Kristen Carder 0:05
Music. 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 Kristen Carter, and you’ve tuned in to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Welcome to the show. I hope that you are doing well. I’m so glad that you decided to be here with me today. We’re gonna talk about all the things. This is a solo show, which, as you know, means that you gotta buckle up because it’s going to be a ride. We’re going to talk about all of the things. What’s on my mind as we get started today is how much ADHD ers struggle to follow through. We’re coming to the end of 2024 and we’re looking ahead to 2025 and one thing I hear from my clients over and over is there are so many things that I want to get done that I just can’t make myself do. I have a to do list a mile long, and I can’t seem to just complete tasks that I even want to do. And I think that this is so typical of the ADHD or struggle. And so if you’re an adult who just feels like, What in the world, why do I want to do something? And yet I have a full body response, like a full body no, that doesn’t allow me to get it done. I just want to say that like that is the epitome of the ADHD struggle, and that is our work over the course of our lives, to overcome. And so that’s what we’re going to be talking about today as we get started. Why? Why is it so hard for us to follow through? And when we don’t follow through, we apply so much shame and pressure, and instead of trying to get to the bottom of what we need, we instead beat ourselves up and we judge ourselves. And here’s the thing with shame. I’ve talked about it 100 times before in the podcast, but it bears repeating. Shame always leads us to hide and avoid always, every single time that we try to use shame as our fuel to get us to do something it leads us to hide and avoid, but we’re continually trying to use it to get us to move forward. I want to tell you a story, and maybe you’ve heard me talk about this before, but one of the one of the tasks in my life, one of the big tasks that I never completed was that I never wrote my wedding. Thank you notes. Confession, I never wrote my wedding. Thank you notes. Now, if you’re a guy and you’re listening to this, that might not mean anything to you, but I just I want you to track with me here. Okay, after a couple gets married, it’s expected that thank you notes are sent and like of course, guests come out. They some of them fly in from out of time. They block off their calendars, they hire babysitters, they buy you a present. Of course, they deserve to be thanked. Of course they do. But I didn’t. I couldn’t do it. The basket of cards and pens and the list of gifts and who they were from, they sat in the corner of my teeny, tiny garage apartment for an entire year while I stared at it out of the corner of my eye, but the majority of my vision was focused on daytime TV. That’s what I was looking at all day every day. And it went a little bit like this, Live with Regis and Kelly, the Tony Danza show, and then the view, when the news would come on at 12 o’clock, that would be my cue that like, oh, I should probably take a shower, get ready for the day. Keep in mind, this was 2004 so that lineup of Regis and Kelly Tony Danza show in the view was very niche for that time. My husband would come home from his brand new full time job. You know, we’re just like, in our early 20s, we’re newly married. He has a full time job. He would come home and he would be so confused. He’d be like, I’m working full time, and you’re on the couch watching daytime TV. Your only job is to get these thank you notes done. Why can’t you just do it? I want you to, like, hold that question. Why can’t you just do it? And I wonder if it does something to your soul when you hear me say that, why can’t you just do it? And. That was the question that I asked myself over and over. Why can’t I just do it I have all day long. Why can’t I just write these gosh darn thank you notes? Now, looking back after 20 years of perspective and therapy and coaching and letting my frontal lobe develop, I can see at least 15 very good reasons why I couldn’t just do it. I could not get myself to write these thank you notes. But at the time, I was confused. My husband was confused, and I was feeling so much shame, I was full of self loathing. I couldn’t get out of my own head, and I definitely couldn’t just do it. So I’m wondering, I’m wondering for you, ADHD, or what is your thank you note project? What is that project that you want to do, that you know that you should do, and technically, technically you can do, but you just can’t get yourself to accomplish it. You just can’t get yourself to get it done. And I’m curious, are you shaming yourself for not doing it? I promise you that does not work, believe me, I’ve tried it, and I know that you’ve tried it. I’ve tried shaming myself and writing those thank you notes for an entire year. And by the way, I never did write them because, as we know, shame makes us run away and hide and avoid and that’s exactly what I did. I just threw them right in the trash. I just, at some point, I was like, these are not getting done. I need to let myself off the hook. And I threw him in the trash. It’s one of my, I wouldn’t say, biggest regrets, but it’s one of the things that hangs over my head as like, I really should have done that, but I just couldn’t do it, and I still feel that twinge of like regret from that. So what would have worked? What would have gotten me to write them that that thing that I should do, that I technically could do, what would have worked now, knowing what I know now, I can look back and see myself as a 23 year old, newly married woman. I was 100% burnt out. I was isolated in a brand new town. I didn’t know anybody, and I was in need of a lot of support that I simply did not have access to. I had just gotten married. I graduated college like three months prior to that, after nearly drowning in overwhelm in a double major, and I moved to a brand new location. I didn’t know a single soul, except for my husband, who was working full time at his dream job. So I was burnt out from finishing up college, which, by the way, included a senior recital, which is a if you know, you know, but if you don’t know, like it’s a big deal. And then I planned and executed a wedding with two highly traumatized, neuro divergent parents on a budget of $6,000 total. Like, keep in mind, I mean, sure it was 2004

