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“You resist persists. If you want to shrink something, let it expand. If you want to get rid of something, allow it to flourish. As soon as you make one thing good, another thing becomes bad,” says Greg Schmaus, holistic health practitioner and founder of Healing 4D, who joins Mental Health in a Modern World to share his deeply personal and professional journey healing obsessive compulsive disorder.

In this episode, Greg Schmaus unpacks why OCD is skyrocketing today and how conventional approaches may miss its true roots. Drawing from his experience healing his own severe OCD after a Division 1 collegiate athletic career, he explains how trauma fragments the psyche, why unaddressed gut infections and inflammation can inflame the mind, and how true healing requires a blend of somatic work, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, mindfulness, and paradoxical spiritual practice.

He busts common myths, shares paradoxes drawn from Zen and Taoist teachings, and outlines his integrated, holistic approach—rooted in his Four Doctors philosophy and real-world case experience—to address the entire mind-body-spirit landscape.

Tune in to Mental Health in a Modern World to discover why, for Greg Schmaus, OCD became not just something to overcome, but his greatest spiritual teacher, guiding him and his clients back to unity consciousness and genuine self-healing.

5 Key Takeaways

Healing OCD requires a comprehensive and compassionate approach—explore these five actionable steps to begin your transformation today:

1. Address unresolved trauma using Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy by working with protector and exile parts of your psyche.
2. Shift focus from obsessive thoughts to bodily sensations—practice somatic awareness to feel and process stored emotions.
3. Embrace mindfulness and non-judgmental awareness, allowing thoughts and feelings to arise and pass without resistance or attachment.
4. Build a strong healing foundation by prioritizing lifestyle essentials: a nourishing diet, restorative sleep, regular movement, and time for happiness.
5. Contemplate and practice spiritual paradoxes: let go of resisting thoughts, allow them to expand, and observe how this creates inner quiet.

Start with one of these steps today—your path to wholeness and relief begins with a single, intentional action.

Memorable Quotes

"You resist, persists. If you want to shrink something, let it expand. If you want to get rid of something, allow it to flourish. As soon as you make one thing good, another thing becomes bad."

"You cannot heal OCD in the mind; you heal it in the body. The language of the mind is thinking. The language of the body is feeling."

"OCD was the greatest spiritual teacher I've ever had because it taught me how the mind works, how reality works, how energy works, and how to eventually find my way back to that place of witnessing, that place of observing, and that mindfulness space of non-attachment and non-aversion."

Resources Mentioned

Internal Family Systems (Richard Schwartz, IFS Model) – https://ifs-institute.com/

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu - https://amzn.to/4nijMpF

Connect with Greg

Website - https://www.healing4d.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/4d_healing/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@gregschmaus

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-schmaus-22929589/

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Embark on The HTM Journey

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Embark on The HTM Journey

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