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. Save over $200 when you book weekly. Stays with VRBO this winter if you need to work, why not work from a chalet? If you haven’t seen your college besties since, well, college. You need a week to fully catch up in a snowy cabin. And if you have to stay in a remote place with your in laws, you should save over $200 a week. That’s the least we can do. So you might as well start digging out the long johns because saving over $200 on a week long snowcation rental is in the cards book now@verbo.com. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with ADHD I’m your host, Kristin 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, episode number 72. I am medicated, I am caffeinated. I’ve been trying to talk myself into recording this podcast for the last hour and a half and I am finally ready to roll. How are you, my friend? How are you? If this is your first episode, welcome. It is so great that you’re here. And if you are a lifer, if you’ve been listening for quite some time, I am just so happy that you are continuing to get value out of this podcast. Who would ever thought? It’s blowing my mind. We’re over 300,000 downloads. And I guess by we, I mean me. Totally amazing. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this to happen. It’s so freaking fun. So fun. Today I’m coming at you with a pep talk. That’s all. This is just a little convo between you and me and a little bit of encouragement because, you guys, our world’s kind of gone crazy. And of course that’s my thought about it, but there’s a lot of evidence for it. Lot of evidence. And if you don’t want to go crazy in the midst of a crazy world, then hang out with me. Hang out here because we’re going to talk about how not to go crazy. There’s so much going on in our world right now. First of all, if you’re not listening in real time, spoiler alert, it’s 2020. 2020 is going to go down in history as just, you know, one of those years. It’s been one of those years from COVID coronavirus all over the world, which is just so fascinating because we haven’t been in a scenario in any of our lifetimes where we’ve experienced the same circumstance all around the globe. I mean, that’s just wild. And it’s an election year which is enough to drive any sane person completely insane. No matter what your political affiliation is, even if you have no political affiliation in America, election years are going to drive you crazy if you’re not real careful. And then there’s a lot going on culturally and socially, a lot of violence, a lot of, of a lot of things going on in our world. That are enough to make you wonder. They’re enough to maybe bring fear to a mind that otherwise would be calm. And so today we’re just going to chit chat about the reality of what’s happening right now. I’m going to really try to stay out of everything 100%, as it’s just thoughts and opinions. And you don’t need any more thoughts and opinions in your life. And that’s kind of the point of this podcast. My coach, Stacy Bayman, said something, I’m not sure if it was last week or the week before, but she said something to the effect of like, every time that you watch the news, every time that you’re on Facebook or Instagram, you’re consuming other people’s thoughts, thoughts. Now, I really do want you to think about the news as being other people’s thoughts because it is very rare that the news reports facts. It is very, very common that the news is going to report their take on the facts, their thoughts about the facts, and they’re going to have lots of commentators and guests chat about the facts. Right? And so what we’re going to call all of those are people’s thoughts. We’re going to call those thoughts. And dealing with other people’s thoughts is one of the reasons why many of us are feeling anxious, many of us are paralyzed, many of us are kind of locked in, in action is because we have so many thoughts of our own, about 60,000 a day, although I have no idea how that would ever be proven. But that’s kind of like the common understanding is that, you know, we have 60,000 thoughts a day. And then every time you watch the news, every time you’re on Facebook, every time you’re on Instagram, you are also consuming other people’s thoughts. So now it’s your 60,000 thoughts. And then however many thoughts you’re consuming from the outside world. And what this has done for me is it’s really put me in a fight or flight mode where I really struggle to rest and relax. And my brain is constantly on the lookout for danger. I think this is very common and I’m wondering if you relate to it. So our brains are designed to keep us safe. And one of the ways that I believe God designed our brains to do this is to always be on the lookout for danger. Because, of course, like, if there’s an animal prowling around to attack us, we need to know, we need to be on the lookout for that so that we can run if there is, you know, somebody that is dangerous. In our vicinity. We need to make sure that we’re aware of that so we can run away, so that we can hide, so that we can defend ourselves and take action. The problem