but I lived right outside of Philly, and weddings could have, should have cost easily $30,000 and I was expected to plan one on $6,000 it was just very, very, very stressful. So by the time that I was finally married and out of the house and responsible for these wedding thank yous, I was trashed. I was completely trashed. I was so burnt out. I needed support, I needed therapy, I needed coaching, I needed a community. That’s what I needed, and I didn’t have. So those dusty thank you notes found their way right to the trash, and I have to live with the fact that they were never written. Guess who I blamed? Of course, I blamed myself. You already knew that, because that’s what you do to yourself. Right? Who else was I gonna blame? Nobody else is responsible but me, but I didn’t avoid the thank you notes because I was lazy or unmotivated. I avoided them because I wasn’t okay. I was not okay and I didn’t have what I needed to succeed. So again, I’m gonna ask you, what is your thank you note project, and what do you need to accomplish it? What is your thank you note project, that project that you should do, that you want to do, and that technically you can do, but you’re just not doing it. What is that for you? And I really want you to think through, what do you need, what do you need, what support do you need in order to accomplish that task? Here’s another question. Are you withholding support from yourself because you think that you. I’m using air quotes here. Should get the project done on your own. Do you feel like you don’t deserve support because you shouldn’t need support, because other people can do it without support. We ADHD ers do this to ourselves so dang often. It’s awful. We withhold support so we don’t have what we need to accomplish the tasks, and then we shame and blame and judge ourselves for not getting them done. It’s like crazy town. It’s it is. It doesn’t work. It’s not working. So this season, as we move into 2025 I want you to commit to giving yourself what you need to complete your to do list, and stop trying to do the same things over and over and expect and hope for different results. So stop trying to use shame as your fuel to get things done. Stop trying to beat yourself up and blame yourself and just tell yourself that you should be able to do it, and why can’t you just do it? Stop withholding support from yourself. Ask yourself, what do I need in order to truly accomplish this? One of the things that we struggle with so much is accepting help, accepting support. Now I have a lot of theories on why this is I have been supporting adults with ADHD for five years. I’ve spent 1000s and 1000s of hours talking face to face with adults with ADHD, and there are so many conversations that I’ve had about how support was withheld from this ADHD individual. And so it makes complete sense that if you never really felt supported, if you weren’t given what you need, if you were told you just need to do it. Why can’t you just get it done? What is wrong with you? Instead of a parent or a teacher or some sort of adult figure coming along and saying, hey, I can see that you’re struggling. How can I help you? What do you think you need to get this done? I really want to give you support. So if that wasn’t modeled for you, then of course, you don’t know how to give that to yourself. Okay, so let’s get into the resource of the week.

