Tag: RelaxationTips

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.