I’m sure you know what selfish means and it’s not considered a particularly lovely trait by most people. But what do I mean when I suggest that you become self-less? Typically, the term selfless refers to people who put other people’s needs before their own. Selfless people typically have very little concern for making money, becoming famous, or obtaining a prestigious position.

But that definition doesn’t quite fit what I mean by self-less (note I put in a hyphen to distinguish the term from selfless). I think people can and probably should have at least some concern for their own needs in terms of finances, relationships, security, and so on. And sometimes your own needs may even have to take precedence over the needs of others.

But people all too often seriously mess themselves up when they become overly concerned about themselves and their egos. They experience exquisite concerns with how they look, what they say, mistakes they make, who likes them and who doesn’t, et cetera.

People who worry a lot about their egos judge just about everything that they do. Their internal dialogues consist of an endless loop of self-hate and vitriol with thoughts such as “How could I be so stupid?,” “I hate myself,” “No one could be this dumb,” “I’ll never amount to anything,” “Nobody could ever like me,” and on and on. It’s pretty difficult to feel alright with thoughts like those.

Have you ever awakened at 3:00 am and found your mind racing? You might dwell on making sure you don’t forget some important work issue or start organizing your day to be sure you have time to finish everything you need to.

Or then again, your mind might start focusing on thoughts about how horrible it would be to have a lousy night’s sleep. Such thoughts include:

John wakes up this morning instantly anxious. He tossed and turned most of the night, waking and worrying. He stands in the shower until the water begins to get cold, once out, he experiences a terrible cold even though it is warm in the house. He notices his hands trembling while he brushes his teeth. His stomach is upset, he feels no hunger.

He makes himself a cup of coffee hoping the caffeine will help him stay focused. His mind is racing; thoughts tumbling over each other. He feels like he can’t catch his breath. He tries to settle himself by thinking calm thoughts and taking deep breaths. Finally, he puts on his jacket and heads to the door, chanting, “One foot in front of the other, one step at a time.”

Laura and I sometimes amuse ourselves by noticing how language and expressions gradually morph over time. For example, have you ever taken note of how often people preface something they’re about to say with the single word, “Look!”? I think in the past, folks used to call attention to what they were about to say with “Listen.” Why the change? Go figure (another one of my favorite phrases).

And then there’s the ever popular “Seriously?…Really?” I like that one a lot. Why? I really don’t know. It just conveys a tone that I like. Perhaps it’s my sarcastic streak. At any rate, I find myself wanting to say “Seriously?….Really?” pretty often when I confront the thoughts that constantly bombard the minds of people who have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

People with OCD often hold beliefs that are, well, believable. For example, who doesn’t worry about blurting out something inappropriate (or hitting the send button) without thinking? That’s a typical OCD worry, but it’s also a worry that most people have.

In fact, just today I was quickly doing some email and not paying a lot of attention and ended up sending someone a note with the wrong name. Now, as a perfectionist, I’ll be thinking about that mistake around 3 in the morning.

My email gaff might lead me to change my routine. I might start making sure that when I do email I’m not at the same time thinking about the blog I have to write, or the statement I have to send, or the reservation for the dog groomer I have to make, or the dry cleaning I need to pick up, or the checkbook I need to balance—you see what I mean. To change my routine, I might have to come up with changing the way I do email.

I’ve been thinking I should anyway. Maybe I should start with clearing off my desk before I do email. Then perhaps I should vow to read my email twice before I send it.

What happens to those who have OCD is that their normal, believable thoughts grow. So let’s say I am coming down with a case of OCD. I find that I’m still pretty obsessed with my email mistake. Now, thoughts of not only sending out emails with the wrong name but thoughts of sending inappropriate email are flooding my brain.

Parents worry a lot about their kids nowadays. Life has become more complex and the world seems to deliver a constant stream of unpredictable stressors, challenges, calamities, toxins and traumas. Parents naturally want to help their kids overcome these difficulties and succeed in life. In other words, they want their kids to feel happy, secure, and competent.

