Meditation for OCD

Each of us comes to meditation with different patterns of behavior that have been developed in our lives to protect ourselves from discomfort and unpleasant situations. The first part of my life was consumed with OCD, controlling myself, controlling others, over-striving, triple-checking everything, and consumed with anxiety.

Meditating with an obsessive mind means that when given instructions such as relax with gentle breaths, note your experience, focus on your meditation object that your mind will try to over control and over analyse these instructions. This will make weakening anxiety by relaxing with slow diaphragmatic breathing in Meditation Skill 00 difficult because of the over-complication and control that your mind will bring to the instructions.

Initial short periods of stillness meditation that is gradually increased as your mind becomes comfortable with doing little can help to gradually retrain your mind to let things be and weaken OCD tendencies during meditation and in daily life. With daily Stillness Meditation your mind will find a place of safety lowering both anxiety and OCD, and I have seen many meditators training in this way teach to be able to then transition onto diaphragmatic breathing to change stress breathing patterns and significantly lower anxiety in your daily life.

Understanding Anxiety-based OCD.

OCD is an anxiety-driven avoidance behavior that is characterised by having persistent, recurring, unwanted obsessive thoughts and urges that drive us to perform in response to an obsession. This often manifests as ritualistic behavior, where a person repeats rituals to appease the uncomfortable, repeated thought patterns and feelings. 

Obsessiveness appears in meditation as overthinking a meditation skill and a desire to perfect it, by repeating the same skill over and over, before moving on to the next one. Because of the obsessive thought loops and over striving, it is difficult for a meditator experiencing OCD tendencies to find enjoyment in meditation, leading to them moving from one technique/meditation method to the next, and never getting anywhere.

Retraining Your Minds Tendencies

I found creating gaps in the OCD cycle of my mind by lying still on the floor and doing nothing for 2 minutes per meditation session, with a timer placed behind my back so I couldn't peek, worked well. And then making an agreement with myself to be with urges that came up and the uncomfortable feelings and thoughts they triggered, without doing anything about them, worked for me.

Without a specific rule or task to follow, such as relaxing, being mindful, or being aware of an object, but instead just sitting and doing nothing for a short time. This commitment toward short meditations gave me a feeling of "that was a good thing to do" at the end of each session. Simply allowing myself to be with the uncomfortable urges, thoughts and compulsions to act during short periods twice per day, without having to do anything with them, caused them to weaken gradually. 

As my mind became more comfortable sitting for this short time, I then gradually increased the time I would sit or lay still to 3 minutes. Microdosing short periods of doing nothing to create gaps in the cycle during my day. These short, microdosed meditations gave me a sense of trust in the process and myself. Then, something interesting happened; I started to enjoy my meditation. Before this, my meditation was always goal-oriented and driven by the desire to do something.

Once I found enjoyment in these gaps of doing nothing, my meditation length naturally increased, and the obsessing of my mind as urges, and negative cycling thoughts became noticeably weaker within my daily life. I was then able to gradually bring in meditation techniques like softening and attention training into my meditation, beginning with mindfulness of body and then breathing, from a place of non-control and more contentment because my mind now found enjoyment in being still and letting go.

Let's do this together.

• Meditation Length: 2-minutes twice per day. When comfortable increase to 5-minutes then up to 15-minutes 1-2 times per day. Practice lying on the floor with a rolled blanket under your knees and a pillow so you can really relax.
• Meditation Purpose: Weaken OCD by developing self-trust.

I recommend committing to two 2-minute meditations each day; the important part is to follow this through to build trust in yourself gradually. I understand that if you have been meditating for a long time this will feel really short. The main thing with weakening OCD is not forcing yourself to sit for longer time but to gradually training your mind to find enjoyment in your meditation. 

Your main goal at this stage is not whether you feel it was a good or bad meditation, whether it was comfortable or uncomfortable, but rather to build enjoyment in your daily meditation and trust within yourself. Short meditations give a sense of achievement because they are too short for our mind to overcomplicate. Finishing each meditation with the feeling: "That meditation was a good thing to do", is the key to weakening the obsessive control and over complication that comes with OCD.

Tip: The first thing you need to do to build trust is honoring your commitments to yourself. Keeping the meditation times short will give you mind a sense of achievement and also teach it that is safe to do nothing.

Practice 2 x 2min daily meditations:

• Set a countdown timer on your phone (set to Do Not Disturb).
• Commit to lying on the floor in meditation and doing nothing for the 2 minutes.
• Observe and be with the urge 'to do' something when it comes up and just be with it.
• Be curious about what it means to relax the feeling of this urge in your body.
• Gradually increase the meditation time to create bigger gaps as 2 minutes becomes comfortable by meditating for 5 minutes at time and so on until you feel comfortable meditating for 15 minutes 1-2 times daily.***
• Buy a nice diary and write down what you experienced; gather data and learn from this.

***Remember, breaking this cycle is not about having the perfect meditation; it's about committing to being with yourself for short periods each day and building trust with yourself by keeping that commitment. Sitting quietly with nothing to do will challenge the OCD aspect of your mind. If you miss a day of meditation that is ok, you always have an opportunity to begin again today. 

