In today’s video, I’m going to share an essential step for anyone in the early stages of overcoming obsessive jealousy ocd.

Before I get started, I am so excited today to announce the release of my brand new online course for retroactive jealousy or obsessive jealousy OCD sufferers: The Overcoming Jealousy Blueprint.

Transcript below

Zachary Stockill: I have been working on this thing for months and months. I think right around the time the coronavirus pandemic started, I got to work and it’s taken longer than I thought it would. It’s finally released and I’m so excited to share with people like you.

The Overcoming Jealousy Blueprint is an eight week online step-by-step program designed for anyone struggling with obsessive jealousy, irrational jealousy, or retroactive jealousy.

The aim of the program is to get to the heart of the problem, to get to the source of your retroactive jealousy disorder, eliminate them from within in a series of step-by-step, do it yourself, writing and journaling exercises, guided meditations, and a whole lot more.

There’s over 50 videos, videos in there. There’s a whole lot of content, which you won’t find anywhere else, not on this channel, not anywhere.

And frankly, I’m quite proud of it. And I’m really excited to share it with all of you.

If you like to learn more about my brand new online course, The Overcoming Jealousy Blueprint, and get access to an exclusive limited time discount just for people like you, please click here.

I hope you’ll join me inside the course and I look forward to connecting with you there very soon.

The other topic of today’s video:

Before I say any more, I want to read a passage to you, which I found absolutely beautiful.

This was written by the writer Annie Dillard:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order, willed, faked, and so brought into being. It is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time. It is a lifeboat on which you find yourself decades later, still living.

Wow, that is a writer.

But aside from just the brilliant way she puts together sentences, there’s actually a really crucial idea that she’s getting at here.

And one, which as soon as I saw this passage, as soon as I read this, I thought it would be extremely relevant for anyone struggling with obsessive jealousy, intrusive thoughts, retroactive jealousy disorder.

And that is the crucial importance of keeping a schedule.

Particularly if you’re in the early stages of overcoming anything related to obsessive jealousy.

Why is keeping a schedule so important?

There are a few reasons, but the main reason, as far as I can tell is that there’s a famous expression, idle hands are the devil’s play things.

Well, idle time is the favourite play thing of obsessive jealousy OCD.

Idle time is retroactive jealousy’s favorite play thing.

In essence, if there are large gaps in your schedule during most days in which you’re not really occupied, you’re not really busy, you’re not really doing much, guess what?

If you do a little audit of your own time, I’d be willing to bet money that those are probably the periods in which your retroactive jealousy disorder, obsessive jealousy, irrational jealousy, mental movies, obsessive curiosity, I’d be willing to bet money that those periods are the periods in which you experience the most intense of these symptoms.

And there’s a good reason for that:

When your mind is occupied, when you’re doing something, when you’re engrossed in a hobby or an activity or work or being creative or being physical or anything like that, there’s simply less mental ram, less free mental ram, which retroactive jealousy can grab onto, which obsessive jealousy can grab onto, less mental bandwidth to play the mental movies about your partner’s past maybe, less mental bandwidth to inspire more irrational curiosity and the need to ask questions and all this.

This is why it’s so absolutely important in my view, to keep a schedule, particularly if you’re in the early stages of overcoming retroactive jealousy or obsessive jealousy OCD.

Because as Annie Dillard so beautifully reminds us, keeping a schedule is a defense against chaos.

It inspires us to be more orderly, to take our time seriously, and to appreciate the gift of time because every day is a gift.

Time is a gift and guess what? It is a non-renewable resource.

And if we have a schedule and we stick to it, sooner or later our brain will figure out that we just have less time and mental energy to spend on things that don’t matter. To ask our partner questions that don’t matter, to focus on mental movies, which are complete hallucinations, to worry about things like retroactive jealousy, obsessive jealousy OCD, to worry about all these things that don’t matter.

By the way, if you are the more creative type, I completely get it. If you like a open schedule and you’re initially resistant to the idea of setting a schedule, I completely understand. I’m the same way. I get it.

But let me tell you, as an artistic/creative type, my life has benefited as well as my work, as well as my art, everything I want to get done during the day, I get done more of it, all the things that are important to me, I do more of it the more I stick to some kind of schedule.

So there you have it. Just an idea for some of you to chew on. Hopefully you find that interesting.

One more quick reminder that my brand new online course, The Overcoming Jealousy Blueprint is available right now.

Please click here to learn all about it (and snag a limited-time discount).


Zachary Stockill
Zachary Stockill

Hi! I'm a Canadian author and educator whose work has been featured in BBC News, BBC Radio 4, The Huffington Post, and many other publications. I'm the founder of RetroactiveJealousy.com, the author of Overcoming Retroactive Jealousy and The Overcoming Jealousy Workbook, and the host of Humans in Love podcast.