Carrie: I think that’s really key because obviously when you have a child that has OCD or anxiety, it does affect the whole family.

It’s not just affecting that child. So it’s affecting sibling relationships. A lot of times it’s affecting parent child relationships. And so I do think it’s very important for parents to get help and support for them. They may be dealing with their own anxiety or their own OCD sometimes in certain cases.

And, or, like we talked about before, they may just not have the tools. It’s like, okay, well the things that worked with my other children. Now are not working with this child with these specific needs and that is so crucial. It does take some humility as a parent to be able to say, okay, I feel like I’m a good parent, but I also need some more tools in my toolbox and I need some extra support because this child is exhibiting a different set of behaviors or symptoms than my other children.

I think it does.

Katie: Absolutely. Or myself, I’m like, gosh, I’ve never felt woken up in the morning and felt like something bad was going to happen. I never had to count things to go through a doorway. I’ve never had to do this. This is something I’ve had to face. How do I help a kid who’s struggling with something I’ve never encountered to that degree?

But I’ve also had parents who, like you said, were struggling with their own anxiety. Having that orientation of understanding and confidence in a solid plan, and even a sounding board with the coach to look through the plan with them and be like, ah, you’re doing it, gave those parents confidence to you.

Carrie: That’s good. I would imagine, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, because I know very little about this. I would imagine there’s some level of teaching parents how to empathize and attune to their children in these situations.

Katie: Yeah, so when we start the space protocol, the space program, whatever you call it, we start with just understanding baseline concepts of what is happening with anxiety, what’s going on in the kid.

What does that look like in a parent child relationship? How does that feel for you as a parent and how you engage with it? We start there with those things and then very like simple definition of support. We talk about acceptance and confidence. We work on statements. So what are the things you usually say to your kids?

What are the things you usually think? What is your mindset when you’re encountering your child’s struggle? And looking for ways we can move from the parent who’s really accepting, sometimes might be lacking confidence and so they’re overprotective, they’re protecting their kids from things that aren’t actually threats, but they have so much compassion, they’re attuned to their child’s struggle, but they’re lacking confidence.

So we help that parent take that great empathy and attunement and add some confidence to it. Another parent may be on the other side. They’re confident their kid is okay. They can do this, but they’re not very empathetic about the struggle their child is having. And so that parent can tend to be demanding.

And although they have so much confidence in their kid, they’re kind of adding anxiety because they’re skipping over that entonement and empathy. And so we’re going to try to bring both parents together. Or help the parent who waffles between protection, overprotection and demanding, get more balanced with that, both that attunement, that understanding what my child’s going through, but also confidence in their ability to overcome.

Carrie: Those two things I think are really key because I wanted to definitely bring up accommodations. This is a big thing. That parents who have a child with OCD struggle with, like, how much do I accommodate? How often do I accommodate? Sometimes they don’t even realize because kids are really sneaky about getting what they need.

Especially OCD, kids can be super sneaky about how they seek reassurance. They can be super sneaky about how they get parents to do things.

Katie: One way it’ll start another one, yeah.

Carrie: Sometimes parents may be not even in awareness of how much they’re accommodating until they have that outside viewpoint to say, Oh wow, do you realize you’ve changed your entire routine to coming in the house because you have a child who’s struggling with contamination and now this is a big deal?

How do you help those parents just in terms of accommodation, what space is approach to that?

Katie: We’ve kind of built some awareness of the mindset that’s driving our reaction to our kids. Then we build in some more consciousness around what are accommodations. So accommodations. Are things that we do because our child is anxious and how we assist them to avoid or handle that anxiety.

This is not when there’s actual danger. So that is protectiveness. If your child is anxious about I’ll give an example of we had a local school shooting and my daughter was really anxious afterwards and asked me about if I locked the doors. Me locking the doors is protecting my child, so it’s okay for me to lock the doors for us to feel safe, but she would ask me about the locks multiple, multiple times.

That’s where I’m like, okay, the more I answer, the more she’s dependent on me to feel safe, instead of the knowledge that the door is locked to feel safe. She needs me to answer every, like, more than once. So accommodation is like, my child wasn’t anxious, telling her we lock the doors every night should be the end of it.

Carrie: Right. Right?

Katie: But because my child is anxious, I might answer multiple times, thinking that I want to be a good mom and make my child feel better. So it comes from a really good place, or I may be, again, confident, like, you’re fine, quit asking. Right? Which is dismissive. But to go back to like, okay, I want to help my child, but if I help them too much, if I accommodate too much, then they get dependent on me and they say, oh, I need to ask three or four times to feel confident.

Versus learning to feel confident with that one time in their memory, the knowledge and wisdom they have from getting that answer. That’s just one example. I get a lot of times parents will be like, if they do anything to help their child, then they feel like they’re accommodating. I’m going to say it’s like, no, some children are young and vulnerable.

Their brains are not as developed. Their bodies are not as developed. They need our help as parents. Kids are wired to seek reassurance and safety from their parents.

Carrie: Yeah.

Katie: That’s what we do a lot of, like, how are you helping but not over helping?

Carrie: Yeah. And I know I’ve worked with a lot of adults who were constantly reassured as children.

Then that behavior carries into adulthood and they may not feel like they can make any decisions on their own without running it by their parent. They may not feel like they can be competent parents without constantly seeking reassurance from their spouse or from their own parents. I think it’s important if you have the opportunity to step in and develop these skills while they’re still young to say, Hey, I know it’s super hard and I know you may feel super anxious, but you can do it.

I mean, essentially that’s what I’m hearing from you is like, Oh,

Katie: supportive statement right there.

Carrie: Yeah. OCD is telling you, you can’t touch that door handle right now. And it feels super overwhelming or super scary. And like, I’m here to help you know that I’m here for you and you can do it.

Katie: Absolutely. So acknowledging that’s definitely something we had to do with my son with OCD, like, I understand it’s really loud in your voice right now, but what else do you know?

What else do you see? Like, talk back to it. One of the things I remember one time doing this places where accommodations did show up for us was around food.

Carrie: Okay.

Katie: I had a son who was a typical picky eater. I was a picky eater as a kid. I got that. But with my son who had OCD, it was clearly something different.

I remember one time he started a new theme where he was like, well, that’s a dinner food and it’s lunchtime. And I immediately was like, nope. Sounds like your OCD is getting really loud right now and trying to make some new rules to make things hard. We’re going to have this food. This is what’s for lunch.

Let’s talk back. And so some of that awareness helped him, but also me not just like, okay, well, we’ll eat something different. Not me following OCD’s rules.

Carrie: I think it is a helpful to have that balance the like you’ve been talking about of the empathy and the confidence and support and I imagine to the parents just being in tune with their own emotional experience as you’re going through this process, because there It can be very frustrating, especially for parents who feel like they’ve been dealing with this for a long time, or let’s say in the case of maybe an a little bit older child or an adolescent that just completely bucks therapy and says, I’m not doing this at all.

I don’t want to participate. This is just the way I’m going to be. And what I’m hearing from you is that space really helps in those situations support the parents to know that they can still make progress in the connection with their child, even if their child’s unwilling to participate in therapy.

Katie: Yeah, that was so exciting from the research on this program is that it was shown to be just as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy. That’s awesome. This is something parents can utilize whether or not their child is in therapy. So if your kid is, then that’s wonderful. But if they’re not, you can still make progress and.

I will say this is one thing my background as a nurse really taught me, as much as it’s helpful to have a professional work with your child directly, which I think is great, especially adolescents. But, man, kids want care from their parents the most.

Carrie: Absolutely.

Katie: Working with parents is, it’s not to say that you’re the problem, it’s to say that you can be a part of the solution.

Carrie: Yes.

Katie: It’s to say that, hey, you can also help your child and that can be difficult. So talking about your own emotions to let them not rescue them from the discomfort of their anxiety. But to allow space, use that word again, space in the traditional sense instead of the acronym, but allow space for you to confidently hold space for them to move through the discomfort and find out that they’re okay and find out that they were capable.

That’s hard to do. And so that’s the benefit of working with a therapist or coach to have someone else help you as you hold that difficult space for you and your child to move through that wave and get to the other side and see that you were again safe and capable.

Carrie: I started out my career working with children and families.

I do very, very little to none of that work right now, but occasionally we’ll take on some adolescents. But what I saw was there were the parents that kind of wanted to essentially just be like, Okay, here’s your therapist, go fix my child. And the things that we would tell parents would be like, I’m with your child one hour a week, and you are with your child all of these other hours during the week.

And so if we don’t teach you as well some of these therapeutic skills or the things that we’re trying to implement in the home or develop healthy routines and rhythms that will make them feel safe and healthy, then it doesn’t really matter what we’re doing one hour a week. That’s just a drop in the bucket.

I think that’s important for parents to know and hear because they think, well, I’m, in your case, you may see some parents that throw up their hands and say, well, I don’t know what to do. I’m not the professional. They just need to go see the therapist and then just fix them and they’ll, we’ll all be fine and the family will be better.

It’s like, no, that’s not exactly how things work. You’ve got to surround your kid and really learn and grow and develop. I think. If you’re open and willing to that process. I know being a parent has been one of the most challenging things for me because as my daughter grows and develops and she’s getting close to being three.

And so now I can understand why people use the term three nature. I mean, she can argue like a good 13 year old sometimes. And I’m like, Who are you? Like, where is my sweet child? As they grow and develop and change, like, these new behaviors happen and come out. And so, obviously, that’s amplified whenever you have a child that is dealing with mental health issues like OCD.

Katie: And I will say again, my son got his diagnosis during the pandemic, virtual schooling for kids and dealing with everything else that was happening. And I know it can feel overwhelming for the parent to get help for themselves, right? Like, I don’t have time for me if you can just help my kid and maybe that needs to be what you do is you get help your child in therapy before you look at space, but I think if you can find.

The room to work through these things. It will save you time and energy in the long run. What we do is we identify as we work through the concepts. What are accommodations? Where are they happening? Then we pick one target in the space protocol. We’re not trying to change your whole life at once.

Carrie: That’s good. That’s good.

Katie: You’re going to pick one target that thing. Hey, if, if one thing could be different, if one thing could be better, what would that one thing be? And so that one brings relief to everybody, but then it also helps you not only learned, but also practice the skills. For the next thing that’s on the list, I might work with someone on that next target or a lot of people go on their own and maybe a year later there’s one they’re stumped on and they check back with me, but we’re not changing your whole life at once. We’re going to focus and that is much more doable, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Carrie: How many sessions do parents usually participate in? Is there a range?

Katie: I typically do six sessions.

Carrie: Okay,

Katie: Now again, I’m a parent coach and so I will ask for a bit more homework in between the sessions and that typically works well.

Now everybody’s a little bit different. Some people can make progress on that first target in less than 6 sessions. And so we may just use those last few to like, again, pick a new target or. Whatever they need, I’m going to give them the full benefit and other people might need a little bit more, but six and to be a pretty good average, it just depends on prior knowledge and experience and how much is going on.

Carrie: Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you about the faith integration piece for you. How you see this therapy, what’s that connection between this therapy and your Christian faith?

Katie: Yeah, so one of the first concepts we talk about is how children are wired to seek an adult for safety.

Carrie: That’s good.

Katie: Like, if your three year old is scared, they’re not gonna go confront what they’re scared of or hop in the car and drive away.

Right. Right. They’re going to cling to you. They’re going to go to mom first. And as adults, it may look a little bit different, but in some ways it doesn’t. As Christians, we, I go to my heavenly father when I’m scared. Yeah. Right? When I’m afraid, when things are uncomfortable or uncertain, I can find refuge.

So that’s safety I need in the Lord. And I can find strength to encounter that thing that felt threatening with his strength, with help and hope. And a lot of times that is my experience as a parent. I am either wanting my kids to be my safety, I want them to change so I feel safe, and they’re a child, like, it’s not supposed to go that direction.

So that’s where I see I step into my faith, and then sharing that with my kids, and inviting them to follow me to do likewise. Even if mom’s not there, God is always there. When you grow up, God is always there. I need to first be in that refuge and strength myself, but then showing my kids, teaching them how to go to the Lord and we can go to the Lord together, that even as adults we have the church to help us.

I find those truths are more robust in my faith versus me just being able to do it all by myself. As a Christian, we don’t have to do anything alone. We have God and His Holy Spirit and all that He provides for us. That to me is so much more hopeful than just doing it all by yourself. God can grow us in our ability, but we’re not alone and we’re not without help.

That faith helps me find the acceptance and the confidence. You know, that’s the whole gospel is that we are accepted because of what Jesus did. Even though things are hard, I can still belong and be known by God, and I can have confidence in his help and his hope.

Carrie: That’s awesome. As you were talking, I was thinking about Jesus’s love for us.

That is very empathetic. Jesus cried with people, you know, that were hurting. He had a deep level of compassion for the poor. And at the same time, he had boundaries. So there’s this balance. And I think we really struggle as human beings to be fully loving and also have boundaries. And boundaries in themselves can be very loving, especially in parenting, because boundaries protect us and so forth.

So finding that, and it’s something that I think I ask the Lord in my relationships, like, okay, is this a time where I was supposed to let this offense go and radically love this person and show grace? Or is this an opportunity for me to set a boundary, which is also very loving? Like, how do I handle and navigate these situations?

That’s what kind of came to my mind as, as you were talking about this particular treatment.

Katie: I think one of the favorite things as a coach is watching people grow in their confidence to be led by God, to ask God for wisdom and receive it. And so they’ll tell me wins where we’ve worked on concepts and targets, but sometimes they’ll tell me about, I just felt conviction that I needed to hold this boundary and it was uncomfortable, but I did.

Great. I wasn’t there. I didn’t tell you to do that, but God was there. or ideas they came up with. I can help and I can support. I can teach and I can celebrate wins with you. But like God is with you. That is the confidence that I hope parents really walk away from that they can see evidence of their growth of how God provided for them to understand and support their child, but also confidence that God is with them and will continue to answer their cry for wisdom.

Carrie: Yes.

Katie: And for redemption of this hard moment. And that’s what some, so my kids who have anxiety are teenagers now, and it’s amazing the wisdom they’ve gained by working through these hard things. During the pandemic, when everybody else was struggling with anxiety, my son, who had gotten diagnosed, the treatment was, it was like his year of bravery is what we called it.

He rode his bicycle for the first time. That’s one that sticks in my mind. He was like 11 before he rode a bike because he was anxious, not because he couldn’t. I mean, he did have some coordination issues and things. But at that point, it was more anxiety. There were just these little evidences of him overcoming and just the wisdom he gained.

Now he’s an advocate too. And so that’s why I share openly about his experience is because he’s confident about how OCD has given him wisdom and insights and his ability to not be defined by it and to overcome it. Even though it’s still lingering there, you

Carrie: know, it’s amazing. Yeah, that’s great.

Katie: I want to say that too. They share about my kids. They give me permission, but I love that. They have given me that permission out of confidence and them overcoming these struggles.

Carrie: Well, thank you so much for sharing. How can people find you?

Katie: I have a website. It’s parentwithhope.org. Parents can find me there and you can book online.

I put the podcast that I’m on on there so you can listen to me talk about other things too. And then you can even schedule a free consult call and just, yeah, let’s see if we’re a good match for SPACE or other coaching.

Great. I was just searching for providers in Tennessee who provided this therapy and you were the only one that I could tell that was definitely Christian.

So that was encouraging to me. And that’s how we got connected was through your website. I will put the link in there for people and that way they can get in touch with you. Wonderful. I’m so glad that we had Katie Wetzel on the show today to talk about space. And I want to speak to you as from one parent to another today to say that if you’re really struggling as a parent, if you feel like you’re having a hard time regulating in your relationship with your children, Maybe you have past trauma, you have been trying so hard to break those generational curses so that your children don’t have to grow up the way that you grew up.

I would love to help you process through that and walk you through that journey. If you’re in Tennessee, I have intensive therapy sessions and I’m really trying to grow that part of my practice. This year, I also do therapeutic retreats for people who are out of the state who want to come for a few days and really dive deeper into trauma work or OCD work, if that’s a part of your story.

Maybe your child is struggling, but you’re also struggling with trauma and OCD. I would love for you to come and have this transformative experience so that you can be the parent that God has called you to be and that I know you want to be inside. For more information, you can visit my website at carriebock.com, and you can contact me via the contact page. To receive weekly encouragement, find out about our monthly Meet the Podcast host Zoom meetings, and receive information on exclusive sales, become an email insider today. All you have to do is go to carriebock.com and scroll towards the bottom of the page.

You’ll find a spot to put in your email and receive a free download in your inbox from us.

We’re going to be talking about the importance of mental health and how it can help you This is a podcast that is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

158. Is This Thought a Sin? 

In this episode, Carrie dives deep into the overwhelming fear that often accompanies OCD, particularly when it feels like your thoughts might be wrong, sinful, or even harmful to others.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to discern true desires vs. OCD-driven thoughts
  • Why intrusive thoughts don’t equate to sin
  • How intrusive thoughts are not intentional and do not reflect your true desires or intentions.
  • The difference between thought suppression and thought replacement, and why they do not effectively work for OCD.
  • How the Holy Spirit can reveal your true desires and guide you in decision-making, especially in challenging times.

Episode Summary:

If you’re struggling with OCD and wondering if your intrusive thoughts are a sign of sin, you’re not alone. Many Christians feel torn, thinking they might be unintentionally harming others or dishonoring God with their thoughts. The truth is, these thoughts are often out of your control, and they don’t reflect your true desires or intentions.