Stillness meditation develops a deep sense of stillness that arises by allowing the functions of your mind to slow down by not adding anything to them. Like a fire that can only survive as long as it is being fed fuel, the fire of your mind can only burn fiercely when fuel is being added to it. 

Through not adding to the activity of your mind and gently softening any habitual 'going out' of your attention, it naturally settles down and become still. This process of softening 'all doing' challenges the habitual tendency of the mind to create through engaging with the six sensory fields. When habitual going out of attention is relaxed, this challenges the last of the minds remaining defenses in a process that is experienced as disentanglement and that results in stillness.

Meditation summary.

In this meditation you gradually develop the simple skill of abandoning effort in different parts of your body to bring about deep relaxation. This is a beautiful practice of sitting still and allowing your body to relax part by part by giving up effort that is held within the muscles. As you relax you tune into the sense of ease that is associated with physical relaxation and allow it to fill every cell of your body as an expression of bodily presence. 

This process challenges and gradually removes habitual defensive armours produced by your mind by deconstructing the minds habitual bracing for danger that expresses within the body as tension. Through repetition your mind will gradually allow the relaxation to access deeper levels of defenselessness until all defensive armour is removed, and safety is experienced within the stillness of your body itself.

Instructions for meditation.

Your meditation object for stillness arises through methodical deep relaxation of your body, in this case brought about by inclining your mind towards letting go of effort and allowing different parts of your body to relax as a doorway to stillness.

• Meditation Length: 20 to 30 minutes, 1-2 times per day.
• Meditation Purpose: Weaken OCD by increasing body stillness.

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Meditation Structure:

• Practice lying on the floor with a rolled blanket under your knees and a pillow so you can really relax.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your forehead, eyelids, cheeks and jaw.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your shoulders, chest, upper back, arms.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your hips, legs and feet.
• Experience the sense of ease within your body and allow it to fill your mind.
• Soften effort within your mind to engage with any experience or to do anything.

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Detailed Meditation Instructions:

Step 1: Sit or lay down for meditation.

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Step 2: Allow relaxation to flow into your forehead.

Once your body is relaxed, you gently bring awareness to your forehead and use slow softening

breaths to allow the muscles in your forehead to relax.

How to do it:

1. Aware of this relaxation you allow it to fill your awareness.
2. Feeling your forehead becoming heavier, smoothing out, so relaxed.
3. You experience the sense of ease of this relaxation; you allow it to enter your mind.

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Step 3: Allow relaxation to flow into your eyelids.

How to do it:

1. Feel the relaxation flow down from your forehead into your eyelids.
2. Feeling so relaxed.
3. You gently relax your eyelids further, feeling them become heavy, so heavy.
4. You open them slightly and relax this effort, allowing them to droop, to sink.
5. Aware of this relaxation, you allow it to fill your awareness.
6. Allow them to become so heavy it feels like you’re falling asleep.

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Step 4: Allow relaxation to flow into your cheeks & jaw.

How to do it:

1. Feel the relaxation flow down through your cheeks and into your jaw.
2. Allow your jaw to open slightly. Feel the relaxation coming to the whole of your face, filling your face, becoming so relaxed.
3. Experience the sense of ease of this relaxation throughout your face.

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Step 5: Allow relaxation to flow into your shoulders, chest and upper back.

How to do it:

1. Feeling the relaxation flow down into your chest, and upper back.
2. Shoulders dropping slightly.
3. Feeling this relaxation coming to your upper body.
4. Experience the sense of ease of this relaxation in your upper body.

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Step 6: Allow relaxation to flow down your arms, hands and fingers.

How to do it:

1. Allowing this relaxation to flow down your arms into your hands.
2. Relaxing your fingers.
3. Allow your arms to hang loosely from your shoulders, so relaxed.
4. Experience the sense of ease of this relaxation in your arms, hands and fingers.

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Step 7: Relax your chest and belly, allowing your breathing to flow naturally.

How to do it:

1. Feeling the pleasure of the gentle flow of your breathing.
2. Allowing your breathing to become very gentle and calm.
3. To become so relaxed that you can barely feel it moving at all.
4. The sense of ease within your body deepens.

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Step 8: Allow relaxation to flow down into your hips, legs and feet.

As relaxation grows you allow it flow down into your hips, legs and feet, softening any effort that you feel held there.

How to do it:

1. You slightly release your hips, allowing your legs to open slightly.
2. Feeling the relaxation to flow down your legs into your feet.
3. Your whole body feeling so heavy, so relaxed.
4. You the floor to take the whole weight in your body, giving up all effort in your body.

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Step 9: Create your object for meditation: pleasure of relaxation & ease.

This deep relaxation of your whole body will become your meditation object for your mind to access stillness.

