Things You NEED To Hear ("Tough Love") About ROCD_Anxiety
So whenever I am about to record a video, I'm usually sitting down and thinking about the things that I really want to express in today's video to be able to really support you. As many of you know, I had struggled with ROCD and anxiety and just a lot of mental health difficulties in my life.
I had phases where I had nonstop panic attacks. I had phases where I was just feeling so lost and confused and constantly anxious and really being attached to this idea that I was anxiety, that my whole life had to be filled with anxiety. And that's not true. I'm not that person anymore, and I want to be here to be able to guide you and support you in the best way possible.
Which is why I wanted to do today is to video on all of the things that I feel you don't want to hear, but you actually need to hear about ROCD, mental health and anxiety. I really want to sit down, speak from my heart, but also be honest with you, I'm usually looking at our community, looking at our Instagram, our ROCD course members and our clients, and I'm really kind of scanning and seeing what type of themes typically pop up, what's so interesting and what makes me really feel like we're all in this together and none of us are alone and we're in this journey collectively together is that there's usually that themes that just like, come up and play a part like, I'm seeing a client who's dealing with one thing in the next day, I'm seeing a client who's dealing with exactly the same thing. And then I'm seeing in the Instagram community and I'm seeing in the course community. And the reason as to why I say this again is because as a person who's been working with so many of you, with thousands of you all around the world alongside Alexis, there are themes that pop up. And I do believe deep down that these themes are popped up and pop up collectively in order for us to heal all together. So we're so not alone, and I just really want to start with that video to just remind you of that.
So with that being said, something that I really noticed recently and also within myself is really things that people need to hear that they don't want to hear. It's kind of like that friend or that mom that gives you tough love and you're like, Oh, I really don't want to hear this, but I know it's really important for me, but I don't want to hear it because it means that I have to take some action steps in order for me to grow. And for me to put in some effort and work and take ownership and self responsibility over my healing, which takes a lot of courage. And I feel like it's really important for me to talk about this today because you might need to hear this. We all need to hear this at some point in our life.
So whether you're in the beginning phase of ROCD or middle phase or kind of the end phase where you're just like, I'm interested in more awakening and my life is just so different from how it used to be. No matter where you are, this information is going to be so important for you.
I also always think about my past self back when I experienced debilitating ROCD and anxiety. There wasn't that much information out there, so I'm constantly thinking about my past self and what she needed to hear. And I feel from my heart to yours. This is something that even though it might be uncomfortable for you to hear, it's something that's important for you in your journey for awakening. So a couple things that I really took my time to think about with ROCD and also mental health. So if you're not even struggling with ROCD, this is going to be important for you anyway.
But if I were to sit down with you and you were to look at me and say, Kiyomi, I'm just struggling, I don't know what to do. I feel like I've been doing this work for a while, or I feel like I'm just starting. What are some things that you feel I need to know in a way that's with tough love, in a way that has a little bit more of that masculine energy. And when I say masculine, it's not masculine in a male way. It's just this masculine and feminine energy that we all have within us. Just like Yin and Yang. The feminine aspect of the energy is more soft, it's a little bit more flowy. It's about feeling our emotions. It's about really coming into this flow of being in our body. And this masculine part of ourselves, which is masculine energy that we all have, is really about holding the safe, grounded container. And it's more about action. It's more about doing. And both energies are really important within our own life and within our own body. A lot of times when the feminine or the masculine becomes stronger, there starts to become an imbalance. So our life, my life is really so much about balancing both together in order for me to feel more secure in my nervous system. So this information, I know I'm talking a lot. I'm going to get to it. This information is going to be a little bit more of that masculine push that you might need to hear today.
So the first thing that I just want to say right off the bat with tough love and truth is that;
You're not going to get better if you don't put in the work. It is important for you to understand that progress and the healing and the awakening is not going to occur in the greatest form that you are perceiving it to be unless you put the work in.