As a Christian counselor, I’ve helped many clients face the same concerns. They wrestle with disturbing thoughts about violence, sexual behaviors, or blasphemy, feeling guilty because these thoughts contradict their values. But here’s the truth: intrusive thoughts are not sins.

In today’s episode of Christian Faith and OCD, I dive into the critical question: “Is this thought a sin?” I explore how God sees your heart and intentions, and why suppressing these thoughts or replacing them with scripture can reinforce the OCD cycle. Instead, we’ll uncover healthier ways to approach intrusive thoughts, grounded in faith and powerful tools like Inference-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT).

When struggling with OCD, the best thing you can do is trust the Holy Spirit to guide you through it. Let go of shame, and find peace in knowing that your true heart and intentions matter most to God.

Listen to the full episode now and start breaking free from mental compulsions.

Explore Related Episode:

Oftentimes I find that my Christian clients are concerned that they’re doing something with the wrong intentions or the wrong motives, that they’re intentionally trying to harm people in some way or hurt people’s feelings or take advantage of them. When that’s not actually what their true internal desire is.

And how do we know what our true intents and desires are? Sometimes it may be pretty clear to us. But sometimes it may not be, and we may be questioning, am I doing something for the right motives? 

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you. With practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode.  I wanted to take an episode and try to answer a question I think that so many of you are facing with. Is this thought that I’m experiencing a sin? Oftentimes we know that Christians who are struggling with OCD will often seek out help for their obsessions from a pastor or a small group leader.

Some type of spiritual mentor or advisor first before seeking professional help because they see these thoughts as a spiritual problem. Maybe you’ve been in church a while and you’ve heard verses like Philippians 4, 8. Whatever is true, whatever is noble, right, pure, lovely, whatever is admirable. Think about these things.

That’s a rough paraphrase. So you’re thinking, how do I do that? When I have these awful thoughts that pop into my head about sexually abusing children, violent thoughts, harming others, harming myself, blasphemous thoughts, maybe you’re struggling with homosexual thoughts that you would say, I would never act on that thought.

Regardless of the type of thought that you may be struggling with, one thing I know that I want you to know is that God already understands this issue even more than you do. God knows your heart and your mind, and He knows your true intentions and desires. When Philippians 4. 8, it’s telling us to be intentional about our thoughts.

Obsessions are not things that you are intentionally thinking about. They pop into your mind when you don’t want them to, and they’re what we call egotistonic thoughts, meaning They’re not in line with who you see yourself as and the things that you value. If we view a thought as bad, especially coming from a church teaching concept, a lot of times we will try one of two things.

We will try either thought suppression.  Or, we will try thought replacement. Neither of these actually work, but let’s look at them individually. Thought suppression is when we say, Oh, can’t think about that. Don’t think about that. Don’t want to think about that. Push that down. Push that down. Almost like you’re trying to shove a beach ball underneath the water, and then it just pops back up when you don’t want it to.

There’s a concept called thought thought fusion that captures this pretty well. It’s where When we’re thinking about, what if I have that thought? I recognize that may be very metacognitive for some of you and not quite make sense. How this shows up in practicality for people typically is, let’s say I have intrusions about hitting a pedestrian with my car.

Is that I may get in my car and then go, Oh no, what if I’m driving to work? And what if I have that thought? And then because now we’ve opened up that door or I may say something like, Oh, I’m about to drive to work and I don’t want to have that thought. And I want to try to suppress that thought and put it down.

Instead of acknowledging, like, these are thoughts that sometimes I struggle with when I’m driving in the car and getting to this place of acceptance, that’s an issue for you in your life. Just being able to acknowledge that something is there, as hard as that is, and as much as you don’t want it, That can really be the first step towards healing.

Psychology will tell you that thought suppression doesn’t work. They’ve actually done studies on this where they’ve asked people, Hey, don’t think of a white bear, I believe was the study, and then they come back and they ask people, how often did you think about the white bear, versus having a control group where they were just told, think about whatever you’re going to think about, and then they came back and asked them, how much did you think about a white bear?

Well, I didn’t think about that at all, because no one had kind of planted that in there, right? So we know that thought suppression does not work in us being able to not think about certain things. You probably know from personal experience that doesn’t work as well. Don’t feel bad if you’ve tried that, though, because many people do as a way to control their thoughts.

The next thing that we try to do to control our thoughts is thought replacement. Now this is a favorite for the church, and I actually call it kind of a Christianized CBT approach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. What the church does is it says, okay, if you’re having a certain thought, like a sexual thought, I want you to go find a verse that talks about your body’s a temple of the Holy Spirit, or I want you to find a verse on flee from sexual immorality.

The verse about temptation, and every time that particular thought comes up, that you repeat that verse. The problem is that in OCD, this becomes a compulsion. It may provide some temporary relief, but that compulsion is actually reinforcing the obsessive compulsive cycle, so you just get caught in that loop over and over again.

You feel slightly better, But then the thought comes back and so then you feel like you’ve got to do something about the thought. Another way this shows up oftentimes for Christians is either compulsive praying, I’m praying that God will get rid of that thought or take it away, or I’m rebuking that thought in the name of Jesus.

So I’ve seen both of those come up for people quite a bit depending on their spiritual backgrounds. Okay, Carrie, so I have these unwanted thoughts, and suppressing them isn’t working, and replacing them isn’t working, praying them away isn’t working. What in the world do I do? We’re going to get to that a little later.

Because you actually showed up for, is this thought a sin or not? And let me tell you, when it is not a time to determine whether or not a thought is a sin, it’s not a good time to determine that when you are in this OCD bubble, is what we call it, where you’ve gotten sucked into an OCD story, and now you’re looping in obsessions and compulsions, and you’re having a really hard time.

Thinking clearly and seeing your way out of that. That’s not a good time to evaluate your thought process or evaluate the content of your heart. James 1 14 15 says, But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

So let’s look at this process of sinning. First there’s a desire, then there’s a sin, and then if we don’t deal with our sin, it brings spiritual death. One of the things that I really like about inference based cognitive behavioral therapy, or ICBT, Is that it really encourages people to tune into what we call internal sense data, which is your true intentions and desires.

So if I asked you today, do you have a desire to travel across the country? Some of you might say, yes, that’s so exciting, I really want to do that. And then others of you are going to feel something inside like, no, I really just like being at home and I want to be in my cozy pajamas and watch a movie on TV, sipping my hot chocolate.

I’m good. I don’t really like to travel or I don’t want to go too far. OCD is going to cause you to question what you actually desire spiritually. Oftentimes, I find that my Christian clients are concerned that they’re doing something with the wrong intentions or the wrong motives, that they’re intentionally trying to Harm people in some way or hurt people’s feelings or take advantage of them when that’s not actually what their true internal desire is.

And how do we know what our true intents and desires are? Sometimes it may be pretty clear to us, but sometimes it may not be. And we may be questioning, am I doing something for the right motives? I will give you an example from my own life, way back in  2015, for those of you who aren’t familiar with my story.

My first husband left, he did not want any part of the marital home, and I had to make a decision about whether or not to try and stay in the house, or try to sell it. I was really praying through this process, and obviously it’s a big decision to make when you’re already emotionally a mess. But I was concerned that I was trying to hold on to this house for reasons of greed or monetary gain.

And through the process of prayer and being in touch with the Holy Spirit, it took a process of several days and weighing out all of the options. God really showed me that the reason I wanted to stay in my house was because I felt safe there. And it was in a good neighborhood, and so perhaps, I’m not sure, and I know God would have taken care of me either way, had I sold the house, I think that I might have ended up living in an apartment complex or somewhere else where I didn’t feel as safe as being able to stay in my home.

This led to me pursuing getting roommates in order to be able to pay the mortgage and stay there, but my point of the whole story of telling you that is that as you pray about decisions or as you are concerned about eradicating certain sins from your life, the Holy Spirit is able to reveal to you the desires of your heart and the things that are not in line with God’s will for you.

We can really trust and rest that the Holy Spirit is there to keep us on course and on track. Doesn’t mean that we aren’t ever going to get off track. We do have sin in our lives that’s going to come up. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to search our heart and to convict us of that sin. When we look at the progression in James 1.

14 and 15, We see that sin is not an instantaneous situation. We look at situations, for example, where someone decides to have an affair on their spouse, and we think, oh wow, that was sudden, that just seemed to come out of nowhere. Well, from the process of these verses, that’s not the case at all. We come to a point of decision, but even before we come to that point of decision, there’s a desire.

So there’s a heart condition first, and then a behavior. That leads me to believe that intrusive thoughts in themselves do not have enough time to give birth to sin. If we say, oh, I’m having this thought, and I don’t want to have this thought, it’s just popping into my mind. All kinds of people have intrusive thoughts.

The problem is that when Christians have these thoughts that go so against their values, They then try to make some type of meaning about it, that somehow my desires are evil because I’m having these types of thoughts pop into my head, or I’m not a good Christian, or I don’t love God because I’m struggling with intrusive thoughts.

That’s not the case. OCD is a mental health condition that affects your brain. It’s not a spiritual problem. I talk with so many people who have trouble grasping this, but it really helps reduce shame. And it really helps you seek the proper type of treatment so that you’re not continuing to suppress thoughts and replace thoughts.

Here’s a verse that some of my clients get really stuck on. I wanted to talk with you about it a little bit. Matthew 5, 28. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed to lust. adultery with her in his heart. Specifically for people who struggle with sexual intrusions, this can be a very challenging verse because they feel like, well, I must be committing adultery because I’m having these sexual intrusions in my brain.

If you look at the entire context of this passage, Jesus is calling out the Pharisees in the Sermon on the Mount. He’s saying, look, you guys are doing all these outward, quote, religious type activities. You’re tithing, not just you’re tithing your money, but now you’re tithing, like, your spices. But your hearts are corrupt.

You don’t care about people. You’re not loving the poor. You’re looking down and judging other people. Doesn’t matter how good you look on the outside if the inside is corrupt. If you interpret Matthew 5. 28 into that larger context. It goes back to what we were just talking about earlier, about intentions, the heart, trusting the Holy Spirit for conviction.

This verse is not about us working to control our internal experience that’s happening. We submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit who works within us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2. 13. There’s probably much that could be said on this topic, but I want you to know that if you are struggling with these types of intrusive thoughts, You’ve tried suppressing them, you’ve tried replacing them with scripture, you’ve tried praying them away.

I want you to know that there is help and hope. I would love to tell you more about inference based cognitive behavioral therapy and how that might be helpful for you, especially if you’re dealing with a lot of mental compulsions. It helps you to learn how the obsession is irrelevant. All the tricks and cheats of OCD, the thinking errors that are involved, the over reliance on possibility, and really targets you recognizing the irrelevance of the obsession so that you can move forward and not buy into the OCD lies and story.

Stay tuned as over the next couple months we’re going to be talking about the individual themes of OCD, how they show up. I’ll be flying solo again on some of the episodes, but I also have some guests that I’m trying to arrange and bring along that I’m really excited about. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

To receive weekly encouragement, find out about our monthly Meet the Podcast host Zoom meetings, and receive information on exclusive sales, become an email insider today. All you have to do is go to  karybach. com and scroll towards the bottom of the page. You’ll find a spot to put in your email and receive a free download in your inbox from us.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area. 

157. When God Forgives What You Can’t Forget with Brittany Poppe

In this episode, Carrie continues the New Year’s series focused on New Year’s desires and what we truly want for 2025. Joining her is Brittany Poppe, a Christian Abortion Recovery Leader and Pro-Life Speaker. They explore the power of accepting God’s forgiveness, releasing past regrets, and finding healing from trauma.

Episode Highlights:

  • Understanding God’s forgiveness and letting go of past mistakes
  • Brittany’s personal story of loss, trauma, and healing
  • How secret struggles and unprocessed grief can impact mental health
  • The importance of community and open conversations in the church
  • Recognizing and addressing the emotional impact of abortion on both women and men

Episode Summary:

As we dive into our New Year’s series, we’re talking about desires for 2025, and I wanted to bring on someone to discuss an essential aspect of healing – accepting God’s forgiveness and letting go of past regrets.

Today, I’m joined by Brittany Poppe, host of Does God Forgive Abortion? Brittany opens up about her personal journey of healing after having an abortion and struggling with guilt, grief, and shame.

Brittany shares:

“I grew up in a loving Christian home, but after losing my dad, I turned away from my faith. At 17, I found myself pregnant, and in fear of what others would think, I made the decision to have an abortion.”

This decision led to years of emotional turmoil, as Brittany wrestled with feelings of separation from God, trying to right her wrongs through repeated repentance.

“I tried to be the perfect Christian, but no amount of ‘doing good’ could erase the guilt,” Brittany reflects.

Through time, prayer, and immersing herself in God’s Word, Brittany found healing, realizing that God’s forgiveness is not about repenting a certain number of times but embracing His love and grace.

Brittany discusses the grief she felt—something often hidden or dismissed by society. “Grief over abortion is real, and many women carry this ‘forbidden grief’—a grief society tells us we shouldn’t have.”

She encourages women to share their stories, as healing begins when we accept our past and trust in God’s forgiveness.

Brittany’s journey is one of profound healing and transformation. To hear more about her powerful story and the grace she’s found in letting go of shame, listen to the full episode. You’ll find hope and insight for your own healing journey.

Related Links and Resources

brittanypoppe.com
Does God Forgive Abortion Podcast

Explore Related Episode:

Carrie: As you all know, we’ve been talking in our New Year’s series about New Year’s desires, what we really want for 2025. And I thought I would bring on the show someone to talk with us about accepting God’s forgiveness and about letting go of the past, things that you may be regretting or holding onto or really struggling with.

This is Brittany Poppe. Welcome to the show.

Brittany: Thank you so much for having me, Terri.

Carrie: And Brittany has a podcast called Does God Forgive Abortion? And I wanted to hear from you kind of a little bit about your story and your journey, just how you got to this point.

Brittany: I grew up in a loving Christian home where faith was emphasized and I knew That every single human being is created by God and loved by God.

And so I had this foundation where I valued life and the sanctity of life. However, when I was a teenager, I lost my dad. He had Parkinson’s disease and ended up passing away. In that trauma started to kind of move away from my faith and I started to kind of live a secret life. And in the midst of doing that, I found out at the age of 17 that I was pregnant and.

I knew because of how I had been raised, that was something that was definitely going to be frowned upon. I was very afraid of what my church was going to think of me, of what my mom was going to think. I knew that my double life as I knew it was over. And so I made the unfortunate decision to have an abortion and what I thought was going to solve all of my problems and make my life better, allow me to continue the life that I was wanting to live, unfortunately did quite the opposite.

It actually really affected me in a negative way. And I lived for the next 10 or so years. Really in kind of a wilderness feeling like I was far from God. Didn’t know how I could ever come back to my relationship with him. I would repeatedly repent thinking that I had to do it a certain number of times before it would finally stick.

Also just feeling like I had to say yes to everything and try to be the best person, as perfect as I could be. Because I was trying to figure out how I could write this wrong that I had done because there’s really no way to undo having an abortion. And so

Carrie: It was about on your podcast, how your mom didn’t even know you were able to get the abortion without consent, I guess, based on your age in your state that probably was really hard to not have someone to bounce this off of or.

An adult to talk through this experience with

Brittany: yes, it was. In fact, I did end up confiding in my mom about two months later. She had kind of found out about my double life anyway, and I just broke down and ended up telling her about what I had done because it was such a heavy weight to carry on my own.

It was a really big secret that I had to walk around with every day. Even though I had told her, it still was a secret for about a decade after, and that was something that really weighed heavily on me every day. I think we carry trauma with us, whether we know it or not, and it can really negatively affect us in so many ways when we’re not healing from it.

Carrie: Yeah, for sure. And this process that you went through of praying, trying to, I guess, be the good Christian or right the wrongs, I see a lot of people who do that who have deep regret for past choices that they made. It could be an addiction and some things that they did while they were in active addiction.

It could be they were involved in a negative relationship. It could be an abortion and. We keep these secret sins hidden a lot of times in the church. We don’t talk about it. It’s like, okay, well, I have this new life now. What was that process like for you of coming towards not only just healing from the sin aspect of it and receiving the forgiveness, but then also being able to speak about it?

Brittany: I truly believe that God placed it on my heart to start sharing my story. I think that the stat that’s shared most often is one in four women will have had at least one abortion by the age of 45. When we think about how many women are walking around having made this decision, that’s a lot of people. We likely know someone, but we don’t know that’s a part of their story.

And out of that group of women, many, many, many of them struggle negatively. And so I firmly believe that God told me that I was supposed to start sharing my story. But he started to kind of work on me before I was really healed from it. And I definitely think it’s hard to help others heal from something when you haven’t healed from it yourself.

And so really just kind of digging into the word and talking with other believers who’d been through it too. And just kind of looking at those places in the word that show that we are all covered by the blood of Jesus. There isn’t a specific sin in the Bible that’s worse than another sin. We know that God measures all sin the same.

And so I really just had to focus on that instead of trying to separate my abortion as the worst thing someone could ever do, recognize that all sin disappoints God, but God is able to forgive all sin once we come to repentance. And there’s nothing in the Bible that says we have to repent 900 times before he finally listens.

We know that God hears all of our prayers. I mean, He even bottles up every single tear we shed. And so, really just having to, it was really a lot of just working and immersing myself in His Word.

Carrie: Yeah, okay, just reading those scriptures about forgiveness, meditating on them, saying these scriptures are for me.

Not just for everyone else that I know, because that’s what we usually do. It’s like, oh yeah, I know God loves that other person over there, or God loves my family or my friends, but I don’t really feel like God loves me, instead of recognizing that the scriptures that talk about confession and repentance and forgiveness are for all of us.

