OCD can make people feel like monsters. That doesn’t mean they are.

I was struck by a recent BBC story about people living with OCD.

Not the stereotype.

Not neatness.
Not colour-coded cupboards.
Not being “a bit particular”.

But intrusive thoughts so disturbing, shame-laden, and relentless that people can end up believing they are dangerous, disgusting, mad, or morally broken. The article includes mothers terrified by harm images about their children, people tormented by paedophile-themed OCD (POCD), and people who do not even realise what they are suffering from is OCD.

This matters.

Because one of the cruellest things about OCD is that it often attacks what a person cares about most.

Their children
Their morality
Their sexuality
Their safety
Their capacity to be a good human being

And because the thoughts feel so alien and abhorrent, people often do not say them out loud.

They hide
They ruminate
They check
They avoid
They seek reassurance
They perform mental rituals

And every one of those moves can accidentally strengthen the loop.

In my work, one way of understanding this is that OCD is not just “bad thoughts”.

It’s often a catastrophic relationship to inner experience.

A thought appears.
The body reacts with alarm.
The person interprets the thought as dangerous or revealing.
Then they do something to get certainty or relief.

That may bring short-term relief.

But it teaches the system that the thought really was a threat.

So the cycle returns, often stronger.

This is one reason OCD can feel so unbearable.

Not only because of the thought itself, but because the person often lacks the underlying skills needed to:

notice what is happening internally,
tolerate anxiety,
interpret the intrusion accurately,
resist compulsive neutralising,
and stay anchored in reality without collapsing into shame.

That is also why this isn’t helped by “just think positively” or “stop worrying”.

The issue is procedural.

What matters is not only what thought appears, but what the person has learned to do when it appears.

Can they tolerate uncertainty?
Can they refrain from the ritual?
Can they stay in contact with the fact that a thought is not the same as an intention, identity, or action?

That is where real work often begins.

The good news is that evidence-based treatment exists.

But alongside that, I think we need a wider developmental conversation about the capacities involved:

self-regulation under stress
somatic attunement
adaptive emotional processing
reality appraisal
shame resilience
and resisting compulsive action when anxiety is high.

Because for many people, the symptom is the signal.

And the signal is pointing to missing skills that can be built.

Because I have worked clinically with clients who struggle in exactly this way, if there is enough interest, I may record a fuller video on:

how OCD works,
why taboo intrusive thoughts do not mean what sufferers fear they mean, and what skills need to be built to weaken the cycle.

A lot of people think rejection sensitivity is mainly overreaction.

But often it begins in our body before our mind has words for it.

Triggers, such as:

A delayed reply.
A shorter message.
A distracted tone.

And suddenly our body reacts:

chest drop
tight throat
held breath
instant dread

Rejection Sensitivity is often a signal.

Not weakness.
Protection.

What helps underneath is skill-building:

Somatic Attunement
Adaptive Emotional Processing
Healthy Self-Worth

If you’d like to take this further:

Explainer video: https://psychevita.com/video/2021522?collectionId=14580

Guided follow along practice: https://psychevita.com/video/2021533?collectionId=14580

When we lose touch with our body, we lose access to one of our most important sources of guidance.

Many of us are used to living from the neck up.

We think.

We analyse.

We push on.

We override.

And after a while, we stop really noticing what is happening inside us.

We miss the signals.

Tension.

Tiredness.

Hunger.

Pressure.

Flatness.

A buzzing jaw.

A tight chest.

A heavy belly.

That is why somatic attunement matters.

Somatic attunement is our ability to notice, interpret, and respond to the signals coming from our body. When this skill is weak, we often ignore or override what our body is telling us.

A simple practice I often offer my clients goes like this:

Listen → Name → Locate → Support → Check

Before you begin, rate your current level of activation from 0 to 10.

0 = deeply settled

10 = highly activated, stressed, or overwhelmed

Pause.

Take three 3:6 breaths:

in for 3,

out for 6,

and repeat twice more.

Then ask yourself:

What is my body telling me right now?

Notice one clear signal.

Maybe it is:

a tight chest

a buzzing jaw

a heavy belly

heat in your face

pressure in your forehead

restlessness in your legs

or numbness

Name it in simple words.

Then notice where it sits in your body.

Do not try to fix it immediately.

Just make contact.

Then ask:

What might this part of me need right now?

Do not force an answer.

Sometimes the answer is obvious.

Sometimes it arrives as a word, image, or impulse.

Maybe your body needs:

a longer exhale

a shoulder roll

a sip of water

a short walk

a slower pace

a clearer boundary

quiet

Then choose one tiny supportive action.

Just one small act of response.

Then rate your activation again.

What changed, if anything?

Did the signal soften?

Did your breathing shift?

Did your body feel even five per cent more settled or informed?

That matters.

