Kristen Carder
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 into the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. Come in, come in, get in. Here. We are talking about emotional regulation today. This is the episode that every single person with ADHD needs to in great into their bones. This is the most important episode you may ever hear me record emotional regulation is no joke, and those of us with ADHD really, really struggle with it. Obviously, you already know this. What’s very strange about emotional regulation is that it’s not a part of the diagnostic criteria in America, which is bonkers, absolute bonkers. In the UK. They are leaps and bounds ahead of us in this area, and have included it within the diagnostic criteria for ADHD in the UK. And that’s so important. It’s so good, well done UK. For some reason I don’t understand why we have not adjusted our diagnostic criteria yet, but hopefully within the next couple of years, it will be adjusted to include emotional dysregulation within the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. But whether or not the quote, unquote experts, the neurotypicals, who are making the rules annoying, include emotional regulation in the diagnostic criteria, whether or not we get to see that it doesn’t matter, because what is true for us with ADHD is that we struggle with emotional dysregulation.
For many people, this is the most debilitating aspect of ADHD, and what is absolutely wild and so important. And this is why you just really, really need to hear me on this, emotions drive actions. And so if you don’t like your actions, if you don’t, and I’m going to pause here and say also in action is included in that. So emotions are driving your action and your inaction, if you feel like you’re stuck, if you’re constantly procrastinating, if you feel like you are just like not able to get yourself to do the things that you want to do. The reason behind that, it’s a myriad of reasons, but one of the main reasons behind it is emotional dysregulation. And so today we are talking about all things emotions, and I will also be walking you through an emotional regulation practice. And what that means is I will lead you through the steps, step by step. I will talk you through it. I will walk you through it so that you have a directed emotional regulation practice that you can use on your own. And bonus, I’m gonna clip that as a separate YouTube video and a separate audio for the podcast, so that you can find it whenever you are emotionally dysregulated and you need a little bit of help with that. So I’m really excited about today’s episode. Like I said, I absolutely think that it is going to be the most important episode that I’ve ever recorded, and so I’m really glad you’re here. I’m really glad that you pressed play. This is going to be, this is going to be a life changing episode. While I have you here, I just really want to invite you if you are enjoying this content, if you are wanting to do more of this self development work, if today’s episode kind of scratches a little bit or like pokes at something that you’re like, I need more of this. I want to let you know that I have an entire course with hours and hours of content on emotional dysregulation and how to regulate your emotions within my focused ADHD coaching program.
This is not a drill, people. This is a skill that can be learned, and today’s episode is going to be life changing, but if you’re like, I need more of this. I want to go deeper. I want to become an expert at emotional regulation. Com, join focus, go to I have adhd.com/focus to learn all about my ADHD coaching program. It is a global community of ADHD ers where I lead people through the healing process of ADHD, notice I did not say Cure. Yeah, we’re not curing ADHD. There is no cure for ADHD, but we can heal along the way and do so much self development work and get so much better at these skills. So go to I have adhd.com/focus, to learn more about that. I would love to be your coach. Okay, let’s chat about emotional dysregulation. What is what does it look like when we are not able to regulate our emotions? I already alluded to it earlier, where our actions become seemingly out of our control, and it’s because emotions fuel our actions, and so if you’re not in control of your actions. It’s because you’re not in control of your emotions. I want you to think about the actions as the car driving down the road, and the emotions are the fuel in the gas tank. They’re the fuel in the tank that are either powering the car forward, and maybe the car is going a little bit erratically. Maybe it’s taking some wrong turns. Maybe it’s going down one road way too long, and just like hanging out in one direction that is not a part of the destination that you set for the day, or maybe the car is completely stalled. It’s not moving, it’s not going in any direction. You can’t get yourself off the couch, you can’t get yourself off your phone, you can’t get yourself to stop just staring at your computer and start to actually take action and work. And the reason for that is the fuel in your tank. And today we’re talking about fuel. We’re talking about those emotions.
