How To Find Freedom From the Ritual Of “Checking”

by | Jun 21, 2020 | Anxiety, Dying/Death, Health anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person, Intrusive Thoughts | 36 comments

As I recently wrote about on my blog, I approach what we refer to as obsessions and compulsions (OCD) from a different, more depth-oriented model than is currently seen in psychological culture. Mental obsessions arise from anxiety and compulsions erupt as a misguided attempt to control a world that is largely out of hands. Both are seen in highly sensitive people who are more acutely aware of the fleeting nature of life, attuned to nuanced change, and prone to perfectionism.

Highly sensitive people are driven by an exceptionally high moral compass that is sometimes applied to the inner world, which means we try to avoid making mistakes and desperately want to “get it right”. This applies to relationships (“I don’t want to choose the wrong person”), health (“Ignoring a symptom might result in a catastrophic outcome”), safety (“If I don’t check the stove I might burn the house down”), and several other common and archetypal hooks.

What’s essential to understand before delving a bit further into the common compulsion of checking is that I don’t view these obsessions and compulsions as a “disorder”, which is why I’m reluctant to use the term “OCD” at all in my writing. Rather, I see them as the psyche’s brilliant attempts to exert order and control over fundamentally out-of-control inner and outer experiences. Without healthier options, which our culture fails to provide, the psyche has no other choice but to create obsessions and compulsions in its attempt to process the enormity of being human in an ever-changing world that includes the reality of loss, emotional pain and death at its core.

If we lived in cultures that offered time-honored rituals, stories, and ceremonies that connected its members to their ancestral lineage and the greater invisible web that weaves around us and between us, we would likely see a drastic reduction in obsessions and compulsions. Our souls need to be grounded in ritual in order to feel safe. Our spirits need to tap into ribbons of Creative Breath in order to feel connected. When we’re rooted in earth and connected to sky we feel a sustainable and enduring safety and the need to control abates. When we feel woven into the poetry of life seen and unseen the soul exhales and we can let go of the misguided attempts at control and safety that are at the root of obsessions, intrusive thoughts, and compulsions.

This is what we explore in depth in my Grace Through Uncertainty course, where we also seek to create healthy maps and rituals to replace the unhealthy ones. Along these lines, I want to share a beautiful exchange with a member from the August 2018 round of the course that occurred on a thread called “Portal Practices” in which I invite participants to share their healthy practices on the forum, including ways in which they feel more vulnerable when leaving the house, eating, and during other liminal times. This is an excerpt from the email I send out that corresponds to the prompt:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by transitions. Something inside of me has understood that transitions are liminal zones when we’re more vulnerable, where we can either bolster our inner strength or fall prey to anxiety. My work started over two decades ago in the realm of the wedding transition, where we leave behind the identity of our single self and birth a new identity as a married person. But it quickly evolved into the transition of healing from a fear-based mindset to a more solid sense of Self.

Within this broader framework, and through raising my highly sensitive kids, it’s become clear to me that when you’re highly sensitive you have a thinner veil between the worlds. As I talked about in the first email, this means you’re more aware of change, the passage of time, and transitions – which all funnel down to an increased awareness of death. With this increased awareness of death in all of its manifestations, highly sensitive children and then adults are also aware of how vulnerable we are, how ultimately helpless we are to the fact that time and death will exert their will over our lives.

The Portal of Doorways: Leaving the House

Let’s take the example of leaving the house. We feel nervous about leaving our place of safety, comfort and protection where all of our worldly possessions reside. We feel anxious about entering the outside world, especially if we’re highly sensitive: What will I find? Who will I see? Will I feel okay about myself? Will I feel lonely, inadequate and judged or connected, happy, and secure? If we’re connected to an anchoring practice, it will provide the comfort we need in order to bolster ourselves through this liminal threshold (literally the threshold of the doorway). But in lieu of this practice, the anxious mind is left to try to find its foothold through attaching onto outward obsessions, like checking the stove and the locks.

You can create portal rituals that are aligned with your values and belief system. If you are already grounded in a religious tradition, you have an abundance of rituals from which to choose: you can read spiritual texts, recite prayers, light candles. And if you’re not religious, don’t let the word “ritual” scare you. Ritual simply means a meaningful act that you engage in on a regular basis. We all have rituals that inform our lives, but most of them lack meaning so they don’t serve the function of creating an inner anchor and protection system. We have bedtime rituals, like washing face, brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, but they’re more rote routines than actual rituals.