Yes. And I think that we have a tendency to grade sins, like, oh, a lie is not as bad as this. But like you said. All sin disappoints the heart of God, and we need to be in a conscious state of recognizing our sin and how that’s impacted God on the one hand, and then also recognizing if we are Christians, we are under the blood of Jesus.

The cross was the finished work. We don’t have to continue to hold on to these things. And bring them up in our own minds over and over and over again, we can say that’s forgiven and I’m moving forward. Amen. What was the process of recognizing how this experience of the abortion impacted your mental health?

Did you recognize that it was the abortion or did you just think like, Oh, I’m just not feeling well, or I’m feeling depressed or anxious or having some re experiencing symptoms and don’t know why?

Brittany: I think early on, I definitely didn’t connect it to the abortion. When I was in my early 20s, I really struggled with anger.

I actually ended up going to see a therapist for help because I just would fly off the handle at the smallest things. And I knew I had a problem And my mom even tried to tell me that I should talk to my therapist about my abortion and tell her about it. And I was just like, oh, no, there’s no reason to bring that up.

That’s not something that I need help with right now. I need help with my anger. But now that I can look back, likely that unresolved grief and shame. Was probably adding to why I was so angry because I wasn’t an angry person before my abortion. I definitely struggled for years without realizing what the root of the problem was.

But I think I started to realize that my abortion was the root of the problem when I had my living children. Because I felt so much guilt. That I had living children, that I got to have this precious gift that I had once given up. And so, I felt so shameful that I got to be a mom when so many others have troubles being mothers.

Women who have, really struggle with infertility issues. And so, that guilt helped me see, okay. This is probably the root of why I’m struggling with X, Y, and Z all of the time.

Carrie: Talk to us about the grief piece. What has that looked like for you?

Brittany: I think so often we’re told when we’re talking about this topic that grief isn’t a part of abortion.

And a lot of women who do feel grief after an abortion are told That maybe they’re not allowed to, or maybe they shouldn’t feel that. It actually has a term called forbidden grief because it is a grief that we feel, but we feel like society has kind of forbidden us from experiencing or healing from that grief.

And so we just kind of stay stuck in that place of shame with really no way out. Cause we’re not moving through those stages of grief and getting towards that acceptance and that repentance. And redemption in Jesus. For me, a lot of my grief was rooted in that guilt and that shame over wishing I could go back and undo the thing that I had done, but knowing I never could.

When I finally started to look at my abortion as the loss of my child is when I really was able to start healing. I was able to give my child an identity and understand that he was created in the image of God and that I did the healing work in digging into God’s word to know where my child is now and know that my child is in heaven with Jesus.

And so. Really just recognizing that and giving myself or really rather accepting the permission from God to miss my child and to grieve him, but also know that scripturally I will be able to see him someday. That’s really kind of what’s been pivotal for me and my own healing and other women I’ve gotten to speak with as well.

Carrie: Yeah, I like what you said there about the forbidden grief because So much when I think about grief and loss, if we lose a family member, for example, there’s a community around us that’s also grieving the loss. But if you have this secret loss that no one knows about, or Maybe they do know about, but they say, well, that was your choice.

So then you’re not allowed to have, like you said, feelings about that. I think it’s important that we talk about this because I know from processing with women, I’m thinking about one woman in particular that I worked with. I probably worked with her for years before she ever told me about her abortion.

And it was when she was very young as well. And obviously, she would not have brought that up if it was not still impacting her. So there are so many women that go through these types of things. And I also want to say, too, that it affects men as well. Is, have you heard from fathers?

Brittany: Yeah, so I think a lot of women who struggle feel forgotten about but I think the fathers are Forgotten about maybe almost even more and I don’t say that in an offense to women who are struggling at all But I think that for so many reasons men One, aren’t given the decision in the matter.

So they’re kind of, a lot of them feel really powerless because they’re not able to step in and say, well, no, I want my child. There’s really no legal premise there for them to be able to have their child and raise their child in that situation and prevent their partner from choosing abortion, but also just like the grief.

I think men hide their grief even more. And so it looks sweet if they. Admit that they’re struggling or admit that they are grieving the loss of a child they didn’t get to meet through abortion. And so, yes, men do struggle with the loss of their children to abortion for many reasons. And I do see an uprising of maybe more resources for them or more men kind of speaking out about it and offering support to other men who may not be so ready to kind of speak out, but they need that help.

Carrie: This is shifting gears. Quite a bit, but another thing I wanted to ask you about I know that this is a concern for Christians And I work with who are dating and looking for a Christian spouse They’re concerned about telling that other person about their past Was that a challenge for you when you met your husband talking with him about this?

Brittany: It was a challenge, but I kind of approached it a little differently. Many, many, many women will enter into marriages without telling their husbands about their abortion and it will remain the secret in their marriage. And it really hurts their marriage because they’re. So afraid if their husband is going to find out that they’re going to divorce them or think differently of them.

When I approached that with my husband, we hadn’t been dating very long. I actually felt like I had to tell him before things got serious because I almost felt like I needed to give him a way out. I knew his background. I knew that abortion wasn’t something that he supported, but I also know when I told him about it, he met me with so much compassion and grace and just said, that was something you did in the past and thank you for telling me that, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you now.

I would definitely encourage women to tell. Their spouses, hopefully before marriage, but if that hasn’t happened, just really pray and discern when God wants you to divulge the information, because really, even if you don’t look at it as the problem into why maybe you’re having some issues, it really could be leading to some of those feelings and those issues.

Carrie: And I think, like, what you were saying about having your own children and how that essentially opened up this wound again that you recognize wasn’t fully healed, when we go through various things in our life, we respond differently based on our past experience, whereas something you think, oh, that wasn’t really bothering me, But then you have another stressor come up or another trauma, and it ties into some of those past things, the same thing can happen, sexual abuse, for example, it is important for somebody that you feel like if you’re headed in the direction of marriage, that they may need to know some of these key things about you.

And I did an episode not too long back on talking to someone, sharing with someone about your OCD and how that may impact you. And obviously, that’s something that people are concerned about talking about as well. But, Do you find that, because I know that you work with individual women who have been through abortion and you also work in, sometimes in group settings, do you find that there is this healing from some of the shame when we’re able to share our story?

Not just share your story, but have someone respond in compassion who has been there and gets it and knows, they’re like, that I can see myself in you.

Brittany: Yes, I think so many of us, not even just in abortion, but with so many other things that we need to heal from, a lot of us tend to want to do it alone because maybe we’re afraid to ask for help, or maybe we don’t want to let those walls down, maybe we’re afraid to trust others.

But honestly, God created us to be in community with other believers. He didn’t want us to do life alone. We’re told to bear with one another, carry each other’s burdens, be there for each other. And the healing can come so much more easily when we are with a group of people who understand what we’ve gone through.

And again, it’s hard to ask for help. It’s hard to be vulnerable. It’s not a fun thing to do. And maybe I shouldn’t have said it comes more easily because it definitely can still be really hard. But knowing that someone else is going through the same thing can really be so much more comforting than sitting alone at home trying to do it on your own.

Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else that you would share with someone who’s listening who’s struggling from a Guilt over a past sin, whether it’s abortion or something else, like what kind of final words of encouragement would you want to give to someone?

Brittany: I think I would just want everyone to know that there is not a single thing that you can do that would separate you from God’s love for you.

When Jesus died on the cross, he said, is finished. And that meant for everything, there’s nowhere in the Bible that says Jesus died on the cross to forgive sins, except blank. So whatever you’re struggling with, just know that it is covered by the blood of Jesus. And so long as you are repentant and surrender to him, he is waiting for open arms for you.

You are not exempt from that love that he has for you.

Carrie: So tell us about your podcast and where people can find you.

Brittany: Like Carrie said, my podcast is called, does God forgive abortion? And that podcast really just serves as a ministry and resource for mostly women who are struggling with the guilt and shame of choosing abortion in the past, but men may find it helpful as well.

And it’s on Apple podcasts, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you listen. Could be a really helpful resource for you in your healing journey. And then I’m also on Instagram My handle is Brittany Poppy. So B R I T T A N Y P O P P E And I would encourage you if you just need Someone to talk to you are free to send me a DM and just know that you’re not alone

Carrie: Yeah, we’ll put the link in there too.

So people that can click on it and that’s incredible. Thank you for sharing your story today

Brittany: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

156. Developing Healthy Routines Without Obsessing about Them with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

If you’re looking to make healthy changes in the new year, you’re in the right place. 

In this episode, Carrie is diving into the topic of routines, but from a perspective that doesn’t involve getting obsessed or perfectionistic about them.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to create healthy routines that support your mental and emotional well-being without feeling overwhelmed.
  • Practical tips for reducing stress by establishing structure in your day-to-day life.
  • Ways to combat perfectionism and embrace progress over perfection in your routines.
  • Simple hacks to make routines easier to stick to, such as prepping ahead and using reminders.
  • The importance of flexibility and grace in your routines, allowing room for God’s plan.
  • How to align your routines with your God-given desires for a more fulfilling and peaceful life.

Episode Summary:

For those of you trying to make healthy changes this year, we’re in the middle of a series called New Year’s Desires. Let’s focus on living out the God-given desires of our hearts, connecting with Him and others.

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD. I’m Carrie Bock, a Christ follower and licensed counselor helping Christians struggling with OCD find deeper healing. We’re here to break through the shame around OCD struggles in the Christian community and replace uncertainty with faith.

Today, let’s talk about developing healthy routines without letting them become obsessions. Routines bring stability, save mental energy, and create purpose—but they shouldn’t turn into compulsions. How can we stay balanced?

A simple routine like meal planning or laying out your clothes in advance can make your day smoother. But sometimes, life happens, and we need to let go of rigid routines for connection or special moments. This is especially important for those with OCD, who may feel the need for perfection. But remember, it’s okay to have flexible days.

If you’re finding that OCD is getting in the way of your routines or perfectionism is causing you to shut down, I want to encourage you to take small, manageable steps and focus on consistency rather than perfection.

If you’re ready to dive deeper into breaking free from OCD’s grip on your life and developing healthy routines that work for you, listen to the full episode for more practical tools and encouragement.

Explore Related Episode:

For those of you trying to make healthy changes in the new year, we’re in a midst of a series called New Year’s Desires because resolutions somehow were meant to be broken, but we want to be living out of the God given desires of our heart to connect with him and other people in our lives.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Today I want to talk with you about developing healthy routines without becoming obsessed about them. We all have something that we know we should be doing, and we want to get into this healthy rhythm, routine experience, but it’s just challenging for us to do that. And also, there may be concerns that if you do get into some type of routine, that it will become compulsive, or you’ll become perfectionistic about it.

And then if you miss a day, you end up shutting down and just saying, well, Let’s see, I wasn’t meant to do that because I messed it up over here. So how do we find this balance? If you’ve been around a little while, you know that I like to talk about the why that we do things. So we’re going to talk about that first.

What are the purpose of routines? Why do we need healthy routines and rhythms in our life? Well, first of all, they create a level of stability and predictability. When you have a routine, it provides a certain anchor in your day to know, hey, this is my time to do this thing. And that helps us really prioritize and accomplish that which is most important to us.

If you see someone’s calendar and you see someone’s bank account, you’ll see what’s truly important to that person. Routines help us feel safe. They’re really great for children, if you have children. They help us feel a sense of connection to other people because we know, like in our family, when we sit down to dinner every evening, we know that that’s a time to connect with each other, to talk about our day.

to eat nourishing food, and that’s a routine and a rhythm that we have in our home. Routines also keep us from having to think all the time. If you make a meal plan on the weekend, and you know what you’re going to eat for the week, and it’s on the calendar, you don’t have to be thinking or scrambling at five o’clock or 530 every night going, Oh no, what’s for dinner?

I don’t have anything. I don’t have any meat thawed out in the fridge. I don’t have Maybe an ingredient that I wanted to have to make something. Oh, let’s just do something really quick or spend more money. Causes this weight on our mental activity as well if we don’t have a plan or we don’t have a routine.

This is a secret hack that I’ve been doing. You know how Steve Jobs wore black. He had like a certain outfit that he wore all the time, so he didn’t have to think about what he wore. And I decided earlier this year that I was going to start picking out my clothes for the week, the work week on Sunday.

Like on the weekends, I’ll just get up and decide what I want to wear. But sometimes the mornings can be really hectic, and I don’t want to use that extra brain energy. So I’m able to look at my schedule and see, well, how many in person clients do I have or virtual, what outfits might be most appropriate based on the weather report, et cetera.

And it allows me to exercise that thought process then, and then I don’t have to think about it during the work week, which has been really great for me. I don’t know if that would work for everybody, but just a little small hack that I’ve been doing is making my clothing decisions on the weekends. Now, we’ve talked about the purpose of routines, but there are maybe times where we intentionally break our routines.

I will give you an example. We are pretty strict about getting our daughter to bed between 7 at night because That helps her rhythms. It helps our rhythms as a family. And sometimes she has a hard time falling asleep or different things. She may not be asleep, but at least getting her in the bed in that timeframe.

But there are times where we certainly have our daughter up later. Because we may have friends over, we may have gone out to eat with some friends, or we may be doing something fun as a family together. We might be involved in a church event that’s in the evening where we keep her up a little bit later.

Sometimes we break routines in order to have fun or to connect with others. And I know some of you are saying, wait a minute, you said the purpose of having a routine was to connect with others. That’s also true, but we have to recognize when the need of the moment is more important than the routine itself.

This will help you in terms of value based decision making. What do I value more right now, getting my daughter to bed at a certain hour? Or do I value more this time or experience that I’m having at church or with my friends? Now, there certainly are times where we say, Hey, if you’re going to go out to dinner with us, we need to meet you at like five, because that gives us time to eat, socialize, go home, et cetera, put our daughter to bed, even though some of our friends without kids probably would rather eat at six or six thirty.

That’s just not a good situation for us. You may need to break your routine if OCD is getting in the way or wanting you to do it perfectly. I know I’ve talked with a lot of people that really obsess about a variety of things regarding their schedule. They might obsess about what they’re actually doing.

They might obsess about how much they have to do. They might obsess about not being able to accomplish certain things. And maybe I know I need to get something done. I need to run over and do this errand, but I don’t have time today in my schedule. The end result of all of these scenarios ends up being that you just shut down and you do nothing.

Which is so not helpful. What we want to do is help you break out of, like, whatever your current spiral is. And, you know, OCD really likes avoidance quite a bit. So that makes sense that there becomes this shutdown and doing nothing. We spend so much time thinking about doing the things that we don’t actually do the things.

You may have to do a shorter version of the routine you wanted to do, you may have to break things down into smaller steps. I don’t know your specific situation. I was talking with someone the other day about a routine issue, and what we noticed was that It was a daily routine that a lot of us normally engage in, but for this individual, it was extra hard because OCD was telling them that they had to do it this prescribed way or with these steps that took them a long time.

So I said, I know it’s going to be uncomfortable for you, but what if We were able to do this routine sometimes this way and that other times we’re able to do a shorter version of this routine. And I want to just clarify, it was not a compulsion per se, it was more of just a way that they like to do things.

Sometimes when we like to do things a certain way, there’s nothing wrong with that, but maybe we don’t have time to do it and then that was causing problems because then this person wasn’t doing the daily routine that they needed to do at all. Right? It was an all or nothing thing. Either I have to spend an hour doing this, Or, I just won’t do it at all, versus saying, well what if you spent a half hour on some days and then some days you spent an hour, that’s fine, when you have more time.

And as you know, OCD’s rules are completely arbitrary and it just makes it up as it goes along. If you’re going to develop a specific routine, first let’s think of the reason for your routine, start with your why. And know that your goal is not perfection, but stability or creating that anchor to your day.

Number two, write down the steps to your routine and utilize technology if that helps you. Now, I know this may sound really basic and simple, but if you’re having struggles Like, for example, getting ready in the morning on time. Maybe there’s all these things that you know that you have to do to get out the door, but your brain feels really scrambled and they don’t end up in any kind of order.

Everything’s rushed and you end up forgetting something. If mornings are really chaotic and hectic for you, it might be helpful for you to do things in a particular order so that you can keep track of where you’re at in the process. Especially if you have children that are interrupting that process, you want to have approximate time frames that you’re going to engage in your routine because you need to know how long certain tasks take you.

And if you don’t know how long certain tasks take you, then you may need to just evaluate that first before setting up that routine. For example, I have to buffer a little time in my morning for me to actually wake up and get dressed before I can start working out, because initially I would be like, oh, well, I can start working out at this time.

And if I do a 30 minute workout, then I will be done at this time. However, things were not working like that and I was getting pushed back. So then I had to originally kind of push my get up start time a little bit earlier in order for me to get acclimated and adjusted, make sure that I had all of the tools laid out for my workout.

If I was going to need weights or bands or other things that I had those in front of me too. You can get super idealized about how you think things should work, and then as you start to do it, notice that you need to tweak or make changes. That’s totally fine. Making changes is not a problem. You can do that.

Don’t send it to an all or nothing where you just throw out the routine completely. And you want to be able to use some technology, if that helps you, in terms of reminders. I have certain reminders on my phone that pop up, and it was funny because I was sitting with my daughter the other morning, and I was like, Oh, my phone just made this calendar noise.

Like I have an appointment in 30 minutes. And then I was like, Oh yeah, I do have an appointment online in 30 minutes. I mean, I was together and fine, but I was like, Oh, I am going to need to go upstairs in a little bit. I had completely forgotten because it wasn’t an every week type of situation. It was a little bit of an off day.