Okay, so what I want you to know is that emotional regulation is actually a developmental process. This is why ADHD is a developmental disorder, because there are so many developmental skills that we suck at. You know, I’m saying there are so many developmental skills that we suck at. Emotional regulation is one of them, emotional regulation is a developmental process whereby, in our formative years, we are taught how to regulate via attunement and CO regulation. So when our caregivers are attuned to us, to our needs, to our emotions, and when they are able to effectively co regulate, that’s how a child learns emotional regulation. Now, somebody with ADHD is likely parented by people with ADHD, and when we have not done the healing work, when we have not done the self development work, when we have not evolved and learned these skills that we were not given, you know, at birth or through childhood, we must develop them in adulthood, and so this is why some of us are acting like children. It’s because we have not actually learned this such an important skill that was meant to be learned in childhood. And so now, instead of feeling our emotions and processing them and being able to self soothe, instead we bypass them. We say, I’m fine. It’s it’s no big deal. I’m stuffing them down and and eventually that leads to an explosion, because let me tell you the truth, nobody is fine. None of us, we’re not fine. Humans are not fine. How many times have I told myself you’re fine? Kristen, stop freaking. You’re totally fine. Just dampen your emotions. But no, I’m not fine. And so what that leads to is a volcanic explosion, eventually, resisting our emotions is like trying to shove a huge beach ball underwater. I want you to think about like, do you remember when we were kids and we were in the above ground pools, and one of our favorite pastimes was to, like, throw beach balls around and, like, try to get them underwater. And as a kid like I was just such a scrawny, zero muscle tone, scrawny, scrawny, toothpick child, and I would like roll on top of the beach ball, try to shove it under the water. It was comical. And always that beach ball came flying up out of the water, and it like would shoot across the pool. That’s exactly what it’s like to try to hold down your emotions. It’s not cute. It kind of looks awkward and hysterical. And eventually those emotions pop up, what we often will do because we’re not comfortable feeling big emotions in our bodies, and yes, ADHD, ers, it is likely that we feel things more intensely than other people. That can’t be proven. It can’t be proven, but it seems that we have stronger reactions to our emotions, because it feels so bad to have these extreme emotions in our bodies, what we will often do is try to. Get the emotions out by yelling by throwing them onto other people.
So the emotion feels terrible in my body, so I’m going to throw it out of my body onto someone else. Usually that looks like yelling or a nasty email, or sometimes it looks like physically using your body against someone else, right? Because I’m so emotionally dysregulated, I don’t know what to do with this big emotion in my body, and so I have to throw it on to someone else. Another thing that we have done in an effort to dampen our emotions is we really try to avoid them, and we we try to dampen them with things like food or porn or sex or alcohol or social media or TV or something like this, so that we’re soothing, We’re escaping and we’re dampening what we’re really feeling. This may be one of the reasons why you find yourself overeating, over drinking, over social media, ing, over Doom, scrolling. This is one of the reasons we can look at our emotions, what’s going on inside of my body, what is the fuel in the gas tank? So we end up when we don’t know how to emotionally regulate. We end up bypassing, resisting, reacting and avoiding our emotions. This is I want you to think through, like for yourself or for the parent that you suspect has ADHD, or maybe the boss that you suspect has ADHD. A lot of us are defined as being hot heads. We are super impulsive. We’re reacting so big. How many of us have, like, yelled at a boss inappropriately and reacted and gotten fired? How many of us have yelled at a spouse and and used our emotions kind of aggressively at our spouses and gotten divorced. How many of us have hurt our children because we have not been able to self soothe what is happening in our own bodies? Like I said, this is not a drill. This matters. This is a very important conversation, and a lot there’s like, some resistance that I experience, not in my coaching program, because by the time that people get into my coaching program, there’s usually like, an acceptance of like, Please help me. I need I need help. But you know, on the interwebs, when I’m putting things out on social media, the the resistance that I get in comments is like people are babying each other with their emotions. There. There’s no need to be talking about emotions. What do emotions have to do with ADHD? And I just want to say, like everything emotions have everything to do with ADHD. And I want to talk about the brain for a second. What parts of the brain are connected to our emotional regulation or dysregulation? So there are three parts of the brain, three that affect emotional regulation. We talk about the prefrontal cortex all the time around here. And yes, the prefrontal cortex has a lot to do with your emotional regulation. The prefrontal cortex is the planner, the soother.