One member wrote that she was having trouble connecting to a ritual around leaving the house that spoke to her. She said (shared here with permission), “When I leave, particularly when I’m leaving for an extended period of time, I feel very agitated and highly anxious and it manifests as a tight chest. I also feel angry at “having” to check things several times. My worst fear is the house setting on fire and losing precious memories of my Dad.”

I responded:

“That’s a horrible fear and I’m sure one that many people can relate to. What happens when you stop, put your hand on your chest/heart, and say something like, “I’m scared because I miss my Dad so much. I’m breathing into my fear and my grief. Please keep the house safe and please help me hold onto my memories of my dad. Please help me let go of these misguided rituals that are protecting me from my grief and my fear.”

She began to practice this ritual, then wrote a few days later:

“I’m finding the portal prayer so helpful in leaving the house so far. The act of just breathing into the fear and grief is a tonic rather than trying to protect myself from it.”

Another member shared her portal practice (shared here with permission):

“I remembered a portal practice from my childhood of when we would leave or enter church (Catholic), people would dip their fingers in the bowl of holy water and cross themselves. I was thinking of a portal ritual for when I leave my home for work. I really like being in my home and wanted something to signify going out into the world and something to keep me grounded and connected to The Divine. I did some research on the church ritual for the holy water. I cried while reading it. I’m no longer Catholic but having read why people did this was so heart-warming and connecting with God.

“One reason was for the church portal ritual is that you are leaving the world and coming into the sacred. Another was to remember our baptism. I never knew those things as a child. I decided to put essential oil in a little glass dish of oil. As I leave for work in the morning, I dip my finger in just a little and make the sign of the cross on my forehead, lips and heart…and say “may Jesus be in my mind, on my lips and in my heart”. I feel the connection.

“The other thing I do which connects me with the Divine and brings me in connection with my body is I do the same thing a few times at work. I just make the sign of the cross on myself in those three areas. This has been very powerful divinely connecting ritual for me. I also notice that I naturally take a deeper breath when I do this and I can still lightly smell the essential oil. Note: I haven’t made the sign of the cross in over 30 years. Thanks, Sheryl, for inspiring me to connect with a meaningful part of my heritage.”

Sometime we’re led to revitalize rituals from our upbringing and find fresh meaning in them. Other times we’re called to create new rituals that arise from the depths of our own unconscious. Embedded inside anxiety, intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions is a call to connect with our lineage and our soul’s poetic language in a way the allows us to be held across thresholds and through the vulnerability of living and loving. At their core, the symptoms of anxiety are asking us to feel our deepest emotions and reconnect to soul and spirit, for it’s in the realms of emotions and soul that we feel abiding safety and have more tolerance for change.

While the examples above are specific to checking rituals that occur around leaving the house, you’re likely familiar with other manifestations of checking that center around your relationship, health, money, or sexuality. As a highly sensitive person, it’s also highly likely that you’re familiar with the struggle with loss, change, and death that are amplified during this time of great uncertainty. If that’s the case, I invite you to join me for this third live round of Grace Through Uncertainty.

Together we will chart a new course away from unhealthy rituals and toward healthy ones. I will help you discover your inner maps that will help you create your own protection system, one that can see you through this time in history and through your life as a highly sensitive person. And through these maps, you will rekindle your aliveness and love of life that are your birthright. The course starts on June 27, 2020 and I look forward to guiding you and meeting you there.

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36 Comments

  1. Thank you for this ? I’m wondering, what is the difference between a healthy ritual and an unhealthy ritual (a compulsion)?

    Reply
    • Ah good question! An unhealthy ritual (compulsion) stems from the need to control while a healthy ritual connects us to soul and spirit. Healthy rituals are often rooted in long-standing cultural traditions, although more and more people are creating their own rituals that are more personal and meaningful for them. You’ll know the difference between unhealthy and healthy based on how you feel: an unhealthy ritual may temporarily quell the need to be perfect or control but ultimately it adds logs to that fire, causing the need to control to intensify, which a healthy ritual brings a sustaining sense of peace and spaciousness. Does that make sense?

      Reply
  2. Hmm, so much of this occurs for me around eating, with the unhealthy rituals being control and rigidity around what I eat and when, plus how much I exercise. When I was younger, I was a “checker” – still am, but not to the degree I used to be. I never thought about my eating behaviors as compulsions of perfectionism and control, but obviously that’s exactly what they are. Thank you for this insightful post! Will the course assist with creating healthy rituals and letting go of the need/compulsion for control?