How to do it:

1. Allow the floor to take the full weight of your body.
2. Give up all effort within your body.
3. Feel the effortlessness of it all, the effortlessness of not having to do anything.
4. Feel this deep sense of ease fill every cell within your whole body.
5. Allow the sense of ease to grow and your mind to drift and settle by itself, avoiding any 'doing' as this will stir up the mind. The only thing you may do at this stage is relaxing with a slow breath out through your nose whenever your attention is drawn back out to engage with the sensory world. Allowing the energy currents of your mind to settle and come to an end.

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30 min Guided Stillness Meditation.

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You continue to develop the simple skill of allowing the deep relaxation that arises through not

doing. This is a beautiful practice of sitting still and allowing your body to relax part by part starting from your forehead, moving down through your body to your feet. You then mentally feel the sense of ease with the deep physical relaxation allowing it to enter your mind. 

This process will challenge and gradually remove defensive armours produced by your mind. Through repetition your mind will gradually allow the relaxation to access deeper levels of defenselessness until all defensive armour is removed, and safety is experienced within the stillness of the mind itself.

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Accessing Pleasure.

The pleasure of deep relaxation of your body is used during this stage of stillness as the meditation of object. It is awareness of the pleasure and sense of ease of it that takes stillness to deeper levels. In the same way you created a feedback loop by taking piti-sukha as a meditation object from which to enter first jhana, you create a feedback loop based on abandoning, sense of ease, easiness, letting go and allow the feeling of this to grow and fill first your body and then mind.

Once you experience deep relaxation within your body, you bring awareness to the 'feeling of it', the sukha vedana aspect, and allow it to enter and engulf awareness by abandoning all 'doing'. Your mind will then take this object of effortlessness, the pleasure of ease and this will grow in a similar (but more tranquil) way as first jhana. this will develop a very particular type of unification: nirvikalpa samadhi (objectless unification), which will develop into a very deep state of relaxed bliss.

Instructions for meditation.

Your meditation object for nirvikalpa samadhi based stillness arises through methodical deep

relaxation of your body, once the pleasure of this relaxation and ease grows, you take it as a

meditation object and allow it to enter your mind, while relaxing any habitual 'going out' of your

attention to enter deep stillness.

• Meditation Length: 30 to 45 minutes, 1-2 times per day.
• Meditation Purpose: Weaken OCD and increase mind stillness.

.............................................

Meditation Structure:

• Practice lying on the floor with a rolled blanket under your knees and a pillow so you can really relax.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your forehead, eyelids, cheeks and jaw.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your shoulders, chest, upper back, arms.
• Gradually allow effort to relax in your hips, legs and feet.
• Experience the sense of ease within your body and allow it to fill your mind.
• Soften effort within your mind to engage with any experience or to do anything.

.............................................

Detailed Meditation Instructions:

Step 1: Sit or lay down for meditation.

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Step 2: Develop Stillness of Body as in Stage 2.

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Explanation: Meditation Additions.

Step 3: Experience the deep physical relaxation & ease.

Bring full awareness to the deep relaxation and ease within your body and allow them to start to fill your mind.

How to do it:

1. Abandon all mental effort at this stage; just allow.
2. Take this sense of ease, effortlessness, not doing as your meditation object by bringing awareness to it, relaxing all doing, and allowing it to fill your mind.
3. Just allow your mind to sink, for mental processes to slow down and stop.
4. Feel your mind sinking deeper down, deeper as the sense of ease, of effortlessness fills it.

At this stage:

Once in stillness allow your mind to drift and settle by itself, avoid any doing as this will stir up the mind. The only thing you may do at this stage is relaxing with a slow breath out through your nose whenever your attention is drawn back out to engage with the world.

How to do it:

1. Allow your mind to drift, to float around.
2. Allow thoughts to come and go.
3. You will drift in and out of thoughts as the energy of you mind settles down.
4. Gradually the thoughts will change from thinking with a subject, to random, floaty thoughts without meaning.
5. Allow your mind to drift into these thoughts and back out into the growing feeling of stillness of mind.
6. Gradually these drifting thoughts will weaken, and the periods of clear, tranquil stillness will increase until, when all mental activities cease, your mind will rest in pure, still, awareness.

Sit back and enjoy the process as your mind returns to its simplest form, pure awareness.

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45 min Guided Stillness Meditation.

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• Insight Timer

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Advanced: Entering Deep Stillness

You now develop your skill in calming the habitual 'going out' of your attention

over a 60-minute period. Your path at this stage is a path of accessing the pleasure inherent in the experience of ease, giving up, letting go, abandoning all doing, of not having to experience. Bathe in, bask in, fill every cell of your body and mind with this pleasure.

The only thing you may do at this stage is relaxing with a slow breath out through your nose whenever your attention is drawn back out to engage with the world. Once you have reached deep stillness, bring awareness to the area just above and between your eyes. Gently soften any doing that you experience within there. Gently disentangle awareness from experiencing anything within your six senses by relaxing the effort that supports it, including the effort to be aware of awareness itself. Abandon any doing, including the effort to abandon or be aware and allow awareness to fold back into itself.

60 min Guided Stillness Meditation.

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• Insight Timer