It helps you to pause and reflect and take a minute to regulate. So the prefrontal cortex in an adult with ADHD is under active, inefficient, and it makes it hard to pause before reacting. So the prefrontal cortex is what allows for you to just have a moment and decide how you want to react. Okay, so when you’re having a big emotion, the prefrontal cortex is what allows you to stop and breathe, stop and take a pause, stop and regulate. It is what allows for you to inhibit your emotions, to regulate and remember. ADHD is a disorder of self regulation. The amygdala is something that we don’t talk about often in here, but it is directly related to regulation. So the amig the amygdala, is the brain smoke alarm. It detects threats, it activates fear and anger responses. And what’s so interesting about the amygdala in the ADHD brain is that studies have shown that adults with ADHD often have an over active amygdala, meaning the emotional responses may be stronger, may be more reactive. You may like, react stronger to situations than your neurotypical peers. So the amygdala is, you know, overactive, but then you have the prefrontal cortex, which is like, underactive and not allowing. You to take that stop and pause. And then there’s the third area of the brain, which is the anterior cingulate cortex, the ACC and this is the emotion monitor. It decides what deserves attention and helps us to shift. So this is also often impaired in adults with ADHD, leading to us feeling stuck in an emotional state, okay? And so those three parts of the brain should be working for us to help us to regulate and instead, they’re not showing up for their jobs. They’re not doing it right. So this is not like a character issue.
This is not you’re a bad person. This is not like, Oh, you’re just a hot head. Blah, blah, blah. This is there are actual legitimate areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, the amygdala, that are not functioning at full capacity. So emotional regulation is going to depend on how well your amygdala sounds the alarm and then your prefrontal cortex calms it down. Okay? And so ADHD often means that we’re we’ve got a hypersensitive alarm system and then a sluggish firefighter, and it’s just like, it’s a it can be a hot mess. Ah, if you’re feeling like you need a deep breath, now go ahead and take it. I do want to give you some good news, and I talk about this often, because of neuroplasticity, because our brains are not fixed, because and what I mean by that is like stuck, because we can change our brains, there’s actually A lot of hope for us to learn these skills in adulthood, just because you might be waking up to ADHD and like, I had no idea these parts of my brain were impaired just because we’re realizing that now doesn’t mean that we cannot overcome it. I also had a commenter on Instagram, people on Instagram are, first of all, you listeners on Instagram are so fun, and I love your comments, and I love interacting with you. But then there are other people who just like, come across reels, and they say things like, emotional regulation can’t be improved, and like, that’s false, absolutely, unequivocally false, emotional regulation absolutely can be improved. It is literally just a skill that can be taught, and it should have been taught in childhood. It is something that you know should have been, should have been prioritized in childhood, but it wasn’t, and that’s not your fault, and so now it is your responsibility as an adult to make some changes. We’re gonna do that today. Okay, we’re gonna make some changes. I truly want you to understand that this is a skill that can be improved when I’m working with clients. This is one of the primary benefits that they see from trauma informed coaching is improvement in emotional regulation. And like I said, emotional regulation is the fuel in your gas tank. So now we’re putting in the right kind of fuel and the car is going in the direction that we want it to go in the car is actually moving in a direction that serves me. I’m actually going toward my goal instead of off on some like weird rabbit trail.
Okay. Whew. All right, if you have ADHD, then you probably struggle to sleep. You probably struggle to sleep. You’ve probably spent many nights getting hot and then cold, and then hot, and then cold, and then frustrated and then overwhelmed, and then your nervous system just kind of freaks out. Listen to what’s helping me lately, cozy Earth. Cozy Earth’s bamboo sheets and bamboo pajamas are temperature regulating and guaranteed to give you a comfortable night’s sleep. It may sound disingenuous how much this has affected my life and made things better for me. Personally, I am obsessed with cozy Earth, and when they say that their sheets and their pajamas are temperature regulating, they’re not lying, I have found it to be true, and I’m a woman of a certain age where I need temperature regulating, if you know what I mean, what’s so great about cozy Earth is that there’s 100 night sleep trial, meaning you can try them during the hottest nights of the year, and if you’re not in love, you can return them hassle free, but you’re not going to want to. But you can, you can. There’s a 10 year warranty on all bedding products, and that is a decade of cool quality sleep. Listen, ADHD, or luxury, should not be out of reach. Go to cozy earth.com. And use code. I have ADHD for 40% off best selling temperature regulating sheets, apparel and more, you’re gonna feel the difference the very first night. Like I said, temperature regulating is no joke. It’s no lie. It’s not just a marketing ploy. It is the truth. I have three amazing pair of these bamboo pajamas. I cannot stop buying them. I have a beautiful bathroom. I have the bamboo sheets. I am now obsessed with cozy Earth, and you can. Be too go to cozy earth.com. Use the code I have ADHD for 40% off. You’re gonna feel the difference the very first night.
