Kristen Carder
Kristen, 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 Kristen Carter, and you’ve tuned in to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated and ready to roll. And today we’re going to talk about that mean voice in your head. We’re going to talk about how to quiet the inner critic. But before we do please make sure to like, subscribe, turn on notifications, do all the things. Don’t forget that if you have ADHD your working memory really sucks, and you might watch this episode or listen to this episode, love it and then forget that it exists. So make sure to like and subscribe so that every Tuesday I am back here in your feed with another episode.

I want to know if you have had the experience of shaming yourself, beating yourself up, being a jerk to yourself, pretty much all day long, or getting trapped in a shame spiral that is so distracting, it’s so hard to function when that happens, and it is a common experience for those of us with ADHD, I Want to let you know that I’ve been studying how to quiet the inner critic for the last six ish months for myself and also to help my clients in my coaching program. And the three books that have been the most helpful to me are John Bradshaw’s healing the shame that binds you. This book was a shockingly good read and really, really helpful to me, and I’ve implemented a ton of his tools into my own coaching. Next up, we have complex PTSD from surviving to thriving by Pete Walker. This book was recommended to me probably 97 times before I finally broke down and read it, and it is so good, I wish I hadn’t waited so long. So I highly recommend it. And then additionally, I think I’ve mentioned this probably 100 times now on the podcast, and we’ve had him on twice as a guest. Russ Ramsey’s rethinking adult. ADHD, he talks a ton about perfectionism in this book, which we’re going to refer to as we move forward. So such good resources, I highly recommend you check them out if you are a nerd like me and want to learn all of the things and do a deep dive. So what does the inner critic have to do with being ADHD, having ADHD, I need to be very clear that it is not a symptom of ADHD. It’s not in the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, but it is a common experience, anecdotally for those of us with ADHD, I have never had a conversation with someone who has ADHD who says I’m super nice to myself all day long, and when I make a mistake, I don’t even mind and I have tons of self compassion that does not ever happen.

And if that is you, like, if you’re like, oh yeah, that’s me. First of all, amazing. Teach us your ways. But I highly doubt it. I think more commonly, we are just so mean to ourselves all day, every day, and one of the deepest works of our lives, I believe, as we evolve and just become the adults that we want to be, is teaming that inner critic so that we’re not so mean to ourselves all day long. So if you resonate with that, if you’re like, Yes, that’s me. I beat myself up. I’m so mean to myself, I’m such a jerk to myself, and I shame spiral, and then I’m so distracted by all of that shame, and I can’t get a thing done. This episode is for you. Okay, so let’s start with where does the inner critic come from?

This is the hard part, and if it brings up some feelings, I totally get it, and I’m here with you, but most of the time it’s the family that we grew up in that teaches us how to think about ourselves and how to talk to ourselves. And a lot of us grew up in families where we were ashamed and criticized and where we were kind of the problem child because of our ADHD traits. And so when you’re loud and impulsive and uncontrollable and kind of dramatic and just like a more difficult kid, you’re going to receive a lot of negative feedback from parents and teachers and friends. And so most of the time it is our family system that teaches us how to think about our. And teaches us how to talk to ourselves. But if you don’t resonate with that, it could be maybe a bully in school that that became then your inner critic, or maybe teachers gave you a hard time and really kind of taught you how to think about yourself, taught you how to criticize yourself. Or maybe you had an amazing childhood and adolescence, and it wasn’t until you were an adult in maybe a toxic relationship, or you had a toxic boss, that you really began to have this inner critic that just would not leave you alone.

As ADHD ers, we just received so much negative feedback from parents, teachers, peers. Two studies that I’ll link in the show notes, found that children and adolescents with ADHD were rejected and criticized so much more often than their neurotypical peers, and over time, this constant rejection, criticism, correction, redirection, it becomes our internal voice. And here’s the thing, what often happens when we have been brought up in a society or a family or a school system or a church system, where we are constantly criticized and rejected, we often will become perfectionists, and this is so interesting. I’ve talked about perfectionism before in the context of this podcast, and a lot of times I get feedback that’s like, Kristen, I can’t be a perfectionist. I have ADHD. I don’t do anything perfect. I don’t do anything right. I’m not a perfectionist. But Dr Russell Ramsey found in his research that perfectionism is actually the most commonly endorsed thought distortion for adults with ADHD. What does that mean. It means that many of us with ADHD actually have developed into perfectionists, and I think that is because we receive so much negative feedback, so much criticism, so much rejection as children and adolescents, that the response to that is trying to be perfect, and if you resonate with that, I do have a free course on perfectionism. You can click the link in the description of this episode. Find that free course. If you’re like, yeah, that actually does sound like me.