    Reply
    • That’s exactly the focus of the course. The need for control can manifest literally anywhere, and the course addresses this need at the root.

      Reply
  3. This post is wonderful!!! I’ve checked my emotions and monitored my feelings for so long with a focus on feeling the “right” thing! I loved the idea of healthy compulsions! However, I had a question that lives in the realm of relationships that I feel I am struggling to apply what I have learned. My boyfriend is very sarcastic and loves to poke fun and joke and it really has never bothered me except for the rare cases when it goes a little far to which, of course, he says sorry and we move on. He is very caring however I worry that his sometimes teasing sense of humor is a sign that he is mean or a bad person which leads me to wonder if I have a bad partner. He has reassured me that he never pokes fun in order to hurt me only to make me laugh and feel joyful, I really do love him a lot so this has been bugging me loads! How can I apply my inner work to this to come to a healthy understanding? I really do believe he would never mean it in a way that was meant to hurt me….

    Reply
    • Teasing does NOT make someone a bad person. It’s important for you to validate how it makes you feel and set appropriate boundaries around it, but this is in no way a red flag or an indicator that you’re with a “bad” partner.

      Reply
  4. This is fascinating. I wonder if this applies to constant researching, googling and trying to find answers to things? I’m in my first trimester of a surprise pregnancy and find myself constantly googling the smallest of things – from what bottles to use on a baby, to how to establish a sleep pattern. I feel like the more I Google and try to understand, the less of a shock this will be – not that it works. So I Google some more, try to understand more – how long will my newborn baby sleep for? Will I get baby blues etc. I just wondered if unhelpful rituals can include obsessively trying to research and find answers for things that are probably unanswerable, until the baby is here!

    Reply
    • Lauren, I am the same way. Been Googling since the day I found out I was pregnant, looking for signs of miscarriage, etc. My doctor encouraged me to not read what’s online, and just ask her questions. It’s hard to wait but I know I am strengthening the muscle of waiting, and that I’ll only truly know these things once my baby is here and I get to know her. All the best.

      Reply
  5. Hi Sheryl

    I’m pretty sure I registered to join your mailing list a few days ago, but it mustn’t have worked as I didn’t receive the Sunday email that others talk of. I’m in the UK but should have had it by now, I’m assuming?
    Would your assistant be kind enough to check if I need to reregister?

    Thank you x

    Reply
  6. I love this! Thank you for explaining this in such a beautiful way.

    Reply
  7. I am currently reading Pure by Rose Cartwright, a memoir by a young English woman with so-called Pure O (note: this book is unashamedly pro CBT but most of the book simply comprises of her personal experience of distressing intrusive thoughts) and the following passage really spoke to me : “I see now how striving for certainty had only made me less certain,how it’d all been so acutely self-defeating. How searching for ‘Me’ had only ever made me more confused. I see our constant cycle of trying to block out the scary and unknown, only to render ourselves more frightened and more insecure. If we can’t tolerate discomfort, if we can’t accept that others might think we’re ugly or uncool or untalented,if we can’t let our doubts just be,we sabotage ourselves”. I believe the television series of the book recently launched in the U.S.

    Reply
    • I’m adding it to my book list. Thank you for sharing here.

      Reply
      • You are so welcome ?❤

        Reply
  8. Dear Sheryl,

    This post spoke to me so much, and I am thinking of joining the Grace course, but I’d like to make sure I am in the right place for what I’m going through: I have suffered from relationship anxiety ever since I moved from London to Rome to be with my partner. I have had intrusive thoughts and compulsions (checking, ruminating, Googling, you name it). Working with my therapist I have been able to become more aware and so my anxiety has now shifted to a new theme, which is more rooted in what I think is the core of my pain: I have started having obsessive thoughts on where I should live, if I ‘belong’ to London, if I can be happy and whole only in London, should I go back etc. I catch myself costantly checking how I feel when I look at beauty in Rome to compare it to how I felt in London. I look at buildings and compare the architecture, I even check how I feel in interacting with people and friends – and I panic when I start thinking London ‘represented’ me more. My therapist says I have always used external validation as the only source to define myself, and in London I was getting a lot of external validation because I had found a community that shared my same interests, while I always felt like an outsider in my hometown. I have never actually empowered myself with the notion that I am myself from the inside, and that my self-worth should not depend on external factors. I agree with that, but I also feel London was a symbol for me, something I had conquered all by myself, I felt whole in it because I moved there on my own from Italy, found a job I loved and did long distance with my partner while living my ‘dream’ – it was great, but I also felt at times terribly isolated and like no one really knew me. I felt free but also somehow rootless, like London was home, I felt self-sufficient and powerful there, but I was living as ‘the best version of myself’ and sometimes I felt I wasn’t being truthful, I would feel exhausted by having to always act like I was ‘succesful’ and I missed my family and my boyfriend. When I moved back to Italy I think i got stuck in a grief that I haven’t yet completely processed. Now every time someone even mentions London I feel extremely anxious. I am afraid saying goodbye to London meant saying goodbye to the freedom of being myself, to my independence (I moved in with my partner and we are discussing marriage, kids etc.), to my twenties, to my potential. Sometimes I am afraid I will be mediocre if I don’t go back to London.