So naturally, many parents feel quite upset when they see their kids experiencing distress. At those times, they feel highly motivated to help their kids calm down. To accomplish that goal, these parents will often:

• Explore what may be bothering their kids

• Reassure their kids that everything will be alright

• Hug their kids to help them calm down

• Talk with their kids for as long as it takes to help them feel better

• Find ways of making their kids feel better by giving them things they want (e.g., ice cream, money, etc.)

Generally speaking, one or more of these strategies will, in fact, result in both kids and their parents feeling better. There can’t be any problem with that can there? Well, actually there is.

A couple of days ago, we wrote about exposure. The opposite of exposure is avoidance. We touch on the topic of avoidance fairly often in this blog, but it’s been years since we focused on the topic exclusively.

That’s too long because avoidance is arguably the most important thing for you to understand in order to successfully battle anxiety and OCD, or for that matter, most types of emotional disorders. Humans have an understandable desire to avoid feeling distress, anxiety, sadness, and upsets of all kinds. If you’re like most people, when you experience these feelings, you’ll do almost anything to get rid of them. Common strategies include:

• Abusing substances like drugs or alcohol
• Distraction
• Smoking
• Staying in the house
• Making great efforts to avoid the triggers for your upsets

We have been writing this blog for a few years. When we started, we decided to call the blog Anxiety and OCD Exposed. It’s been a long time since we have discussed why we decided on that title so we thought that new readers might want some explanation.

The term “exposed” may bring up a lot of different thoughts such as:

• Finding out that a politician was cheating on his wife
• Discovering a dumping ground of toxic waste
• The feeling of your hands when you forget to wear gloves in cold weather
• A politician taking opposite positions in the same campaign
• Not noticing the piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe
• The most effective treatment for anxiety and OCD

Research says that overall the best treatment for anxiety and OCD is a method called exposure. When people are afraid or anxious about something, they tend to avoid it. The more they avoid what they fear, the more fearful they become.

Exposure helps people face their fears in a gradual way. Most people find that after being exposed to their fear or OCD triggers, over a period of time, their anxiety decreases. The goal of exposure is not to eliminate all anxiety, but to make anxiety manageable.

As you no doubt know, bad things happen to good people from time to time. There’s no rhyme or reason for it and it’s not particularly fair, but such things do happen. Sometimes these events are quite awful such as serious traumas or illnesses. And when these things happen out of the blue, people often experience a huge wave of difficult feelings.

Emotions such as great upset, distress, anger, and despair are quite typical and frankly, normal at these times. It’s also pretty typical to find yourself railing about the unfairness of it all and the fact that you don’t deserve what’s happened. When these thoughts and feelings occur, generally the person will take on a new role in life—that of a patient or even a victim. And friends, healthcare providers, therapists, and family generally pick up the appropriate role of helpers.

Most lay people, and quite a few professionals for that matter, have an erroneous assumption about what negative reinforcement is all about. Specifically, they believe that negative reinforcement and punishment are essentially the same thing. But they’re not. And you should really know what negative reinforcement is all about because it can affect you and the people you care about a lot.

The “reinforcement” part of the term means that negative reinforcement is a strategy that tends to “reinforce” or increase the likelihood that a behavior will happen again. In other words, negative reinforcement strengthens behaviors to which it is applied and makes them more likely to occur again. By contrast, punishment involves delivering an unpleasant consequence to behaviors in the hopes that the problem behaviors will decrease.

Negative reinforcement occurs whenever a behavior manages to eliminate or rid you of a distressing, unpleasant event or feeling. And I can tell you, negative reinforcement can have amazing power. Our dog Murphy knows this principle very, very well even though she’s never read a single psychology book (that I know of anyway—I’ll have to ask her to be sure).

When Murphy wants to be petted (which is rather often), she goes up to any human that’s around and starts to scratch that person’s knee. Her scratch is pretty annoying, if not painful at times.