is, though, we are constantly endangering ourselves every time we turn on the news, Every time we open Facebook and Instagram, we’re endangering ourselves with scary thoughts, with scary opinions, with scary images. And a lot of you, I think, are in this, like, addiction of what’s happening in the world right now. And there’s not this magical formula to figuring out balance, to figuring out, you know, how much of the news can you watch in order to be informed, but to not be consumed with anxiety, fear, fear, anger, frustration, indignation, all of those negative emotions that are not going to be useful for us. I’ve been trying to figure out that magic formula for me, and I can tell you it’s zero. No amount of news whatsoever is the right amount for me, which is like, I don’t know what you’re gonna think about that, but that is the truth. If I am going to be a fully functioning, loving, kind human in this world, I need to not be watching the news. Because what it does is it makes me crazy in the head. Like, 100%. I become a crazy person when I watch the news. So I don’t really like being a crazy person. I’d really love to be a person who is helpful, kind, productive, creative, and, you know, like, helping the world with my contribution. And if I am watching the news, I’m not that person. I’m mean, I’m angry. I get very mad about people and situations and society and culture and politics, and I become a crazy person. So for me personally, I can tell you that the magical amount of news to watch is absolutely none. None. None at all. So what I’ve done is I’ve told my husband, who does not turn into a crazy person when he watches the news. I’ve told him, hey, let me know if there’s anything going on in the world that I need to be concerned about for my own safety or for the safety of our kids. I really definitely want to know if there is something going on that affects me personally. But if it’s not something that’s in my sphere of influence, if it’s not something that’s going to affect me or my kids, then I really don’t want to know right now. And about once a week, I check in with him and I ask him what’s going on in the world. And about once a week, we’ll watch about 10 to 15 minutes of various news stations together. That’s about it. Literally, that is about it. Here’s the thing with the news. It is their job to keep you watching, okay? It’s not their job to inform you in an unbiased manner. I don’t care what news station we’re talking about. Every single one has a bias. It’s very obvious. And the bias is their worldview, their perspective on the facts and all of their thoughts. And they’re going to be telling you, you know, some facts for sure, but then they’re going to be telling it and spinning it in a way that supports their bias, their belief, their stations, you know, values. And their job is to keep you watching so that they can get advertising dollars, so that their people can make money. That’s the whole point. It is not a nonprofit. I really want you to think about that. None of the news stations are doing this out of the goodness of their heart. This is a for profit business. And the way to get profit is to have people watch so that they can get advertising dollars. And the way that they have people continue to watch is always having a crisis. Always. If there’s always a crisis, if there’s always violence, if there’s always COVID 19 if there’s always a pandemic, if there’s always a politician who’s an idiot, then we are going to want to watch. And that is the entire point of the news industry, right? So I say all of this not to say that, that the news is bad necessarily, but I do want us all to remember that it’s not a public service. They’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re doing it to keep us watching, which is why it is sensational, is why the crisis is always front and center. And if it’s not coronavirus, it’s going to be something else, right? It’s going to be a politician. If it’s not a politician, it’s cool. Going to be a riot or a protest. If it’s not a riot or a protest, it’s going to be some sort of act of violence, right? They want to keep us watching. They want to get their advertising dollars. They know how the human brain works. And so because they know that our human brain is always looking for danger and always trying to be on the lookout for things that could go wrong and things that could interrupt our peace and our happiness, they’re always putting the bad things front and center. Now, that’s fine. I just want you to be Aware. So if you are someone who, like me, gets very distracted by what’s going on in the world to the point that you can barely function, to the point where you’re not adding value in your particular area, I want to encourage you. Maybe cutting down on the input would be very helpful. Maybe limiting yourself, maybe constraining in this area would allow you to function more fully to your capacity. It might allow you to focus on what’s most important in your life. And I wonder what is most important in your life. See, the thing with ADHD is that we really have trouble narrowing down our focus. We have