Disclaimer: First, I want to say that the reason I’m posting about this is because I know there’s a fine line between education and engaging in compulsions. With Awaken into Love, our highest mission is to help you in a way where we are not feeding into your ROCD, which is why we feel it is our duty to focus on education. If you feel like you’re using Awaken into Love or other educational sites to feed the reassurance compulsion, then this video and blog is for you. Even if you don’t feel this exact way, it is a reminder of how compulsions may be hard to spot. Our approach to ROCD is different from most other approaches. It is holistic, encompassing the mental, physical and spiritual. We see ROCD as a way to help us awaken into our wholeness — to find ways to heal and become more connected, not only with ourselves but with our partner. This is why we share insight relating to healing, psychology, and awakening throughout our course. Reassurance and compulsions are at the intersection of those three aspects, and understanding this ROCD behavior can lead to greater awakening.

When I first heard that connection was a basic need, I was shocked.

This means that aside from water, food, and shelter, the need to connect and belong in community comes next. Connection is as important as food, shelter, and water, and without it, our mental and spiritual health starts to deteriorate.

Psychologists and scientists continue to conclude that needing others and connecting with others is a basic human need.

So it’s no wonder that over the last hundreds of years, the survival mechanism of fear has turned its attention from the danger of bears, tigers and the like (which are no longer a threat) to fears reflecting today’s world: the fear of not belonging, of being disliked and rejected, of having something wrong with us… which ultimately is all rooted in the fear of abandonment and loss.

This deep fear of abandonment and loss combined with our basic need for connection and belonging drives us to seek connection, community, and support.

And as a result, loves, we are wired to get help with these things. We are wired to seek external support, and we are wired to get reassurance when life feels tough, sticky and scary.

Moreover, the need for reassurance and validation is real.

As children, our caretakers were meant to mirror our emotions, validating our thoughts and helping us create an internal container of safety to take along into our teens and adulthood. If a parent would have created consistent, healthy mirroring and met our needs, then we would have become securely attached.

This, in turn, would have created a grounded, internal support system, something that many call a strong “Inner Parent,” or “wisdom” an internal guidance system that would have allowed us to listen to our inner guidance, soothe our own emotions and nervous system, and maintain boundaries while attuning to our own needs.

If our caretakers, however, were back and forth in unavailability, which would create an unorganized system, or they were completely unavailable, not being able to mirror our own emotions as children and unable to meet our own needs, then this would have created an attachment style that may be avoidant, anxious or disorganized.

We may have also asked our parents multiple times if we were okay, safe, worthy or loved. In these moments, if the parent kept reassuring us that we were okay moment after moment, then this could have created a sense of understanding that one needed to get reassurance in order to relieve their own inner pain, guilt, and shame.

This would be extremely common for people who continually go to their partner to make sure they are okay, enough, and worthy.

Mirroring means that if a child needed soothing or comfort, a parent would have been there, reassuring the child that all was okay, that the parent was there, which would have regulated the child’s nervous system into relaxation. A constant mirroring of this from their caretaker would have then created an Inner Parent in the child, an internal sense of safety. A child would have been shown how to work with their emotions, whether dark or light, that they were safe, and that no matter what, they felt, they were worthy, loved and enough.

This would have been the starting point to recognizing wholeness, fulfillment, and happiness as cultivated from within, instead of from the world outside through over-dependence and constant reassurance.

If, in addition, you felt as though your parent mirrored safety and was available without any attachment styles, but you’re still shaking your head wondering why you feel that you lack an internal safe container, know that a traumatic event, a difficult break-up, even the shock of ROCD (Holy shit, I feel like I can’t trust myself. My thoughts say one thing, my feelings another, how do I know what’s right?), a narcissistic, manipulative individual and even society’s reinforcement of unawakened, uneducated, honey-wood love can create internal confusion.

Not only that, but unless awakened and conscious, much of our society normalizes the idea of needing to find this “something” out there that will give us fulfillment and wholeness. When an individual is struggling with their relationship (or even their job, friends, or a place they live) the most common thing to do is ask what’s wrong with their partner, to tell them that maybe they need to move on to someone better, that something is better somewhere else, that happiness is elsewhere. These types of questions and statements arise, instead of encouragement to look for wholeness within and discover what could be triggering the anxieties and fears.

You can imagine that at the end of the day, all of these factors — the lack of mirroring and of an internal guidance system, traumatic experiences, the shock of ROCD and society’s reinforcement of seeking outward for what we need — can result in not trusting ourselves.

Constantly seeking outward to get quick, short-term relief leaves us feeling empty and creates reassurance as a compulsion.

