ADHD and Feeling Stuck: 3 Reasons Why You're Not Moving Forward

Day 26: Feeling Stuck

When you have #ADHD tendencies your brain can tend to hold you in lock down.

There are some very good, albeit slightly annoying reasons for this.

I’m going to go over 3 of them below.

1) Sensory Overload

2) Safety

3) Black and White Thinking

Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Picture a power circuit board with relay switches running all throughout your house to provide electricity.

Let’s then imagine your home is running at max capacity. Generating electricity for all things. The a/c, the washer and dryer, the appliances, everything is plugged in and buzzing. (Not ideal, but just go with me.)

What would happen if your neighbor decided to then connect their entire house directly to your circuit breaker to power their home?

I’ll tell ya…Snap, Crackle, POP! Your power would go out and the whole switchboard would blow a fuse. It’d hit maximum capacity and overload.

This can happen to our brains.

We have so very much on our minds. All of the thoughts, and the things we need to do and want to do.

We’re bombarded with all types of “noise” day in and day out. Electrical frequencies surround us. We’re almost always “plugged in”, literally! To a phone, an iPad, a computer, a TV…

It can feel very difficult to carve out some time away from it all. Time to reset, recharge.

When we don’t take a step back we can hit “system overload.” It can freeze us in our tracks. We just mentally shut down.

Another reason we can feel stuck is that our brains want to keep us safe.

They are very efficient at sniffing out “danger”.

Back in prehistoric times, we would sense danger and our “life saving brain chemicals” would kick in to help us respond appropriately, and well, save our lives.

Nowadays, our sensors are a bit off. We’re not out in the jungle trying to avoid lions, but rather we’re out in the world trying to avoid the discomfort of failure. Same brain chemicals kick in, so our brain’s response is automatic and unnecessary.

“Save yourself! Hide!” It’s a bit of an overreaction that needs to be managed.

In comes black and white thinking. This tendency will have you believing that something either has to happen one way or another, you will not have the ability to consider all of the options in between.

You’re automatic response sounds something like “if I don’t get this done by tomorrow, it’s over.”

One option. One solution. When often what’s best for you is some unique approach. (Typically not the first method that comes to mind.)

There’s good news here, all 3 of these things are fixable.

You can reset by taking a brisk walk outside or spending an afternoon doing something you love. Disonnect and reconnect with nature.

You can use metacognition (the skill of thinking about what you’re thinking about) to decide if you want to be scared and yet still do the thing that feels hard.

You can step outside of black and white thinking by asking yourself positive questions such as “What would be the most fun way to ______? How can I work on my project and experience some joy today? What’s the most creative way to get this job done? How might I do this if I switched things up a bit?”

Are you someone that gets stuck easily? I’d love to hear what trips you up and keeps you from moving forward on a project? If you’d like to learn more about how coaching can help you get unstuck, book a free consultation below and let’s get you moving towards what it is that you really want.

ADHD and Intuition: When To Go With Your Gut

Day 24: Intuition

Do you listen to your gut?

I don’t mean do you hear your stomach gurgle when you’re hungry.

I mean do you pay attention to those inner thoughts of yours?

When something just feels right, do you go with it, or do you stop yourself?

I have always had a strong intuition. I don’t always know why or how, but sometimes I just feel in my gut that something is right and I go with it.

Caution! When you have ADHD tendencies, this can also be labeled as impulsivity.

Here’s a few ways that I check in with myself and decide when to go with the flow and when to say no.

1) What’s the potential cost? Literally what will it cost me if I’m wrong? I like to consider this before making a final decision. I’ve ended up with more websites than I care to admit to because honestly it’s $11.99 via GoDaddy to purchase some virtual real estate for an idea and that is worth the risk in my book. The cost if I change my mind is low and if I decide to go with my idea I have what I need to get started.

2) Gut or desire? Sometimes when I really want something with my mind, it can be hard to hear my heart. I need to sit with it awhile and be honest with myself. I need to ask myself “is this something that I just really, really want, or is it something that I genuinely feel is the right move from a gut instinct?” The two are very different in the way they feel. A gut instinct feels grounding and solid and certain to me. A desire feels hopeful, and exciting and much more “airy” if that’s a thing?

