Kristen Carder 0:05
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 this week, I will be honest, I was overwhelmed. So instead of pushing myself to head to the studio in Philadelphia, I made a different choice. I decided to share a class straight from focused, and I want you to take this as a little permission slip. You’re allowed to have a hard day, a hard week, hard month, or even a hard couple months. You’re allowed to accommodate yourself, instead of pushing yourself to the point of burnout, which is where I felt like I was heading if I didn’t make a change. So rather than forcing perfection, I’m lowering the bar in what I think is a healthy way, I get to keep showing up, but without the exhaustion that comes from demanding too much of myself. And for me, that’s a huge win. It’s a huge a huge win. And a win is a win. So this class that you’re about to hear is all about something that many of us, ADHD ers really struggle with, which is acknowledging our accomplishments and actually letting ourselves feel satisfied. Satisfied. Yes, you are allowed to feel satisfied when you finish something, even if you think that it took too long or it should have been better. You’re also going to hear me chatting throughout this class with members of focused during this session, and that interaction and camaraderie is one of the best parts about our community, where adults with ADHD, we’re scattered all over the world, but when we gather together and focused, it feels like home. My hope is that by the end of this episode, you’ll not only have some tools for allowing yourself to feel accomplished, which is important? You may not even think it’s important. I hope I convince you that it is, but you’ll actually also believe that you deserve that feeling. You deserve to feel accomplished and listen, I’m determined to practice what I preach.
I will feel satisfied and accomplished that this podcast made it out to you, even though it’s not perfect, it’s not what I maybe, quote, unquote, should have done. It’s not recorded in my beautiful studio in Manayunk, but it’s something I here I am. I’m standing before you. I’m here with a podcast. So with that, let’s dive in. Please enjoy this class from my focus coaching membership. All right, great to have you here. Hi from Texas, Valerie, my gosh, I’m going to be in Texas this week. Y’all, I have some fun updates to tell you. My son is going to be playing in a Junior Olympics tournament in Texas for water polo, so I’m headed there on Wednesday, so I’ll still be around, but that’s why my two calls are going to be today and tomorrow, because then I’ll be traveling Wednesday, although I’ll be on a plane, so I’ll be on Slack. I’ll be in Slack being like, what’s up, guys? Let’s hang out. Um, so I’ll still be around, but we’ll be intermittently at water polo games, which is my favorite thing. Don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell my other kids. Okay, I love watching. Why other kids do their thing too, but water polo is the best sport ever. Okay, so that’s what is going on in my life.
We are going to be talking today about how to celebrate yourself. How to celebrate yourself, y’all and my goodness, this is a really interesting topic. Because, well, I mean, we should just talk about it like, is this easy for you or hard for you? What I have found in the community is that this is really difficult for us is really, really, really hard for us to take time to acknowledge our accomplishments. Feel proud, feel satisfied, acknowledge that like we have done something. Good. So when I talk about like, celebration, I’m not just talking about like, throw yourself a party. I am talking about that moment when you finally do the thing that you’ve been wanting to do. So many of us, instead of celebrating ourselves, we beat ourselves up at that moment. We say, you should have done it faster. You should have done it sooner. You should have done it easier. It should have been easier. But we instead of just being like, I did the thing, I’m so I’m so happy that I did the thing. I feel proud. I feel satisfied. I feel accomplished. So satisfied and accomplished are two emotions that I want to talk about a lot today, satisfied and accomplished. Okay, so it’s not necessarily which it can include. I’m amazing. Let’s go out to dinner for my birthday. I’m celebrating me like that’s great, and we all want to do that from time to time. But what I am really looking for in our day to day life is, can you incorporate some feelings of accomplishment, of satisfaction, of pride? Yes. Ryan is saying, I love the song at the end of Dora the Explorer, you did it, you did it.