I have a whole four part video series on perfectionism, how it impacts ADHD ers and how to mitigate it in our lives. So go check it out. But just know that perfectionism is such a common thread for us, it eats dears. So when there is rejection, neglect, abandonment, corrective feedback, constantly, the inner critic develops, and it becomes your inner voice, and it goes into overdrive trying to win approval. So this often manifests as self hate, self disgust and self abandonment, in addition to perfectionism and just this, like mean voice in your brain, often we’re going to become hyper vigilant and on the lookout for danger, what I might be doing wrong. What could go wrong? Something that I’ve done wrong, there’s just this hyper vigilance and maybe even rumination on perceived or possible danger. And so with this terrible self talk and this perfectionism and this hyper vigilance to danger, eventually, for an ADHD year, our entire identity becomes this critic and sometimes, and I don’t know, maybe, maybe you’ll resonate with this, it becomes like the only voice in our head. And so instead of having this supportive kind inner voice that’s helping us get through the day, we’re just mean to ourselves. We’re beating ourselves up and we’re shame spiraling all day long. I’m curious if this resonates with you, that pervasive feeling of shame, like, no matter what you do, you can do nothing, right? It’s this constant feeling of being too much, but also not enough at the same time.

Like, what is up with that? And so this is why we’re talking about it today. And like I said, it’s not a part of the diagnostic criteria. It’s not something you’re going to see on a symptoms list when researching ADHD, but it is a very common experience for us. So let’s talk about shame for a minute. Shame in mainstream psychology is described as a social emotion, normal shame, typical. Shame is a somewhat healthy and self regulating emotional reaction. It occurs when someone else witnesses us acting in an unfair or offensive or hurtful way. So I am embarrassed that someone else is seeing me act in an offensive way, and that shame kind of resets me onto the path that I want to be and in alignment with my values. But that’s not really the shame experience that most of us at each deers have. I mean, if only I would love it, if that was the only shame experience that we have. Unfortunately. Late. It’s not most of us, many of us, are experiencing toxic shame. And toxic shame is this shame that just will not leave us alone, and it is not a social emotion in that we can be messing up in the privacy of our own home and all of the sudden that inner critic is going to go crazy, judging us, beating us up.

You can’t do anything right. I can’t believe you did this again. Why can’t you just get it right? Why can’t you just be like so and so? Why do you have to be so lazy, so stupid, so dumb? I don’t understand why you have to be the way that you are. That’s what your inner voice sounds like. It’s going to be really hard to move forward in your life. It’s going to be really hard to get anything done. So normal shame is a good thing. It helps us stay in alignment with our values, toxic shame, which comes from years and years and years of criticism, rejection, recorrection and then us adopting the voice of the critic, toxic shame that’s debilitating, that makes us feel like we can’t do anything right, that holds us back from moving forward. It puts us into a spiral that we get trapped in. And let me know if you resonate with the with the idea of, like, shame rumination. So like, you’ve done something, and you perceive that thing as being bad or wrong, but now it’s all you can think about. And you lay in bed at night just ruminating on how it could have been, how it should have been and like, what you could have done differently, and why the heck didn’t I just do it this way? Why didn’t I just say this? Why am I so dumb? Why am I so stupid?

I’m going to give you an example, actually, that happened to me last night. So I had an incident at work yesterday. It was not a big deal, but it got me really dysregulated, and I spent the day, like self soothing and correcting myself and and defining, like what I wish I had done and what happened, and kind of like talking to myself in a really nice way. I’ve worked so hard on improving my own inner voice, so I’m real nice to myself now. And so I was like, Kristen, you You did the right thing, and you were in alignment with your values. And if someone else doesn’t love that, that’s okay, like they can have their own experience. And so I really talked myself through that. I went for a long walk, I talked to my husband, I did a lot of like regulating, and by the time it was time for bed, I fell asleep like a baby. It was perfect. Actually, better than a baby. I’ve had three kids. Babies are the worst at sleeping, at least neurodivergent children are. So I fell asleep like, I don’t know, something great. And I just I my head hit the pillow. I fell asleep, and I was like, amazing. I did the work to re regulate myself and pull myself out of that shame spiral.