And for many, looking for reassurance with ROCD can take the following forms:

1. Googling over and over for education on anxiety, relationships, and ROCD.

2. Re-asking friends, parents, and peers if their relationship is really okay, what they think of their relationship or if they should break up.

3. Using conversations to hear about others’ relationships to make sure your relationship is “normal” or okay.

4. Asking therapists about relationships and love.

5. Looking up celebrity facts to see what their relationship is like to get a sense of relief from anxiety.

6. Hearing others’ stories on ROCD to make sure their relationship is okay.

7. Asking your partner if you’re still loved, if the relationship is okay, and if you’re still enough.

8. Feeling the need to tell your partner everything in order to relieve shame and guilt.

We know that one is in a compulsion when they are already educated on a topic, but they are constantly asking, “But, are you sure?” or are wanting to hear one more time that their relationship is okay. Compulsions also come with a sense of urgency. If they have an answer they like, they get relief, but if they have an answer they dislike, they may fall into anxiety or panic.

Why don’t compulsions work and heal the root?

Many clients will notice that the assurance helps short term, it’s a temporary relief, which is why it’s a compulsion. But why doesn’t it actually work?

Because, as I mentioned earlier, we cannot heal the obsessive thinking with thinking itself. It must be done through a deeper transformation. The body and mind are asking us for internal safety, not external, and it can only feel safe and stop checking when it feels safe within.

Starting to Awaken...

Instead of moving into compulsions, we can begin the work to develop inner self-trust, wisdom and our own container of safety by self-mirroring compassion. This starts to heal the compulsions, and we begin to trust inward.

At first, though, this path needs assistance.

For many, a therapist or coach can start to deepen the healing that a child so needed. A therapist or coach may be the first person to really mirror feelings of fear, sadness and anger — emotions finally reappearing one may have suppressed and felt burdened by as a child.

This assistance, support, and education are what we call the wisdom and re-parenting piece, which is one of the biggest elements of our work.

At Awaken into Love, we feel that we cannot start to cultivate this inner self-trust, understanding, and compassion until we are educated on it and are supported through it. This is why so much of our beginning work focuses on education and creating a foundation of wisdom. ROCD is also different from other forms of OCD because ROCD deals with relationships and wounds created by and from parents, which is why we speak so much about trauma in relationships and attachment styles.

It is through healthy, secure, and stable relationships with our partners, our therapists, and coaches that the relationship with oneself starts to heal. Our self-trust starts to emerge and awaken into the highest order that we’ve always dreamed of. In relationships, we are wounded, and in relationships, we heal. So, yes, we can use our relationship with our partner to start creating this safety container.

Knowledge is key to using our relationships to instigate healing. Once we start to awaken in this manner, then our self-trust and self-empowerment start to build. We begin to realize that we can handle our emotions, that we have power, we have choice, and that we are ultimately safe and okay.

Here are some ways you can start to self-soothe and create an inner container:

1. When you notice yourself wanting to seek external support, first ask if it’s coming from a place of anxiety and urgency or genuine curiosity without fear. (This will help with setting intentions and becoming more clear with our actions.)

2. Ask yourself if you already know this answer or not and if you can use your inner wisdom and resource instead of seeking support. (If yes, great opportunity to use that inner wisdom to build that container — woo!)

3. See what emotions are here asking for attention, care, and love. (How can you use this opportunity to strengthen your wisdom, grow your self-compassion and cultivate self-trust?)

4. If you are wanting support from your partner or another person, do not ask them to reassure you about the thoughts. Instead, ask them for safety in your emotions, feelings, and anxiety. For example, instead of your partner going on and on about ROCD and asking questions about it and how you’re okay, ask them to say, “It’s okay to feel this way. I know this is hard. It’s okay to have feelings of fear, sadness or anger. I am here for you.” This attacks the fear at its core instead of the obsessive mind that cannot seek an answer. (We cannot seek peace through the mind and obsessive thoughts. We can only seek peace and healing from other internal means, like our body and emotions.)

5. If you’re about to look at educational resources on ROCD, anxiety or relationships on Google or even Awaken into Love, first check-in with yourself and use tip #1.

6. Reassurance is just a great way to build inner refuge and break through ROCD. Compulsions are all opportunities for awakening — but we must work with it.

It is important to remember that the sticky points start when we have the knowledge, education, and wisdom yet engage in a compulsion instead of putting in the work to start to heal the wounds within — wounds that need our own inner trust and safety. We must start to use the resources of wisdom mirrored from a therapist or coach, use the tools from the course, look to the tips up above and begin to really lean into self-trust and inner safety.

Once we understand this truth, work on creating a safe container, and learn to trust ourselves, then we start to realize that our relationship, the ROCD, the anxieties were not only pointing to deeper connection with our partner but ultimately, a deeper connection with ourself for the rest of our lives.