What's interesting about our society is there's this understanding that we need to put work in in order to have a good career. We need to put in work in order to have good health, in order to feel good within our body, in order for our children to feel more secure within their life. But two things that I notice over and over and over again within the mental health field and spirituality is that there's not enough emphasis on the fact that if we want to have a good relationship, if we want to have a good marriage, if we want to feel better mentally, we need to be putting in the work.
Before I go on, something that I really want to say, though, is that if you feel that you've been putting in a lot of work and you're like, Oh my God, this is so much I've been putting in so much work. I'm not saying for you to hustle more and go more and push yourself more. What I'm saying is that if you feel like you're not putting in any work and you're just kind of sitting back, you're reading articles, you're taking the course, you're looking at it from afar and you're feeling like that's going to be just enough. I'm going to be honest with you and say, it's not going to be enough. You're going to need to put in the work to start to rewire your brain, to do different worksheets, to see a therapist. And if you can't afford a therapist, if you can't afford the course, there's so many free resources out there, but it's important for you to start doing the actual work and putting in that cognitive effort, that exposure work, that mindfulness work, working on your trauma in order for you to get better. So I'm just here to say right off the bat because I know what it's like, especially if you start in the ROCD journey to look at different articles, to look at the newsletter, to look at our information and be like, OK, I'm good, I'm set, and why aren't I getting better? Because you need to put in the work and the effort in order to get better. You can't continually do the same thing over and over again and expect the same results. You're going to need to change the way your brain is operating, change the way your brain is wired and the way that it's comfortable and protect you to something that's different. That's the amazing thing about our brains though, we have this ability to heal. Every single one of us has this ability to evolve. You're not stuck. And if you feel like you're stuck, that's a false belief. It just means that you are repeating the same belief over and over and over again that you're stuck maybe from childhood.
But let me tell you right off the bat right now I'm going to cut through and I'm going to rewire the brain really quickly for you from an external perspective and say, you have the ability to change.
You're not stuck, you have the ability to evolve, you have the ability to heal. But in order to get to those places, it is necessary for you to put in the work.
I also want to add something important within this. The things that are most worthwhile in life do take work. They take effort, they take action. They take this willingness or this action within ourself to push forward and do something different. The most fulfilling relationships, the most joyful sensations that we get from eating healthy or even a workout, working out at the gym or even a hobby always takes work. So if you can start to reframe and see the work and see this type of work that we're doing in that way, then it will help your life. It will help your life. And I promise you, it is just important for you to acknowledge that you can't just sit there, lean back and not do anything. You must put in the work.
The second uncomfortable truth about ROCD that you need to hear:
You need to start to lean into what you're avoiding. You need to start to lean into the discomfort.
And the coolest thing about the brain is that we can start to change our perspective on discomfort being bad. We can start to see discomfort and leaning into exposure work and doing the difficult work as something that is good. Hey, everyone, in order for you to get better, you need to step into the discomfort. You can't just lie in bed. You can't just sit on the couch. You can't just be sitting in the same place. You need to do something that is uncomfortable. The thing about ROCD and the thing about anxiety in mental health is that your brain is going to tell you everything that it wants to tell you to keep you in the same comfortable position. Why? Because the brain doesn't like discomfort. It doesn't like change. It likes to stay in the same monotonous routine because it is familiar because it is certain. But in order for you to change, what you don't like about yourself, what you are not wanting to experience anymore, it is imperative for you to step in and lean into discomfort. This is why exposure work is really important, because in order for you to get better, you need to start doing the things that you are avoiding. This goes alongside compulsions. This goes alongside even feeling depressed. The brain is going to tell you everything it can to keep you stuck, to keep you in the same position, to keep you in bed. To say, avoid your partner. Avoid those people down the street. Avoid that attractive person. Avoid going to work. But in order for you to gain more empowerment within yourself and actually conquer and work through the anxiety, it's important for you to do those things that your brain is telling you not to do.