But then guess what happened? I had to get up to use the restroom, as you do, and I knew when I woke up, I was like, Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think. I am literally telling myself, don’t think, do not don’t even go there. Do not think about the day. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think, and I am telling you, a flood of intrusive thoughts, shame, negative emotions. It like overpowered me. It was 2:30am I had I was defenseless against it. Even with all of the work that I’ve done, I could not stop it from happening. And when I tell you that I was up for at least an additional two hours laying in bed, getting hot then getting cold, getting hot then getting cold, I’m getting hot right now, actually, just even talking about it,,thinking about it, ruminating, wishing I had said something, kind of getting mad about about it, but, like, it’s not a situation I need to be mad about. I think I was just trying to feel powerful, as I reflect back on it. I wanted to feel some sense of power, so I was getting angry about it, and then trying to coach myself. Kristen, you’re fine. Just go to sleep. It’s not that big of a deal. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.

But when I tell you that the the self loathing, self judgment, the shame, the blame, when it takes over, I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but like it is, it is like a force to be reckoned with. And so if you are resonating with this, I just want you to know that, like there is so much progress to be made, and during the day, I really am a super sweet person to me, and I enjoy this experience of being myself and being in my own brain and body. But there are still times when I am just overcome with the inner critic, and there are times when I notice there’s still more work. To be done, and my guess is this is going to be lifelong work for me. It might even be lifelong work for you. I promise you, it’s work worth doing, and I’m in it with you. So let’s keep going.

If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you’ve definitely heard me talk about the fact that I don’t have a morning routine. I have what’s called a please don’t die list, Kristen, could you please not die? And on that list are things like eating, taking my medication, making sure I’m clothed. You know, the very, very basics morning routines are so hard for adults with ADHD and I have just thrown in the towel and dropped all of the drama around it, but I want to tell you something fascinating. I have been able to be so consistent with the routine of drinking, AG, one every day. I kid you not. I drink it every day. I wake up, I come down the stairs, and the first thing I do is get my little shaker out, fill it with water, add a scoop of ag one, and I’m telling you that it makes me feel so ready to take on the day, like I’m doing something so good for my body. And my body is like, oh, actual nutrition. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Speaking of that nutrition, ag one is a foundational nutrition supplement that delivers daily nutrients and gut health support. Now this is so important because we’ve talked about this before. Diet and nutrition are very difficult for those of us with ADHD, we are prone to lean toward the sweets we want, the chips we want, the dopamine, but if we can make sure that we’re doing something good for our bodies every day, it will make a difference. What’s so cool about ag one is that it’s backed by multiple research studies. That is not nothing you can really trust what you’re putting in your body when you take ag one, because unlike so many other products, their entire formula is backed by research, not just the ingredients, but the whole formula. Over 14 years, AG, one has been focused on innovation with a trusted nutrient dense blend that’s the perfect complement to any diet, whether your diet is healthy or you struggle with nutrition, ag one is the perfect compliment no matter what. Now you know, I’m a Research girly. That is so much of what I do for this podcast. So I do care about the details, and with ag one, I can trust their research and how they’re validating the product working in the body. If you’ve heard me talk about ag one before, you may have heard me say that I’ve actually noticed that I need less coffee in the morning, which is wild, because coffee is literally the reason I get out of bed in the morning. What’s cool is that their research backs this after 60 days of taking, eg, 190 1% of people in a research study notice that they need less coffee as well. So I’m not the only one. Listen, if there’s one product I trust to support my whole body health, it’s ag one, and that’s why I partner with them and them alone for so long, it’s easy. If it wasn’t easy, I wouldn’t do it. I promise you that. And it’s satisfying to start your day with ag one, knowing that at least you’ve got the foundation of a little bit of nutrition right there. So you can try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin d3, k2, and five free ag one travel packs, which are going to be amazing for summer travel. By the way, you can get all of that with your first purchase at drink. AG, one.com/i have ADHD. That’s drink. AG, one.com/i have ADHD.