    How do I build a new ritual to properly grief this transition, and how do I actually face my truth here? Is it actually possible that you can be yourself only in one specific place? Or is it just fear protecting me from truly feeling this transition into adulthood, or fear of embracing my true self with the uncertainty that comes from it? I see things black&white and I feel there is so much grey in this situation… Would the course help me with that?

    Reply
    • Emanuela: You’ve answered your own question here:

      “Or is it just fear protecting me from truly feeling this transition into adulthood, or fear of embracing my true self with the uncertainty that comes from it?”

      Yes, it’s fear. Yes, it’s grief. Yes London has come to represent a part of you that lives inside of you that is ready to be claimed. This isn’t about London versus Rome. It’s about self-trust and learning to tolerate uncertainty, grief, and feeling into the transition of growing up.

      Reply
  9. I’m so glad to have found your blog! However, there are only two things that have kept me from signing up….1. Financial stuff I am in the works of managing and 2. I don’t think this work would apply to how I am feeling in my relationship. I’m dating a great guy who I’ve been with for a year and has all the qualities I’m looking for….however I worry about other things besides irritation and not feeling attracted to him…..I also worry that my relationship feels like an obligation and should be more fun and exciting then it is….I’m not sure where to look for help or if this is the end point for him and I….if the course would help I’d love to know how I can sign up in the future! Thank you so much for this amazing blog! I will continue to explore it!

    Reply
  10. Hello all!
    I just wanted to say how amazed I am by this incredible community! I’m so glad to have found this blog and Sheryl’s work! I am thinking of enrolling in the Open Your Heart Course, but am struggling to decide if it is right for me. My partner is an introvert and I am a bit more extroverted and I am worried that we cannot overcome the problems this poses for relationship. He is an amazing guy but I’m worried he just isn’t conversational enough for me….is this just an incompatibility or am I leaving too much value on this? We have great talks but I’m just not sure if he’s enough which makes me feel like a terrible person as he is an amazing man! If the course can help me get through this while being able to stay with him I would be so relieved…I’m just not sure it’s possible….

    Reply
  11. Do you have any tips for dealing with “nighttime stress”? I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, with varying degrees of success.

    Reply
    • Can you tell me more about what you mean by nighttime stress? What does that look and feel like for you?

      Reply
      • It’s manifested in a few different ways over the years, and it happens in a lot of subtle ways. When I was little I would get really weepy, and do basically whatever I could do to stay up, even if it was unconscious (Getting into conversation, getting distracted by something another family member was doing, or getting upset about something). Nowadays that still happens, but I don’t think to the same degree or as often. I’ve also always been restless with my feet, not in a restless foot syndrome kind of way, but I fidget with my feet. That happens all the time to this day. I also had a pretty bad fear of aliens and other such monsters that didn’t go away until I was around 11. When I was 12, and I was really sick from an ulcerative colitis flare, I had a particular day when I wasn’t feeling good and I was anxious the whole day. When my mom and grandmother got home that night, for some reason my anxiety ramped up, and I spent a lot of time on the toilet, and I was afraid to go to bed. Recently, I’ve gone through three traumatic events (one year after the other), and I feel like my nighttime stress has amped up a bit. Until the last few weeks, I haven’t felt comfortable sleeping by myself (circumstances had me bunking with my mom for a while, and I got comfortable with it). I’m not really sure why I have such stress at nighttime, but I was diagnosed with UC when I was two, and was so sick I almost died. And also, growing up my emotionally available mom and grandmother worked late a lot while my siblings and I stayed home with our not very emotionally available aunt. I assume those two things had an effect on it, but I don’t know exactly.