In regards to your compulsions, in regards to avoidance, in regards to reassurance. So know that getting better means stepping into the discomfort that you don't want to experience. You're not going to get better if you're just sitting back and taking something that's really easy and comfortable. So discomfort is a good sign. Every time you're stepping into discomfort, every time you're feeling a little bit more anxious and you're creating more of a secure nervous system around it. You're creating a safer container for yourself. You're rewiring the brain. Every time you step into discomfort, I want you to start to congratulate yourself. I want you to say to yourself, Wow, I'm choosing to step into discomfort right now, and it's freaking hard and my brain is telling me everything it needs to tell me in order to bolt, in order for me to go back into bed. In order for me to go lie back on the couch. But actually, I'm changing my life by stepping into discomfort because I know that if I'm stepping into discomfort, it means I'm doing something new. It means that I'm stepping into my exposures, and it means that I'm changing my life and my relationships. So start to celebrate discomfort, start to celebrate leaning in. Every time your brain says to step back out and celebrate yourself for doing not, so talking a little bit earlier about the masculine and feminine, the feminine has this tendency to feel feel very deeply, but the masculine can help the feminine by saying, Hey, you've been in bed for too long, you've been in this emotional state for too long. I want to go outside. I want to take you out of bed. You're going to go drive the car right now. You're going to go do that task that you've been procrastinating on and you're going to do it now.
So notice how both energies can support one another in the most incredible, empowering way. So something that I really want to add that's really important is our society is really freaking good at being in that masculine role of really compensating in that role, of hustling, of pushing hard, of doing things and cutting ourselves completely off of feelings. We're not leaning to going into that because that's also compensating and it's also a protective mechanism as well. What we're doing is we're bringing both in balance together to support ourself in the greatest way possible.
So again, if you feel like you've been pushing yourself too much or hustling too much or grinding too much or working hard too much, that's actually an invitation for you to lean a little bit more into that feminine role. In order for you to lean more into feeling, but we need to have both together in order to support ourself in order to support and make our nervous system feel safe. You're never going to have 100 percent certainty. Now this is a blessing and is mainly a blessing, but it can also feel really difficult for a person who experiences anxiety and who is very afraid of living in the gray. So if you're afraid of living in the gray, you're not alone. Makes sense as to why you experience anxiety, it makes sense as to why you experience ROCD. Living in the gray can feel really hard, especially for someone who needed more structure and certainty in their life when they were little. But what this is teaching you is to lean more into the gray to be OK with not having 100 percent certainty. To this day, I don't know if my husband is "100 percent supposed to be for me", but this is where my empowerment lies and this is where my fulfillment lies. I don't need to know because I just choose to make the best of what I have, and I choose to make what I have with my husband, incredible, beautiful, loving and fulfilling. But how will I ever know deep down within my core that this person is 100 percent meant for me? I don't know, and neither do you. We don't know if the location we're in, where we've moved to, the career we've chosen is supposed to 100 percent be for us. We will never know for 100 percent certainty. Yes, we might have some 70 percent or 80 percent knowing or a sense of understanding, especially when we do this work more and more and we feel more secure in our nervous system that our partner is good for us. And that does take time, especially if you're like, Oh my God, I don't. I don't even have that 70 percent just notice that trigger that comes in, notice that obsessive thought, label that, recognize it for needing that certainty and come back into my voice and come back into this present moment. But you're never going to find 100 percent certainty. It's never going to be there. But you can decide to find more certainty and groundedness within yourself and your nervous system in order for you to feel more secure within the relationship. In order for you to gain more fulfillment within the relationship. But a 100 percent certainty is not going to come. And this is going to teach you to be more OK with leaning into the gray of life. And as you lean more into the gray of life, you're going to gain more self-confidence and more trust within yourself and more resilience. And that's going to actually help you have a more fulfilling and enjoyable life.
Uncomfortable truth number three:
No matter where you go, you're going to take yourself with you.