So the surf method is, I want you to think about the ocean and how the ocean is sometimes really unpredictable, how sometimes it is really rough and the waves are huge, and then sometimes it’s very calm and still and soothing. And the surf method allows us to emotionally, emotionally regulate kind of ride the wave of the very big emotions. Okay, so you can picture a surfer in your brain. You can imagine yourself being a surfer on the waves, and sometimes it’s just like a very calm ocean, and you’re just laying on top of the surfboard, and you’re just kind of like enjoying the peaceful, still waters. And then other times, huge waves come and they just pound you. As a kid, so I grew up on a tropical island, and I like, I just love the ocean so much. I love the beach. I love the shore. I love it, love it, love it, love it. But one of my favorite things as a kid was to just get swept up in waves and totally pummeled, and to just be thrown into the sand and, like, disoriented. I think it was like an adrenaline thing for me, like I loved it. It’s not as fun as an adult when we’re talking about emotions and being thrown around by our emotions, not as cute, not as fun. Okay, so the surf method is four steps. Step number one, stop. Step number two, unfold, number three, reassure, and number four, find, okay, and we’re going to put that up on the screen for you so you can see it stop, unfold, reassure, find.
So here’s how it goes. The stop method is you you have to notice when you are becoming dysregulated. This is the hardest part for all of us. So step number one stop. This is the hardest part for all of us, because we don’t have that pause button. Remember, naturally, naturally, it doesn’t come naturally to us. And remember, the prefrontal cortex is impaired. That’s what allows us to inhibit, and that’s the problem for us. So the first thing that you’re going to want to work on is just stopping, Oh, I’m getting dysregulated, just noticing that might be enough for you pause, notice what’s happening in your body. So that’s stop, then unfold is allowing the emotion to exist within your body. Now this is difficult, because we have spent how many decades trying to resist our emotions, trying not to feel our emotions, thinking that our emotions were bad, thinking that if we actually felt them, it would, it would lead us to a worse, you know, state than what we’re actually in. And that’s a lie from the pit of hell, like if, if we actually just allow the emotion to be in our bodies. It just wants to be felt and processed. It just wants to be heard, if we can just let it move through us. It’s just information. It’s just important information. That’s it, and it’s not going to kill us, I promise you, and it will then allow you to have so much more authority and control of what you’re going to do next. So number one is stop.
Number two is unfold, let the emotion be in your body. This is a process, and like I said, I’m gonna walk you through this. This is a process that might take two to five minutes of just like letting the emotion be you don’t always have two to five minutes, but once in a while you do right when you’re laying down in bed, when you’re first waking up, if you’re in your car on your way to work, you can allow that emotion to unfold and be in your body.
Right then the R so we have S, U, and now the R is reassure. This is the part where we’re regulating ourselves, where we’re telling ourselves, okay, I’m okay. This is normal. I’m not gonna die from this. I can I can soothe myself. I’m okay. I wonder if your self talk has always sounded like what’s wrong with you? You’re fine. What are you being so dramatic about? Stop freaking out. You’re so annoying. That’s not what we’re going for. Okay, like, maybe if you were like, questioning it, I promise you, that is not what we’re going for. Instead, we wanna implement some compassion. It’s really hard to feel this angry, but I am okay. I’m gonna be okay, all right, an emotion. My favorite quote, and I say it to myself often, an emotion is not a problem to solve. It’s an experience to be had. I can just allow myself to have this experience. I don’t need to solve for this emotion. And then once we’re done with a little bit of compassion and reassurance, now we’re going to kind of find.