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Oh my gosh, we need to go find that song. Somebody posts a link to that song, because that’s exactly what we need. Yeah, Carmen says, I do confetti. Tell me what comes up for you when I say hey, how about we incorporate some satisfaction, some feeling of accomplishment, some pride in our work? What comes up for you when I say that? Tell me, yeah. Russell says I usually don’t do this because I feel like something bad is on the horizon to take away the joy. Yeah, I feel resistance to it. I usually downplay, yep, it feels frivolous. It feels presumptuous. Yes, Dylan, this is what I was trying to say before. There’s a feeling of, yeah, I accomplished stuff. But I could have, oh gosh, it’s moving so fast now I lost it. I’m sorry. Yeah, I accomplished stuff, but I could have accomplished more. That’s what I’m saying. We have this tendency to actually be mean to ourself when we get things done. Do you notice that, like, not only do we not celebrate ourselves, not only do we not feel accomplished or we don’t feel satisfied, we don’t feel pride, not only that, we’re actually doing a lot of beating ourselves up. We should have done it faster. Well, anybody could have done that.
Ah, I don’t like it. I don’t like it.
This is a good point. Emily says, I don’t allow myself to feel the high so that the calm down hurt excuse me, so that the come down doesn’t hurt so much when I inevitably disappoint myself next. Yeah, that is such an important insight. And I also just want to point out that that’s a lot of like black and white, thinking all or nothing. So I’m either all good or I’m all bad. If I accomplish something and feel good, I’m all good, I’m perfect. But then if I turn around and do something wrong, then I have to crash down because I’m all bad. And I just really want to invite like, you’re not all good or all bad. You’re both, you’re good sometimes and you’re just like, not that great other times, just like the rest of us. So it doesn’t actually need to be a roller coaster of, like, the high of, like, I’m perfect. I accomplished it. I’m like, when you clean your car and you’re like, I’m never gonna let my car get dirty again. Well, okay, that’s a fantasy, right? That’s a fantasy because, like, the car gonna get dirty again. Promise you, I used to have thoughts like that, like, I’ll never let my room get dirty ever again. Now that it’s clean, I’m never gonna let it get dirty. Yes, you will. It’s fine. Just enjoy it being clean while it’s clean. So noticing that, all or nothing, thinking that like, you know, if I do it, quote. Quote, right, then I’m great, but if I do it, quote, unquote, wrong, then I’m terrible. Like, let’s add in a little bit more balance.
Oh, that’s an interesting thought. Michaela said it’s possible that the idea that we struggle to celebrate ourselves could be connected to an upper limit that we have unconsciously placed on how much happiness we’re willing to feel. Yeah, like a set point. I’m not used to feeling good about myself. We’re going to discuss this moving forward, for sure, we’re not used to feeling good about ourselves. We’re not used to that feeling of accomplishment or pride in in self or satisfaction, and it just is so uncomfortable that we’re just like, oh yes, Michaela, kind of like, similar to a window of tolerance. And sometimes I believe that we actually sabotage our success because we’re so not used to feeling those good feelings. We’re way more used to feeling the negative emotions, so we do something, quote, unquote, right or good, we actually start to feel really good. Then that’s like out of whack, like something has gone wrong here, because I’m not used to feeling this way, and subconsciously sabotage our success. It’s just really fun. Oh, Michaela says that’s exactly what the author talks about. Let me just mention the author, because I didn’t read your whole thing. The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, okay, let me get to my notes, because I’ve made notes for this class because Ibwant it to be amazing.
Okay, there are many reasons why I think we’re pretty bad at celebrating ourselves. Let’s just talk about them for a second without making ourselves feel too yucky. Okay, so I’m curious what you think like, Why do you think we’re bad at celebrating ourselves? The reasons that I came up with are ADHD often comes with chronic underachievement, rejection, low self esteem. We’re just not used to it. We’re just not used to like over performing, we’re used to underperforming. So it’s just like we’re actually used to doing things wrong, not right. Many of us were raised in environments that praised outcomes, not effort, so it doesn’t matter if you tried, you still didn’t get it done, and so you don’t deserve praise. Or maybe you just were raised in a family that, like there was, there was an absence of praise. And that can be really interesting, because you may have heard things from your parents like, don’t get too big for your britches, or you’re too big for your boots, or whatever it is like in your neck of the woods, which is like, settle down.
