This episode is sponsored by Cure Hydration. You know that moment for me, it’s around like 2 or 3pm when my ADHD brain just decides we’re done for the day. We’re done here. The afternoon slump hits, the lights go off upstairs and suddenly answering an email or doing basically anything feels like climbing a mountain. That’s when I reach for Cure Energy. It’s a clean plant based energy drink mix made with 100 milligrams of natural caffeine and electrolytes so I get the focus and hydration boost I need without jitters, without a crash and without that like I drink battery acid Vi vibe that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and akai berry flavors are my current go to’s crisp, refreshing and they don’t taste fake, y’. All. They don’t taste fake. I’ll drink one before recording a session or when I need to get help through like that afternoon drag. And honestly, I I drink it anytime. My brain just needs to cooperate. What’s wild is that Cure Energy is only 25 calories and has zero added sugar. It actually helps me stay hydrated while giving me energy. Okay, I love coffee, but coffee could never Staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, it tastes great and it actually works. And remember, Cure is FSA HSA approved, which is amazing. You can use that money to pay for CURE and for I have ADHD listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@cure hydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you do get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really helps to support the show. Don’t just drink more, Upgrade it with Cure. The wait is over. Dive into Audible’s most anticipated collection, the Best of 2025. Featuring top audiobooks, podcasts and originals across all genres, our editors have carefully curated this year’s must listens. From brilliant hidden gems to the buzziest new releases, every title in this collection has earned its spot. This is your go to for the absolute best in 2025 audio entertainment. Whether you love thrillers or nonfiction, your next favorite listen awaits. Discover why there’s more to imagine when you listen@audible.com BestOfTheYear. Welcome to the I have ADHD Podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristen Carter and I have ADHD adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor, and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristin Carter, and you are listening to The I have ADHD podcast. Podcast episode number 50. You guys, episode number 5050. Can’t believe it. So excited. I love that I’ve been more consistent. It makes my heart happy. I hope it makes your heart happy, but even if it doesn’t, it’s okay, because I just really want to be more consistent. And I feel like I am, so. I’m so, so, so glad. I just really appreciate the way that you’ve allowed me to be a part of your life. I feel like I know you. I know that’s really weird, but I feel like I know ya. I love it when people reach out to me on Instagram or via email, and you guys just say the nicest stuff, and I just feel like you are my people. I love it. I love the kinds of people that are, like, reaching out. It’s so fun. Love those of you that have emailed me and joined Focused and connected with me on Instagram. Like, you guys are my peeps. Love it. Thank you so much for allowing me to just be a part of your day. You’re probably listening in the car. Maybe you’re, like, cleaning your house or maybe you’re on a run. Regardless, I just want to say, like, I definitely feel a connection, and I never would have predicted that as, like, a byproduct of this endeavor, but it’s so fun to have it. So delicious to just know that, like, there are thousands of people listening every single week. I can’t even believe it. It’s blowing my mind. Thousands of you listening. And I know that you are my people, and I’m thankful for you and you’re changing my life. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Before we get started, I know you know what time it is. It’s time for me to shout out one of my clients in Focused. This is from Zach. Zach says, I felt so fantastic today. I went to the office to have a few meetings. I made a plethora of phone calls to set up materials and trucking for next week. I made sure I had all of my equipment ready and serviced, and I went to buy around $10,000 worth of tools for the company as we had a recent theft and we needed to replace them. I finally have the responsibility and the confidence that I knew I was capable of. And today was just a fantastic day. And I love might seem silly, but dang, I had a good day. Listen, Zach, that does not seem silly. When you finally begin to show up as the person that you’ve always wanted to be, that’s worth celebrating. I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of who you are becoming and that I get to walk alongside you on this journey. Thank you. It is my privilege. Friends, today we’re going to do something really fun. We’re going to talk about generating