I’ve got a good one for you. On December 30, I’m teaching a totally free class to help people with ADHD learn how to follow through. And I want you to join me. I’m going to teach you the five things that every person, whether you have ADHD or not, needs to implement if you’re going to follow through. And I want you to think about, could this be just a measure of support that you allow yourself to have, where you allow yourself to engage in a free class and let me teach you live, and you can ask me questions, and we can interact, and it can be, well, it’s going to be really fun. So it’s on Monday, December 30. It’s 2pm eastern to sign up go to I have adhd.com/free class. That’s I have adhd.com/free, class. Don’t worry if you’re busy, if you’re working, if you’re on vacation, we’re going to email you the link to join us live, but we’ll also send you a replay after the fact, so you can just watch it at your convenience, but make sure to sign up if you want to get that replay. It is possible to follow through on anything it is that is possible, but here’s the thing that we’re going to talk about during the class, it’s not possible to follow through on everything, and we have to make the distinction. It’s possible to follow through on anything that you want, but it’s not possible to follow through on absolutely everything. And one of the things that ADHD or struggle with is prioritization. So we’re going to talk about all of the things. Monday, December 30, 2pm Eastern, go to I have adhd.com/free class to sign up. I really hope to see you there. Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time and you wake up early. Make a list, cross the things off the list in order manage your time. Well, yeah, we know what to do, but ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It’s a disorder of knowing exactly what to do, but not being able to get yourself to do it. That’s why ADHD is so frustrating. We’re smart and we want to succeed, but we can’t get ourselves to do the things that we know we should do in order to make improvements. That’s why I created focused. I’m a life coach. Multiple certifications, and since 2019 I’ve spent 1000s of hours coaching adults with ADHD. I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from Hot Mess express to grounded and thriving. Focused is my monthly coaching membership, where we go deep and we get to the root cause of what holds us back with ADHD? I’ll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain, regulate your emotions and accept yourself flaws and all with this foundation, we build the skills to improve life with ADHD. And not only do you get skills and tools in focus, but you’re surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr Ned Hallowell says healing happens in community, and I have absolutely found this to be true. As a matter of fact, listen to what actual focus members have to say about being in this program. What

Focused Member 15:57
can I say about focused

full community of people who have issues similar to you and judge you. Focus

just really supported me with my difficulties in asking help. I’ve been encouraged and cheered on by the community. I

really like that you can do as much for as little as you want. It’s it’s not just about the volume of the content. It’s about the quality. Focus has

helped me understand ADHD better. I would recommend this to anyone.

Speaker 3 16:20
I would thoroughly recommend focus. I can confidently say that this is one of the best decisions that I have made for myself. So if

Kristen Carder 16:27
you’re an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make real, lasting changes in your life, join hundreds of others from around the world in focused go to I have adhd.com/focus to learn more. That’s I have adhd.com/focused all right, friends, moving right along. We’re going to hear your questions from the ADHD hotline.

I have been loving this I hope you love this segment too. I love hearing from you, so please call in. The number is 833-281-2343, I absolutely love getting your questions. We keep all of your voicemails in like a little folder, and I get to scroll through and it has been so fun to hear from you. So our first caller is Tammy. Tammy, what do you have for us?

Tammy 17:26
Hi Kristen. My name is Tammy. I am calling from Utah. I am a new listener. I have been recently diagnosed with ADHD. Apparently, my doctor thinks it’s severe, and I’m just learning how to cope and deal with myself and my life. I was listening to your podcast today, and you answered somebody’s voice message. Her question was how to deal with the fact that she got so frustrated and so overwhelmed when she was pulled from one activity to another, and your comment, your answer to her was that you could relate so much, because you feel so frustrated when that happened. And I thought to myself, I don’t have that. Don’t get frustrated when I’m pulled from one thing to another, not at all. It almost makes me wonder