That means the next relationship, the next house, the next place, the next career, you're always going to take yourself with you. So your relationship right now can be this beautiful opportunity to work on what is coming up within you. What is here is presenting itself, not because it's there to punish you. Not because it's there to say, Hey, you did something wrong, but it's there to help you in a way to show you what is holding yourself back. The blockages, the belief, the traumas, the societal narratives of programming. It's here to show you what needs to be worked on. So know that wherever you go, you're going to take yourself with you. It doesn't mean that if you go somewhere else, you're not going to have different forms of peace, but you're always going to have these different things that come up in order for you to become more healed in order for you to become more awakened. So just keep that in mind, every time your mind goes into that partner is going to be better. When I move here, I'm going to have 100 percent complete certainty. When I go to this career here, I'm going to be 100 percent better. And that doesn't mean that we don't strive. We don't have dreams, we do have dreams, and striving is important. But if you're constantly thinking that the next person, the next thing is going to give you ultimate happiness, that is false, it can give you peace and happiness and joy in different parts within itself. But ultimately, you're always going to bring yourself to it. So might as well just do the work right now, do the healing right now. Use this opportunity right now to awaken to whatever is coming up within you.
Truth number four:
You can't educate yourself out of ROCD.
As difficult as this is, as much as this sucks because I know what it feels like to be like, I'm going to just read the book and I'm just going to take the course, and I'm just going to read everything I need to read and not put any work in. And so this goes very similar to the first point that I brought up. You cannot educate yourself out of anything. You can't use the mind in order for you to heal. You need to do somatic work. You need to do cognitive work. You need to do exposure work. But so if you feel and this is actually a really good thing that I bring this up, because if you feel like you're stuck, like, why can't I get it together? Why can't I do this work? It might be because you're just educating and reading instead of actually implementing the work.
Aright, I think we're on you with number five or truth number six. But this is a really big one, and this is one that tends to kind of come about for people a little bit later on within their ROCD journey. But this is something important for you to hear:
You need to start taking ownership and self responsibility for what you're feeling.
Your partner is not responsible for saving you. Your partner is not responsible for fulfilling you or making you happy. That is your job. I know that this can sometimes feel really shitty. We like the feeling of knowing that someone else can save us, that they can be our savior, and we most likely are projecting stuff from her childhood because we didn't get that when we were younger. We didn't get that security from our parents, and we're probably projecting that now into our relationship. But your partner isn't there to make you happy. Your partner isn't there to take away your suffering, to take away the pain you're experiencing and to change the ROCD. That is your job. That is your responsibility. It is your responsibility to choose your partner or not. It is your responsibility to get up and go do certain things within your life, to make yourself better, to make yourself happier, to live a more peaceful life. That is your job, and no one is going to do that for you.
The greatest thing about this is that even though it's challenging, it allows you to become more self-reliant and trust within yourself. Now you might have some triggers coming in here and there that might say, Oh my God, but if I become self-reliant, maybe I don't need my partner. The work here is to actually become more independent and secure within yourself. So you choose the partnership in a way that's not so codependent. You don't rely on your partner for that happiness. You're already happy within, and your partner is just that extra dessert or extra cake next to you walking alongside you. But ultimately, it is your responsibility for you to make yourself happy. No one can do that for you, love. It's not their job. It's not anyone's job. I remember this period when I had ROCD, where I just kept blaming Joel for everything. Being like, you need to make me happy. You need to do this. Why aren't you doing this and putting all of my projections and my blame onto him. Until I got to this point, that took a long time, honestly, because it takes guts, it takes courage to go into our self responsibility, to go into self ownership. It takes courage and it takes strength. So I'm not saying that this is necessarily easy. So I understand if you feel as though you can't stop projecting, I get it. But I remember over and over and over again that I just kept blaming him for everything. And I said to myself, How is this serving me? I knew that I was blaming him in some way because then I wouldn't need to take responsibility for myself. Then I wouldn't need to feel the fear of becoming more self-reliant again as the brain goes into black or white thinking. That doesn't mean that you're not dependent on your partner in some way, because partnership is about two people coming together and supporting one another. But for a lot of people with ROCD and anxiety, it's very easy to lean more unto the heavy dependence of our partner instead of coming more into ourself and having a beautiful relationship alongside our partner.