        Reply
        • I would say that everything you’ve shared here affected your nighttime stress. We are most vulnerable at night, and as I wrote in a blog post years ago talking about my son’s fear of the dark, night is when the shadows are unleashed (you can search for that post). As with so many areas of inner work, our task as adults is to learn how to become a loving inner parent to our scared child, and also to reach for a higher source of guidance, support, and protection so that we know that we’re never alone. Also, the transition between evening and night when we’re supposed to go to bed is a difficult one for many people. It’s a liminal zone, which, again, means we’re more vulnerable, and it’s common to resist making that crossing, especially when we don’t have healthy rituals to catch us. I’ll be writing more about this soon.

          Reply
  12. Hi Sheryl,

    I’m wondering what you mean by meal times/eating as a liminal stage. I understand nighttime and leaving the house, but I’m wondering about meal time. I have been dealing with dysphagia for the last year and something about what you wrote sparked something for me.

    Reply
    • This is from the course:

      “Another important portal is eating: we ingest food into our bodies and then we eliminate what’s not needed; an inhale and an exhale. There’s a vulnerability here as well that asks for our blessings: our gratitude and acknowledgment that we’re part of the circle of life.’

      Eating is also connected to mother in the archetypal sense, and can also be connected to a mother wound.

      Reply
      • Thanks Sheryl. This spoke to me so much with where I am right now. I just signed up. ❤️

        Reply
  13. Hey Sheryl, how do you differentiate between relationship anxiety and ROCD? And how do you deal with either?
    Many thanks

    Reply
    • It’s the same thing. What differs is the approach for dealing with it. ROCD is usually addressed through CBT, while what I call relationship anxiety is addressed through a holistic model that works with root causes as opposed only to symptoms and, as such, seeks to heal at the root.

      Reply
      • Can this actually be cured completely and for real?

        Reply
        • I don’t think in terms of “cure.” I think in terms of developing a different and more compassionate relationship to a symptoms, one guided by curiosity. If you haven’t read my book, The Wisdom of Anxiety, I recommend starting there.

          Reply
  14. Sheryl,

    Beautiful blog post, as always. I recently took your Trust Yourself course and have appreciated all of the videos and resources from it. I really appreciate that at the heart of your work is rekindling a connection with soul and spirit. However, this is also where I struggle. Having been raised in a very strict, religious household, it has been very difficult for me to “let go” of certain traumas and patterns of thinking that were very damaging to me without also feeling like I am abandoning my family and/or my core beliefs. The tension I face is that I love my parents, and through the wedding transition I have become increasingly aware of the fact that they are growing older. They raised me with very strong, Christian values, many of which I still identify with today, and some of which I feel no longer serve me. However, I feel that by letting go of the values that no longer serve me, I am abandoning my family and myself/core beliefs as a teenager. I feel like I am increasingly having the thought that the only way for me to be happy in life is to become the kind of person my parents always wanted me to be. So when “connecting to your higher power” is the solution for these intrusive thoughts and checking compulsions, I feel like I am pulled back into what that looked like my whole life growing up. I was first met with this thought when engagement anxiety kicked in, and I immediately thought it meant God was trying to tell me my now-husband wasn’t right for me (that’s luckily when I found your work). We’ve been married for a few months now, and I still struggle with thoughts like “He’s not the kind of guy your 15-year-old self would’ve wanted to marry” or “Your parents love him but would have preferred you marry someone who is more religious” or “You’ll be with him for now and eventually it won’t work out and you’ll find someone like you wanted when you were 15.” My husband always says that somewhere in life I made all these rules, and that whenever something doesn’t match the rules I’ve created for myself, that I freak out. He’s so right, and I’m having a very hard time changing the rules because if I change them I feel like I’m not honoring my 15-year-old self. But by keeping them I’m not honoring my 27-year-old self. I feel like it would be easier if I were completely rejecting my religion, but I’m not, and I don’t want to, so I feel like I’ve just been stuck in this weird limbo and don’t know how to get out of it. My entire life growing up was centered around God and church, so it’s very difficult for me to continue turning to my faith when it is so closely tied to the strict rules and thinking patterns I have spent the past 25+ years of my life associating with it. I’d love to hear any insights or advice, and if anyone else has had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it.

    Reply
  15. Hi Sheryl
    I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts but I never got diagnosed with anxiety, it always starts off with something odd happening in my body and so I feel like something is wrong with me, I also for the last 4 years on and off struggle leaving my house I feel as though I have PTSD from previous bad panic attacks.I just done know why these feelings manifest because it’s not like I’m in danger. I get very reluctant in asking for help or taking coarses bc I feel as though nothing is going to help me, I’m wondering if this is a coarse for me?

    Reply

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