Kristen Carder 18:28
what I’m really dealing with, if I’m not dealing with those same things that this caller talked about, and that your answer of agreeing with her is when I know that I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD but still not having those same things. So just wondering what your thought on what I might be dealing with is thank you so much. Kristen Tammy, that is a great question, and I I’m glad you asked it, because I think it really does need to be said that we’re not all going to experience our ADHD symptoms in the same ways. So it’s not like this tight club where you have to have every single symptom that presents in the exact same way as everyone else. And if you don’t relate to this one thing that you know that other caller and I relate to, then you’re on the outside and you don’t get to have ADHD like that is not at all what the diagnosis is like. And I’m really glad you asked this, because I wonder if other people kind of experience the same, you know, when I when I’m interviewing someone, or when I’m talking about my own experience, and they think, Well, I don’t relate to that, so maybe I don’t have ADHD. And listen, if you have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, then you have ADHD. It does not require that you relate to every single thing that I talk about on this podcast, or that a guest says, or that a listener says in a voicemail call in or anything like that. I. Um, what’s important is that we go back to the diagnostic criteria, and we go back to the symptoms list of ADHD. And so if you have enough of the symptoms of ADHD that your provider believes that you can have a clinical diagnosis, then absolutely you have ADHD. There’s a lot of nuance though, within the diagnosis. And so Tammy, what I would invite for you and any listener who’s like, Yeah, I actually really relate to this. I would invite you to allow for nuance within the diagnosis of ADHD, so some people are going to experience extreme emotional dysregulation. Other people, that’s not going to be as much of an issue for them. Some people are going to experience extreme working memory issues. Other people, not so much. Each individual executive function and how that kind of works out within your life, and how that plays out for you may be a little bit different than your ADHD neighbor or your ADHD peer, and that’s okay. So I really want you to feel validated in your own diagnosis and also make sure that you’re leaning on what your clinician is saying, rather than like me, or you know me saying that I relate to something that a listener is saying, but really lean into your own lived experience, your own diagnostic you know, criteria that you met within your diagnosis process, and Don’t worry so much about the differences in how we experience ADHD, because my life experiences my own formative years, growing up, who I am, where I even where I live in the world, is going to kind of shape how ADHD might express itself in me, and that’s okay. So my impulsivity might look different than your impulsivity, my emotional dysregulation might look different than your emotional dysregulation. And don’t worry, you know, transitioning, if transitions are easy for you, that’s actually awesome. That’s so great. But I bet there are other parts that are a little bit harder for you, so allow for a little bit more nuance there, Tammy, and don’t worry so much about the nitty gritty. Okay, all right, let’s hear next from Milka.

Milka 22:31
Hi. My name is Milka, and my question is, Can depression be confused or ADHD confused and be diagnosed as depression instead.