useful, positive emotions. I never, ever, ever, ever knew that we as humans are able to decide how we want to feel about something. I always thought that I was a victim to my feelings. I always thought that feelings were something that happened to me because of something that someone else said or did. I was confused. I had it backwards. And so I don’t want to hold that information to myself. I want to give it to you because maybe you’re confused, too. Feelings are not something that just happen to us. There is a reason why we feel the way that we feel. The reason is our thoughts. Our thoughts create our feelings. There’s no escaping it. There’s no way around it. That is how the world works. It’s how human bodies and brains and souls operate. It’s just the way things are. A thought creates a feeling. Last week we talked about how a feeling is going to drive an action. And then, of course, you know, the rest. Our actions give us our results, right? So I lived the first, you know, entirety of my life thinking that. That I had no control over the way that I felt. And let me tell you something. I feel things intensely. I don’t know if I feel more intensely than other people. I certainly react stronger than other people do at times, but I definitely. The vibration of an emotion in my body often is very distracting. It’s very intense, and it can seem to come on very suddenly. And I used to have this thing that happened to me often where I would just feel awful and I wouldn’t know why. I wouldn’t be able to define the feeling. It was just this, like, dark cloud that would move in onto my life and I would be at its effect. I would be a victim of it for sure, because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that I had the agency over my own body and mind and spirit and soul and all of that. Right. I didn’t know that I had agency over all of those things and that I Could figure out what was going on and then decide how I want to feel. The first thing I want to say here is that I don’t think that the goal is to feel happy all of the time. And I’ve said this on all of our emotion podcasts, but I really do want to communicate that very clearly. The goal is not to feel happy all of the time. If you are listening to these podcasts thinking, oh, well, Kristen just wants me to feel like a magical unicorn all the time, you’re mishearing me. That’s not true. What I want to offer is that as a human, we should embrace the full spectrum of emotion. And that’s gonna include 50% positive emotion and 50% negative emotion, meaning 50% of the time that we’re alive, we will likely experience positive emotion. And 50% of the time that we’re alive, we will likely experience negative emotion. This is regardless of our marital status, regardless of our financial status, regardless of our employment status, regardless of where we live in the world. It’s just the human experience. This is why a lot of times when people finally achieve the goal, they achieve celebrity status, they win the award, they achieve, you know, whatever they accomplish, whatever goal that they’ve been trying to accomplish, and then they crash and burn. Because what we often think is that the happiness is going to come with the doing of the goal, with the accomplishing of it, with the achieving the thing. That’s not true. Happiness is an emotion, and we know that emotion are caused. Emotion is caused by our thoughts. It’s just the way it is. So, sure, we might be happy about accomplishing the goal. We might have a thought about it and be like, oh, my goodness, I’m amazing. I’m so proud of myself. Then we’re going to feel happy, we’re going to feel accomplished, we’re going to feel proud, right? But we might also have feelings like, oh, I thought my mom would have come to my awards ceremony and she’s not here. And we feel sad. And then we’re, like, beating ourselves up because we’re getting this huge award, but we’re sad. Understand what I’m saying here? It’s not about the thing, it’s about our thoughts. So we don’t actually have to be victim of our emotions. We can begin to develop the skill of understanding and processing and allowing our emotions. And this last week on Emotions. I want to give you the gift of. Of knowing that you can actually generate emotion on purpose by one simple question. How do you want to feel whatever it is that you have to do today, whoever you have to talk to, whatever problem you have to solve, whatever comes up in life, like you get a flat tire or your kid gets sick at school, or you lose your debit card for the third thousandth time, or your phone drops in the sink or whatever, you will likely have an automatic immediate response to that and it’s likely going to be negative. And that’s okay. It’s normal. That is a well worn neural pathway in your brain. It’s just what your brain is used to doing, right? But the way to interrupt that is, is to ask yourself, how do I want to feel about this? I lost my debit card. My