not a deficit of attention. We have like an overproduction of attention. We pay attention to all the things. We have a very difficult time constraining down to what is most important to what our singular priority is. And so if you would take five minutes today and ask yourself, what is most important in my life, what I really want to focus on, what do I value, what do I want to produce in this world, that would go so well for you. Because then you could see if your social media consumption, if your news consumption adds to that or takes away from it, is it helping you to become more of who you want to be or is it taking away from who you want to be? For me, it became very obvious that it was taking away from me, continuing to evolve into who I wanted to be. It just was so obvious. When you’re losing sleep over, like, events that are not happening in your town, that’s not really normal. Maybe one night, okay, fine, but multiple nights in a row, it’s really not the way that I can live my life. And so I’ve had to cut way down on my knowledge of what’s happening in every single corner of the world. And my thought is that we weren’t ever meant to know everything about, you know, every corner of the world. We just weren’t like, this is not the way that our human brains were designed. This is just the introduction of the digital age and the 24 hour news cycle. And in the last five years, we just have everything in the palm of our hands and at all times. And we’re getting all of these notifications, and I don’t think that it’s allowing us to live to our highest capacity, especially those of us who struggle to prioritize. And that would be every single human with adhd. Another way that I’ve really set a boundary here is with my social media consumption. So Facebook is really not a happy land that I visit very often. I’m on There about once a week. And so what I do is I delete the Facebook app from my phone. Because if I have the app on my phone, I will for sure go in and like, you know, look at all the things and read all of the thoughts from all of the people. And I can’t help but react in my own mind. Not that I’m like necessarily responding, but I see a post from someone and I have a reaction. And then I see another post from someone and I have a reaction. And there are so many thoughts to manage, right? Other people’s thoughts that I’m trying to manage in my own body. Other people’s thoughts that I am now thinking that are creating feelings for me that now I have to process. Now I’m responsible to decide how I want to think and feel about all of this. And honestly, it is work. Not only am I having to manage my own crazy thoughts, but then I’m taking on the crazy thoughts of other people. My neighbors, my friends from college, my friends from high school. Like, all of my friends. Like, why am I doing this to myself, right? So my goal in the last couple weeks and months has been to cut down on my own input, cut down on what I am allowing into my brain. My goal is to minimize drama, which means minimize, like, negative emotion and minimize distraction, right? So I want to constrain, I want to figure out what’s essential in my life, what is essential for me to even know? Have you even thought about that? Like, what’s essential for you to know? And are you consuming the news in a way that’s like, totally not essential? And is it benefiting you or is it harming you? What I’ve found is that it’s harmed me. It’s kept me in this state of constant fight or flight, and that is an anxious, an agitated place for me. And it’s not super fun. And I definitely do not get my best work done when I’m in fight or flight. So what I’ve done is I’ve deleted Facebook. I will go in there, you know, like, if I have a couple hours on a Saturday and I’m just totally relaxing and having a great time, I will go in there. But often I will notice that the anxiety immediately comes. And so I’m like, okay, I’ve had my weekly dose of anxiety. I don’t really need anymore. Let’s just shut it down, right? I do delete Instagram from, you know, like during the day when I’m working, but that is not necessarily so much like self preservation. It’s more because I love Instagram and I’ll go in there and be distracted anytime. So I. But I do try to constrain my use just because my biggest contribution to the world is what I can produce. It’s what I can offer to you through this podcast. It’s the workbooks that I create for the focused program. It is, you know, becoming obsessed with solving problems for my clients. So that is like what I can offer the world. And consuming other people’s thoughts and content doesn’t really help that. It really doesn’t. One of the things that my coach Brooke said in one of her recent podcasts that I think is so useful is that we are either in one of two positions. We’re either pushing against something that we don’t like or we’re creating something that we do like. And what I find when I’m consuming a lot of news, a lot of social media content, especially Facebook, is that I find myself pushing against what I don’t like. I find myself getting angry, getting upset, getting frustrated, wanting