3) Impulsive or decisive? If I feel like I have to decide now and there’s no waiting, it feels impulsive. If I can give myself the space of 24-48 hours to consider and think about something before I commit it feels much more decisive. More intentional.

I believe that when we learn to pay attention to our intuition it can truly be a gift to us. It can be a skill that we hone. When we study and learn what intuition feels like, we can use it to guide us in the direction that we go.

When we don’t take the time to notice what it feels like for us, and really recognizing how it shows up, we can easily pretend that it’s something that it’s not. When this happens, it can take us off course and lead us down a path of distraction.

Tell me, is your intuitive muscle strong? How do you know when what you’re feeling is intuition or desire? Join me over on my Facebook page and share your thoughts.

~Shaun

ADHD and Emotions: Feel Your Way Forward

Day 17: Feelings

“ Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. “ -Mavis Mazhura

Emotional Regulation can be challenging when you have ADHD tendencies.

You can have a tendency to feel strongly. It can be difficult to manage your emotions. Today I want to talk about how you can feel your way forward, rather than staying stuck.

You can take back the reigns when it comes to your feelings and practice managing them. It’s a skill.

The past two days I’ve been focused on the 5 step tool that I use with my clients that’s called The Model. It’s a framework that’s based on universal truths and was created by Brooke Castillo.

There’s an acronym to help you remember it. C-T-F-A-R. Each letter represents one of the 5 steps in order.

Step 1 is Circumstances. If you didn’t read the post that talked about how we define circumstances for purposes of using the model hop on over to that post here.

Step 2 is Thoughts. We looked at how a thought is just a sentence in our brain. You can read more about that here.

Today we’re going to focus on Step 3, which is Feelings. When we’re using The Model, we’re going to describe a feeling as a one word emotion that you can feel in your body.

Some examples of common feelings are happy, sad, excited, nervous, overwhelmed, distracted, or confused.

There are thousands of feelings available to us.

When we think a thought, it generates a feeling in our body.

For example, the thought “she shouldn’t talk to me like that” can generate the feeling of anger. For others it may generate the feeling of sad. For still others it may create the feeling confused.

What we think about something creates how we feel.

Growing up we often learn that other people cause us to feel upset. That other people can hurt our feelings. It’s just not true.

Here’s an example, someone can say something about us and we will have no idea it was said, and we will not feel any kind of way about it.

Once we find out we feel hurt, or mad or disappointed, and we tend to think it’s because of what they said. Because what they said was hurtful.

If that were true, we would feel hurt the moment it came out of their mouth. The actual act of someone talking about us doesn’t make us feel bad.

It’s the thoughts that we think once we find out that something was said, that make us feel bad.

Thoughts like:

• “That’s not very nice.”

• “They shouldn’t say things like that.”

• “I would never say that.”

• “That’s the rudest thing I ever heard.”

• “I thought they were my friend.”

These thoughts (and others) then generate our feelings.

The good news here is that if you are creating the feelings, that means you can also stop creating them.

This gives you 100% license over your emotional life. When we allow ourselves to believe that our emotions are caused by others actions or words, it’s such a disempowering place to be.

Why? Because it takes things completely out of our hands!

When we take full responsibility for how we feel, we are operating from a place of what’s called Emotional Adulthood. When we believe that others are causing our feelings, we’re operating from a place of emotional childhood.

Where in your life are you giving your personal power away to others? Where do you feel at the mercy of what someone else says?

When we feel a negative emotion, we’re likely to get a negative result. When we feel a positive emotion, we’re likely to get a positive result.

The first step is just to become aware of what it is that we’re feeling and why.

~Shaun

If you’ve been thinking about booking a free consultation and haven’t yet, let’s do it. Learn how to stop the feelings of overwhelm, procrastination, bored, unfocused and generate more useful feelings for yourself. It’s not easy, but it’ll be worth it.