You don’t need to be so prideful. Which is interesting, which is interesting. I really, really hope that I help my kids to just talk about themselves, like their wins, and just be like, Yes, you are amazing. That’s so good. We also have these beliefs that we talked about a little bit earlier that are like that, like it wasn’t a big deal, like the I’m I don’t deserve to celebrate myself for small things anyone could have done that my son says this to me often. If it’s something that anyone could have done, I don’t deserve praise for it. And He will even tell me, mom, chill, Don’t praise me or compliment me for cleaning my room. I don’t deserve that. I like that’s something that anyone can do, and I should have done it a long time ago. So don’t get all excited about me doing it. And I’m like, first of all, I will get excited about what I want to get excited about and I know what an effort it is for you to do this. So actually, I am gonna get excited about it. I really, really am.
Okay, I’m. I’m going to get super excited about it, and then the attacks that come. So this is another reason why we’re not that good at celebrating ourselves, because often we actually have like shame spiral attacks that come. You know, we accomplish it, and immediately you should have done it faster. You should have done it better. Or it shouldn’t have taken you so long. It shouldn’t have been that hard. Why are you feeling good about something that anyone else can do? Like this is easy for most people. Why was this so hard for you? So I think actually, we’re pretty mean to ourselves, and I don’t like it. Oops, wrong way. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I would so much rather that we’re like, super sweet to ourselves and acknowledging the effort, and we’re going to talk about this, acknowledging the effort that goes into it. Bessie says, I used to say that, and only recently I’ve started to believe people when they say, No, actually, no one else could have done that or done it in a way that well, yeah, which was a crazy realization that’s amazing guys see good for you.
Yep, I agree with you, Michael. So Michael’s asking, Could high expectations of ourselves factor in here? Yes, and that’s also making me think of like a perfectionistic mindset, like the perfectionistic mindset of like this, these like insidious perfectionism. Thoughts, right? Like we should be perfect. Anything less than perfect is unacceptable. The fact that I was imperfect in the doing of the thing means that I don’t deserve to be celebrated for it. Bullshit. Okay? I’m just gonna call bullshit on that. I’m gonna whisper it so that if your kids are in the car while you’re listening to this, they don’t hear it, okay, but we’re just gonna call bullshit on that. All right, all right. I’m curious, could we just stop and do a pause and take a little inventory. Can you take a belief inventory? Can we just kind of scan, what are the beliefs that come up for you? Can you are you able to recognize, like, oh, yeah, this is it for me, and some of you have already mentioned it, but I’m curious like, what is it specifically for you that inhibits or makes it difficult for you to celebrate? Some of you have said you just forget. You just forget that. It’s a thing. It’s kind of like, Okay, on to the next. And that is extremely valid comparison to others. That’s such a good point. Yeah, Maddie said, I don’t think I deserve to be celebrated literally, like the exact situation you described with your son.
That makes me sad. Steve said, thoughts like this is not for me. Only other people get it. Yep, sorry. The chat, okay, the other kids get jealous. Talk about that. We’re going to talk about that as we move through the class here because so I’ll give you a spoiler. One of the things we’re going to talk about is making sure that when we’re sharing wins, we’re sharing with safe people who are actually able and have the capacity to celebrate with us, because not everyone does, which is a heartbreak.
Jordan said, I definitely have the belief that I don’t deserve praise or attention, especially from myself. That’s interesting. There’s still so much more to do. So it’s never enough. Who, who resonates with that? I feel like that would be a lot of us. You accomplish the thing, but you’re like, I I don’t even have time to feel good about this. There’s still so much more to do. There’s never enough. Blaze said, I can’t take credits for the credit for the wins. I don’t feel like I deserve it, and I don’t even know what I would do to celebrate interesting. The thing I accomplished isn’t a big deal because it didn’t have the dopamine hit that I expected. We should put a pin in that. We should definitely put a pin in that, because we’re kind of waiting like I did the thing now I should feel amazing. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Steve said, what would the other kids say if I shine the shame outweighs the feeling of pride? Shame for how hard it was to accomplish. Yep, there’s always a lot to do. I don’t have enough time to celebrate. I mostly start worrying about the next task instead of celebrating. It feels selfish and selfish is bad, isn’t it? Friends is selfish, bad, great question.