So the F is find, if we, if there’s time, if we have the capacity, I kind of want to find out what was going on. What was that emotion? Why was I feeling that emotion? What was the emotion there to tell me? What’s the what? Why is it here? What was the big deal? Why am I so angry? Why am I so overwhelmed? What’s going on? What do I need? What do I need? We don’t always have time for that, and notice that comes at the end. The first three stop unfold. Reassure that’s all about being in our bodies. That’s all about sinking into our bodies and having an emotional experience, and then at the end, if you still have the capacity, you can figure out what was going on and find the name of the emotion, the thought or like circumstance that was causing it, like what was going on here. Now let me, let me answer some questions that I can already hear you asking, What if I don’t have time? What if? What if it doesn’t work? What if I get stuck? I hate meditating. This feels like you’re gonna ask me to meditate. How do I even do that? Okay, so let’s start with number one. What if I don’t have time.
I would just gently push back on that and say like, is it working for you to not regulate your emotions? How much time are you wasting on the couch? How much time are you wasting on your phone? How much time are you wasting being stuck in anger or frustration or overwhelm and not able to take action. So I promise you that a five or 10 or 15 minute emotional regulation practice is going to speed up your productivity so much I absolutely I promise you or your money back, like I will give you a money back guarantee on this one. You can take it to the bank. This will actually make you much more productive. You will even though you are pausing for five or 10 or 15 minutes to re regulate, and that feels like I don’t have time for this, because I just got to go fast. I got to just get this done. I don’t have time to feel my emotions. I just need to do the thing. Yeah, but are you doing the thing? Are you are you doing the thing? Because what I see with the 1000s of people that I’ve coached is that they tell themselves they don’t have time to emotionally regulate. They just got to do the thing, but then they don’t end up doing the thing, or they’re hopping around in the thing, they’re on the hamster wheel in the thing, but they’re not actually accomplishing it. And so I would, I would just gently ask you this question, do you have time not to regulate? Do you have time to not do it? Because I don’t, in my experience, in my opinion, I don’t, I don’t think you do. I think that this is actually what we should feel urgently committed to, is learning how to regulate and taking 510, 15 minutes a day, or multiple times a day to to do it. At first, it might really be something that you you really have to be committed to and think about, but eventually, like I can regulate most of the time, I can just regulate on the go.
Now, this is a skill that I’ve developed. I wasn’t given it in childhood. I missed this developmental process. I am absolutely impaired in my amygdala, in my prefrontal cortex, in my anterior cingulate, all of it, I have all of the impairments, but I have built the skills, brick by brick, tier by tier, breath by breath, I have built the skills, and I know that you can too. For people with ADHD, I want you to be really conscious about if you are hyperactive, just sitting and trying to regulate or laying down or standing there. It might not be enough for me. I like to incorporate a lot of activity in my emotional regulation. S
o when I was going through a period of time when I was very angry, I did a lot of rage running, and I would literally call it rage running. And I would tell my husband, I’m going out for a rage run, because for me to sit down and actually just like, I’m just gonna feel rage in my body, like I couldn’t do it. I needed to be active. I would go on these hikes. Runs, and I would just, like, pound the pavement with my rage, and that felt so good a lot of times with, like, walking or hiking. I do that a lot when I’m trying to work something out in my body and regulate my emotions, and I’m using the surf technique during that time, but I am not. I’m not just sitting there, right? I’m doing it actively.
I have been doing yoga regularly, and my yoga teacher will often say, like, leave life outside and just be present on your mat. And I’m like, that’s cute, but I actually need to bring my emotion to the mat and use this time to regulate my emotions, to process my emotions, to get the emotions through my body. And so I actively use yoga as a time to work out my emotions, even though I know I’m disobeying my teacher things like jumping jacks, push ups, screaming into a pillow. Like active, actively trying to get the emotions to move through your body. Absolutely huge, okay? And you don’t need to know the emotion in order to get started in this process. You just need to know that you’re feeling something and that alarm bell is going off, and we need to stop. We need to say, Wait, I’m feeling something. Wait, something’s happening. And I even do this in front of my children, I will say, Wait a second. I’m feeling something really big. I need to go take care of this before I scream at you. So I’m just gonna go do that real quick and I’ll be back in five minutes. I’ve heard from a lot of people who are new to emotional regulation, I’m afraid to start feeling my emotions because I’m afraid that I’m gonna get stuck in them. And I wanna say that is valid.