I had reminders in my phone for a long time to make sure. That my daughter had lunch money because there’s one day a week where they buy lunch for the kids that I need to actually have cash and bring that to her school to give to the teachers. So I would have a little note in my phone, make sure you bring five dollars.

And whether you write things down in a paper planner, or you use reminders on your phone, or you have a Google calendar, whatever you do, just be really consistent about how you’re tracking those tasks or those routines or rhythms that you need to get done. until it becomes just an ingrained habit of something that you do all the time.

Step number three is to set yourself up for success. In a sense, make sure that you have what you need. So great mornings, I know I’ve talked a lot about the morning routine, but great mornings actually start the night before. It’s when you have the clothes picked out, or you have your workout stuff laid out, or you have your meal prepped, breakfast prepped, or you have some things chopped up for dinner.

Whatever it is, making sure that you’re taking the time to set yourself up for success and that you have all the materials, that the lunch boxes are laid out so that all you have to do is put the lunch in and put the cooler pack in in the morning. You should be able to set yourself up to have just a gentle rhythm and flow to your routine so that it’s easy.

You’re wanting this process to be what we call a low barrier to entry. You’re wanting to make it so that you get up and it’s like, okay, I’m up and here are my clothes and here are my things that I need to get ready and here is my Bible and it’s right by my chair where I’m going to sit and read it, just making everything so ready to go so that you don’t have to put a ton of energy into going, Oh, what was I going to do next?

Oh, where did I put my Bible? Oh, I had it in the other room last night. Just making sure that things are getting put where they go. Obviously, that’s a big task that we all need to work on. I know I’m guilty of leaving things and not putting them back where they go, but I’m working on it. It’s a progress.

It’s not perfection. I have developed this rhythm of planning meals on Thursday nights. Thursday night after my daughter goes to bed, I will go through and plan our meals for the next week, I will order our groceries online, I will make sure that it’s gonna be a good time for them to come, whatever, so usually then we’ll get groceries on Friday, and there may be some meal prepping or chopping that happens on Saturday or Sunday, whether that’s cutting up fruit, or cutting up vegetables for the week, or, um, Making sure that meat’s thawed out or portioned in a container.

There’s things that happen sometimes during the weekend, and it’s not a perfect system. It doesn’t always happen. Some weeks that I know that we’re going to be super busy on the weekends, I’m not going to try to do all that extra. I’m going to just keep things very simplified. I have a list of items that we usually buy every week, so I can go through that.

It’s on an index card. I can go through that index card pretty quickly and go, if we don’t buy it every week, it may be an every other week thing, so I’ll just check the pantry or the fridge. Okay, how much of that do we have? Do we need more? Yes, we do. Add it to the cart. I usually can run through that pretty quickly, and then I will buy whatever we need for the planned meals.

And my husband also knows too, like when I’m going to be doing the grocery list, if there’s anything that he wants, he’ll add that those things to the grocery list or say, Hey, when you do the shopping, make sure we get some of this or that. But I will tell you what used to happen so that you know what life used to look like.

It used to be, I kind of did the meal planning and the grocery list, like, when I got around to it. So it’s like, sometimes it might be Thursday night, but then other days, times it might be Friday. And then I’m ordering the food on Friday, but then I’m not really getting it till Saturday. And then I might not have an ingredient for something I need.

Oh, no, I have a brunch I’ve got to go to Saturday morning, but I didn’t have the order in time to make sure that the ingredient got here. So then I’m running to the store and nobody quite knows when groceries are arriving or not arriving. Do you see the difference there? One feels a lot more chaotic and one feels a lot more safer or comfortable because everybody knows kind of what the routine is and what the structure is, and we know when we’re going to be getting items in the house.

And I know too that that time is dedicated and blocked off on my calendar and in my life for that purpose. And understand that everything that I’m telling you, there’s a flexibility and a rhythm and a flow to it. If I am sick as a dog Thursday night, I’m not going to be planning meals for the next week.

I’m going to be resting and rejuvenating and just telling my husband, we’re going to eat what’s already in the house for a little bit until I can get back on my feet. Or if there’s something I really need, I might have him order the groceries. Don’t allow OCD to make you some type of slave to your routine.

Where it says, well, you said you were going to do the groceries on Thursday night. So therefore you have to do them Thursday night. No, I don’t have to. It just makes life a little bit easier or the rhythm a little bit better. But the world is not going to collapse if I don’t order the groceries until Friday or Saturday, things will be quite OK.

Leaving room to be flexible and adaptable is really healthy for your brain. Step number four is to focus on one routine at a time until it gets really solidified in your brain, until you get in that rhythm. Don’t try to create a completely new schedule for yourself where if you’re currently getting up at 7 a.

m. you’re wanting to get up all of a sudden at 5. You’ll be able to do that for a few days. But then you’re going to burn out, probably crash, be exhausted. And if you want to get up two hours earlier, you’re going to have to adjust the time that you go to bed. Morning success starts the night before type of situation.

You don’t want to be white knuckling through routines. That’s not the design of them. Remember, there should be some element of ease and flow. When you make one small change at a time, you’re much more likely to stick with it. That’s why I’m saying focus on one routine, and you may just focus on getting that one healthy routine established, solidified in your life for a month, and that’s okay.

You’re going to learn it, you’re going to flow with it, you’re going to recognize pieces that aren’t working, that might need to change, you’re going to feel probably really good and accomplished, even 20 days, for example, that if this was a daily routine that you were trying to establish, for example, right?

That’s good. That’s still much more than what you were doing before, which might have been 10, or it might have been zero. I don’t know the particular routine that you’re trying to add to your life. When we try to make large, drastic, all at once changes, typically our brain and our body resists that. And like I said, we can do it maybe for a little while or white knuckle our way through it, but then eventually we will go back and revert to our old behavior.

This is an example that I use with clients pretty frequently, is that if you change the rudder controls, what direction the ship is going to go in, even if you make a minor adjustment to that rudder, over time, that boat is going to be going in a vastly different direction. You may not see it at first, when it first goes out.

But over give it time and all of a sudden, wow, that ship will be very far from the direction that it was originally going. There’ll be a big gap between where it was if it had just kept going in the same direction versus if it just changed slightly. And so you want to think about slight changes.

measurable changes that you can make that can lead to long term different results. And then the last thing I would tell you is not to give up. This can be a challenge for you in your life. And when you try to do healthy things for yourself, OCD might get in the way. Doubt or self confidence issues might get in the way.

Your past might get in the way. But don’t give up on those positive things that you really feel convicted by the Lord that you need to be doing, whether that is spending daily dedicated time with him, whether that’s exercise, whether that’s putting healthier food in your body, whether that’s connecting with more social relationships or friendships.

Instead of shutting down, giving up and doing nothing or reverting back to former behaviors. Recognize where things went awry, and actually expect that sometimes things aren’t going to work out as planned, or aren’t going to go according to your routine. And that is an opportunity for you to then tweak and make changes as necessary.

And you can continue tweaking and continue making changes until things are really solidified, and you have these healthy routines without obsessing about them. That is what I hope for all of you in this new year. I hope you will join me next week as we have a very special guest. Brittany Poppy is going to share her story about how she felt like she could not be forgiven for something that she did and how God broke through through his word to show her that she absolutely is.

So next week, our episode is going to be when God forgives what you can’t forget. And I really hope that you will join us for that personal experience episode. To receive weekly encouragement, find out about our monthly meet the podcast host zoom meetings and receive information on exclusive sales, become an email insider today.

All you have to do is go to carriebock.com and scroll towards the bottom of the page. You’ll find a spot to put in your email and receive a free download in your inbox from us. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

155.  I Can’t Sleep! 3 Tips While Struggling with OCD 

In this episode, Carrie dives into the connection between sleep and mental health, sharing insights from her journey with sleep apnea and the transformative power of better sleep habits.

You’ll also hear snippets from past episodes, including discussions with Martin Reed and Dr. Charles Page, who offer fresh perspectives on insomnia.

Episode Highlights:

  • Practical tips for improving your sleep habits.
  • Common symptoms of sleep apnea and how to address them.
  • Why striving for “perfect sleep duration” might be harming you.
  • The benefits of embracing natural sleep patterns.
  • Insights from Martin Reed and Dr, Charles Page on managing insomnia effectively.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to episode 155 of Christian Faith and OCD, part of our New Year’s Desires series. Instead of just setting resolutions, I want to help you act on what you truly desire. For some of you, that might be a good night’s sleep. If that’s you, I’m here to offer insights that might help you get better rest tonight.

Before diving into today’s tips, I want to mention a great opportunity: Christian’s Learning ICBT is closing soon, and I’d love for you to join us. For more info, head to carriebock.com/training.

Now, onto better sleep. My first tip is to rule out physical causes like sleep apnea. In episode 116, I shared my own experience with sleep apnea, even though I didn’t fit the typical risk profile. I didn’t realize that my family history played a role, but once I got tested, I learned a lot about how sleep apnea affects not just your physical health but also your mental and emotional well-being. If you suspect you might have sleep apnea, get tested—it’s treatable, and untreated sleep apnea can lead to serious health risks.

Sleep apnea happens when your airway collapses during sleep, causing you to stop breathing for short periods. This can happen many times throughout the night, leading to excessive daytime fatigue, snoring, trouble focusing, and even depression. The good news is CPAP therapy can help, and technology has improved to make it more comfortable than ever. .

Sleep problems might not always be about sleep apnea. If you’re struggling, speak with your doctor and consider a sleep study. Episode 68 featured Martin Reed, who discussed how CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) helped him sleep better after traditional advice failed. You might not need 8 hours of sleep, as sleep needs vary from person to person. Instead, focus on creating an environment that supports rest.

Another tip for improving your sleep is to reflect on if God might be trying to speak to you. This insight goes back to episode 51, where Dr. Charles Page, a sleep expert, shared how he handles being woken up in the middle of the night. Many of you might relate to this feeling—you fall asleep just fine, but then wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back to sleep. This tip is especially for you.

Tune in to learn more tips if you’re struggling with insomnia and looking for practical ways to find peace and rest.

Explore Related Episodes:

Welcome to episode 155, where we are in a series called New Year’s Desires because we don’t want to just make resolutions. We want to be acting out of our desires. I know that some of you are just really desiring sleep. And if that’s you. This episode is hopefully going to help you know what to do to sleep a little bit better at night.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor, who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Genuinely, one of my desires for 2025 is to know how to serve you, the listening audience, better. So if there’s anything that I can do in order to do that, I’d love to hear from you. You can always contact me through our website, carrriebock.com/podcast. There are forums on there you can fill out if you just want to leave a comment, episode suggestion, whatever you want to do.

We’re also currently in the homestretch. If you want to get into Christian’s Learning ICBT, I would love to have you. You can go to carriebock.com/training for more info. My first tip for better sleep is to rule in or out any physical causes that might be causing you sleep disruption. I talked about my own journey of being diagnosed with sleep apnea back in episode 116.

I’m going to play you a snippet from that episode, but before I do, what I want to add is that I was not your typical sleep apnea risk factor individual. What I mean by that is typically someone who has a larger neck circumference or is significantly overweight is at higher risk for sleep apnea.

However, I believe that, based on other family members who also have sleep apnea, that some of my condition is genetic. I can look back and see now that I know more about sleep apnea, I can see how my mom had some of the symptoms, and definitely My father did as well. Neither one of them were treated for it.

Because of what I’ve been through, I often will talk with clients or friends or family members that have some of these same sleep apnea symptoms and encourage them to get a sleep study because we’re in a day and age where that’s not hard to do. You can do it at home, you can get a device that they put on your finger and it will measure how many times you stop breathing, roughly.

It’s not a perfect, accurate measurement and if it comes out undetermined, you may have to do an in person sleep study. But it’s worth it just to know or to rule this in or out because it’s very treatable and the results of not getting treated are detrimental to your health physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

LRE. Sleep apnea is when the muscles in the neck relax at night, causing the airway to collapse, causing someone to stop breathing for a short period of time. This can actually happen many times in a single hour of sleep. So imagine multiplying that by the number of hours that you sleep at night, meaning that you could potentially stop sleeping 30, 50 times in a night easily.

The symptoms of sleep apnea are daytime sleepiness, fatigue, snoring. I didn’t realize that snoring meant that somehow your airway was constricted. I thought it was just a thing that some people did. Observed episodes of stopped breathing. Sometimes that may happen if you have somebody that you’re sleeping with at night, like a spouse.

Waking up during the night, gasping, choking with a rapid heartbeat or in a panic. This is an important symptom for some of you who are struggling with anxiety. You may not know that just waking up in a panic might be a symptom of sleep apnea. Morning headaches. And when you lose oxygen to the brain, your head hurts.

Trouble focusing, even on tasks that should be routine or pretty simple. Depression, blood pressure fluctuations can happen with sleep apnea. Restless leg syndrome or jerking movements during sleep. If your legs or arms just seem to be jerking a lot. That’s your body trying to wake you up. And the treatment for sleep apnea is CPAP therapy, which is where a machine blows air into your airway to keep it open, keep it from collapsing.

You may have heard all kinds of horrors about CPAP therapy, but I really didn’t have too much trouble adjusting. CPAP machines and masks. Slowly making them more and more comfortable, getting you fitted the right way so that it’s easier to get adjusted to. So often, we assume that mental health problems are always based in our mind alone.

And you have to understand that our physical health and our mental health are so intertwined. Sometimes there is a genuine medical route that is either causing your mental health symptoms, or it could be exacerbating those symptoms. Maybe you have a propensity already towards anxiety and depression, but lack of oxygen to your brain due to sleep apnea is just exacerbating that problem so much more.

If you have any of these things, symptoms that I listed before and they just seem chronic, they’re not going away, they’re not getting better. All your blood work looks fabulous but you know something’s wrong. Please get tested. Don’t let the CPAP horror stories deter you. Untreated sleep apnea puts you at greater risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

So please get tested. At least rule it in or out if you suspect that you may have sleep apnea at all. It’s been over a year since my sleep apnea diagnosis and I can tell you that I am a dedicated CPAP user. It has honestly transformed my life. I feel so much better, so much more able to think clearly, be productive, feel alert, and present with my family.

There is no reason to continue feeling horribly if you don’t have to. Maybe it’s not sleep apnea, but there could be another physiological reason that you’re not getting sleep. Make sure that you talk to your doctor about it and get a referral for a sleep study if needed. In episode 68, we talked with Martin Reed about approaching insomnia differently.

He had a story of being taught all of the general information that there is about sleep, about how to create a good sleep environment, make sure that you’re in a positive sleep routine, etc, etc. And found that he was still having a lot of trouble sleeping, which caused him to pursue further information on CBT I for insomnia.

One of the things that I asked him about was regarding, is it true that we all need eight hours of sleep? Because maybe some of you are putting pressure on yourself to try to get a certain amount of hours of sleep at night.

Martin Reed: There is a lot of misleading information out there about sleep. A lot of it does focus on sleep duration.

So many of us can have the belief that we need to get eight hours of sleep, or we need to get a certain amount of sleep. The thing about that is anytime we read information about we should be getting a certain amount of sleep, it’s always just based on averages. It’s a bit like saying everyone should be five foot, 10 inches tall, just because that’s the average height.

I don’t know if that is, but I’m just guessing here, you know, that all I’m just getting at is it’s just one of these things that’s based on averages. So there are always going to be happy, healthy people that exist outside of these averages and. Just like with our height, we can’t control sleep duration.

We can use our behaviors in a way that creates good conditions for sleep, but in terms of how much sleep we’re going to get, we have no control over that. And often we get most caught up in the struggle when we do try and control that. They don’t need to aim for eight hours or seven hours of sleep. You know, they just need to allot an appropriate amount of time for sleep.

You know, give themselves the opportunity to get sleep. And the body is always going to generate, at the very least, the bare minimum amount of sleep we need, no matter what, as long as we’re giving it the opportunity to generate sleep. We never lose the ability to sleep. So it’s really about just trying to not control things that we cannot control.

And sleep duration is one of the things that we can’t control, unfortunately.

Carrie: Are there any helpful tips for people who just have a hard time shutting their mind off, want to go to sleep?

Martin Reed: Yeah, definitely. Well, I think first and foremost is making sure we only go to bed when we’re. Truly sleepy enough for sleep.

I’m talking about finding it hard to stay awake because our sleep drive system will always overpower like that arousal system or the mental chatter. Once it’s strong enough, no matter what, without fail, it might take a night or two, but sleep will always happen. That sleep drive will always be strong enough at some point.

So we can always get ourselves one step ahead by making sure we only go to bed when there’s that strong sense of sleepiness. And then in terms of all that mental chatter, all the mental gymnastics, really all that is, it’s our brain looking out for us. You know, it’s not our brain trying to cause us problems.

It’s like our brain is being a really overly enthusiastic friend who’s trying so hard to help us out. It’s just kind of getting in the way. I think just recognizing that, you know, this isn’t an adversarial relationship. It’s just our brain trying too hard to help us out. That can be helpful. And just recognizing that that’s what our brain does.

Our brain’s number one priority is to look out for us. Often we get most caught up in all this mental stuff when we quite understandably try to fight them or avoid these thoughts, these feelings, these emotions, because they’re unpleasant. So naturally we don’t want to experience them. But unfortunately, that’s when we usually get most caught up in the struggle, trying to fight them, trying to suppress them.

It’s not usually helpful over the long term. Short term, sometimes we can like push feelings and thoughts away. They always come back and then when they come back, they tend to be stronger. It’s a bit like pushing a beach ball down under the water. You know, it’s just going to push back harder and harder the more we try and push it away.