I still don’t celebrate the hard work I did in college and getting my degree. I got pushback as a child for being proud of myself was called vain or spoiled, and enjoying for enjoying good things out loud. Who can relate to that was called vain or spoiled? Ah, for enjoying good things out loud. Yes, so many of us and again, like, I just, I don’t mean to always go mark to parents, but like, sometimes it just always goes back to parents.
That’s not it’s just sometimes it just does like when you are a child, and a child is naturally celebratory, and the the parent says, Don’t get so excited. My parents would say that to me all the time, don’t get your hopes up. Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t get your hopes up. Why it feels good to have my hopes up. Stop being so excited, why Christine said I heard. Who do you think you are?
Yeah, for me, it was an experience. This is Jordan. For me, it was an experience I had repeatedly, everywhere, parents, siblings, peers, teachers, people would see the depth of my joy or pride and react as if it was bad or wrong. Yeah, feeling good is a sin. Apparently, says Amber, right. Okay, so some of y’all have some stuff to unpack with your therapists, right? Some of y’all have some stuff to unpack with your therapists. For me as your coach, what’s important is that we’re just noticing, Oh, I see a connection here. I see a connection. It’s like, show and tell exactly, Tamara, this is show and tell this is where we’re like, oh, wait a second. I see a connection here. Then you go serve that connect, that that connection on a silver platter, to your therapist. That therapist will be so excited. I remember a specific time when my mom said, Don’t get so excited. And guess what? Now I never get excited. So therapist, work your magic.
Steve said, my confidence would scare my partner, yeah. So some of some of y’all, it might not be parent stuff. It might, it might be more like relational things from, you know, more recently. Ah, okay.
A moment of silence here. This is from Emily, and I think it’s, it’s a good word, it’s a wise word. A moment of silence for all of us here struggling to experience joy and pride in ourselves. Let’s just take a moment. There’s 72 of you in the room. I’m just curious. Does anyone here feel like they’re actually good at celebrating themselves? Is possible?
And if so, like I want to celebrate that, that’s amazing. But all I’m hearing, all I’m hearing, right when it comes to certain things, that’s great. Sometimes it’s getting better a little it’s taken years, I’m improving. That’s something to celebrate. Yes, that’s so good. Oh, that’s so good. Okay, let me just sell you on it. Can I sell you on it? So like, we’ve, we’ve had a moment where we’re like, wow, this is really hard. Some of us had harder childhood experiences than others. Doesn’t matter. This is not like the trauma Olympic. Because we don’t need to like compete, but just know that, like, for those of you who had particularly difficult relationships with your parents, it might be even more so it might be even more difficult for you to celebrate yourself, and that’s just something to like key in on, okay, for those of you who had, you know, relatively lovely upbringings. It might be hard for you to celebrate yourself, but you might not experience the degree of difficulty as much. And that’s beautiful and wonderful.
Okay, beautiful and wonderful. So let me sell you on the idea of celebrating yourself and and when I’m talking about it here, I definitely like I used the word celebrate in the title of the class, but really it’s just like, could you just not hate yourself when you do something? Could you just take a moment of feeling satisfied. Could you just take a second to feel proud? Could you take a moment and notice the accomplishment and sit with it like, damn, I did that. I did that thing. I did what I said I wanted to do. Is it Oh? Valerie asks, Is it okay to be proud? It is not just okay. It’s encouraged. Here’s for those of you who grew up in maybe like religious culture, there was a strong current of, do not feel proud. Do not be proud. Do not be proud. And I just want to speak to that for a moment. So this might not apply to everyone. Not everyone here grew up in religious culture. Although, if you grew up in America, these kind of, like ideals are kind of woven into a lot of the fabric of our culture, whether or not you personally grew up religious, you know, I’m saying so pride is one of those things. And what I want to differentiate between is someone, in my opinion, the way I interpret it, the way I read and think about the Bible, is when, the Bible says, Do not be proud the meaning there is, don’t think of yourself as better than others. Don’t look down your nose on others. It is not about your internal experience necessarily.