Go check it out. Let’s talk about perfectionism as it pertains to the minor incident that happened yesterday in my own life, and then me waking up in the middle of the night thinking that I shouldn’t have been human. And that’s the thing perfectionism says. I’m gonna set the bar really high, too high, I’m gonna I’m gonna set it too high, and then you’re not going to be able to reach the bar, and when you don’t reach the bar, I’m going to beat you up, I’m going to yell at you, I’m going to shame you, I’m going to blame you. And so for a lot of US adults with ADHD, we set the bar at perfection, and I know that I do. And so when I don’t show up perfectly, or when something just doesn’t go perfectly in my life, it doesn’t even have to be because of me. That’s when I start shaming, blaming and beating myself up. Now, there’s two different types of perfectionism that Dr Russell Ramsey names in his book right here, rethinking adult ADHD, there’s first front end perfectionism, and that is prepping. See everything making sure it’s perfect before I can even start the project. That’s not what happened to me the last night, but front end perfectionism is I want the environment to be perfect. I want I want to feel really good. I want everything to be just right in order for me to start this project. And so a lot of us will go into avoidance, which, hello, adhdr, I know you avoid a ton. A lot of us will go into avoidance because we’re trying to just get the situation perfect before we even allow ourselves to start.

So like, I need to clean off my desk, and, oh, there’s dishes in the sink, and I need to make sure that my kids are taken care of, or I need to do these four projects first before I let myself do this other thing. And that’s just avoidance, avoidance, avoidance. And then there’s back end perfectionism, which is essentially tweaking and making sure the project is perfect before I turn it in, and also looking at what I’ve done and judging it. How did it? How did I do? Was I perfect? Was it just right? Am I okay? Am I safe? Am I going to get criticized? Am I going to be rejected? I don’t know. Maybe I did it wrong, and that is exactly the type of perfectionism, shame spiral that I was in last night. I didn’t do it exactly right. It didn’t go perfectly in my business yesterday, and so let me just lay in bed and notice all of the things that were quote, unquote wrong, even though it’s like no big deal, it’s just like normal human business stuff. But my perfectionism, my inner critic, my shame spiral, it came in like a flood.

It overtook me, and I was trapped. And that experience is not a fun one. So again, if you’re interested in learning more about perfectionism and how we ADHD ers can mitigate its effects, click the link in the description below and you are going to find a free course on perfectionism. So of course, we’re not perfect. We’re human. And not only are we human, we’re humans with ADHD so we’re loud, we’re impulsive, we’re distractible, we struggle with our emotional regulation. We suck at working memory. We don’t know how to prioritize and plan, and so like, we’re gonna make quite a few mistakes, but if we don’t accept that about ourselves, our humanity becomes synonymous with shame and fear and that inner critic, and I wonder if that’s where you are today, listener, I wonder if you are feeling like the humanity that you bring to the table, just you being you is shameful, and you’re afraid of being rejected and criticized, and you’re mean to yourself all day long.

If that is your experience, I have a question for you. Are you open to the possibility that your self talk could improve? Are you open to the possibility that maybe you don’t have to be so mean to yourself all day every day? Are you open? Are you willing to let that inner critic go? Now it’s fascinating, because so many of my clients actually want to keep their inner critic around because they think it’s the only way they’re ever going to get anything done like I can’t be nice to myself, or I’m never going to achieve my goals. I can’t have compassion on myself, or I’m never going to make progress in my life. I can’t offer myself compassion and kindness and just like generosity until I do XYZ, or I’m never going to do XYZ. And here’s what I want to ask you, is it working like how’s that working out for you? Are you happy with the experience that you’re having in your brain and in your body? Does that critic help you to thrive?

Are you enjoying the experience of life? Because I’m guessing the answer is a no. So over the next couple minutes, I just want to invite you to be open that it might be possible to move forward with your life, achieve your goals and be nice to yourself at the same time. How do we do it? Like I said, I’ve been studying the work of Pete Walker and John Bradshaw, and I’ve compiled from them, step by step process of how to quiet that inner critic. And the first step is just to recognize what is happening. We need to just acknowledge that we are being really mean. We need to acknowledge what that inner critic sounds like so I want to read to you from Pete Walker’s book. Again.