A really, really big part of this is moving from the victim mindset to a victor mindset. And when I say this, it doesn't mean that the life and the challenges aren't hard. It doesn't mean that you're not going to give yourself compassion because compassion is one of the biggest components to all of this. But when we start to move away from the victim mindset. That blame, that projection, that everything is happening to me, this is their fault. Then we actually disempower ourselves. We're not doing ourselves a service by doing that. We might have periods in therapy and coaching when we're angry at the world, we're like, Oh, this sucks, I hate this. Why did I have to be in this situation? And that's healthy to feel that. But if we're constantly in the space where we're blaming everything and we're feeling like the world is against us, it's ultimately not doing us a service. It's ultimately hurting us, and it's ultimately not helping us. So moving from this victim mindset that the world is against us, my partner needs to fulfill everything that's my partner's job and pointing our fingers. Once we start to notice that mindset, we can start to give ourselves more compassion, give ourself that awareness and say, Oh, amazing, I recognize that because awareness is the first step. And then start to notice that hand, that finger pointing forward has all these other fingers pointing back at you. Which means it's time to take self-responsibility and self ownership for how you feel. Knowing that that's in your empowerment.
Uncomfortable truth, number seven, I think I'm at number seven.
Sometimes we can't do this alone. And that's OK. It's OK. You're not supposed to.
I had a really, really amazing capability to do everything myself. I was like, I don't need this person, I don't need therapy, I don't need coaching. I don't need to talk to this person about this. I got it. I can do it myself. But that hyper dependence on ourself can also be a trauma response, especially if when we were younger, we never asked for help. We felt guilty or shameful, asking for help. And I know it can be challenging with ROCD because it's important to be picky with who you talk to. But that over self-reliance can definitely be a trauma response. And it was for me, it was hard to ask for help. It was hard to take a course and seek people that understood what I was feeling. It was hard for me to say, Hey, I need help. But with ROCD, anxiety and mental health, sometimes it's crucial for you to seek help, and it doesn't mean in any way that you're weak. It doesn't mean in any way that you can't do it because being human means asking for help sometimes. It means getting the support we need when we feel like we can't do it alone because many times we can't.
Now I know some of you are thinking and feeling disappointed and saying to yourself, Oh, I don't have the finance, I don't have the ability to be able to seek help. Please use our free information. Please use all of our free content to be able to gain more and more help, we're going to constantly be putting information out there. But if you can get that help, if you can get that financial help. Please know that you're not weak for doing so. You're actually strong for asking for help.
Uncomfortable truth number eight:
You're not going to go back to where you used to be.
I know many of you were longing to be back where you used to be and that maybe this infatuation stage with your partner, maybe at this place where you didn't really know much about anxiety or you didn't really know much about relationships, but you're not going to go back to who you used to be because you're not meant to. As humans were meant to evolve, we're not meant to stay the same. But here's the good news. Where you're going is going to be better than where you used to be. Better in a way where you feel more grounded within yourself. Better in a way where you feel more understanding and awake within yourself and your partnership. But sometimes that longing to go back to where we used to be can keep us stuck. Yes, we can grieve for it. We can feel sad. We can long for the feelings of being to that place where things are easier when we don't have anxiety and we can grieve that, but just don't stay stuck there. Don't stay stuck in that longing. Start to move forward. So again, if you feel like yourself longing for that, know that you're not able to go back, it's not possible. But what you can do and what you're doing right now is creating a greater future for yourself. That is a person full of awakening, love, peace and joy that only within yourself, but within your partnership as well.
Here's to being human, everyone!