Breaking Free from OCD, Anxiety & Stress with Matt Codde

Health Anxiety: How to Care for Your Body Without Living in Fear If you live with health anxiety, you are in a real conundrum. You want to be healthy and be there for your spouse, your kids, and your family. At the same time, living in fear is a stressor on the body itself. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW, walks through the paradox of health anxiety. The more you try to control your health throu...

OCD Recovery Awareness: Why Fear Isn't a Disease and Recovery Is PossibleIt's OCD Awareness Week, and Matt Codde, LCSW, wants to talk about something different: OCD recovery awareness. If you're living with OCD or anxiety, you already know you're experiencing it. The bigger question is what you believe about it, because what you believe sets the reality you can reach. In this episo...

Mental Health Recovery Explained: How to Take Back Your Peace (Anxiety, OCD & Beyond)If you've been working hard on your anxiety or OCD and it still feels like you're chasing symptoms, this episode offers a completely different angle on recovery. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month and OCD Awareness Week, I break down what mental health recovery actually is, and why how you frame...

OCD Themes Are Just One Fear Loop: Why Chasing the Theme Keeps Anxiety Alive Take the FREE Assessment here: restoredminds.com/start If you've been told your struggle is contamination OCD, harm OCD, relationship OCD, or a different type of anxiety altogether, this episode offers a different lens. Matt Codde, LCSW explains why the different OCD themes are really the same fear loop underneath. Wh...

Fear Isn't Protecting You From Suffering. Fear IS the Suffering. Most of us believe our lower emotions are doing us a favor. Guilt keeps us "good." Anger keeps us "safe" from getting hurt again. Fear keeps us "prepared" for whatever's coming. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW, breaks down why that belief is the exact thing keeping you stuck, and why the emotio...

The Real Reason You Can't Think Your Way Out of Anxiety and Intrusive ThoughtsMatt Codde, LCSW, founder of Restored Minds, breaks down one of the biggest traps in anxiety and OCD recovery: trying to use the mind to fix the mind. If you've ever tried to think, analyze, or reason your way out of a fear loop and found it just makes the racing thoughts worse, this episode explains exactly why....

Why Your OCD or Anxiety Diagnosis Isn't the Whole StoryGetting a diagnosis can feel like the moment everything finally makes sense. Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down why labels like OCD, anxiety, panic, or PTSD can be genuinely liberating and why they can also quietly become the very thing that keeps you stuck. In this episode, Matt shares his own story of first hearing the word "OCD" and...

Feel Fear Without Believing It: The Consciousness Shift Behind OCD & Anxiety Recovery If you're stuck in OCD, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts, here's the thing that keeps you stuck longer than the thoughts themselves. You keep identifying with your mind. It says something, and you believe it must be you, and it must be true, and you have to listen to it. That chain of events is the actu...

Do Intrusive Thoughts Last Forever? Here's What Actually Makes Them StickIf you've ever been told "you're just going to have these thoughts forever, you'll have to learn to cope," this episode is for you. Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down why that advice is not only wrong, it's part of what keeps people stuck in the OCD and anxiety loop. Matt explains the real difference b...

Sleep Anxiety and OCD: How Carly Broke the Hypnic Jerk Loop and Learned to Trust Her Body Again If bedtime fills you with dread, if you've started dreading the sunset, or if hypnic jerks have turned falling asleep into a nightly battle, this episode is for you. Matt Codde, LCSW sits down with Carly, a member of the Restored Minds community, to talk honestly about what it's like to live ins...

Is Medication Right for Your OCD? A Psychiatrist Breaks Down SSRIs, Dosing, and What Actually Works If you've ever wondered whether medication could help your OCD or anxiety, or you've tried an SSRI and felt like "nothing worked," this episode is for you. Matt Codde, LCSW sits down with Dr. Melissa Quinn, a triple board certified psychiatrist who specializes in OCD treatment, for...

Arguing for Your Limitations: 9 Self-Limiting Beliefs Keeping You Stuck in OCD, Anxiety & Fear If you feel like you've been "trying to heal" for years but keep landing in the same place, this episode is for you. Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down the most common ways we unconsciously build a case for why we can't change, grow, or heal, and why admitting "I was wrong" migh...