It’s called Complex PTSD, from surviving to thriving. And I’m going to head to page 170 I want you to understand the different ways that this inner critic shows up. So this is how we start. We have to. Recognize that we have an inner critic, and it’s not necessarily our own voice. Okay, so here’s how the inner critic shows up. First of all, perfectionism. We’ve already talked about it, but it’s a very common response to having this really mean inner critic. Second all or nothing, black and white thinking. Isn’t this a common experience of ADHD? Yes, yes, it is. We talk about it all the time in this podcast. Black and white thinking is a common experience of ADHD, and this is one of the ways that our inner critic shows up next self hate, self disgust and toxic shame. We’ve already chatted about that next micromanagement, worrying, obsessing, looping and over futurizing, meaning like kind of predicting the future.

Oh, great. This is going to happen. And then this is going to happen. Some people call it future, telling, worrying, obsessing, looping. This is exactly what I was doing last night. Next unfair, devaluing comparisons to others or to your most perfect moments. This kind of a little bit of perfectionism here, but I’m going to compare yesterday’s day in my business to a perfect day in my business, and then say, yesterday was terrible. I did a horrible job, and that’s super unfair. Okay, next guilt, and I’ve have episodes on guilt, but it’s very similar to shame, where healthy guilt is a really good thing that keeps us in line with our values, but toxic guilt is this pervasive, constant feeling of guilt where I just I can’t do anything right, no matter how hard I try. Next up shoulding. Shoulding on yourself. You should have done this. I should have said this. I should go and do this. So much shoulding, and that is how the inner critic shows up. Next up over productivity and workaholism, being busy? Are you a human doing or a human being? Are you hustling for your worthiness, as Brene Brown says? And lastly, harsh judgments of yourself and of others, and that’s partially what I was doing last night. I wasn’t just judging myself, which I was, but I was also judging someone else for no good reason. It was a harsh judgment. It didn’t need to happen. But again, I think it was helping me to feel kind of more powerful, and it was keeping me stuck in that loop. Pete Walker then talks about endangerment attacks, which is like the inner critic, catastrophizing and really worrying about the future. It’s that hyper vigilance and fear that we talked about earlier that just sounds like a lot of catastrophizing in your brain, having a negative focus time urgency. I don’t have enough time. I need to go faster. I need to hustle. I need to get it done. I know you. ADHD, or resonate with time urgency, debilitating performance anxiety, and lastly, worrying about being attacked. So like, what if someone rejects me?

What if someone criticized me? What if I speak the truth, or I did speak the truth, but now I’m really scared about what someone is going to say about me, and it’s just that thought looping over and over and over, so recognizing and noticing that these are very common ways that the inner critic shows up is going to be so helpful to you. Begin to notice, begin to recognize, begin to say, Oh, that’s my inner critic. So next up, and this is kind of hard, so how do we quiet the inner critic? First? We recognize it, we notice it, we realize it’s there.

We realize that maybe it’s just like not my voice. And so to follow up with that number two, we need to recognize where it came from. And this part is a little hard. It can be a little painful. Whose voice is it? Who’s Who’s disdain, whose criticism, whose rejection or abandonment or neglect, was the original critic, because that original critic became your inner voice. So where did it come from? Might be a parent, might be a teacher, might be a bully at school. It might be a toxic relationship that you’ve had. Most often, it is our family of origin. And if that is unsettling to you, I understand and you might want to do this work with a really wonderful therapist, because you might recognize, I think I have some deeper work to do here. And so I just want to encourage you that reaching out for a therapeutic relationship from somebody who’s highly trained, a licensed clinician professional, that could be very, very, very helpful to you, but realizing whose voice it is, that’s an important step, because you have to detach from that voice, understanding that it was never yours in the first place. So. It was never yours, that that critic, that mean girl in your head, that that tyrant that is just berating you all day long, that was never your voice to begin with.