Because the tiny supportive action is not just about relief.

It is also training.

We are teaching ourselves a new procedure:

to notice what is happening inside,

to treat that information as meaningful,

and to respond rather than simply ignoring or overriding it.

The small action is not the whole change.

It is part of how we build the skill.

Over time, that sequence becomes more available and more automatic.

When we do not know how to listen to our body, anxiety can become louder, focus can worsen, sleep can suffer, empathy can drop, and we can become more vulnerable to wired-and-tired living.

As this skill grows, we often see steadier mood, clearer choices, better boundaries, and a more trustworthy sense of what we actually need.

Listening to our body is not indulgence.

It is information.

And with practice, it becomes a skill.

Sometimes the next step in growth is not to think harder.

It is to listen more accurately.

Note: In the developmental sequence I use, somatic attunement is one of the foundational skills. Many of us struggle to grow well because we have not yet learned how to notice and respond to what our body is telling us.

Why tips so often fail us under pressure

LinkedIn loves tips.

3 ways to manage stress.
5 ways to stop overthinking.
7 ways to communicate better.

But when life becomes emotionally charged, many of us do not suddenly remember a neat list and apply it well.

We fall back on what is more deeply learned.

That is why I think psychological change is often less about collecting more tips and more about building better procedures.

A procedure is something we can actually do.

Not just something we agree with.
Not just something we understand.

It is a learned sequence that becomes more available in real life.

A simple example:

Many of us do not need a checklist to brush our teeth.

We just do it.

Even when tired.
Even when stressed.
Even when distracted.

Why?

Because it has become procedural.

We do not have to think much about what to do, when to do it, or how to do it.

Through repetition, we have learned the procedure so well that we apply it automatically.

That is the kind of change I mean.

Because most of life is not lived in the calm, reflective moment when we are reading advice.

It is lived in the moment when something in us is already activated.

And in those moments, cognitive tips often have limited reach.

What helps more is a small number of well-trained inner procedures.

Once learned well, they become part of our automatic default.

They reduce cognitive load rather than add to it.

For example:

noticing tension in our body before we get swept away by it

staying with a feeling long enough to process it rather than instantly suppressing it

recognising shame without immediately collapsing into self-attack

recovering properly after stress rather than just sedating or distracting ourselves

In my experience, many struggles arise from a small number of underdeveloped trainable skills. If those skills are weak and we’re struggling, we end up needing endless tips for endless situations. If those skills become stronger, life becomes more manageable across the board.

That is one reason why the same few missing procedures can show up in difficulties people will recognise.

If I do not know how to notice and regulate rising activation, anxiety may become more likely.

If I do not know how to process difficult feeling states, I may be more vulnerable to depression.

If shame overwhelms me and I do not know how to metabolise it, imposter syndrome may become more likely.

If I do not know how to recover properly, I may feel burned out.

Different struggles.

Often some of the same missing skills sit underneath them. Our leverage is to strengthen the small number of skills that underlie many difficulties.

Yes, tips can help.

But if we want change that actually holds when life is difficult, we usually need more than tips.

We need procedures.
We need practice.
We need repetition.
We need skills that, over time, become our healthier default.

In coming posts, I’ll say more about those procedures, and how we build them in everyday life.

Sometimes the way out of our head is to put ourselves back in the room.

I was struck by something musician Noah Kahan said in a recent interview.

He said:

“I get really stuck in my head when I’m making music – but if I sit in a chair and look in the mirror, it almost feels like I’m writing with someone else in the room.”

I think that captures something psychologically important.

When we get stuck in our head, we are often not simply “thinking”.

We are over-monitoring.
Over-editing.
Over-evaluating.
Over-identifying with the part of us that is trying to get it right.

Creativity tends not to thrive there.

What interested me about the mirror comment is that it seems to create a subtle shift.

Instead of being completely alone inside his thoughts, he becomes both the one who is experiencing and the one who is witnessing.

That can change a great deal.

A mirror can help us step back from mental fusion.
It can bring our body back into awareness.
It can make our process feel more relational and less trapped inside a private mental loop.

In other words, we may stop being just a mind trying to perform, and become a person in contact with themselves.

That matters.

Because many of us do our worst thinking when we are cut off from our body, our feelings, and any sense of compassionate self-observation.

And many of us do our best work when we are more connected to:

our bodily state,
our emotional truth,
our observing capacity,
and a less persecutory relationship with ourselves.

Sometimes what looks “weird” is actually wise.

The musician in front of the mirror may have found a way to become less cognitively trapped and more embodied, reflective, and relational with himself.

That is not only relevant to songwriting.

It is relevant to writing, leadership, therapy, performance, public speaking, and perhaps to any moment in which we are trying to create while under pressure.

Sometimes the next breakthrough does not come from thinking harder.

It comes from relating differently to ourselves.