Kristen Carder 22:45
Thank you. You’re welcome, sweetheart, and I just want to take a moment here to say that so many women who go for an evaluation who think like, maybe I have ADHD, I really relate to these symptoms. So many women are misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression when the underlying cause sometimes is actually ADHD. And so I just want to say to you, yes, it is possible that you may feel like you have ADHD. You may like relate to the symptoms and and go and talk to your doctor and say, like, Hey, I you know, I’d like to be evaluated for ADHD. And your doctor may have a different opinion than you, which is okay, but also your doctor may not know very much about adult ADHD. So there’s, there’s a couple things that can go on. I think doctors are very well meaning. They want to do right by their patients, but some of them just don’t know very much about adult ADHD and how it presents itself, especially in women, depression and ADHD can overlap in symptoms, and this makes diagnosis really difficult. So I empathize with you, Milka, if you are feeling like maybe you were misdiagnosed. And I also empathize with the clinician, because it is not easy to unpick these symptoms and make an accurate diagnosis. Both conditions can cause trouble focusing on tasks and focusing on work. Both conditions can lead to sleep issues and eating problems. Some shared symptoms can include like poor concentration and restlessness and terrible mood swings and all of that. Right? So it is. Very difficult thing to unpick. It’s kind of like this puzzle that we’re we’re asking these clinicians to differentiate between but adults with ADHD are almost three times more likely to experience depression than adults without ADHD. So that’s, uh, that’s a lot, that’s a lot. Studies have found that 18, okay, this is so annoying to me. I’m gonna, I’m gonna put this article for y’all, um, this will be the research of the week. I’m gonna put this for you in the show notes. I Yes, I’m pulling from two different articles here, but one of the things that I read, and this is listen to this freaking statistic, studies have also found that 18.6 to 53.3% of individuals with ADHD also have depression. What the heck is that range like, what are we doing? People researchers like 18.6 to 53.3% of individuals with ADHD also have depression. I just that annoys me. Just even reading that I’m getting like, so dysregulated. It’s so freaking annoying. So I’m gonna pop a couple articles for you as the research of the week into the show notes. One of them is from cambridge.org, it’s a study. Another one is just an easy article from add.org and it just talks about the overlap between depression and ADHD and the underlying causes. Because what’s really interesting is that people are trying to figure out people, when I say people, I mean researchers and doctors. Does depression cause ADHD symptoms, or does lack of treatment for ADHD cause depression? And so it’s a really interesting like which came first the chicken or the egg. But what I want to say to you, specifically, my dear listener, what I want to say to you, Milka, is, if you were diagnosed with depression and you don’t feel like that is the full picture, if you feel like there’s something more going on, if you feel like you haven’t been accurately seen, if you if you don’t feel completely understood, I would really encourage you to kind of pull at that thread. It’s 100% fine to go back to your doctor and say, I I understand why you diagnosed me with depression, but I feel like there’s more going on. Can we please continue this conversation? It’s also completely within your right to just go find another mental health provider that you feel like might hear you better and understand you more. I’m not saying that you have ADHD, I don’t know. That’s not my job to know. But what I do know is that humans understand when there is more about themselves, more about their brains, more about their bodies, that they they need information on and and if that is your intuition, I encourage you to listen to it. I encourage you to have the audacity to go out and seek another opinion. Because yes, there’s a lot of misdiagnosis, there’s a lot of and there’s a lot of overlap in symptoms. So it doesn’t mean that your clinician is a bad person. It doesn’t mean that there that anything necessarily went wrong. It just might mean that there is more to your story than what your clinician is seeing. And I want to encourage you and anyone else who’s listening, if you feel like there’s something more follow that thread. I think that I’ve told this story in the podcast, but I think it really applies here, and it bears repeating. I have a son who has multiple diagnoses, and the way that I’ve described it with him is there was water running, I could hear water running. I want you to think about I just want you to picture it in your mind. And I hope that this analogy is like, helpful to you. I felt like, there I could just hear running water, running water, running water. And so we went and we got a diagnosis and and it was great. He was diagnosed with a mental health condition, and we chose to medicate him for that mental health condition, and the the water, it was like one of the faucets got turned off, and that was so great. It was so great because the water was no longer gushing. Do you know what I’m saying? And then two years later, he was really. Really, really struggling, and that water was still kind of dripping. And I was like, what is happening? There’s there’s still something going on. And so we got him reevaluated, and he was diagnosed with another mental health condition and medicated for that. And wow, did that help. And then there was just still this drip, drip, drip. And I could have let that drip go, because, my gosh, the child has already been diagnosed with two mental health conditions. He’s already medicated for two mental health conditions. If I go for another evaluation for this child, and we have him assessed yet again, and they want to medicate him. Like, what? How many diagnoses can can a person withstand? And my husband and I really, really labored over this decision, but eventually that dripping got so loud, that’s what I’m talking about. Like, follow the thread like it was just so I couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was struggling. My kiddo was struggling. And so we went for yet another evaluation, and I am telling you, with this final evaluation, he was diagnosed with something that explained everything, and he was not nobody pres medication, which I was like, Thank God, not that I would have denied him that, but I just didn’t want my kid on another med.

