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Empathy Desert

To help others you first need to take care of yourself first. The quote that says this best is "you can't pour from an empty cup". 

I strongly believe in helping others so for me this way of thinking didn't come naturally. I guess it seemed selfish and perhaps egotistical. Doing what's suggested has made helping those around me much more achievable. One thing that can easily get overlooked is that helping others feels good, it's what we as humans are programmed to do and when it's done with sincerity it feels wonderful and in turn helps us.

For many, many years I had consciously and subconsciously come to the conclusion that I didn't deserve self kindness. That the thoughts that went through my head were 'bad' and that because of that I was a 'bad person' often not worthy of self love and self kindness. This is possibly one of the most dangerous lies that OCD tells us. We get trapped into feeling bad about ourselves and can't see past the fog that's created. We then begin to feel sorry for ourselves and wait for something to happen vs. meeting OCD head on. 

Love and kindness towards yourself are critical to you on your treatment journey. It's hard to stay motivated and keep an open mind when you are your own worst enemy because of the story that you've bought into. I am by no means saying that it's not okay to feel bad that you have OCD or to feel sorry for yourself for a period of time. What I am saying is that that period of time needs to have an end to it so that you can begin to fully recover. 

Empathy towards yourself will be one of the things that refuels you when you feel like you can't do this anymore or are exhausted by the work that you are putting into treatment. There are many wonderful guided 'loving kindness' mindful meditations available on the web and on YouTube. 

You may think that you don't deserve kindness or this is too simplistic. I beg you to prove yourself wrong.

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