Sometimes I think it’s just helpful to recognize like, this is my mind looking out for me. I’m feeling, identifying and acknowledging everything you’re feeling. This is my anxiety coming back. This is my frustration, my anger, whatever it is you’re feeling, just identifying it, labeling it, recognizing it, not trying to fight it or push it away can be really helpful.

Just the fact that we’re thinking Thinking certain things or our mind is racing doesn’t mean we’re not going to be able to sleep. We can still sleep when we have difficult thoughts and difficult feelings and difficult emotions, but it becomes a lot more difficult for that to happen when we try and get engaged in controlling them and pushing them away or trying to avoid them, trying to fight them.

And I think, you know, as a last resort was if you’re just spending a lot of time in bed and it really just does not feel good to be in bed. It might be helpful to just get out of bed and just do something a bit more pleasant until conditions feel a bit better for sleep.

Carrie: I wanted to share that I know what it’s like to not be able to sleep.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had very intense restless leg syndrome, and nothing would relieve that. There wasn’t any medication that I could safely take while pregnant. I remember just crying and begging God in the middle of the night that I would just be able to sleep. I will say that God didn’t always give me rest during those periods, but what he did give me.

was his strength and power to keep going through those difficult times until I could get to a place where I could sleep again. One thing that often troubles us and keeps us up at night is stressing about not sleeping. We will watch the clock. We will think, Oh, I only have three more hours and then I have to get up for work or, Oh, no, what if I can’t fall back asleep?

It’s 2 a. m. right now. So if you can come to an acceptance of things outside of your control, even though you can create the optimal environment for sleep. That may not mean that you get the sleep that you need. That’s a hard thing when you feel like, okay, well, I’m avoiding the caffeine, and I have a dark, cool room at night, and I’m going to bed around the same time, and I’m, etc.,

etc. All the things that people tell you to do. So what we can do is do the best that we can, and then we have to rest everything else in God’s hands. So Martin there really gave us tip number two, which I labeled as resist the urge to fight your inner experience. We talk about this a lot on the podcast, learning to be in a state of mindfulness.

It takes practice. It takes intentionality. It is not going to happen overnight. But learning to really be present and say, Okay, I’m feeling angry. I can sit with that for a moment. I can be curious about it. I don’t have to immediately make it go away. I don’t have to immediately judge it. I can create space and allowance for this emotion, and in doing so, that often gives the freedom for that emotion to dissipate.

Emotions are like waves. They will come up, and they will go down. If we try to block them or stop them at some point, it usually makes the entire process last longer, and we end up in a longer period of suffering than we really need to be in. Mindfulness helps you create a sense of distress tolerance, being able to tolerate difficult thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.

And our third tip is to reflect. On if there is something God is trying to speak to you. This comes way back from episode 51, Surrendering Our Insomnia to God with Dr. Charles Page. And he shares how he handles being woken up in the middle of the night. As I know some of you feel like, hey, I can fall asleep just fine, but then I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back to sleep.

So this tip is for you.

Dr. Charles Page: Sleep was God’s idea. We were created to sleep. And I think one of the big ideas that the scriptures tells us, and it kind of fits in with the rest of our lives. One of the reasons I think we were to sleep is God really wanted us to turn off. You think about the creation story, I mean, starting in Genesis one, it says in the evening and the morning were the first day.

And so it’s funny, you know, we get it the other way around. We think, well, you know, when the day starts, when the sun comes up, when I get up in the morning, that’s when the day starts. When a competing thought or worrying thought enters our mind, we can’t just take it out of our mind because it’ll boomerang back into our thinking.

We have to replace it. And that’s where meditation comes in. For example, Philippians chapter four, you know, talks about there’s anything good, anything noble, you know, think about these things, just talking about that kind of that art of meditation. And I think that’s so key for us, you know, because, you know, you show me your focus, I’ll show you your future.

And as we begin to focus on the scriptures, It begins to fill our minds with the good stuff. You can even go back to the Psalms. For example, if you think about David, one of the Psalms is the fourth Psalm. It was an evening Psalm that David prayed when he was going through the toughest time in his life.

This was when Absalom had usurped the throne and he was running for his life, crossing the sea. Jordan River. I mean, just multiple stuff that was robbing him of sleep. And as he goes through this process, you know, at the end, he says in Psalm 48, I will lay me down in peace and sleep for you, O Lord, let me dwell in safety.

And so this process of prayer and meditation, I think, is huge. For me, when I am woken up in the middle of the night, one thing that I’ve learned to do many times. When I’m kind of tossing and turning in my bed is take a step back and listen to God. Sometimes those are opportunities that God is trying to get our attention.

I think most of us in the culture that we live, man, we’re going so fast during the day that we don’t have time to really stop and listen. God wants to speak to us and sometimes He has to wake us up at night to get our attention. In 1 Samuel, you know, the story of Samuel, he has a little boy and he’s there and he’s there at the temple with Eli and he’s going to sleep, you know.

God’s saying, Samuel, Samuel, when he gets up and goes to Eli, it’s back and forth, you know, and all the time God’s trying to get his attention to give him a message and he doesn’t catch it. And I wonder how many times I’ve done that. It’s actually an opportunity to meet with God and think about what Samuel would have missed out on if he hadn’t.

He would have never stopped and heard that when that was the beginning of a series of steps that set Samuel in the direction. So often when I’m waking up in the middle of the night, just kind of keeping in my mind, you know, God, are you saying something to me? And sometimes he’s not. I always try to keep a journal at the bedside because, you know, sometimes a thought will come into my mind.

It may be just a random thought, or it may be something that’s really something that God has woken us up to tell us.

Carrie: To sum up, our sleep tips are the three R’s. Rule in or out any physical causes that may be causing sleep disruption. Two, resist the urge to fight your inner experience. And three, reflect on if there is something God is trying to speak to you.

I hope these tips helped you, and if they did, feel free to share with a friend.

To receive weekly encouragement, find out about our monthly Meet the Podcast host Zoom meetings, and receive information on exclusive sales, become an email insider today. All you have to do is go to carriebock.com and scroll towards the bottom of the page.

You’ll find a spot to put in your email and receive a free download in your inbox from us.

154: Using Christian Meditation to Go Deeper with God, an interview with Jennifer Tucker

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD –  New Year’s Desires Series (because who needs resolutions when we can focus on renewal and intention?). 

For the first part of this series, Carrie sits down with Jennifer Tucker—author, artist, and illustrator—for a heartfelt conversation about finding peace and renewal through Scripture. They explore how we can draw closer to God, even when life feels overwhelming.

Episode Highlights:

  • Jennifer’s personal journey of learning to be present with God amidst chaos.
  • Shifting from informational to transformational Bible reading.
  • Finding peace through stillness, even during life’s most challenging seasons.
  • What is Lectio Divina, and how can it deepen your spiritual journey?
  • How to embody God’s Word throughout your day.

Episode Summary:

As we step into 2025, I’m shifting the focus from just New Year’s resolutions to deeper desires. Maybe you’re feeling called to dive into Bible reading or connect with God in a fresh, meaningful way this year.

This episode is all about nurturing that desire. I’m joined by Jennifer Tucker, who you may remember from Episode 75, where she shared her wisdom on using breath prayers to manage anxiety. Today, she’s introducing us to a more contemplative approach to engaging with Scripture—one that invites us to slow down and reflect, allowing God’s word to truly transform us.

We talked about how different seasons of life call for different ways to approach Bible reading. Whether it’s following a chronological plan, doing a deeper study, or simply being present with God’s word, it’s about finding what helps you connect with Him in your current season.

Jennifer shares her personal journey of learning to be present in Scripture, even when life feels chaotic. She reminds us that there is no “right” way to read the Bible—what matters most is showing up and being open to God’s presence.

If you’re tired of the pressure to “get it right” with your spiritual practice, this episode is for you. Let’s let go of the pressure to perform and simply rest in His presence this year.

Explore Related Episode:

Related links and Resources:

Little House Studio

Present in Prayer

Breath as Prayer

Carrie: Happy new year and January, everybody. I know that when I talk to different people, we talk about new year’s resolutions, but this year I really want to focus on what’s your desire for 2025. Because a lot of times we really act out of our desires. And I know that I’ve spoken with many people who are Christians and have a desire to really grow closer to the Lord in 2025, really dive into Bible reading, maybe in a different way than you have before.

And so this episode is going to be really great for that.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Kiri Bach. I’m a Christ follower. wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian. Sharing, hopeful stories of healing, helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you. Let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

We’re talking today with Jen Tucker, who we had on the show before. Welcome back Jen.

Jen: Hi, thanks so much for having me again.

Carrie: Yeah, Jennifer Tucker joined us to talk about her book, Breath as Prayer, back in episode 75. And that is a episode that a lot of people have listened to, and I think really resonated with being able to use breath prayers for anxiety.

So if you guys haven’t listened to that episode, check it out after you listen to this one. We’re talking today about Christian meditation, using the Bible, and this process of Lectio Divina, which is an older way of looking at scripture. It’s not anything new, just something that you’ve really brought to us that’s been beneficial to you.

Jen: Yeah, it’s just another tool, another way that’s kind of helped me with my anxiety, but also just growing closer to God, too.

Carrie: You know, it’s interesting. There’s all these different ways to read the Bible. And I think I went through one with Priscilla Shire one time that had a bunch of Ps. I don’t remember exactly how that one went, but our church has been in this process of reading through the Bible chronologically in 2024.

So we did that. And it, that’s good. I think there’s a time and a place to understand the breadth of scripture and understand the story as a whole. But I told my husband, I’m really looking forward to 2025, kind of going a little bit deeper on some scripture passages. Tell us what the process of your Bible reading has been like at different points in your life.

Have you ever felt like I’m just here and it’s a checklist, I’m just showing up? Absolutely. Yeah.

Jen: Like you said, there’s lots of ways to read your Bible and there’s not like a right or wrong to this. So I’m not presenting this way of, Oh, this is the way you have to do it. This is just another option. I think as we grow in Christ and as we move through our journey with him, like you said, in different seasons and different periods of our life, there might be some times we lean more toward the deep study and the Bible studies and all of that.

And there might be times when we just need a simple practice. Of even just the breath prayers, where you just cling in one little verse at a time and I think, That’s okay. There’s no pressure to have to do it a certain way. That, for me, that’s where I was for so long. I felt like I wasn’t doing it right. I kept trying different things and it did become more like a checklist.

My quiet time with God was just, I need to check this off my list so I’m the quote unquote good Christian, you know, and doing all the things that I’m supposed to do so that I’m right with God and the pressure that I put on myself and the expectations of doing it perfectly or doing it the right way or having to try to come up with some kind of profound takeaway that I took with me each time.

That burned me out a lot from reading the Bible, too. And even the, I read through the Bible chronologically one year. It was great. Like you said, I think there’s a benefit to each type and it, throughout whichever season you’re in in your life, there might be easier to do it one way or another, but there’s no right or wrong, really.

The chronological, I don’t know that it was very beneficial in one way. It didn’t really go deep. I didn’t really, Linger with any part of the scripture because I was just trying to get through all the verses each day. Again, it became more like a checklist for me and I missed out on, it became more about doing this thing for God rather than being with him in scripture and really hearing his voice through his word and what is he speaking into my life and my circumstances given my feelings right now, my thoughts right now, what’s going on in my life right now.

And this practice of Lectio Divina has really helped me more. It’s definitely, it’s not a Bible study, which I think there’s definitely an importance in understanding the Bible in the context, in the historical context of the scripture passages. Lectio Divina is not that. It is really a way to deeply contemplate a very small portion of scripture and really kind of reading it in a way where.

Really slowly savoring those words until it really gets down into the marrow of who we are and we allow the Holy Spirit to really speak to us through those words and what does He have for me in that and how is that going to change me from the inside out through His power. And so that’s really what Lectio Divina is, it’s a slower way of looking at it.

It’s an intentional, there’s involved silence, prayer, reading, meditating, and then the last segment I have is embodying. So then going through the rest of my day, how do I embody this passage? I want

Carrie: to go back to how most of us, I think, were taught how to read the Bible, more like a textbook. You open it up and there’s chapter one, and what’s the intro to chapter one?

Who’s talking? Who’s it to? What’s the content? What’s it about? If we’re studying something for school, there’s supposed to be like a takeaway. I’m supposed to get something out of it. And you mentioned that a little bit earlier, approaching the Bible like, okay, I’m supposed to have some kind of revelation or feel like the Holy Spirit’s supposed to talk to me in some kind of deep way.

I’ve really had to learn that there’s a difference in my spirit, just even if I show up with the Bible, even if I read it, I might be a little bit half asleep, but it’s like food. I need that in my spirit, my spiritual food, and it doesn’t have to be this profound intellectual experience that maybe we feel like it has to be every single time.

Jen: Right, I think I used to read more for information, like just to gain that knowledge and know all the facts and know all the stories and it kind of, like you said, it became like a textbook. I need to know the Bible chapters in order. It was all about memorization and knowing all the things, but Lectio Divina is more about not reading for information, but reading for transformation.

And it’s that idea of just sitting with that scripture, just letting it sit. And yeah, it might hit you really deeply and it may not. You might feel like, I don’t know, I don’t really feel anything here. And that’s okay. I think that’s part of the process. It’s just creating that rhythm. Okay, every day I’m going to slow down this crazy busy life.

And I’m going to take a few deep breaths and I’m going to sit in silence with God and be very present to his presence in this moment with me as I’m sitting with scripture. It’s just a very different way to approach scripture, not looking for some great revelation, not trying to dig through and find, Oh, that’s what I need to cling to today, but just knowing, okay, I’m just going to sit with this little passage.

I may or may not, I’m not going to force anything to happen. I’m not going to try to make it to this great revelatory experience. Yeah, exactly. I may not find this deep peace. Although I do feel like over time, as we practice meditation, we will feel that that inner peace, because that comes from.

Recognizing God’s presence with us at all times and that’s where the true peace comes from. It’s not about manufacturing some kind of feeling or getting some kind of big revelation. It’s just learning to be okay with just sitting in the silence with God and with his word. And that’s really simple, but it’s hard to do.

Yes. It’s harder than you think.

Carrie: In present in prayer, you talked about a psychological study where there were people who had the choice of like sitting with their own thoughts. Or getting electric shock. And I think it was over half of the men chose the electric shock. And I was like, Whoa, this is a problem.

We really need to work on this as a society. We can’t sit with our own thought process. I imagine that for many people with OCD, they’re like, Oh, if it’s an obsession, I would totally choose the shock because that thought is terrifying. I don’t want to sit with that. How have you developed this practice of sitting in silence?

What has that been like for you? Was that super hard in the beginning?

Jen: Absolutely, it’s been hard. I think I feel this pressure that if I’m not doing something, I’m not producing something, then I’m not meeting up to whatever internal expectations I have for myself, or I’m wasting my time, or there’s better things I could be, or there’s just so much I have to do.

I have a child who needs my support a lot and I’m like, well, I have to do this so that she’s okay. I let other things take priority of that silence and take priority over my own self care as well because we do have a lot going on in our family and with specifically with my daughter who has been in and out of hospitals and treatment centers and things like that.

And so finding times to really be still and silent has been very much a challenge. And that’s where this book came out of. I wrote a lot of it when I was actually living away from home and I had to relocate for a little period of time because she was in daily treatment that I could not drive back and forth from home to, it was just too far, so we’re living out of a hotel or Airbnb for weeks.

So as I was writing this, I just felt so scattered and there was just so much going on and it was hard, it was a hard season. This writing of this book forced me to practice what I was writing and to get really still and just sit with God and be very present to his presence with me, which helped me through some really hard days.

Because as I went through the day and things got crazy and busy and we’re running around Atlanta and doing all this stuff, reminding myself over and over, God’s with me. He was with me in the silence. He’s with me in the chaos. He’s with me through it all. And that’s where. I was able to cling on to that piece that otherwise the storm of that season would have taken me under easily.

I don’t know if I answered your question or not, but it’s a hard thing to practice. It’s hard, especially if you’re in a hard season. But that’s kind of when I found I need it most. I really need to when things are crazy and chaotic. I need that stillness and silence even more than I can imagine.

Carrie: Yeah, I have developed this practice of And I never thought I would be like the quote morning person because I’ve always loved my sleep.

When you’re a mom of a two and a half year old and I have a husband who has some disability, when I get up in the morning before everybody else in the household, that’s great time for quiet and peace and contemplation because No one needs anything from me yet. Right. Once the day gets going, it’s, Mommy this, and look at that, and I want to watch TV.

And even, I’ve realized though, within myself, listening to podcasts all the time, I think there’s this tendency a lot for us to just fill the voice. And we put on the TV, even for background noise, so we don’t need it. People have YouTube going, or they have a podcast, or, We have phone apps now where you could do all the things.

You can watch TV or sports or whatever. And we haven’t really practiced this, so we are uncomfortable with it. And I just want to remind our audience, discomfort is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, that’s how we stretch and grow and expand. The seed has to break open to come up and for something to shoot up and grow.

The caterpillar has to break out of the cocoon in order to fly. Practicing a little bit of discomfort is really good for our body. distress tolerance, which helps us with anxiety and things like that. I want to ask you too about sometimes meditation in Christian circles, it gets a bad rap because people say, Oh no, that’s a Eastern practice.

Just wanted to ask you about how do you see Christian meditation being different from just secular forms of meditation?

Jen: Right. Yeah. I’ve had a bit of pushback in that area to just the idea of meditation. And I understand it. I get it because I used to be there too. I don’t know. That sounds a little too new age.