That’s absolutely valid. And for most of us, we have decades of pent up emotion that we haven’t processed, that we haven’t felt, that we haven’t dealt with, and so we are kind of, like, holding back the dam of this huge flood. And I can, I can really sympathize with, like, how overwhelming and how scary that might be. But what I would encourage you to do is just say, Okay, I’m just going to dip my toe in. I’m not going to let the whole floodgates come I’m just going to practice regulating my emotions for five minutes, and when that five minutes is up, I’ll go back to avoiding it’s no problem, but I’m just gonna spend a little bit of time whenever I think about it, whenever I notice it, or every day, if you’re, if you’re an everyday kind of a person. I’m not an everyday kind of a person. Or like every time I lay down in bed, like something like that, where I’m gonna I’m just gonna give myself five minutes to feel if you can start in trauma work, we call that titrating, where we’re just dipping our toe in until it gets overwhelming, and then we’re gonna back off. We’re not gonna flood ourselves. We’re not gonna make our nervous system go crazy. We’re not going to give ourselves too much, you know, more than we can bear. We’re just going to dip our toe in, and we’re going to start to build our capacity. We’re going to build our window of tolerance. We’re going to start widening the window of of when we’re able to feel and still be okay, where we’re able to feel and still be in control, where we’re able to feel and still know that like I’m not gonna die, okay, and so I absolutely do not want you to go too much too soon, which is hysterical that I’m telling that to a group of ADHD ers, like, hello, this is what we do. We go all in. But I want this to be something that you’re like, Okay, I’m just gonna dip in, just here and there. I’m just gonna dip in. If you can dip in to your emotions a couple times a day, I swear to you, you will become someone who can handle feeling emotions.
Okay, I don’t want you to think that the goal is to feel good with emotional regulation. It’s not about feeling good, it’s not about feeling calm. It’s not about being like a Zen, peaceful Yogi all the time. That’s not what it is. It’s about being able to get dysregulated, to get frustrated, to get angry, to get super, super excited, and to come back to baseline. So it’s about being able to ride those waves and still be okay, to be able to ride the wave of frustration and come back to yourself to a grounded place and move on with your day. So it’s not about not feeling frustrated. It’s not about never being angry. It’s not about not being triggered ever. It’s about when those things inevitably happen. Do you have a set of tools to handle it? Are you able to handle it and come back to. To a steady place. That’s what we want, because it will be up and down all the time.
This is just humanity that doesn’t even have anything to do with ADHD, that’s just being a human. The thing that is different about somebody with ADHD is that when we start to feel those big emotions, they hijack our entire day. When we start to feel that massive amount of frustration, we get completely distracted by it, and it’s all we can think and talk about all day long. When we start to feel completely overwhelmed, we go into shutdown mode, and now we are completely off the grid and non functional. And so the goal is not to never feel frustrated or overwhelmed. The goal is that when we do feel frustrated or overwhelmed, we are able to allow that in our bodies, self soothe and bring us back to a regulated state where we can now, just like continue to function the type of person that I used to be before I started this self development work, before I knew about coaching, before I understood about the ADHD brain, the type of person that I used to be is I had no awareness of my emotion. And when I started to feel something huge, my attention went there, and I couldn’t think about, talk about, or do anything else than just be in that let’s call it frustration. That was an emotion that I felt very often, and it would hijack my whole day, and it would turn me into someone who yelled at her kids, who was like full of road rage, who was making poor decisions, who was writing mean emails, who was posting crazy stuff on Facebook, because I was completely overcome with that frustration.
It was the only thing in my gas tank. It was driving the car, and I had no control over it. And when I started to learn emotional regulation tools, I began to realize how controlled I was by these emotions that were just completely taking over, and so I still feel frustrated now like that has not gone away. Frustration is still a part of my life, but now I have the tools to be able to soothe that frustration and not let it run the show, not let it drive the car, not let it send me in a direction that I’m not proud of. I haven’t made a triggered Facebook post in like so long in years, and I’m so so proud of that everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time, you wake up early, you make a list, you cross things off the list in order, blah, blah, blah. Like, 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 I created focused. It’s an ADHD coaching membership for adults with ADHD, I’m a life coach with multiple certifications, and since 2019 I’ve coached over 4000 adults with ADHD from all over the world. I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from Hot Mess express to grounded and thriving. I’ll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain, regulate your emotions and your behavior and accept yourself, flaws and all. And with this foundation, we’ll build the skills to improve your life with ADHD. And not only do you get skills and tools and 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. So if 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 Ihaveadhd.com/focused to learn more. That’s Ihaveadhd.com/focused to check it out.