Nervous System Hijacked by Approval: Approval Addiction, Chronic Self Abandonment, and Chasing Control In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW, explores what happens when your nervous system is hijacked by approval and you slowly slip into chronic self abandonment. He breaks down how approval addiction and tolerance for destruction quietly erode your sense of safety, shrink your world, and create the lo...

The 5 Hidden Payoffs of Fear That Keep OCD and Anxiety Loops Running Most people assume fear is just something that happens to them. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW and founder of Restored Minds, explains why part of the mind actually believes it's benefiting from staying afraid, and why that belief is what keeps the fear loop running. Matt breaks down 5 "secondary gains", the hidd...

Stop waiting for OCD and anxiety to change before you do — here's why the shift has to come from within first. If you've been stuck in the loop of OCD or anxiety for a long time, there's a good chance something deeper is keeping you there: victim consciousness. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down why seeing yourself as a victim to OCD, anxiety, or fear keeps you perpetuating...

If you have OCD or anxiety and you can't stop seeking reassurance, you are not alone and you are not broken. Whether it's Googling, calling loved ones, or mentally reviewing events over and over, reassurance seeking feels necessary in the moment. But it keeps you stuck. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW explains exactly why reassurance seeking is so hard to stop, and what you actually need...

If you've been struggling with OCD or anxiety for a long time and feel like nothing is working, this episode may reveal why. Matt Codde, LCSW explains why self-rejection is one of the most overlooked barriers to healing, and how learning to be more loving toward yourself is not a self-help cliche, but a clinical cornerstone of lasting OCD recovery. This episode applies to anyone dealing with O...

If you've been living with OCD, anxiety, or chronic fear, you may have been telling yourself that now just isn't the right time to fully commit to recovery. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW shares a perspective that goes beyond symptom management — one that asks a deeper, more honest question: what are you actually prioritizing over your own healing, and why? Matt explores how fear isn&#3...

If you've tried ERP, meditation, supplements, and every tool you can find but still feel stuck, the problem likely isn't the tools. It's the belief you're bringing to them. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down why approaching OCD and anxiety recovery from a "fix the problem" mindset actually reinforces the cycle and what to do instead. Most people with intrusive...

Getting from survival to stable in OCD recovery is real, hard-won progress — and it deserves to be celebrated. But staying in that "I'm fine" zone for too long comes with a hidden cost that most people don't see until they're sliding back toward survival mode. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW explains why stabilizing is only the beginning — and what happens when you don'...

If you've been doing the work on your OCD or anxiety and you're no longer in crisis — that's real progress. But if you still feel like you're just 'managing' or waiting for the next episode to hit, this video is for you. Most people with OCD and anxiety move between Stage 1 (Surviving) and Stage 2 (Stabilizing) their whole lives — never realizing that Stages 3 and 4 even ex...

If you've been using ERP or the Triple-A Response and still feel stuck, this episode explains why. Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down one of the most misunderstood concepts in OCD and anxiety recovery: the difference between chasing a future free of intrusive thoughts versus ascending to a higher level of consciousness where those thoughts lose their grip. Most people in OCD recovery are secretly op...

Most people struggling with OCD and anxiety have tried everything: reading, therapy, tools, strategies — and still feel stuck. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW walks through the real reason recovery stalls, and it has nothing to do with lack of information or resources. The problem is a paradigm — a way of seeing the problem that keeps producing the same result no matter what you try. Until that...

If you struggle with false memory OCD or real event OCD, you know how exhausting it feels to replay the past over and over trying to find certainty. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW explains why OCD traps people in mental compulsions like rumination, memory checking, reassurance seeking, and endless analysis. This episode breaks down why false memory OCD is not actually about the past — it’s abou...

If OCD or anxiety has left you feeling empty, hopeless, or like the joy has been completely stripped from your life — you're not broken. In this episode, Matt Codde, LCSW breaks down exactly why OCD and anxiety create emotional numbness, apathy, and depression as a secondary effect, and what you actually need to do to move through it. Most people assume OCD is just about fear and intrusive tho...