Podcast Episode #65: ADHD + Buffering

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 that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and acai berry flavors are my current go tos. 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 CUR 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@curehydration.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. 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. 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. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. How are you my friend? I hope you’re having an amazing day and if you’re not, I hope you this podcast helps to lift your spirits as I write this episode. Okay, I’m recording now, but I was writing like an hour ago. I was listening to my kids fighting upstairs. Summertime is so legit for us parents. You know, like, how are you? Are you taking care of yourself? I’m thinking back to last summer. I was a mess. I was running my tutoring business, coaching, podcasting on the side. I was completely overwhelmed. I think I went about two months without dropping an episode for you. For those of you who hung in there with me through that time, I just wanted to say thank you. I’ve structured my life completely differently this summer, and I can’t even get over how different everything is. Instead of being last on the list, this podcast is the priority. So fun, right? It’s so cool to see how everything can change in a year. So if you’re in a bad spot right now, you feel like you’re drowning, I want to encourage you that everything can change, even in a short period of time, like a year. My life is unrecognizable from what it was a year ago. I’m working from home at a job that I know I’m so good at, and I’m enjoying my time with my kids, which is mind blowing in itself. I have a hammock swing that I sit on every single evening. I’ve doubled my income. Minor detail that way. You know, I just attribute all of this to my brain. Yeah, my annoying, forgetful, distracted ADHD brain created all of this for me because I was willing to invest in coaching, experience discomfort, and open myself up to dreaming and creating. And, you guys, there’s no limit to what you can create for yourself. Ah, it’s so fun. Remember, there’s nothing special about me. Absolutely nothing special about me. You can also create whatever you want for yourself with the right tools, the right support, the right ADHD treatment plan. Take care of yourself. On that note, I’m going to read a testimonial from Focus. It’s so fun. Oh, my gosh, you guys. This one is from Rich. I know I’ve mentioned him on the podcast before. He just so happens to be the very first person to ever sign up for Focus. And he wrote, like, the most beautiful testimonial. I had to share it with you. So Rich says this program has quite literally changed my relationship with myself and almost everyone around me. I was a slow starter, and while I understood what was being taught intellectually, I didn’t quite grasp it practically for the last five or six months. But this Past month has been like a light switch flipping and now so many things are falling into place and making sense for me. It makes me so excited to see how the next phase of my life goes and I cannot recommend focused enough. I’m finally learning to be patient with myself and love myself and those around me in a way that I’m not sure I ever truly have before. It’s a game changer, better than any therapy I’ve ever done because it demands total honesty with myself, which has turned into total honesty with my family and friends, something I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to do. Additionally, the community of like minded and supportive people has been something that I didn’t even know I was looking for and I now cannot imagine being without it. Rich, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your journey. And you guys, if you are in a place where, you know you want to make changes in your life and you’re looking for tools and resources and support and encouragement, get into focus. What are you waiting for? Seriously love it. So freaking fun. I love it. Now today we’re going to be talking about buffering. And buffering is a concept that I learned from my coach, Brooke Castillo, and I regularly. That’s a hard word for me to say, teach to my clients how to recognize it and navigate through it. So buffering is like anything that we do to make ourselves feel better. Any external thing that we use to change our emotional state. State. Okay, so we’re feeling negative. And instead of just feeling the negative feeling, processing the emotion, figuring out what’s going on and how we can solve the problem. No, no. Instead we turn to things like eating, drinking, Netflixing, shopping, scrolling social media. Right. Those are, I think, probably the most common. But honestly, it can be anything. Maybe for you it’s like checking your bank account. Maybe it’s pornography. When you’re faced with something difficult, overwhelming, scary, what do you notice that you gravitate toward instead of doing the hard thing? So a buffer is the thing that you use to make yourself feel better. And the reason that we call it buffering is like, it’s totally ineffectual action. It’s like that little spinny thing on your phone that spins around when you’re waiting for the YouTube video to load. Right? It’s buffering. It’s not useful, it’s not helpful, it doesn’t help you to accomplish the goal. It’s spinning out. Right? It’s the space between where you currently are and your next actionable step. That will help you get toward your goal. So I want to chat today about a bunch of different buffers, why we use them. And hopefully this will help you to become aware, recognize them in yourself, so that you can be conscious of it when you’re doing it. Okay? Now listen, this is not an invitation to beat yourself up or shame yourself or feel badly about