to defend, wanting to respond. And it’s very much in the energy of pushing against. And when I take a break from all of that input from the 24 hour news cycle, from the sensationalism, from the fight or flight, from the constant barrage of like, what’s happening in the world, when I take a break from that, then I have time to create something that I do like. I have time to invest in my family and the people that I see in real life, the people that I know and love. I have time and energy to solve problems for my clients. It’s one of my biggest goals in the next couple weeks and months is to become more and more and more obsessed with solving problems for my clients. It’s my job. And when I’m watching the news and getting angry about politics, I’m not able to come from an energy of service and offering value and solving problems for people. Right. And so I want you to start to ask yourself, am I in a space of pushing against something that I don’t like, or am I in a space of creating something that I do like? I just want to give Brooke credit for this because that really was her idea and it was from her latest podcast on Fear. So it’s the Life Coach School podcast and I think the title is just called Fear. She’s amazing. And you will learn far more from her than you ever would from me. But I digress. What I want to really communicate here is that we all have a choice on what we consume and it would really benefit all of us if we started to notice how what we’re consuming affects us, how politics affects us. What is it like when you kind of go down the social media rabbit hole of that feel friend from high school and their political views? What does that feel like in your body? What result does that produce for you? How then do you show up in your real life? I want to offer here that this is just one of the ways that those of us with ADHD distract ourselves from our true calling, from our real contribution, from our God given work in the world. And we are under no obligation to be informed about every single thing happening in the world at all times. For some reason in our culture, at least here in America, it kind of is expected that we would know everything. And now when people ask me questions like, oh, did you hear about such and such, I’m like, no, I don’t watch the news. And they’re like, wait, what? Why not? How could you not watch the news? And honestly, I feel so sure of myself in my body that like, this is the right thing. I don’t need to know every single thing. We’ll check in once in a while. Absolutely. But the constant barrage, the constant bombardment of sensationalized news and politics and people being ridiculous, not so good. Not so good for my brain and completely unnecessary. And I just wanted to offer this to you as well because I think that you and I are probably a lot alike. That is what I’ve determined from hearing from so many of you, is that you really relate to the way that I experience the world. And so my guess is that this is probably a struggle for you as well. So figure out what it is that you should be focusing on. Where in your real life can you be focusing your attention? Where? Do you need to cut back on input coming at you? Do you need to limit your social media time? Do you need to limit your news consumption? Do you need to spend more time creating what you do want rather than pushing against what you don’t want? All of that might be very helpful in allowing you to show up in the world as the fully formed human that you want to be. The human who is reaching their potential, the human who is on a path toward what they want. I know that this is a place that I want to be. I want to be on a path, on a journey. I can see the goal in a year and a half. I see it and I want to get to there. I want to go to there. And in order to go to there, I really need to make sure that I’m not looking to the right or to the left, but that I have my eyes fixed on what is set before me. And I encourage you to join me because I think it’s a really powerful place to be. Really, really powerful. That’s my thought. I hope that it’s helpful to you. I hope that you feel encouraged today and empowered to take some action in this area in lim the input into your life so that you’re not having to manage your own 60,000 thoughts and feelings, but then also managing other people’s thoughts and feelings. But you are focused on what’s most important in your life. If you need help figuring out what’s most important, do join Focused. It is an amazing place to learn how to prioritize, how to constrain, how to decide what the best path for you. I would love to support you in that. And my friend, I will see you next week. Bye bye. Hey ADHD er I see you. I know exactly what it’s like to feel lost, confused, frustrated and like no one out there really understands the way that your brain works. That’s why I created Focused. Focused is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself, feeling better and creating the life that you know you’re meant for. You’ll study, be coached, grow and make amazing changes alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more.