I don’t know if I should be doing that, but honestly, and it’s true, there’s a lot of forms of meditation. There’s lots of ways to meditate and it’s used all around the world in lots of different religions. A lot of the ones that have become more trendy and popular in recent days and recent years, Are rooted more in Buddhism and those types of practices.

So I can understand the hesitation, but Christian meditation as Christians, we don’t need to be wary of meditating because the Bible throughout scripture tells us specifically to meditate on his word day and night to hide it in our hearts. Like, we’re told directly to meditate. And I think the difference is, because meditation, just as a general practice, is all about just kind of focusing our mind, simplifying and quieting the noise around us, and kind of just learning how to focus.

And so for Christians, The focus of our thoughts becomes God’s word. We’re not trying to empty our minds of all thought, we’re not trying to look for that inner answer to all the things in the world or find our peace within ourselves. We’re turning our minds and our hearts to God. We’re turning toward recognizing his presence with us in the present moment.

So even practices like mindfulness and those types of things, those are wonderful practices that actually can help draw us closer to God. But it really depends on your motivation and where is your focus at. And I think meditation as a Christian is not only okay, completely okay, but I think the Bible asks us to do that.

It’s a practice. God knows we need times of stillness and focus on his word. He didn’t create our bodies and us to move at these breakneck speeds with no time to rest and we’re go, go, go all the time. He made us to need that stillness. and silence. And I think we find as we do that, not only will it help connect us to him, but it helps our bodies physically.

It helps our mental health as well. So there’s lots of benefits. We can’t deny the scientific benefits of the practice of meditation. Like it’s proven, it’s study after study has shown. How beneficial it can be to our overall well being. As Christians, we don’t need to like, Oh, no, that’s science. That has nothing to do with our faith.

No, it’s all interrelated. Our brains, our bodies, our soul, all of it’s interrelated. And as Christians, we get to tap into the Word of God, into His power on top of all that.

Carrie: I think it’s so cool when science lines up with the Bible and people talk about, this is a little bit of a tangent, but talking about like forgiveness and scientists will tell you about the benefits of forgiveness on your body.

And I’m like, well, yes, God wants us to do this. It’s for our own health and wellbeing and spiritual connection with him. Like we need forgiveness in our lives. I appreciate that. I talk to clients about mindfulness a lot as well. If we don’t know what’s going on internally, if I don’t know what I’m feeling, then it’s really hard for me to connect with God and say, Hey, God, I’m feeling this sense of anger.

Recently, I was like, I have this jealousy that I need to deal with in my life. But if I don’t, open myself up to developing that awareness and I just fly through life, then I’m not able to deal with that and say, okay, how do I unpack this with God in a healthy way so that I end up on the other side being the person that God desires for me to be, and that I desire to be?

Jen: And that takes a lot of intention, like, you have to be very intentional about it. Because otherwise, the day will just kind of fly right by. So you have to be intentional about taking those moments to do that deeper inner work that a lot of us just kind of, I’ll get to that later, I’ll do that another time.

There’s too many other things outside to do and get done. But we neglect that inner work that is so important to how we then live out our

Carrie: outer life. There’s so much in the Bible about that. Out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks, is like one scripture I’m thinking of. Just that We have to have this internal transformation or like you can’t bear fruit unless you abide in the vines.

What does that mean? And I think we focus so much on behavior, on how can I change my behavior, that’s an external focusing on the true change comes from internal. But I think because it’s harder to measure that, we aren’t always aware of how that’s taking place, that we get discouraged or frustrated by that.

But if we submit ourselves to the Lord and to that transformational process, I think that’s just a big piece of it, us being willing to submit to the Holy Spirit’s work in our life and not block that by our own. Oh, I can do that on my own.

Jen: And I think we, a lot of times, speaking of the fruit of the Spirit, and I touch on a little in the book, but we can’t make the fruit produce, like we can’t make fruit grow.

That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to abide in Him, and then the natural consequence of that is going to be we’re going to produce the fruit. We’re going to be more like Him the more time we spend with Him. But I think for a lot of time, I was like, Oh, I got to make this happen. Okay. So I need to be gentleness.

Okay. I have to be gentle in everything I do. How can I do that? Then I make another checklist of all the things I have to do to make that fruit appear in my life. When really it’s not supposed to be that hard work, that hard at it. All we need to do is abide in him. And what does that look like? Spending time with him, getting close to him, and abiding, there’s a lot of stillness involved in that.

It’s not a do this, do that, it’s a being with him. And that shift, and that’s so hard for us in our culture especially, to make that shift of, it’s not something you have to produce. That’s something the Holy Spirit will produce in you as you rest in Him. That’s why yoke is easy and His burden is light.

It’s not supposed to be so hard. It’s just when you’re with Him, He’s going to help you make that transformation internally. He’s going to do that work as we, again, surrender to Him and just spend time with Him and allow Him to do that work in us.

Carrie: We talked about silence in the Theodovina process.

There’s prayer involved, there’s reading through the scripture slowly, intentionally. Tell us a little bit more about that process.

Jen: Yeah, I lay out a framework that involves five different elements. We have the silence, prayer, reading, meditating, and then embody, but it’s not like a sequential thing where you have to, okay, I have to be silent, then pray, then meditate, then this, but really it kind of overlaps and flows all together into one and you can make it your own and individualize it as you want.

There is a time you begin, usually I begin with silence, and a lot of times I’ll pray breath prayer, something to kind of just calm and get in that moment and then pray to God. Start with prayer. I did put guided prayers throughout, but the idea is that this is time between you and God. So your prayers are going to hopefully eventually just be your own conversation with him, inviting him into this moment and into this space.

being mindful of his presence with you in that moment. As you then approach a small portion of scripture, just a few verses, read through it. And I give three different points of meditation. You don’t have to do all three each time. Maybe there’s just one you focus on. Maybe there’s, depending on your time, depending on just whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to do in that time.

But the first one is about just one word or phrase stands out to you from that little passage. And then meditating, focusing just on that thought and sitting in silence again and allowing the Holy Spirit to kind of speak, what do you have for me here? Why did that word stand out to me, God? Taking time to not just talk at God, but just sit, listen, just be silent and listen.

We’re not used to doing that, but that’s training the ears of our heart to really hear his voice. Not an audible voice, but we’ll hear it. And his nudging in our soul. You may not. Honestly, there’s maybe times when you don’t, and that’s okay too. Again, we’re not trying to make it happen. We’re not gonna force some kind of crazy experience here.

It’s just allowing yourself to be silent and be open to his whispers and his words through that passage. Another way you can meditate on that scripture is to pray through it, just phrase by phrase or word by word, just taking time to pause. As you read and pray to God through that passage, then the third thing is to consider what invitation God might be giving you.

This is where we consider what your thoughts are. You might have some racing thoughts, some intrusive thoughts, some things happening in your mind. Be aware of that. Take those to God. Consider what those thoughts are. Consider your feelings, how your body is feeling, what your emotions are in that time, and also your circumstances of your life.

Given all those things. What might God be inviting you to do or to embrace after reading this passage? Like what is in there that maybe he’s leading you to say, and he wants you just to give that thought to him. Like maybe there’s a pressing thought that just keeps barraging your brain and maybe he’s inviting you to give that to him and to, Maybe focus on something else.

I don’t know. It’s going to be a very personal thing to each person and a hundred people could read the same passage and get something else out of it because it can be very personal to you. And then the last segment is to embody it. I just give a couple of prompts. Okay. Now, as you move through your day and things get crazy and you get busy, What’s something you can cling to from this to help to focus on that transformation that God’s doing in you?

You don’t have to make it happen, but what’s some way you could participate in that transformation? What’s a way you can kind of be aware of that as you move through your day? We don’t just close our Bible and then, Oh, that’s it. That part of my life is closed and done and he will become a part of you and influence how you walk through your day.

Yeah. The more time we spend with him. So that’s kind of the layout and the framework, but again, it can be very personal and it’s just a matter of being intentional about slowing down and getting quiet and just zeroing in on a very small part of scripture and focusing your mind just on that. One tiny truth or that one tiny word even it can be just one word and then think about that through the day as you go through your day too and that just that reshifting and turning and returning again to that thought, it makes it more of a habit and it kind of that whole rewiring the brain and making new neural pathways that kind of as you shift how you respond to stress, how you respond to the things that happen in your life to let me turn back to what was that one word?

What was that one phrase? And just doing that, then it becomes more natural and more automatic as you go through your day.

Carrie: Yeah, in terms of our feeling experience as we’re going through this process, I think it’s so easy for us to say, God, take this feeling away, take this fear away, take this loneliness away.

For me recently, I think I’ve felt a little isolated on my motherhood journey because I have some great friends that don’t have children or yeah, I mean, I would say a lot of people that are married or single that just don’t have children and that kind of is who is in my life and I’ve really wanted to develop more her.

mother friends. And so through this process of praying and just opening myself, okay, God, yes, I want you to bring community into my life. What is my role in this? God really put it on my heart to create something or to put myself out there to say, hey, in a local Facebook group, hey, are there any like working moms there that would like to be connected?

Because a lot of times you’ll find things for stay at home moms, they can be kind of get together pretty easily and they have more time to get together. And so it’s a more natural flow where I was like, Hey, is anybody interested in this? And just was able to meet with a few recently at the library just to talk about mom things and feel really seen and heard and understood.

But that never would have come had I not experienced that discomfort of loneliness.

Jen: Yeah, our feelings are not the enemy. It’s okay to feel those things and those can be just those signposts where God’s guiding you in a certain direction. And you’re right. We don’t pray away our fear. We don’t pray away these feelings.

That’s not the goal of prayer at all. And it’s not about changing our circumstances or the chaos that we’re in. Like the last few years have been really, really hard for us personally. My daughter’s been in and out, like I said, of hospitals and treatment and very sick. And that didn’t get better. And we’re still on that road.

Even though I’ve prayed and we’ve done all the things, you know, for, there was a time when I thought, God, I did all the things, why aren’t you coming through? Why aren’t you healing? I prayed for healing and you didn’t heal. He did not heal. But what it does is it changes us through that crisis, like through that chaos.

It gives us the strength to remain in the hard things. And as the storm rages, we can you. be stronger through it, which is crazy because it’s like threatening to totally uproot you, but you can actually find so much strength and these practices that we make a part of our rhythm can really keep us attached to him.

I like to say breath prayer was the thing that tethered me to Christ during crisis and meditation has been what’s anchored me through the longer lasting like storms that have just continued to go. And so I need those tethers. I need those anchors. I need those things to keep me grounded in him.

Otherwise, yeah, when it gets hard and those prayers don’t get answered the way I want them to, it’s easy to get disheartened and discouraged. And so that I have to remind myself over and over. That God’s with me, He hasn’t changed, He still loves us, He’s still at work, He hasn’t stopped. And these practices help me to do that and help me in a way that helps calm that anxiety and that fear and all that can become out of control for me.

And while at the same time, really deepening my faith in ways that I never anticipated before all of this. Yeah, it’s not about getting an answer. It’s about clinging to him through it all.

Carrie: Present in Prayer, and I’ll hold it up for anybody that’s watching on YouTube, Present in Prayer is out and look for it where books are sold.

So there’s 30 opportunities in here. To practice this framework, and I love how you divided it up by Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right. And there’s different activities under each of those. It’s a way to really maybe read the Bible in a different way than you have before or spend time with God in a little bit different way.

Then you have before and it doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to do it. It’s not a 30 days devotional life. You can pick it up and do it a day or two and put it down and do a different type of quiet time and come back to it and pick it back up. I love that freedom and flexibility surrounding it too.

Well thank you for coming and certainly sharing your wisdom with all of us and I’m glad to have had you back on the show. I think that this is an important topic for everyone to be exploring.

Jen: Thank you so much. I really love talking to you.

153. What if I Can’t Relax? How to Start

In today’s episode, Carrie discusses the challenge of finding true relaxation when your mind is constantly racing. She offers insights on how our bodies hold onto stress and provides practical tips on how to begin retraining our brains and nervous system for relaxation.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why relaxation can feel impossible when you’re constantly performing
  • The value of rest, as Jesus exemplified, and how to apply it in your own life
  • How to begin retraining your brain and body to embrace relaxation, even in small doses
  • Practical tips on mindfulness and distress tolerance to help you relax and be present
  • How to use spiritual practices and reflection to discover the root of your tension and find healin.

Episode Summary:

Do you ever feel like your mind is constantly racing, and your body is tight, tense, and unable to let go? 

Why is it so hard to relax? In our Western culture, we place a lot of value on performance and productivity. We’re constantly running, whether it’s in our jobs, parenting, or personal health. But Jesus, our Savior, modeled a life of simplicity and focus on God’s will, not on personal achievement or status. As Christians, our worth isn’t based on what we do but on God’s love and purpose for us.

If you’re finding it hard to relax, it might be due to a cycle of constant performance – whether for your boss, your family, or even for God. But the truth is, God wants us to honor Him by finding balance and rest.

Sometimes, the struggle to relax also stems from our past – whether from growing up in a high-stress environment or dealing with trauma. Our nervous systems often remain on high alert long after the threat is gone.

Relaxation isn’t just about taking a break—it’s about retraining our minds and bodies to slow down and trust in God’s timing. In this episode, I’ll guide you through practical steps you can start using right now where you can fully disconnect from the hustle and experience true relaxation. 

Tune in for more insights and practical tools to find deeper peace in your mind and body, and learn how to grow in your walk with God while overcoming OCD.

Explore Related Episode:

Do you feel like your mind is always going, just constant movement, constant thought process? Is your body just so tensed up and tight? Your stomach’s tight or your chest feels constantly tight? These are the kinds of things that I hear about from clients regularly. I just can’t seem to relax. My body just won’t be able to let go.

So I thought it would be a good time right before hopefully you have some time off to talk about what to do if you can’t relax and how to get started with that process.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bach. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

with practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Before I forget, I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone. A week from today is Christmas Day, so we won’t be producing an episode that week. It will be worth the wait, though, because on January 1st, I have Jen Tucker back on the podcast. If you remember, we did an episode back with her on breath prayers, so catch up on that one during Christmas week if you haven’t already listened to it.

Jen is coming back on the show to talk with us about a ancient form of Christian meditation that she’s implemented in her own life to help her grow deeper in her walk with God as well as reduce anxiety. So it’s a great episode when you’re not going to want to miss. What if you feel like you can’t relax?

You may even be asking yourself this question, why is it that I have difficult time relaxing? One reason is that we place so much value, especially in Western culture, I don’t know if it’s the same in other cultures around the world, but we place so much value on performance. And what are you doing? We don’t place a high value on rest, which means that we’re constantly trying to run around and be productive.

We’re productive in our parenting by taking our kids to extracurricular activities. We’re productive in our work life by producing something and then, oh, we have to have a side hustle because Jenny down the street does and she wants to get out of her corporate job. Not really asking ourself if that is even right for this time or season in our life.

Then we’ve got to be productive in our health, doing some type of exercise, workout program, hit this, or, oh, I’m doing this XYZ cleanse on my body. I’m not that crunchy, but these are the things that you hear people talk about, right? Everybody’s like, We have to have goals and what’s your goal for your life right now and achievement, achievement, achievement.

We take that and create some type of meaning about ourselves. Here’s the deal though. When you look at Jesus, we’re trying to follow a Savior who wasn’t about self promotion. In fact, a lot of times when he did miracles or certain things for people he would say, don’t tell anybody. Of course, they were just healed, so they were telling everybody, but he was almost like trying to keep things under the radar until the right time or didn’t want.

People didn’t necessarily make a big deal out of him. Jesus didn’t have a fancy house. He didn’t own a lot of land. He was so focused on what does God want for me today? And just a beautiful thing about that that I am reflecting on is that sometimes that meant taking time with a Samaritan woman at the well, talking to someone who Was at a different racial, class, socio economic level, maybe, than he was.

Sometimes it meant hanging out with the quote, sinners. What was most important to Jesus wasn’t the activity. It wasn’t the money, obviously. It was about really ministering to people and pleasing God. Loving God, loving others. That’s what we need to get back to when we boil it all down as Christians. Our value is not even based on how much quote religious activity we’re engaged in because unfortunately there’s some people listening right now who are doing so much at church that you are on the brink of burnout.

I’ve been there, I know how that is, and you feel like, well, got to do all these things for God. In order for God to be pleased with me to one reason we might not be able to relax is because we are in this frenzy of performance. I want you to evaluate, is that you? Are you trying to constantly perform for your boss, for your spouse, for your kids, for God?

The reality is that we need to have an audience of one and constantly be filtering what we’re doing through, are we honoring and serving God and doing the things that He wants us to do? We’re told to seek His kingdom first and everything else will follow. By dropping your internal performance requirements for yourself, that’s going to get you into a healthier place to be able to change your mindset in order to relax.

Sometimes we have to shift our mind and our body will follow. Sometimes we really have to work on calming our body, and that will help us relax our mind. Those are those two different helpful ways, and we have to know how to do both of those, because our minds and bodies are constantly interacting. It may be time to reflect on whether or not you saw your parents relax and take time off.

Was dad working 70 hours a week and that’s just what you knew therefore followed suit with that? Maybe even you had a stay at home mom But she was constantly running or constantly going or constantly cleaning something and she couldn’t ever just sit down and watch TV Or couldn’t ever just sit down in silence Maybe you’re struggling because you’ve come out of a difficult season where you did have to be on high alert You Due to some type of trauma or due to being in a toxic work environment.

Maybe you’ve gotten out of an unhealthy relationship and your nervous system, a lot of times, it takes time for it to come down, recalibrate, and adjust to what’s actually happening right now. If you have not heard, trauma is not something that’s just stored in your brain, it’s stored in your body as well.