yourself, okay? You are a human being with a human brain. You don’t buffer because you’re a bad person. You buffer because you’re human. All right? We all do it. It’s not a problem, right? But knowing that this is so common and recognizing it in yourself and having steps to move through it, that is what we’re going for today, all right? That’s what’s going to be helpful to you. It’s been so helpful to me. All right, now, my most common buffer. I’ve mentioned it a bajillion times. It’s social media, Facebook, but mostly Instagram. I love to scroll. I love to talk to people. I also love to stalk people. Okay? I love to get lost in Instagram stories. I love to get lost in the Facebook video channel thing, where it just, like, pops up the next comedian or the next Ellen clip, right? It’s, like, so fun. And when I’ve got something on my list that’s particularly difficult, I notice that I spend a whole lot of time on my phone, right? So, as you know, writing and recording podcasts is really hard for me. And what I find is that I will buffer during this time the most. So when I’m in a coaching session, I’m not buffering. My brain is engaged. I’m enjoying it. There’s, like, dopamine everywhere. My brain is on fire. I’m loving it so much. But when I have a couple hours to accomplish a goal that I find to be difficult, I noticed that I’m picking up my phone constantly. This is why I have a phone jail. This is why I deleted the Instagram app about 4 hours ago when I started working on podcasts today. Okay? Now, it’s not just with work, though, because if I’m feeling depressed or if there’s something going on for me emotionally, I’ll also spend a lot of my downtime buffering as well. So it’s not just the. The action that keeps me from doing my work. It’s also just the action that keeps me from engaging in my real life. I’m going to say that again, because as an ADHDer, I’m assuming that this is going to apply to you as Well, a buffer can for sure keep you from doing your work, right? It’s the blankie that makes you feel good instead of doing the hard thing at work. But it’s also the thing that can keep you from engaging in your real life with real humans. Okay, so I get to avoid feeling negative by using the phone as my buffer. It’s like a stuffy or a snuggly. It puts this space between me as a human and the negativity that I feel on the inside. So I wonder, do you notice this about yourself? The first time that I really saw this in myself was a few years ago when I was trying to grow my tutoring business. I was just learning about coaching tools. And so I was just beginning to build my awareness about myself. And I noticed that I would drop my kids off at School around 8:30 in the morning. And then I would get quote unquote stuck on Instagram on the couch till about 10 or 10:30. I would get stuck until I couldn’t like procrastinate anymore. And so then I would have no choice but to take action. But in that like hour and a half where I could have gotten a lot done but it wasn’t urgent, I would buffer. I couldn’t figure out why. So when I learned about the art of the Thought download, which you can check out episode 16 for that, I figured out how to get all my thoughts out of my brain and onto paper. And I realized through like observing my thoughts that I was full of fear and self doubt. And so I hung out on Instagram, which was my snuggly blanket, because I was too afraid to take action in my business. I didn’t even realize it, but I was using Instagram to change how I felt emotionally. I was using Instagram to avoid the hard things thing. Now social media might not be a buffer for you. Here are some common buffers. How about video games? Do you avoid interacting with your family? Do you notice that you struggle with human connection in real life? And so instead of making the hard effort of connecting with humans, going on dates, meeting people, engaging with your children, you’re playing video games instead? No. Video games are not inherently bad. They’re great, they’re awesome. But if you’re using it to avoid your real life, then it’s a buffer. If you’re using it to avoid your real emotion, then it’s a buffer. If you notice that you’re on it until 4am because you’re afraid to get off and lay in bed and think your real thoughts and feel Your real feelings, then it’s a buffer. Know what I’m saying? A lot of people use food to make themselves feel better. Now, I went through a period of time in my late teens and early twenties when this was absolutely true for me. Whenever I was bored or sad or scared or frustrated or depressed, I would eat. And I wouldn’t just eat. I would eat so much food that I was completely overstuffed. And for a moment, it would relieve the tension in my body of the negative emotion. Until, of course, I began the process of self loathing that usually ensues after you’ve binge eaten. Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m, like, totally filled with compassion for that version of myself. Like, she was so sweet. She was completely unable to process negative emotion, and so she used food to buffer herself between the reality of her and the feeling in her body of the negative emotion. All right, moving on. For some of you, it’s shopping. So if you fill your home with more than you need or you find yourself obsessively shopping even though you already have everything you could possibly use, check in on yourself to see when you are doing this. Are you shopping during a time when you’re feeling sad, overwhelmed, disappointed? Check in with the energy behind it. Okay, now, spoiler alert. Sometimes this looks like putting things into your cart, but not clicking purchase, but just that, like, researching and finding the thing that you can put into your cart makes you feel real good, you know? Now, I would love to have an expert come on the show and talk about pornography, because I think a lot of people, especially men, are addicted to