And so we have to have this separation where we recognize whose voice it was in the first place, so that we can separate from it Okay next, and I have found this to be so helpful for myself. Externalize it, externalize that voice. So I have kept like a critic journal and written down all of those mean and nasty thoughts that I have about myself when I was first doing this work, when I was first trying to like, not hate myself, all day long, I wrote down what that critic said, and I externalized it, and so instead of it looping in my brain, I wrote it down in a journal, probably just like the back of an envelope, if we’re going to be honest, your girl doesn’t have journals, but I wrote it all down so that I could see what is it actually saying. And when you read the externalization of that inner critic, and you realize how mean you are, or how mean that critic is to you, it takes a little bit of the punch out, because you realize how ridiculous it is. You realize I would never talk to another human in this way. I would never talk to my child this way. I would never talk to my partner or my best friend this way. Why am I talking to myself this way so keeping some sort of like journal or diary.

And I’m not saying keep it forever and like tuck it under your pillow at night, but like writing it down and realizing externalizing what that voice is saying can really extinguish some of that fire that that pain that goes along with the inner critic. Another way to do this is to just speak it out loud, like actually say the words out loud and hear yourself saying them, and then realize how ridiculous it is, realize how mean it is, realize how How spiteful and how hateful it is. Okay, so we’ve talked about noticing the inner critic. We’ve talked about recognizing where it came from and externalizing it. The next thing we need to do is begin to interrupt it, and I did this. I’ve shared this on the pod before, but I did this years ago when I was trying to learn how to be nice to myself. I remember a specific incident in my kitchen in my old house. I was doing all of this thought looping and being mean to myself and criticizing myself.

And I remember saying Kristen, no, and I stood up in my kitchen, and I started walking around. You’re not going to talk to yourself like this anymore. We are all done. You’re not going to say these things to yourself anymore. And literally, I just I interrupted myself. I interrupted the thought pattern. I interrupted the shame spiral, and this is called thought stopping. So you’re in a loop. You’re being mean to yourself. You recognize it, you notice it, and you say, Enough. I’m not doing this to myself anymore. If you’re in the privacy of your own home or your own car or somewhere where other people are not around, I highly recommend that you talk to yourself like a crazy person. You talk to yourself. I highly recommend it because telling yourself, no, we’re all done with this. I’m not talking to myself this way anymore. It’s such a powerful exercise. And next, after you’ve interrupted it, you want to confront it and like redirect it. We’re not talking to ourselves this way anymore. I’m allowed to be human. So instead of that negative thought, I’m just going to interrupt it, I’m going to confront it, and I’m going to redirect it. I’m allowed to be human. I don’t have to do this perfectly. I’m fine, just as I am. I refuse to be unkind to myself anymore. It’s enough. Do you see how powerful that can be? From John Bradshaw’s book healing the shame that binds you, I want to read to you a couple thought substitutions that you might want to borrow when you notice you’re in a shame spiral or you’re being mean to yourself, that inner critic is super loud. You interrupt it. You want to redirect, but you have no idea what to say. What do I even say to myself? Here’s some options. This is Page 212 this is what he says.

This is distressing, but not dangerous. You can only live one day at a time. You can only take it one step at a time. Take a deep breath. Pause, pause, relax. It will soon be over. Nothing lasts forever. Let it flow over. For those of you who thought loop and beat yourself up about things that happened in the past, here’s a really good one. Say goodbye to your past. Best. It’s okay to forget.

Look for what’s good, look for what you like about you. It’s okay to be imperfect. You’re only human. It takes courage to be imperfect and last one, accomplish one thing today, and you’ll be all right. So if you need some thought substitutions, this is a great place to find them. So you’ve confronted, you’ve redirected, and now you’re going to zoom out. And this is hard for us, because we struggle to see the woods for the trees, meaning we get so hyper focused on the thing that we did wrong, which I’m using air quotes, is probably not even wrong, but we get so hyper focused on the exposure of our humanity, because remember, when our humanity was exposed as a child or adolescent, we were rejected, we were criticized. It did not go well for us, and so now we’re afraid for that to happen again now that we’re adults, but if we can zoom out and see the bigger picture, if I last night laying in bed, could have really been able to help myself see this was one day you’ve had a successful business for five years. It is not the end of the world, and tomorrow we’re going to figure it out. It’s okay if I could have zoomed out, if I could have stayed in that zoomed out space, I know I would have been able to sleep, but I couldn’t, and I didn’t sleep.

