I'm really glad you can find something that works for you, emwell, but for me I have to be very careful "challenging" OCD or else it will backfire. I have pure-O, first of all, so there aren't rituals to change, but I do get more obsessive under certain circumstances. In particular I seem to want to avoid "living in my body" (want to stay lost in thoughts) which is not helpful when you have OCD, and I have ways of coming more into my body like meditation, but my inner resistance to being in my body is so strong that it can easily backfire and make me upset for days. I'm not very good at navigating the balance because another part of me craves being in my body to escape from the thoughts, so I push for it and fear it at the same time.

So the best thing seems to be if I don't "challenge" the patterns but just do a moderate amount of activity that brings me into my body, not pay a whole lot of attention to it, and just let the deeper healing process work in the background.

I do like your blog!