go to immediate automatic response is frustration, shame, anger, all that, right? But you can interrupt that cycle that will likely cause you to spiral out and be distracted and not get anything else done today. You can interrupt that by asking yourself, well, how do I want to feel? I lost my debit card. How do I want to feel about it? Do I want to feel like a, you know, magical happy unicorn? Probably not like you lost your debit card. It’s going to be annoying, but maybe you could generate the feeling of acceptance. I lost it. And I know exactly what to do. It’s pretty easy. Call my bank, get a new card. So not that big of a deal. So do you see how that simple shift can actually help you get into action? So we go from a shame spiral where it’s like, I lost my card again. I can’t believe I did this again. I’m never going to learn how to become a responsible adult. I’m a 40 year old man and I just, I’m never going to be responsible. Right? That’s a shame spiral and that’s going to get you nowhere. That’s what we call indulgent emotion. And that’s going to be automatic. It’s likely going to be your go to. It’s your default setting. I’m going to guess it certainly was my. It is my default setting. That’s okay, it’s fine. But you can interrupt that by saying, okay, how do I want to feel? How do I want to feel about this? If you can generate a more neutral or positive emotion, you will likely take action to fix the problem so much sooner. If you can generate acceptance like, okay, I lost it, now what are we going to do? Doesn’t mean I’m a failure. I don’t have to make it mean anything. I lost my debit card. Let’s solve the problem. Generate that acceptance. It’s amazing having the knowledge that you can actually decide how you want to feel, I think is one of the secrets of the universe. Like, why aren’t we screaming this from the rooftops? I just don’t understand why everyone doesn’t know this. I don’t understand why I had to live. I mean, I’ve lived for 38 years, but I think I lived 37 years not knowing this information. So I’ve known this information for one year. That’s not long enough. Like, I wish I’d known it since I was five years old. Like, you get to decide how you want to feel now. Sometimes you’re going to want to feel angry, sometimes you’re going to want to feel upset or whatever, sad, and it’s totally fine. But know that you’re the one that’s in charge of that. You’re the one that’s creating your feelings with the way that you are thinking. Isn’t that incredible? So even when I am angry, I’m angry with intention. Like, yeah, I want to be angry about this. I am choosing to be angry because this is an injustice and I don’t want to feel good about it. But most of the time in our day to day, the negative emotion that we’re feeling is not helpful to us. It’s not serving us. The fear, the anxiety, the worry, the frustration, the shame, the guilt, nine times out of 10, those are not leading to helpful actions. They’re not leading to actions that are getting us great results. And so asking yourself, interrupting the spiral and asking yourself, how do I want to feel about this? Can be very, very helpful. Here are some useful emotions that I like to go to that are not like magical, happy, rainbow, unicorn type emotions. So number one, every day I try to generate the feeling of efficiency. I want to be someone who’s efficient. And in order to feel efficient, I need to have a plan. I need to think that I know what I’m doing right. I need to think that I have enough time to get it done. I need to think that I can work fast enough to get it done right? So I have to generate that feeling of efficiency. When I sit down to record a podcast, I have so many negative emotions that come up for me. And then I usually just try to ask myself, how do I want to feel about it? Efficient is for sure one of these useful emotions for me. I want to feel efficient. I can do it, I’ve done it, I can do it. I know that I can. And key for me, I can do it before my kid gets home from school. That’s A big one, right? I’m constantly watching the clock, like, oh, my kid’s going to get home from school, and then it’s going to be too loud and then my time’s up. So efficiency is a big one for me. Another one is purposeful. I love to generate the feeling of purposeful. So when I wake up in the morning and I feel terrible when the shame cloud moves in, or when I’m like, PMSing and I feel so gross, or when, like, I’ve had some sort of argument with somebody in my real life, you know, and then I’m facing a day of coaching calls that can sometimes be overwhelming, an overwhelming thought. How am I going to help people process all of their stuff when I am in this negative place? Right. And so I’ll often ask myself, how do you want to feel? And the number one go to in this situation is, I want to feel purposeful. I want to know that I’m making a difference. I want to know that me showing up in a positive and encouraging energy is really