Oftentimes our body has not caught up to what our brain already knows. This is why people come into counseling and say, I know that OCD is being ridiculous. I know when I’m in a clear headspace these things are not true, but they feel intensely true and my body is responding in a real way to the sphere.

And I’m like, yes, it is. Learning to regulate your nervous system in small doses is the key here. That’s what I want you to pick up as a main point from this entire episode. You are literally having to retrain your brain and body if you’re in that high alert, fight, flight, or freeze state constantly. And there are some people who come in And what I say is, it’s like their nervous system is on fire.

So if your nervous system is on fire, number one, please remember that medication is an option for you. And know that there isn’t a quick fix to this. It’s going to take some time to re regulate your nervous system, to re train your brain. There’s no magic wand that we can zap over you and help you to be more calm, but it is going to take consistent retraining where you say to yourself, all right, let me sit here for one minute and not do anything.

If you’re one of those people that’s constantly on the go, constantly moving, constantly performing. Just take a minute to sit and purposefully not do anything because what that’s doing is it’s telling your brain This is okay. The first time you do it, it’s gonna be super uncomfortable. Just prepare yourself for that You’re not gonna know what to do with yourself.

You might be fidgety. You might be feeling not so great But the more that you do that and then slowly kind of increase some of that time like okay nervous system I just want you to know We’re just sitting here, we are valuing rest, we are valuing relaxation, we are valuing what the scripture teaches us about Sabbath, that is one of the big reasons for Sabbath is to rest in the dependency that we have in God, it’s not all about us.

That one minute that you’re sitting there not performing and doing anything. It’s a great time to start practicing mindfulness. What mindfulness does is it increases our awareness and helps us develop what we call distress tolerance. Distress tolerance is what it sounds like. It’s your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions, to tolerate anxiety, anger, sadness, whatever is coming up in your internal experience.

mindfulness. It helps you be able to tolerate the distress of thoughts that are there while at the same time creating this third person perspective where you’re becoming an observer of your own experience without being caught up in the middle of it. Becoming an observer, being curious about your experience, allows you to increase your awareness of what’s actually going on in the present moment.

And when you are able to isolate the present from the past and the future, that reduces a lot of distress. Because we only have to worry about right now. I can’t fix tomorrow. It’s like Jesus said, let tomorrow worry about itself. It’s another day. I think a lot of times people try to practice mindfulness or meditation and they give up too early because it’s hard and it’s uncomfortable and it’s not a clear one, two, three step process to a new life.

It is a deeper level work. It’s an introspective level work that often we’re not taught how to do that. Going back to, we just stay busy and we focus on doing. God is not just interested in what we do, God is interested in who we are. So if we’re going to have true character formation, we have to go a little bit deeper.

I want to give you a little bit of an example of something that as I’m recording this I’m processing through in my own life. I’ve been noticing that I’ve been more irritable lately and noticing that and it has allowed me to pray about that. Ask God, okay, what is going on in my spirit? What is happening with me emotionally that is causing me to be more irritable?

Irritability is getting in the way of me producing the fruits of the Spirit that I want to be producing, like patience and kindness. Becoming aware of this process within myself and my recent behavior allows me to confess this to God and it allows me to become curious and to say, Okay, God, I am submitting myself.

To the transformational work in the Holy Spirit. I cannot do this on my own. I cannot fix this irritability on my own Give me wisdom and guidance and I’ve asked so many questions. Like what is contributing to this? Is this a Physiological change hormonal change that’s happening. Is there something that I’m angry about?

Is there someone that I haven’t forgiven that I need to forgive? It’s a process. It doesn’t happen necessarily all at once. As you’re reflecting and maybe taking this difficulty to relax before the Lord, God will give you wisdom. God will give you spiritual peace. God will give you guidance on whatever your next step is.

But if we don’t take the time to even sit and acknowledge, Hey, this is an issue. And I know for my, the betterment of my physical, emotional and spiritual health, I want to be able to learn how to relax, how to let go, how to trust, how to really know deep in my soul that God is in control. I don’t have to control everything in my environment.

What we’re talking about is sanctification. This process of becoming more like Christ, and for me, meditating on scriptures about anger, I want to be slow to become angry. For you, it might be meditating on scriptures that have to do with Sabbath or trust or that God loves you. Really allowing those scriptures to sink down deeply into you.

Another thing I will tell you in terms of being able to relax is that sometimes we can put too much pressure on ourselves to relax. I don’t know if you’ve ever been at the doctor’s office or getting a massage and they’re telling you to relax and then you’re having struggles like, Oh no, now that I’m thinking about trying to relax, it’s just really hard to.

I had a situation with a doctor where they were trying to look at my throat and she had the dreaded tongue depressor on my tongue and I felt like I was going to gag. So she tells me just to relax. I’m like, okay, Carrie, I understand this. Because when you’re anxious, one of the things that can happen is that your throat can close up.

I don’t know if my throat was constricting or if my tongue was, like, stiff. I don’t know what was going on, but clearly she knew that I was having trouble at this moment. And I also thought, how do you relax when somebody has this tongue depressor so far back in there? It’s a trouble. But I did breathe, and I think we were able to get the throat looked at.

This is why sometimes people will say that deep breathing exercises don’t work for them. First of all, some people do have obsessions about breathing when they start to focus on their breathing. So notice if that’s you, you probably don’t want to be doing deep breathing exercises. And there may be other people who do deep breathing exercises where they don’t get obsessions, but they get so focused on trying really hard to relax that it actually makes them more tense because they don’t feel a level of safety in order to be able to relax.

Typically, that’s a trauma response to something that’s happened in your life, like your nervous system is like, no, that feels too vulnerable to relax. Sometimes it may be difficult to relax in front of other people where you feel like you can’t actually relax on your own. That’s also a thing. I had to learn this very early working with clients with chronic anxiety or PTSD to be super nonchalant about if they weren’t able to relax in session and just roll with it and try something different.

Now, with Parth’s work, we’re able to explore a little bit more. Okay, well tell me about that part that doesn’t feel safe to relax or that part that feels like it has to be going all the time or has to be performing. Maybe there’s a sense that you feel like you have to be managing or somehow on all the time, if that makes sense.

In your process of learning to relax, I want you to see if you can find some things that bring you joy. It’s okay to let go and have a little fun. We don’t have to be serious all the time. Is there a movie or TV show that just makes you laugh out loud? I’ve shared about this before, but one of the things that I find relaxing is Paint by Numbers, because I don’t have to think about what color I have to paint it.

I don’t have to think about freehanding something, which, first of all, I do not have the artistic talent for, but it’s a slow, kind of steady, easygoing process. I can do a little bit and then put it down for a little while. I can come back to it. And it feels good for me to be creative. Maybe you’re not a creative person, but you like fixing things or tinkering with different projects.

Maybe you find just laying out in the sunshine to be relaxing. Some people like baths. They find those as relaxing. I went through a period with that. I can find baking relaxing sometimes, I don’t do that as much anymore, but there was a period of my life where work was really crazy, I never knew what was going to be thrown at me, but I knew that I could come home, throw some ingredients together, put it in the oven, and come out with banana bread, and something felt really wonderful and magical about that because it was predictable when everything else was not predictable.

What is it for you? What is a small step that you can take to retrain your brain to learn that relaxing is okay, and that you can relax and let go a little bit? Don’t try to change this one overnight. But if you do have some type of trauma in your past that you feel like is keeping you from being able to relax, I would say definitely find a trauma therapist, somebody that can do some type of EMDR, brain spotting, something that’s really going to get your brain and your body engaged in the process.

Somatic experiencing is also really great. Wherever you are in your journey, remember to just be very kind to yourself. And remember, these small steps, even one minute of mindfulness can add up and cause a ripple effect to bigger change. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person. and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Law Counseling.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for, seeking mental health treatment in your area.

152. Struggling with Motivation in OCD Therapy? A 4 step process to get going!

In this episode, Carrie shares practical insights on overcoming barriers to motivation, especially when dealing with OCD. She breaks down how to identify what’s holding you back, practice self-compassion, and approach challenges with grace and curiosity. 

Episode Highlight:

  • Why it’s hard to motivate yourself, even when you want to make changes
  • How OCD therapy can be challenging and exhausting, but you can keep going
  • How focusing on priorities, rather than making excuses, can help you make time for recovery
  • Why saying “no”  to OCD opens up time for self-care and better habits
  • How to get specific about what you want in your life and why it’s important for motivation
  • How rewarding yourself and tracking progress can help you stay motivated on your recovery journey

Episode Summary:

Have you ever felt stuck, wondering why you can’t just motivate yourself to do the things you really want to do? Trust me, you’re not alone.

Today’s episode is all about the struggle with motivation. You know that feeling when you have a goal, but somehow can’t bring yourself to take the next step? It’s common in OCD therapy. 

As a counselor, I’ve worked with many people who struggle with motivation because of OCD. They spend hours on rituals like washing or seeking reassurance, leaving little time or energy for the healthy habits that are essential for healing. If you’re feeling stuck or frustrated with your progress, I want to help you shift your mindset. Let’s stop being hard on ourselves and instead ask: What’s in the way, and how can I overcome it with God’s strength?

In today’s episode, I’ll share practical tips to help you stay motivated, whether it’s focusing on therapy, prioritizing self-care, or simply setting small, achievable goals. We’ll also talk about how rewarding yourself for even the tiniest victories can keep you moving forward, one step at a time.

Tune in to learn how to embrace progress over perfection, stay motivated, and lean into God’s strength as you work toward healing.

Explore Related Episode:

Have you ever felt like, why am I not doing the thing that I say I want to do? Why can I not motivate myself, get my butt in gear to do the things that are important to me? That is what we’re talking about today. Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing.

When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith.

I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode. You may know that Christians Learning ICBT is starting January 13th. And while this training is geared towards lay people, not necessarily professionals, we did have one professional join us this fall.

So I wanted to play you a little snippet of what her experience was like. Hello, I am Erica Kesey. As a therapist and a coach, I have been able to take this information and use it with my clients to be able to actually break them free from those obsessions. It’s been absolutely amazing, and now it has totally unlocked them in ways that we would never been able to do it without this training. To find out more information about Christians Learning ICBT, go to carriebock.com/training. I’m sure you’ve had this experience where you may have had a particular goal in your life that you were wanting to achieve. But then when you actually go to put the steps in place, it seems like you just can’t push yourself to do it.

You just can’t seem to get there. What I see in OCD therapy is a couple different things. One, it’s hard. It’s not easy in this recovery process. You guys, the OCD warriors out there, It’s hard to keep going day after day when you feel like you’re fighting all of these thought processes and you might have struggled to get particular help that you’ve been looking for.

You might have tried a couple things that haven’t worked for you, and it just seems hard to pick yourself up to keep going and going again. With clients, what I see is that, well, I’ll give them homework, or they’ll have a specific goal they’re working towards, or some small actionable step that they’re going to take that week.

It could just be reading their ICBT homework, writing their obsessional story. It could be a goal towards stress management and reducing their stress level at home. And then we come back the next week and maybe they haven’t done the thing. And I think for a lot of us, it goes towards this road of shame.

Like, oh, I didn’t do the thing I said I was gonna do. I feel awful about it. I’d like to take a different perspective and say, okay, well, let’s reduce the judgment and reduce the shame on it and just be curious about it. What got in the way of you doing the thing? Or what do you feel like is the roadblock or the barrier?

I think your first step really is to be curious about this motivation issue. Like if you were an employer and you had an employee that wasn’t working very hard, you could go really hard on them and say, why aren’t you doing the thing that I told you to do? Or you could take a more gentle approach and say, Hey, I noticed your performance standards haven’t really been up to par lately.

Why do you think that is? Help me understand. Tell me what’s going on. Because you might not know. Maybe that person is caring for an aging loved one. Maybe they’re under some health stress that they’re not gonna tell you about. This is a way that we want to be with ourself. Just very gentle, self compassionate.

Okay, so I didn’t do the thing that I set out to do. Let me be curious about that. Are there thoughts connected to that? Is there a sense of hopelessness? Like, I could try this, but I just don’t feel like it’s ever gonna get any better. It could be that you feel like you don’t have any time for your OCD therapy, or you don’t have time to engage in the things that your therapist is asking you to do.

When we say we don’t have time for something, what I hear is, I’m prioritizing other things over that. So what am I prioritizing over engaging in strategies that are actually going to help move the needle and get you to a positive place with your OCD recovery process? And it’s amazing when you say no to OCD, just a little bit, imagine how much time you can get back.

Because what I hear is people telling me that they’re spending two hours washing something. Or they went down the YouTube rabbit hole trying to get some type of reassurance for their relationship issue that could have been funneled into doing something more healthy for their self care or for their OCD recovery.

You might not have time to do things that will be helpful to you, like journal, or meal plan, or other healthy habits, taking a walk, exercise, because you are spending a lot of time scrolling. We have to be honest with ourselves and take a hard look. I took the Facebook app off my phone because I was habitually going into it.

I still struggle some with habitually checking my emails, it’s like, oh, is there a new email in there? I don’t know why I get so excited about email, it’s still gonna be there, it can wait. My point is, how much activity are you spending on things that are mindless and not really helping you with your physical, mental, or emotional health?

I know some of you out there are my caretaker individuals, and you are so focused on taking care of your children, making sure that your household is run well, taking care of your husband, taking care of parents, other people, everybody else but yourself. And so in your curiosity process, as you’re going through and examining, why am I not engaging in things that are healthy for me?

Are you feeling guilty because you’re doing things for you instead of doing things for others? This is where I have to go back to Jesus example, where he took time to retreat, to get away from everybody else, to go spend time with the Father, to fill up before he could pour out. Jesus also said no to people.

He took time to rest. He took time to socialize, slow down, dine with people. He was serving, loving, and meeting other people’s needs, but he also knew that he had physical needs and spiritual needs that needed to be attended to. I think some of us who are knee deep in the trenches, doing a lot of work at church, being involved in a lot of Christian activities, I think we forget that our spirituality and our relationship with God is more about being than doing.

Our doing has to flow out of our being, otherwise we are going to get burnt out because we’re going to be reliant on our own strength instead of plugging in and relying on the strength of God. After you’ve been curious about what’s going on, why am I not doing the things, then we need to go back to, like, get super specific about what is it that you want and why do you want that.

I’ve worked with so many people who will come into counseling and honestly they don’t even know what they want and part of our process is really helping them sink down and tune in and dial into when you say I want to be free from OCD, when you say I want to have peace, Tell me what that looks like. I need to know.

Okay, well, I’m spending this much time taking an hour and a half shower that I could be spending with my child. I’m asking so much reassurance from my spouse that they’re now annoyed and frustrated with me and almost a little cringey when I come to talk to them about something. I need to get back to that friendship relationship with them.

That’s what I want. This is your time to get super specific. You may often look at what you want to remove from your life and I would say that’s not a good place to start because if you remove something from your life, it’s going to have to be like filled in with something else and if we don’t even know what that something else is, there’s not much motivation for us to start removing stuff.

A greater analogy would be that if you have a bunch of weeds in your garden maybe and you want to pull those up so you can pull up the weeds but then if you don’t plant something else there that’s going to flourish and grow and use that soil and expand and spread out eventually like if you were to plant enough plants they would crowd out the weeds logically for the most part.

Or, there might be still a little room for the weeds to grow, but they wouldn’t have the whole garden territory. What are some positives that you can plant in your life that will rowd out the weeds of OCD? I know a lot of you are incredibly smart people, deep thinkers. And you are going to need a healthy way to engage that mental activity.

If we just say, okay, let’s just pluck out the OCD and then you don’t have any other way for your brain to be challenged, that might really hurt you and the OCD just ends up creeping back in there because it’s a way of your brain, like, expanding and problem solving and mulling over things. You might need a healthy project that you can get knee deep in the weeds with and have that level of focus and instead of it going towards OCD problem solving, have it go towards a hobby or a new skill that you want to learn.

Before my daughter was born, I was really engaged in trying to learn Spanish, and I was on the app, and I was playing the different games and trying to figure out what was going on. I have not kept up with that, but my point is, when you are really focused in on a task like that, you’re expanding your brain, you’re using your mental energy, but it’s really hard to focus on anything else at that point, to have other things competing.

So what is it that you really want? Is OCD keeping you from engaging socially? Is it keeping you from dating? Is it keeping you from having more friends? Or going out to restaurants? My point is, you don’t just want OCD to go away, just like someone doesn’t just want to lose weight. There’s a reason they want to lose weight.

They’re looking for more confidence, or for greater health numbers, or the ability to do certain things that they’re not physically able to do now. When you dial into what you really want, it helps you know And stay motivated to move forward. If you can visualize yourself in these positive avenues that you’re looking for, if you can visualize yourself getting in a dating relationship, for example, and I know that that may seem really far off.

It may seem super hard. You may feel very insecure about being able to do something like that because of OCD. For some people, I know it’s having children. They feel so nervous about having children because they’re struggling with OCD. Whatever the thing is, if you can picture it and have that positive picture in your mind going forward, that’s so going to help you stay motivated.

That’s what I’m after. That’s what I’m moving towards. It’s a new identity. A lot of times it’s a new version of yourself. Once you have that positive picture in mind, then I want you to think about what is going to actually motivate you to get there. Now, motivation is interesting because different people are motivated by different things.