It is more about your the way that you’re positioning yourself internally with others. Oh, I’m so much better than you now because I did X, Y, Z, or I’m so much you know, I deserve more than you because I blah, blah, blah, or you don’t matter, but I matter, right? So it’s like looking down on others, making more of yourself, and yes, you you’re better than God, right? But what I’m talking about is, can you feel a sense of pride in your accomplishment? I feel good about what I accomplished. It doesn’t make me better or worse than anyone else, and for those of you who are religiously minded, I did it with God’s help, right? I didn’t do it with the absence of him. I did it with his help. So it’s like, think about pride in a different way. It’s like, I can be so satisfied and proud of something that I accomplished, and give credit where credit is due. So Felicity said, I can thank God for the grace to get it done exactly. So those of you who grew up, I just wanted to speak to religious culture here, because a lot of us, whether or not you identify as religious, have grown up in religious families and or have grown up in cultures where religion is like, in the fabric of the culture, whether you like it or not, right? And so these kind of, like, age old principles of like, don’t be prideful. It’s like, why Who taught you that? Right? Right? Right? Yeah. Pride. Comes before the fall. So that’s like a, that’s like a, oh my gosh, that’s more like related to literature, yeah. Is that an actual proverb? I’m not sure that it is. Somebody should it is interesting, amazing and true, right? That thought of, I cleaned my car. I’m so much better than all of you with dirty cars, and my car is never going to get dirty again. Okay? Well, pride cometh before the fall, my dear, you know, I’m saying because, like, that’s a fantasy, and that not true, because your car gonna get dirty in 30 minutes, especially if you have little kids. Tamara says three weeks of my car is still clean in your face.
It’s so awesome.
Okay, yes, Steven. I don’t want to get too much into this, but Steven said feeling less than can actually sometimes be prideful, which is so true. Just ask a vulnerable narcissist.
Oh, I just am a victim, and I am worse than everyone else. Okay, like I said, we’re gonna get, not gonna get too far into that. Okay, so I want you to think of pride or accomplishment or satisfaction as a couple of things. First of all, it’s an important step in increasing your self trust. It’s an important connection point that we are often missing. Hey, I said I was going to do the thing, and then I did it. I need to take note of that. I need to sit with this. I need to make sure that my body is connecting the fact that I said I would do the thing, and then I figured out a way to get it done, no matter how long it took me. That’s a big deal. Do you see how that can really increase your self trust if you begin to actually acknowledge what you have accomplished?
It’s it’s an, it’s a really important self trust step. This is one of the reasons why it’s on our list for the summer of self trust. Steve says, Wow, repeat question mark, so I’m going to try to repeat it in a concise way, acknowledging your accomplishments, feeling good about what you just did, feeling good about getting it done is actually really an important step in your self trust journey, because so often we are just glossing over the things that we’ve accomplished and not training our bodies to see the fact that I said I was going to do something and I got it done. That is a stepping stone, a building block, a cornerstone of self trust. I do what I say I’m going to do. The problem is, when we do what we say we’re going to do, we beat ourselves up. We say it wasn’t good enough. We say it should have been done faster. We say it should have been done sooner. And so we’re not actually making the connection of like I’m actually doing the things that I say I’m going to do. I can trust myself. I am someone who does what they say they’re going to do. Does it take me a little bit longer? It might, does it look a little messy? It might do. I wish I could get it done faster every time, every freaking dang time. But am I someone who’s doing what they say they’re going to do today? I am. I’m gonna feel good about it. I’m gonna sit with that accomplishment. I’m going to let that build my self trust. Are you making that connection? Okay, so this is a this is a building block, a cornerstone of self trust. It also helps you to not live in the narrative of I’m all bad all the time, which some of you are struggling with. You’re not all bad all the time. You are doing good things, but when you do good things are. Are you giving yourself a chance to notice, or are you just zooming past it? Are you just going zoom, just zooming past it, not even noticing when you do the good? Because remember we talked earlier when Emily mentioned that comment, and I forget what it was exactly, but like the all or nothing, thinking I’m either all good or all bad, and a lot of you are stuck in I’m all bad, and I can’t let myself feel good, because I’m not all good and please, we are just we’re accepting our humanity. Here I am neither or neither, whichever you prefer, all good or all bad, I am both good and bad, and so is my neighbor, and so is Kristen Carter, and so is everyone. I’m just like a combo I’m a combo deal. There’s good qualities, there’s bad qualities. There are things about me that are really easy to love and things about me that are really hard. It’s true. So I don’t need to put on this armor of all good, or this, this costume of I’m all good, or this costume of I’m all bad. I’m just going to live in reality of, like, sometimes I do some really good things and and this, this is one of those days like I did a thing. I’m like, you all know this story of me when I was trying to train myself to do dishes. Dishes are not a big deal. Just do the dishes. Just do it takes seven minutes to do the dishes.