going to make a difference in people’s lives. And so generating that feeling of purpose is huge for me. Another really great emotion to generate is the feeling of courage. There are so many things that we have to do as humans that are really scary. And, you know, we talked last week about how our brains are just a little confused. Our brains will think that, like, the public speaking engagement that we have is literally going to kill us, which I promise you it won’t. But our brains are designed to keep us safe. So when that fear comes and you are, like, struggling to do the thing, whether it’s like public speaking or the project that you have to do, or having a hard conversation or whatever the case may be, knowing that, you can ask yourself, how do I want to feel about this? I’m currently feeling afraid. It’s normal. It’s no problem. But how do I want to feel? I want to feel courageous. Okay. What would I need to think in order to feel courageous? That’s the second question, right? The first question is, how do I want to feel? The second question is, what would I need to think in order to feel that way? Because remember, our thoughts are what create our feelings. Okay? So important to remember that one thought connects to one feeling. And a lot of times we’re having, well, I mean, we have like 60,000 thoughts a day, which. How do they even know that? I have no idea. If you know how people know how many thoughts we have, you’ve got to reach out to me and tell me, because I really don’t know. Anyway, we have thousands and thousands of thoughts every single day and each of those thoughts is responsible for a feeling. That’s crazy talk. Isn’t that crazy? So no wonder why many of us feel like just a jumbled message of like a fog of feelings. Like I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now. I just feel gross. Okay. It’s because you have so many thoughts in your mind and many of them are creating feelings for you. So the best course of action, if that is how you’re feeling, if you just feel like in a fog, you need to get all of your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. And then you need to notice your thoughts and kind of like assign the feeling to them. Like, oh, I had the thought, I’m not sure if I can get this done on time. And that, that really makes me feel anxious. No wonder I’m feeling anxious. It’s because I’m thinking, not sure if I can get this done on time. How do I want to feel instead? Hmm. I want to feel confident. I want to feel self assured. I want to feel knowing. Alright, what would I need to think in order to feel that way? Hmm. I would need to think, I can get this done on time and I’m going to work as fast as I need to in order to accomplish that goal. Or I need to think, I’ve done it before. There’s evidence for me getting this done in that amount of time and I’m going to go do it again. It’s no problem. That makes sense. You get to decide how you want to feel. Now, you’re of course going to have an automatic knee jerk default response, right? It’s just that’s the way your brain is programmed and it’s no problem. So there is a default, automatic reactionary response to, you know, things that happen in your life. So you’re going to notice that you’ll get like really upset, really frustrated, really angry, really anxious. It’s fine. But in the middle of that, you can stop and take a breath and think, wait, how do I want to feel? I notice that I’m feeling anxious right now, but how do I want to feel about it? Oh, I’d really love to feel purposeful and sure, I’m still going to be afraid, but I can also at the same time generate the feeling of purpose and I can allow the fear to be here and it’s okay, nothing’s gone wrong. I can allow the anxiety to be here. It’s fine, it’s allowed to hang out with me while I do the thing. Because if I can also feel purposeful in this moment, I know I will accomplish my goal. Because if I’m feeling full of purpose, then I’m for sure gonna want to accomplish the goal. Today is the last day to get in to focused for April. So if you’re listening to this in real time, I would love for you to join In April, we’re studying emotions, and I’m going to help you gain emotional intelligence. I’m going to help you gain the agency over your own emotions that will allow you to do the things that you’ve always wanted to do. I’m going to teach you how to allow negative emotions. I’m going to teach you how to generate positive emotions. I’m going to teach you how to notice when you are in a cycle of indulgent emotions and what the difference is between all three of them. I would so, so love to work with you, my friend, with adhd. Listen, you deserve help. You deserve support. And if you would like it, I would love to be a part of your life. So you can go To I have ADHD.com focused for more information. It would be my privilege to serve you. All right, that’s it, guys. Have a great week. I cannot wait to talk to you. Next time. Bye. Bye.