There might be something that motivates me that really doesn’t motivate you. And this goes back to what do you want? There are all kinds of different things that you can use to celebrate or reward yourself along the way. We do this with children all the time and we forget to do it as adults. I had a cousin that worked for a major brand, I probably shouldn’t say it, but anyway, this individual worked for a major brand and my aunt said one day, they run that place like a kindergarten classroom.

And I thought, Well, they haven’t been in business for a long time, so there must be a really good reason why they’re running it like a kindergarten classroom. What she meant by that was it wasn’t like they were talking down to them. She meant it in a positive that they had all kinds of goals and rewards and stars and swag that they could get.

Because it works, because those types of things motivate people. So for you, it might be a coffee, it might be, let’s go to this new restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try, let me go get a pedicure. Some of those rewards might be naturally built into what you’re wanting to do. So for example, if someone’s afraid of flying and we help them work through that, They’re able to now go on vacations that they weren’t able to go on before.

Some of the rewards might be naturally built in, but if they’re not, then that’s an opportunity for you to say, Okay, how am I going to make sure that I’m tracking my progress? That I’m really celebrating that I’m talking, it could be as small as when I have a victory over OCD, for example, if Googling is a problem when I say every time that I say no to Googling.

I’m putting a sticker on my calendar, or every time I get away from the sink in ten minutes or less, I’m putting a sticker on my calendar. I’m gonna really celebrate that, and then when I get a certain number of stickers, I’m gonna have this type of reward. Kindergarten classroom it for yourself. Some of you are really motivated by positive words, or by verbal praise.

That’s great. You can do that for yourself or you can have other people around you engaged in that process. Like if you tell your spouse, Hey, whenever you see me really struggling and I don’t ask for reassurance or you see me like, say, start to ask and then stop. Will you please acknowledge that? Will you please say something positive?

Or will you write me a note when you feel like I’ve been doing a little bit better with OCD? It is helpful to have others acknowledge when we’re doing a little bit better, but it’s also important to be able to acknowledge your own accomplishments in this area. When we have praise, that reinforces and makes us want to do that more.

Like I said, we have no problem doing this with children all the time. We’re like, good job, kid. You put your plate in the sink after dinner. My daughter right now, we’re doing the whole like potty training deal. Here’s a gummy bear if you sit on the potty, like, woohoo, we have songs, we have a little book with plays music, all the things to make it a positive, happy, praiseful experience so that she wants to do that more.

The other thing that we do with rewards very easily is we can say, let me get this done and then I’ll go do that, a less preferred task and to a more preferred task. For example, if I say, oh, I’ve really got to write this email out or I’ve really got to work on this report, let me do this first and then I’m going to take a break and do that and go outside and rest for a little bit.

Let’s work really hard as a family to clean the house together and then we’ll order a pizza or go out for dinner. Maybe you’re working on exposures or you’re working on ICBT homework and you say okay after I do this Then I’m going to do something more preferable I’m not gonna watch that show that I have saved in my queue until I’ve done this piece right here So now that we’ve talked about rewards a little bit, and rewarding yourself to be motivated, I want to talk to you about who is on this supportive journey with you.

Do you have friends that know that you’re going through this? Do you have family members? Do you have a spouse? Do you have parents? Like, who is on the journey with you? That you can have healthy accountability with that you can say to that person, like, Hey, ask me, have I done this thing next week? When you see me, I have a business bestie.

We meet once a week and we just talk about it. What are you doing in your business this week? What are you going to be working on? What’s the next step? And just having that healthy check in accountability regularly is so important. And it has helped both of us be able to move our businesses to a healthier place.

You can do that in your OCD recovery process, you can get some friends or family together to check in with you, that you can provide information, I don’t think it’s always just having somebody else, like, ask you, you need to be able to share yourself and be okay asking for what you need, like, hey, hey, Whether that’s what we were talking about before, like asking for praise at certain times, asking, can we go do this together if I meet these certain goals?

I would love to be able to support you in January with Christians Learning ICBT. I am in Tennessee, but we have people from all over that are going to be on there just learning these modules together, learning how to have a healthier, relationship with their OCD, learning to manage their thought process differently, and to say no to OCD’s demands, to give in to compulsions.

I would absolutely love to have you on there. If you go to karybach. com slash training, we’ll also put that link in the show notes for you. But it’s karybach. com slash training. You can find out all about Christians Learning ICBT. You’ll find out when we’re meeting once a week, but even if you aren’t able to meet at that time, we’ve had several people, this cohort who weren’t able to make the lives, but they did go back in and watch the course material.

They set aside an hour and a half a week to really engage with the video and then do the homework and have seen progress. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

151. 3 Ways to Be Mindful this Christmas Season 

In this episode, Carrie shares three powerful tips to help you slow down, manage anxiety, and truly savor the season.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to prioritize Jesus during the Christmas season
  • Why it’s important to be intentional about your time and avoid overscheduling during the holidays.
  • How to create meaningful Christmas traditions with your family, especially if you’re in a season of grief or change.
  • The importance of self-care if you’re experiencing depression or stress during the holidays.
  • How to handle family gatherings with grace and make decisions that work for you and your loved ones.

Episode Summary:

In today’s episode, we’re talking about having a mindful Christmas. It’s easy to get caught up in the holiday hustle, but I want to help you focus on what truly matters: celebrating Jesus, reducing stress, and being intentional about how you spend your time and energy.

I’ll walk you through three ways to make this Christmas meaningful:

  1. Prioritize Jesus – Reflect on His sacrifice and make time to serve others. Whether it’s donating to a food pantry or volunteering, we want to make the season about giving and sharing Christ’s love.
  2. Be Intentional with Time – It’s easy to overschedule with all the family gatherings, but be mindful of your limits. It’s okay to say no or make adjustments if it’s too much. Remember, quality time matters more than checking off every obligation.
  3. Mind Your Budget – Set a budget for gifts ahead of time to avoid financial stress. Sometimes the best gifts aren’t material but heartfelt gestures like a thoughtful note or a helping hand.

This time of year can be tough, especially with grief or mental health struggles. If you’re feeling down, it’s okay to take a step back and focus on self-care. And remember, you’re not alone. Take it slow, prioritize what really matters, and let yourself enjoy a peaceful and meaningful Christmas.

Thanks for joining me today, and I hope these tips help you navigate this season with mindfulness and joy!

More Episodes to Listen to:

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Welcome to episode 151. I’m so glad you’re here today. And Since it’s the beginning of December, and we’re getting ready to go into the Christmas season, I wanted to do an episode on three ways to have a mindful Christmas season this year. In order to do that, we really have to plan ahead of time. We have to be intentional about what we want to do, we have to be intentional if we want to get away from the hustle and bustle, the commercial aspects of Christmas, in order to have time celebrating Christ and spending time with our family members who we love.

We have to think through what season of life that we’re in because sometimes Christmas is going to look different in different seasons of life. You may need to do something different because you’ve had a loss experience. It may be time to develop a new tradition within your family. You may have kids where you didn’t have kids before.

In our situation, obviously, our daughter was too young last year to really understand much about Christmas, but I think this is the first year that we will be able to talk with her more about Jesus being born and what that means for us. I am definitely looking forward to that. Another reason that I wanted to do this episode was because stress is really awful for OCD.

We’ve talked about that a lot on the podcast. I want you to be able to be mindful about having a positive Christmas season, while at the same time reducing your stress load. Here are the three ways to have a more mindful Christmas season. One is prioritizing Jesus. We really want to take some time to reflect and think about what Christ did for us.

entering our world so that we could be saved from our sins. This is so huge. God could have saved the world any way he wanted to, and he chose to become a man and struggle with the same temptations that we struggle with and dealt with the same type of relationship issues that we deal with. He was hurt.

He was betrayed by others. People just. Up and abandon him at the end of his life. I did an episode last year about what Christmas teaches us about managing anxiety and OCD that you may want to go back and listen to. It’s episode 109. I think there’s some good tidbits in there for you to reflect on, hopefully.

Another way we prioritize Jesus during this season is to look at what do we want to be involved in, maybe that church has going on, whether that’s a Christmas play, whether that’s something with the children, whether that’s a Christmas Eve service. There’s so many opportunities for giving during this season.

Of course, we want to be giving and serving towards others year round. Maybe you don’t have something that you’re actively involved in. Christmas is a great time to hop in and say, what can I do for the local food pantry or for the homeless in my community, foster children who need Christmas presents, stuffing stockings for seniors in the nursing home.

So many different ways to get involved in giving. So really that’s a way where we’re prioritizing Jesus, that it’s not just about us getting presents or, Oh yes, finding all my favorite stuff on sale or things like that, but taking the time to be intentional about what are we giving to others, not just our friends and family, but people that maybe are in a different place in their life.

Maybe there are in a. down trodden season and we can help lift them up or love on them during this hard time. We want to prioritize Jesus in terms of what we’re teaching our children, and that may look different for different families. It may look having a manger scene, talking to your children about the different characters in the manger scene and what that means, what the birth of Christ means, reading certain storybooks.

It may look like having a birthday cake for Jesus. Whatever it looks like in your family, and I look forward to creating some of those traditions with our daughter. Steve and I haven’t talked about this a ton yet because I’m recording this episode early in November, so I haven’t had a ton of time to think about it.

However, I’ll let you know maybe when I send out an email sometime in December what we decided that we want to do for that. It’s incredibly easy to be busy this time of year, even busy doing a lot of Christian activities, but we don’t want to lose the meaning of Christmas in that process. We don’t want to miss the moments of contemplation, reflection, peace, and joy.

Another way to have a more mindful Christmas season is to think about and be intentional with what are you doing with your time. Resist the urge to overschedule and do everything. We want to be mindful about planning and executing family gatherings. I know some people may have three or four family get togethers if they have parents who are divorced and remarried.

It can be a lot to get to all the places or to do all the things. And if you’re trying to cram four Christmas celebrations in in two days, not only is that exhausting and overwhelming, possibly too much if you’re a highly sensitive person, it Know that you don’t have to continue with things just because you’ve always done it that way.

It’s okay to say, hey, this is a crazy time for us, can we reconvene for New Year’s? Can we reconvene as a family sometime in January? We have some family that we are not going to see until after Christmas this year, and that’s okay. We’ve made some scheduling and some traveling decisions, and they’re okay with it, and we’re okay with it, fortunately.

But you may have family members that push back if it’s the way that you’ve always done it. As much as you love your family, sometimes being with certain family members, Might be really stressful for you, so keep that in mind in terms of your holiday plans. Being intentional, not just doing something out of obligation or the way that you’ve always done it.

And it’s okay for some gatherings that you may want to pop into for two, three hours. It doesn’t mean you have to stay for six hours. You can still go and be a part of it. But if you know that being around certain family members are going to cause you a lot more stress, it’s okay to duck out a little bit.

It’s between you and the Lord who you spend Christmas with and your family. When we do things that please God, it doesn’t always mean that it’s going to please everybody else in the equation, or you may do something that pleases one family member and then another family member is unhappy. Just know that those things happen and we have to be able to adapt and move forward and say, okay, I’m accountable to God for how I treat other people.

But as long as I’m not being malicious or hurtful towards other people, I’m going to pray about this and take it up with the Lord, make sure that I’m right with Him, and then move forward if family members are upset with me about something. I think that’s a good general principle, not just for holiday season, but just general principles for dealing with your family.

You are an adult, you have a choice, you can decide that this is the Christmas that you want to go travel with your spouse. And that you don’t want to run around and do all of the things that you normally do. And I worked with a client one year on this, and it was incredibly freeing for her. She didn’t believe me, like, that she could say no to some things.

Because she was always doing things out of obligation. But when she was intentional, she was able to say, you know, I enjoy having more quality, in depth time with these family members. So I’m going to schedule other times to see them, not just at the big family gathering. And that was more fruitful for her, and much more of how she wanted to spend her holiday than just trying to rush and make sure that she saw everybody without that in depth quality time.

This also goes back to what season you’re in. Last Christmas was particularly tough because it was a first Christmas without mom or dad. And it was really important for me to be with my side of the family. And of course, Steve understood that dividing time when you have a spouse is obviously something you have to figure out some type of system or agreement on.

There was a time after my divorce where I did not want to unpack Christmas decorations and decorate my house like I normally did. One of my roommates really freed me up and was able to say, well, do something different. Don’t just decorate the same way that you’ve always decorated. And I actually got some blue Christmas lights for the tree and put like all blue Christmas lights on.

I found this beautiful ribbon at Hobby Lobby. That ended up being a nightmare because I didn’t realize, like, how many rolls of that I was going to need, but I kept, like, having to go back. However, anyway, the tree looked really pretty. It looked different than it normally did. I kept the, some of the foster child ornaments put away because I just wasn’t in a place where I could handle that.

And now I have some and I keep some at my office. I have a miniature Christmas tree there, and I think I may have some for our tree at home. I can’t remember how I’ve split those up exactly, but I can look at them now and not be horribly sad. So just know if you’re going through grief and loss, there may be things that you want to do this holiday season that are different, just to start something new or to have a shift or to let yourself know that, yes, It’s not going to be the same this year as it has been in the past, and that’s okay.

Take care of yourself in that process. You may be going through a mental health period of depression during the Christmas season. There are people that experience that. It’s like, quote, supposed to be a happy time, or we feel like we’re expected to always have a smile on our face, like, oh, yay, isn’t Christmas so great?

But just know that it’s okay to be depressed, too. That may be the season that you’re in. And you may want to keep things minimal until you’re feeling better. And you may just not want to focus on a ton of social gatherings. You don’t want to completely isolate yourself because that’s not necessarily healthy either.

But you may need to put a little bit more time and energy into some self care, making sure that you’re sleeping and eating and doing things that rejuvenate you, trying to get some physical activity, and that may take a lot of energy, and you may not be able to expend it in other areas. Just know that if this is a depressive season, that that’s okay.

It’s okay to take a little bit of a step back. When you’re looking at how you’re spending your time, just go ahead and look and see what do you have on your calendar. Evaluate it and decide, do we want to go to all of these things that we were invited to? Maybe we don’t have this problem because I’m a solo person, but maybe you have a work Christmas party.

Your spouse has a work Christmas party, and your child has this big thing going on around Christmas, and the church has a function over here, and maybe there’s just too much going on. That’s a time where it’s like to sit down with the family and evaluate the calendar and say, okay, which one of these things are priorities?

Like, yes, we are absolutely going to try to make it to that as long as we’re not sick. What are we doing there? And then for some of those other optional things, just seeing what you can do. Saying, okay, well, maybe we don’t want to go to that one at all, or we do want to go, but we just want to go for a short amount of time.

Maybe we’re going to show up a little bit late to it. Give yourself the freedom to know that you can do those things. You don’t have to be all 110 percent in for these events. Obviously, I’m talking from an introvert personality and from a highly sensitive personality. So. I can’t handle having my calendar just be maxed to the gills, it just does not work very well for my nervous system, but I don’t know, maybe you’re an extrovert, and you need a ton of things on your calendar, and that just fills your cup, so.

Take this advice and make it your own. And the last thing that I want to talk to you about when we’re looking at having a more mindful Christmas is money slash gifts. First of all, decide what your budget is ahead of time. Hopefully you have decided this before the beginning of December and you’re not just making that.

Decision last minute, I know a couple of Christmases, Steve and I felt like we spent so much money on medical bills throughout the year. It just seemed like we didn’t have much left for when it came down to Christmas and that was disheartening. So you may have a year like that and it’s okay. You know why?

Because some of the best gifts that you can give people are not always monetary. Sometimes someone needs a note of encouragement. Sometimes they need someone to watch their child so that they can go do Christmas shopping. Maybe you know a single mom and they’re trying to figure out how to juggle a lot of different things.

Is there something that you could do to help them or bless them in some way this season? Sometimes I’ve made things before, whether that’s making food for people or making crafts. Maybe you think, well, I’m not a crafty person. But is there a home project, using your gifts, whatever they are, maybe you’re good around the house, maybe there’s a home project you could do for somebody.

So by deciding what your budget is, talking with your family ahead of time, how are we going to do Christmas gifts this year, we’ve done different things at different points in our family, we’ve done name drawings, we’ve done, and usually there’s some type of spending limit associated with that, or the person has some kind of wish list.

We’ve done experiences instead of gifts. I’m a big fan of those. For those of you who know me, I’m a bit more of a minimalist. I just don’t need a lot of stuff around me. It gets cluttered, it becomes too much, and I end up having to figure out what to do with it later. So I try to bypass all of that by, Being more focused on, let’s do something together as a family.

I love doing new things and making new memories with the people that I love. The older I get, I find the less stuff that I want, actually. And when you’ve lost both of your parents, as I have, it just really shifts your perspective on these types of things. Well, when we’re talking about what’s most important for Christmas, Are you going to look back at the end of your life and say, wow, I’m really disappointed that I didn’t get that air fryer I wanted?

No, you’re not going to care about that. The things that you might regret though, are not going and making those special memories with your family, or you might regret not slowing down. Long enough to really be able to enjoy others, the joy of Christmas and Jesus. Let’s be mindful. Let’s be intentional.

Let’s be focused I do have another episode that I did on surviving the holidays with anxiety That’s way back on episode 55. I talked about some of these same concepts, but you may find some other things in there I talked about how to survive holiday parties, which I know is a big one You If you have a lot of anxiety, especially socially.

OCD Warriors, as we’re getting into 2025, starting to think about goals for the new year, I want you to think about what you would like your relationship with OCD to be, how you would like that to be different, maybe, than it has been in 2024. If there is absolutely any way that I can help you with that, please contact me via the website carriebock.com

com. I’ve got a contact page on there. You can also contact us on the podcast page, I believe. Just let me know what I can do to help you. I would love, love, love to do that. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.