porn and totally use it as a buffer. So if you’re feeling inadequacy, self doubt, self loathing, you may use porn to help you feel better, right? For a lot of us, alcohol is a buffer that we use. I’m still processing this and figuring out, like, how much I want to drink and, like, when I’m using it as a buffer and when it’s just like a natural, normal, fun part of my life, right? Because sometimes it’s just like part of a meal or a celebration. It’s not a buffer, but for me personally, but sometimes I’m using it to change how I feel emotionally. And whenever I use alcohol or any other external thing to change how I feel emotionally, I’m buffering. Now, I want to remind you that even something like procrastivity can be a form of buffering. You’re avoiding the higher priority task because you’re afraid or because it’s boring or because it’s hard, right? So you do the lesser priority task to give yourself a false sense of accomplishment. So you’re trying to change your emotional state with something that’s not the real thing, okay? It’s keeping you from your ultimate goal. So I want to ask you, check in with yourself. When do you buffer? Do you buffer with food or alcohol or social media or video games or porn? What external thing do you use to change your emotional state? When do you notice that you’re in inaction or procrastination or avoidance or hiding or just like, standing still? Right. See, this is what buffering does. It never has a positive consequence or a positive outcome. It never leads us closer to our goal. It either keeps us in inaction or it depletes our bank account. It puts extra pounds on our bodies. It makes us feel groggy and hungover, right? Like it never gives us a fully positive outcome. Now listen, I’ve done a lot of episodes on emotions, and I want you to know that recognizing and processing negative emotion is the way to stop buffering. It is the way to stop procrastinating. It is the way to stop getting stuck on the couch or on social media or on Netflix. Okay? Now, I know these are not the sexiest episodes I’ve recorded. I know that, right? Like, you guys want the tips and the tricks and the strategies, but the strategy around getting into action is to stop buffering and start allowing yourself to feel terrible. Now, that doesn’t sound like fun. And I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t super fun, but it is effective. So are you going for fun or are you going for effective? Do you want to accomplish the goal or do you want to feel good all the time? We are not entitled to feel happy and pleasurable 100% of the time. The human experience is made up of 50% positive emotion and. And 50% negative emotion. So in order to get the full human experience, we have to be willing to feel 50% positive, which is super fun and great, and 50% negative, which is super shameful, failure, terrible, awful. Right? Just the way it is. Now, if you want to avoid the negative emotion, you will use things like food, drugs, porn, video games, all the things to put a buffer between you and the feeling terrible. But the truth of the matter is, if you will allow the negative emotion to be there, you will be able to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. So how’s that for a tip? Just feel terrible. Allow yourself to feel terrible. Right? Allow yourself to feel fear and do the thing anyway. Allow yourself to feel boredom and do the thing anyway. Allow yourself to feel overwhelmed and do the thing anyway. Emotions cannot kill you. They can’t even hurt you. They don’t feel good, but they’re not the enemy. So since we all love the tips and tricks, here’s the five steps to stop buffering. Number one, understand what it is and notice when you’re doing it right. So just begin to develop an awareness on it. When you are on the couch and you notice that you’ve been on Instagram for a really long time, like, notice it. When you are hiding in the pantry eating Oreos, notice it. Don’t shame yourself for it, but just be like, oh, I think I might be buffering. When you’re on video games for like, longer than you want to be or longer than you told your wife you would be, or like you’re missing something because of it, notice it. I wonder if I’m buffering. Step number two is like, figure out why. Check in with yourself. What’s going on for me, Do a thought. Download those. I’m telling you are so helpful. Put at the top, like, how am I feeling right now? And just start writing. Get your thoughts out of your brain and onto paper. Observe. Is there a negative emotion that you are avoiding right now? There might be. Figure it out. And then number three, ask yourself what you need. What do you need? Maybe you need to allow the negative emotion in a safe environment. Maybe you need help with something and you’re just afraid to ask for help. Maybe you need to practice some self care and like actually take care of your needs instead of masking your needs with like, you know, overeating, over drinking, over netflixing. Check in and see what you need. And then number four, if there is something negative that you need to allow, learn how to process that negative emotion. I have episodes on it. I would be happy to coach you on it. Find someone else to coach you on it. Like, for sure you need to learn how to process negative emotion. Number five, take action. Do the thing that will get you closer to your goal. Notice that buffering never gets you closer to your goal. Instead, take action. All right, my friends, that’s what I have for you this week. I’m sending you all the love. I cannot wait to chat with you next time. Bye bye. If you’re being treated for your adhd, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join Focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted. No matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world, Focused is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to I have adhd. Com Focused for all the info.