I don’t have any dishes drama anymore, but I used to have hella drama about the dishes. And I would literally make my husband High five me. And he would be like, that’s just a normal thing. I shouldn’t be high fiving you. And I was like, How dare you. Don’t ever say that to me again. How dare you, because it’s not just a normal thing. It’s actually really hard for me, and we gonna high five right now, go on, and I will stand there and wait y’all in a very awkward fashion, go on. Sometimes I have to point to it. Come on. He can sense now. Now he offers me high fives, but it feels a little infantilizing like, are you actually proud of me? Are you making fun of me? But I take it either way, because I’m a high five Ho, okay, let’s move on. 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 I have adhd.com/focused to learn more. That’s I have adhd.com/focused to check it out. All you tapping the screen to high five. Me back.
I appreciate it so much. Oh, gosh, okay, I tapped the screen too. Love it.
All right. Where were we? My friends practice emotional regulation of the good stuff, okay, when we talk about emotional regulation, so many of us think about it in the context of negative emotions. Negative emotions, yes, so when I have to regulate, it’s because I’m feeling negative emotions. But the thing. Is we actually need to spend time with our positive emotions as well. And this something, this is like kind of a next level skill, because when you first come into focused, and let me know if this resonates with you, you come into focused, it’s like triage. You just gotta, like, bind up the gushing wounds and make sure that you can just survive, right? And so you come into focus, and you’re just like, somebody help me. And and you’re learning these skills, and you’re learning emotional regulation.
And the emotional regulation tool that we use the surf, the surf tool is usually used for like the deep, wild, negative feelings that hijack our day, right? Once you kind of get a handle on that, even just a tiny little handle is this, it could be like a tiny baby handle once you get a handle on that, I want to invite you to also begin to surf or learn to sit with your positive emotions. Some of you suck at celebrating yourselves because you haven’t practiced surfing positive emotions you haven’t practiced surfing, accomplishment, joy, pride, excitement, anticipation, anyone so in these pause and celebrate moments that is when you do some deep breathing and some surfing of the positive emotions. Oh, interesting. Michael says I’m afraid of surfing positive emotions because I don’t want them to go away. Interesting. I would love for you to think about it more like integrating it into your body, like deepening it and just like really being able to hold it. That’s so interesting. Okay, so remember that emotional regulation is not about getting the emotion to disappear. It’s about Thank you, Rebecca, mindfully experiencing it mindfully. It’s just it’s about experiencing it. It’s about making room for it. It’s about acknowledging it.
It’s about letting it be in your body without resistance, yeah, observing great word Sean, okay, so when we’re even surfing negative emotions. Like, yes, we are hoping that it will dissipate, and as we make room for it, it will often, kind of like lessen, but that it always comes back, guys, right? It’s not a magic pill. It’s not It’s not magic. It’s not like think the surf practice is learning how to hold the emotion in your body without throwing it onto someone, like yelling it out of your body, hitting it out out of your Do you know what I’m saying? Like trying to resist it and get it out of you, trying to push it down, and pretending that you’re not feeling it and pretending that it’s not affecting you. That’s why we emotionally regulate. Okay, okay, all right. So, yes, it is about embodying the emotion, integrating it, making room for it, and you can have a practice that looks different for positive and negative emotions. No problem at all. If you’re like, Okay, this is what I like to like. I’ve figured out what I like to do with my negative emotions. You might need to figure out what you want to do with your positive emotions. But what I am inviting you into is it is an experience of it. Are you willing to actually experience positive emotion? Are you willing to actually, like, sit with yourself and say, what would it be like to feel accomplished? What would I have to think to feel accomplished? What would I have to believe about myself in this moment, to feel satisfied pride? I would say personally and you can let me know what you think would go on the higher scale of like positivity, for me, satisfaction and like accomplishment, they’re definitely on the positive side, but they’re not quite as far off in the distance as pride, satisfaction, accomplishment are a little bit. It for me, personally, more I’m like, grasping. They’re more. Somebody give me the word, they’re just like, easier to grab. I’m saying they’re easily accessible. Thank you
Gosh. Sometimes the words are just like, where are they?