But we finally feel like all of the faucets have been turned off. There’s no longer this, like, dripping in the background of like, what is going on? There’s like, still something missing. We’re still missing a piece to the puzzle. We’re still not understanding my kiddo fully, and so I just want to give that story to you as a gift. I hope it’s a gift where you can think about, Do I hear water running in the background like, Sure, I’ve been diagnosed with depression, maybe you’re receiving treatment for that, but is there still a leaky faucet somewhere that’s not being addressed, that’s not being taken care of. And is the water starting to rise and affect you? Is it starting to get to the point where, like, now there’s water on the floor and now there’s water on my shin? Like, now it’s just like, building and building and building, and I can’t, seem to, like, now I need buckets to, like, dump the water out. Like, I want you to think about it in that way, because for some of you, you are under diagnosed. You are misdiagnosed. You are feeling like there’s just not a full answer to the questions that you have about yourself, and you are fully entitled to know more, and so don’t hold back if you have the access to evaluations, get them. If you have access to a second opinion, get it. If you don’t have a doctor who is willing to engage with your questions. Find a new one. Find a new doctor. Like if your specific doctor does not hold space for your questions, does not engage with you, as if you are a human worth listening to, like you deserve to be listened to, and you deserve to be heard. And if there’s water running in the background that is maybe getting louder and louder and now filling up the room, and you’re needing buckets to, like, get the water out, I really encourage you to follow that and listen to your intuition. Just as a reminder, I’m going to have these research articles for you in the show notes, in case you want to take a look at them. But I wish you all the best on your journey. Okay, let’s get to the last bit here, the always spicy bit. What triggered me this week?