Okay, so what we’re going to do now, my dear, is, I’m going to lead you through a surf practice, and it’s going to be short and sweet. I’ll try to keep it to about five to seven minutes. And it’s something that you’ll be able to come back to over and over. I use adaptations of this for myself all day, every day, depending on how much time I have. Sometimes I do this literally in 30 to 60 seconds. Now this is something that I’ve been practicing for several years. So I have the skill deeply ingrained in my body, and I want to encourage you again, your brain is neuroplastic. It will change you are able to develop this skill. I promise. Promise, Promise.
Sometimes though, when. I’m experiencing some pretty extreme emotions. I do spend 510, 15 minutes surfing, and sometimes I even have to bring that along with me into my day, where I am kind of surfing in the background of just going about my day. And that just is what it is. It just depends on what’s going on in our lives. I’m going to teach you this practice. I’m going to walk you through it, and I really invite you. I know you’re probably multitasking right now, but I really invite you to go through this with me and and see what happens in your body. Notice what happens afterward. Notice how you feel before, during and after. Okay, so this is the surf method for people with ADHD. It starts with stop, then unfold, reassure and find so let’s start so you’ve noticed something is happening in your body, and you’re just going to stop, you’re going to take a deep breath, and you’re just going to notice that something is going on. Now I just naturally closed my eyes right here. For me, it’s a lot easier to focus with my eyes closed. So I’m going to sit here with my eyes closed, and I’m going to lead you through this practice in this way? So I’m I’m stopping and pausing, saying, oh, something’s going on. Not really sure what it is, but I’m noticing that something is happening. So now we’re going to let it unfold. So we’re going to take a deep breath, kind of do a body scan. We’re going to go internally. Just notice where the emotion is in your body. Maybe it’s in your neck or your throat, your solar plexus or your shoulders or your chest or your stomach. Could be anywhere. There’s no wrong place for it, just notice where it is, and kind of direct your internal gaze to that emotion. Just take a breath in and just notice we’re not fixing it, we’re not scared of it, we’re not judging it, we’re just noticing it. You Yeah, notice if it’s moving. Notice. Notice if it’s like squeezing or pulsating, or maybe feels like a stabbing pain.
Just turn your attention to it. And then as you take your next breath in, just try to create more space around that emotion. So you’ve identified where it is. Now we’re just kind of creating more space around it with a big breath in and a big breath out. We’re not trying to get rid of it, we’re not trying to solve it. We’re just allowing it to be in our bodies, and we’re making more room for it. Another big breath in just creating more and more space around that emotion. Now, what I like to do is take my hands and kind of direct them to other parts of my body. So normally, I’m feeling emotion like in my chest and throat. That’s kind of the go to for me, and I’m expanding the space around it in my chest and throat, but now I just, I want to allow it to unfold into more parts of my body. So I’m going to put my hands on the top of my thighs, and I’m just going to rub them here, and I’m just going to send the emotion kind of down into my thighs. And what happens for me immediately is the emotion doesn’t disappear, but it kind of begins to dissipate, a little bit like, oh, I can expand. I can unfold.
There’s more room for me. And with each breath in, I just want you to kind of allow more space in different parts of your body. So now in your arms, there’s space in my arms to hold this emotion, there’s space in my legs to hold this emotion, and I can just let it have more room in my body to unfold another breath in and a breath out. Now we start the self compassion talk. It’s okay that this emotions here. This is really hard, but I’m doing a good job. Hmm, and there’s plenty of room in my body to hold this emotion. It doesn’t have to be concentrated to one spot. It doesn’t have to be such a stabbing pain. I can breathe and expand and send that emotion to the whole body. I am a whole body. I’ve got plenty of room to hold this emotion. Now I’m going to breathe, and what I like to do is visualize my breath sending the emotion down through my neck, through my chest, through my belly, through my thighs, down my legs and right out my toes. I’m just gonna breathe the emotion, and I direct it with a very thin breath. As you practice this, you’re gonna figure out what feels good to you. But here’s what I do. I take a big breath in and I blow the emotion kind of internally, down, down, down. Down, down, down. And I do a couple of those big breath in and blow the emotion just down through my body. I’m not resisting it. I’ve spent some time with it. Now I’m trying to re regulate so I can get back to my life. I got bills, I got a job, I got kids, right? So I can’t stay stuck here. So I’m taking a big breath in last time we’re gonna blow it down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Now bring your attention kind of back to the room, back to where you are. For me, I like to rub my palms together. That’s very grounding for me. I like to wiggle my toes. That’s very grounding for me.