Okay, so let’s move on. This might sound gross, but I encourage you, and so do the experts to make a list of what’s true about you. So accomplishments, traits, good deeds, that you’ve done, peak experiences, that you’ve had, irrefutable evidence that like you’ve done good things in your life, things that you’ve enjoyed, intentions that you have good habits. I know as someone with ADHD, you’re like, I don’t have any good habits, but like, Are you kind to your pet? Because that’s a good habit. I bet you are. Are you nice to your neighbor? I bet you are. That’s, that’s good list, even if it seems so basic. Start to list things that are good jobs that you’ve had, subjects that you’ve studied, obstacles that you’ve overcome in your life. I know you’ve overcome so many obstacles, and even make a list of good memories that you have, nurturing memories, memories that you can shift your brain to when you are in one of those shame spirals.

This may seem like trivial work, and I can already feel your resistance of like, I’m not going to make a list of the good things, like, That’s so stupid, but I promise you, this is an important part of the work, because your inner critic is so convinced that you’re not good. Your inner critic is so convinced that you can’t do anything right. And when that happens, and when you’re interrupting those those terrible thoughts, you can point to this evidence of like I have done good things in the world. I am not a terrible person. I am kind to my pet. I’m nice to my kids, I I have a decent job. Whatever you fill in the blank for yourself. It is important. It’s not trivial. So make a list of the good and on that note, here’s the last tip from the experts. When you’re lying in bed at night, you lay your head on the pillow, or really just any time. List at least 10 positive things that happen during the day can be small. It can seem insignificant, but list 10 positive things.

Don’t go to bed beating yourself up. Get in the habit of seeing at least some good and don’t make up lies. Of course, we want to be honest. We want to be authentic. People with ADHD are allergic to being inauthentic. So you’re going to know if you’re lying to yourself, but tell yourself the truth. What good did I do today? Did I arrive somewhere on time? Was I kind to my boss? Did I complete? You know, did I write that email? I’ve been meaning to try whatever the case is, it doesn’t matter if it seems insignificant. It matters if it’s evidence that you’re a good human. It matters that it’s evidence that you’re a decent human being who doesn’t deserve to be beat up or shamed or berated all day long. Making progress in this critic shrinking is often really slow, and it may even be kind of indiscernible at first.

You may you might not see much progress, I promise you that it’s work worth doing, but our brains have become so addicted to only noticing what’s wrong and what’s dangerous and what could get us in trouble, and that makes sense considering our history. Considering how often we’ve been rejected, considering how many times we’ve been corrected and told we’re doing it wrong, why can’t you just sit still? Why can’t you just get your homework done? Why can’t you blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you fill in the blank with whatever’s been said to you. So it makes sense that we’ve then developed this inner critic and kind of become addicted to only noticing what we’re doing wrong and what might cause us harm. And as with most addictions, breaking this deeply entrenched habit, it’s gonna require a lot of work and maybe even lifelong management. For me, personally, in the last 10 years, I’ve done so much work in this area, and as I said earlier, I enjoy the experience of being me. It’s fine. I’m great like I I’m not mad at myself all day, every day, and every once in a while, though I’m reminded, like I was last night, that this is a lifelong journey and that I still have work to do when it comes to my own inner critic and my own shame spiraling. So it might take a while, but it will change. You will get better at it.

There is progress to be made, I promise you. And like I said earlier, this is wonderful work to do with a therapist, especially a trauma informed therapist. You might not identify as someone who has trauma, but just the experience of being neurodivergent in a world that was set up for neurotypicals, that’s a traumatic experience. So you might not recognize trauma in your family or trauma from school, and that’s totally fine, but understand if you grew up as someone with ADHD, it is very likely that you’ve experienced trauma, the trauma of rejection, of being overly criticized, everything that we’ve talked about in this episode could classify as traumatic experiences. And I have a great episode on trauma. I will link it for you, but just know that a really wonderful trauma informed therapist can help you with this. And if you want my help, I have a course on how to quiet the inner critic in my coaching program. Focused focus is my monthly coaching membership where I support adults with ADHD from all over the world, and we do this deep work of knowing ourselves, liking ourselves, being kind to ourselves and quieting that inner critic. It’s a course that’s available to you immediately when you join.

You can find the link to focus in the episode description. I would love to see you there, and I will be back next week with another episode for you. I can’t wait. I will see you then. Hey, adhdr, 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 focus. 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.