What is it that got me fired up? And I was a terrible intro for it, because the answer is nothing. Can you believe it? The answer is, nothing, nothing, nothing. Got me fired up this week. Isn’t that beautiful? Is that wonderful? I’m so happy. But I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about, what do we do when we get triggered? What do we do when we become emotionally dysregulated? What do we do when we’re activated and distracted by it? Because here is one of the main issues for adults with ADHD, is that we struggle with emotional regulation. Now this is because the different areas of our brain are not functioning properly. So the frontal lobe controls impulsivity, it controls decision making, and then also our amygdala, which is what controls the flood and the rush of emotions that. It does not correspond, it does not talk very well to our frontal lobe. So our amygdala is a little jacked up. Our frontal lobe is majorly jacked up, and that can lead to us getting triggered or activated or dysregulated, whichever term you like best, it can lead to that happening more often to us than to our peers. And the reason why that’s a problem is because it’s often so distracting it it makes it so that, I mean, like, How many times have you had a fight with your kid or your spouse before going to work, and then you’re driving to work and you’re all like, fired up, and then you get to work, you can’t get anything done, because all you can think about is the fight, and your body is freaking out, and all you want to talk about is like, Is he right? Am I right? I’m not sure, and so it’s like a hijack of our nervous system, and we’re not able to then just like, stay on task and do what we’re meant to do that day, which leads to lack of focus and impulsivity and avoidance and procrastination, and then all of our executive functioning skills are working against us, and it’s just a shit show. So yesterday, I talked to a client who was struggling with this very thing, and she said to me, like, Okay, what am I supposed to do? What what I like? I’m putting I’m putting things in place when I get dysregulated, but it’s taking all of my energy to re regulate, and then by the time that I’m re regulated, I can’t even remember what I was doing in the first place, and I’m exhausted, so I don’t have any more capacity to continue to work. I was just like, This is so relatable. So the advice that I gave to her, that I wanted to share with you is that every ADHD er needs an emotional regulation practice. Every ADHD er needs a set of tools in their tool belt to help them to re regulate, to help them feel and process and name their emotions and then complete the emotional cycle. Because what happens with us so often probably because we were programmed to, like, stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about. What happens to us so often is that we are flooded with emotion, and then we spend all of our energy trying to shove that emotion down and just like not feel it right. And so then we’re completely internally exhausted, and we’ve lowered our capacity for output and productivity because we’re spending so much time trying not to feel our feelings, because we were raised in ways that were like, there’s no room for your emotions here. And also, why are you so sensitive? And also, this is ridiculous that you’re even upset about this, right? And so now we use that language on ourselves, because remember, I guess I’m just gonna say this again. We treat ourselves the way that we were treated in our formative years. Okay, so what’s the antidote to this? What do we do? We need an emotional regulation practice. Now, I have so many prior episodes on emotional regulation. You can scroll through the episodes, or you can go to my website and just type in emotions or emotional regulation. We have a search tool there, and you can find probably seven, probably seven episodes on emotional regulation. And one of the things that I like to use is the rain practice. Rain stands for, recognize, allow, investigate, nurture. So we’re going to recognize that you’re feeling something big, you’re going to allow those emotions to exist in your body, which, by the way, I think, is the hardest part. That’s the hardest part for us. We spend so much time trying to get rid of the emotions so that we don’t have to feel it. And every person with ADHD needs to learn how to allow the emotion next, after we allow it for, maybe, I don’t know, 90 seconds to two, three minutes, then we investigate, okay, what’s going on here? What emotion was this? Why am I feeling it and then nurture, which, of course, so hard for us. What do you need? What do I need now? You did a good job. You felt your feelings. That was hard work. I’m so proud of you. What do you need next to get back on track? This is such an important part of our journey, because we pretty much suck at this. And if we can learn to regulate our emotions, we can we will be unstoppable. Remember, ADHD is a disorder of regulation. Having ADHD means that you struggle to regulate your focus, your attention, your emotion. And your behavior. That’s what ADHD is. It’s a disorder of regulation, and so learning how to regulate your emotions is a huge part of figuring out how to thrive in your ADHD life. So the advice that I gave to my client yesterday, and the advice that I want to give to you is start to incorporate regulation practice, whether that is the rain method or some other method that you find and like, start to incorporate that when you’re not dysregulated, when you’re feeling chill, when you’re doing fine, because what you’ll do is you’ll build muscle memory, this internal muscle memory of, Oh, I know how to recognize, allow, investigate, nurture. You’re going to build that muscle memory internally, and then when you are super dysregulated, you will be able to re regulate so much faster, so much easier, it won’t take so much time and energy and capacity from you. So I encourage you that whether or not you are activated or triggered, build in five minutes of your day. You can be in the car, it can be laying in your bed, it can be in the shower. It doesn’t matter, build in five minutes of your day to practice, recognizing, allowing, investigating, and, yes, nurturing emotional regulation. Practice emotional regulation when you’re actually regulated and you have such an easier time getting yourself back to like a normal equilibrium in those moments when you’re triggered. I hope that’s helpful. Hey, if you like this podcast, would you do me a huge favor and press the like button? Would you rate it? Would you leave a review? I got the nicest review on Apple the other day, from Topher. Topher, thank you so much for your review. It was so kind you, first of all, was long, and I love like you told me your life story, and I love that about you. I love that about us, about us. ADH Dears, how we love to do that, and it just warmed my heart so much. So thank you Topher and everyone else who’s been reviewing and liking and commenting and YouTube listeners like thank you so much for being here. This is a brand new channel. I absolutely love that you’re hanging out with me here. I read every single comment I respond to every single comment. I love you. Thank you, and don’t forget to sign up for the very free webinar. I don’t know why I said very free. It’s just either free or it’s not free, but this one is very free at I have adhd.com/free class. I’m going to teach you how to follow through. I’m going to teach you adhdr, what you need to know in order to follow through on the things that you actually want to get done. All right, my friends, I’m gonna see you next week. I can’t wait to see you. Then, 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. Focus is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused, for all the info you.