And I’m looking around and I’m finding three things that are green. There’s also an important grounding technique. No fair for you if you’re looking at the screen, because there’s a lot of green on this screen, but I see a green carpet. I see a piece of green tape. I see a green lamp over there. So now I’m grounded back into my space. And now what we’re going to do is kind of figure out. We’re going to do some inquiry. Do you know what that emotion was? Why was it here? What was it trying to tell you? Emotions are information. They’re trying to tell you something. What was that emotion here to tell you? I was it caused by something someone else was doing and you’re upset about what they’re doing? Was it caused by your own thinking? What thoughts were causing that emotion? So this is the part, if you have time, where we just kind of check in and we see, like, what’s going on here? What was I feeling? Why was I feeling it? This is the part that gives us so much authority, that puts us in the driver’s seat. What? What am I feeling? And why? Right? Really good job. I’m so happy that you did that. And this is something that you can do over and over, I encourage you every day, a couple times a day, to take. You don’t have to take. I think that was like eight minutes. You don’t have to take all of that time, but trying to allow those emotions to stop unfold, reassure and find that’s going to give you so much authority in your life.
Well done. I’m so proud of you. All right, once you’ve spent some time regulating, what I want to encourage you to do is try to get into a more neutral place. So often we want to feel amazing, excited, motivated, but like to go from frustrated or full of shame to, you know, happy, excited, motivated, it’s just it’s too far of a reach. So I really encourage you to think through some very neutral, grounded emotions that might serve you well. That might be really good fuel in your gas tank. So for example, one of my favorite emotions is open. And I don’t even know if that’s an emotion, but if I can get myself into an open place that feels so good in my body, it’s not excited, it’s not motivated, it’s not super happy, but I’m just like, Okay, I’m open, the other one that I love is willing. Thing, okay, I don’t want to do this task. I’m frustrated by it. I am so overwhelmed. And so if I, if I spend time processing the frustration and the overwhelm, can I now move into feeling willing? I’m willing to do this. I care about this so much that I am willing to do it. Some other neutral emotions are like, content, centered, determined, grounded, the emotion of like, possibility, like it’s possible this might go well. It’s possible I can get this done. Present, understanding. And again, my favorite one, willing. Those are some really, really neutral but helpful emotions, emotions that will drive the car in a in a good place, in a good in a good direction. All right, my friends, we’re going to wrap up here, because we’ve already been at this for for a while, but I want to remind you your emotional regulation can improve. The surf method is just one of many, many, many emotional regulation techniques that you can use to improve your emotional regulation. This is something that you can practice. This is something that you can learn. Your brain is neuroplastic. Your amygdala can improve. Your prefrontal cortex can improve.
These are areas of the brain that are willing to change. Okay, so understand that as you implement this emotional regulation practice, you will get better at it. I promise you, promise you, promise you will get better at it. It’s not going to be overnight. It might get a little bit harder before it gets easier. But like, stick with me. This is the number one skill that someone with ADHD needs to develop in order to make clear and conscious change in their life. Emotional regulation, is it, it is it, it is the skill that we need to develop. And I encourage you come back to this episode over and over. Do the emotional regulation practices over and over, this is going to change your life. And don’t forget, if you want to take this deeper, if you want my actual help on a daily basis, come and join focused, go to I have adhd.com/focused to learn all about the program, but I would love to coach you, and I would love to take you deeper into your emotional regulation practice. You are not meant to live this ADHD life alone. Okay, so come and join focused. I would love for you to take my emotional regulation course. There’s an amazing workbook. It is some of my very best work. I know that it will change your life. So if you want to take the work deeper, go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused, to learn more. I can’t wait to talk to you guys next week. I hope you have a wonderfully regulated week. I will talk to you again really soon. Bye, bye.
If you’re being treated for your ADHD, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join focus. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted, no matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world. Focused is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused, for all the info.