Yes, they’re easily accessible. They’re they’re there more easily. Words are hard. Words are hard. It’s so true, okay, so, um, I want you to think about what might it feel like to be ex to experience accomplished? What might it feel like to experience satisfaction? Let’s just, let’s sit with that for a second. Name something that you have accomplished in the last 24 hours. Big or small, it’s probably going to be small, because 24 hours is not that long, okay, that’s actually big. Felicity went to IKEA, and it was a hellscape, and she navigated it. That’s huge. Can you access accomplished or satisfaction good? Emily scheduled her first therapy session. Ah.
Trisha, uh. Trisha, yeah. Trisha went for a walk. Christine cleared out her portrait studio for the fall. Michael bought new swim trunks after refusing, oh no, reusing Yes, yes, yes for many years. Um, I did art and practice my Viola. Says, Rebecca, I brought my kids to a local pool. Says, Alyssa, okay, so you’re all sharing these, like big and small accomplishments. So good, so good can you access a positive emotion? It might be satisfaction, it might be accomplishment, it might be relief. It might even be relief. Like Sean said, I returned my saxophone and got a refund. I’m just guessing, Sean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth or emotions in your body, but I’m guessing for me, that would feel like relief. Can you access that emotion, even if it’s fleeting, just whatever it is for you, like, hold it in your body.
Take a deep breath, try to do an internal body scan and like, go find it, where is accomplished or where is satisfaction. Can you go find it?
You might have to, like, remind yourself over and over, I returned my saxophone before the return window closed. I got my I got my refund, or whatever it is that you did. I used my two things can be true. Dialectical skills to navigate a really different, difficult appointment with my doctor. Instead of getting upset, I was proud of how I handled it. That’s beautiful. Oh, wow. Rebecca said, I feel it in my biceps. Satisfaction feels strong. Jordan said, for me, I think accomplishment is in my chest, where I usually struggle with emptiness, feels very full and bubbly in my throat, I’m in love with that it takes energy to sit with satisfaction, yes, especially if we’re not practice. Is that okay?
Yes, sweetheart, it’s okay. That’s so sweet. Yes, of course. Um, this, this goes into the category of the you know, like, this should probably just be easy for me. No, this actually should be hard, don’t you think? Because this is pretty new for us.
Yes, my body wants to resist feeling good just as. Much as it wants to resist feeling bad. What the heck? Such an important insight. Because how often throughout your life have you resisted allowing yourself to feel good? I mean all of us, like I think you’re speaking for all of us, honey. Yeah, all of us. Me, 100%
Ryan says I’m finding anger and defensiveness instead like I have to justify that I did something, Ryan, I’m so glad that you noticed that, and I just want to let you know that nothing has gone wrong. You’re not doing it wrong, okay, but it is just an interesting thing to observe. And it it goes to, like, what I was saying earlier, where often we have this internal voice that’s like, well, you should have done it faster. Well, what did you even do? Or like, my son says, Mom, this is just something that, like everybody has to do, don’t celebrate me, right? So there’s like resistance there. So I just, I just want to let you know, Ryan, don’t feel alarmed, but just notice and maybe do some thinking on that and see if you can just continue to practice, continue to see what comes up. Does surfing positive emotions help to lessen internal dismissiveness? I don’t have a scientific answer for you, Jordan, but I would guess, yeah, sometimes feeling satisfaction triggers very negative feelings of worthless worthlessness. I am sure there are sneaky thoughts happening there, but the worthlessness really quickly pushes out the satisfaction. Yeah, again, just like Ryan, I would say, observe it. Notice it. Don’t add judgment on top of that. Like, I shouldn’t be thinking about that, or I shouldn’t be thinking, you know, like, just try not to judge it. Just notice, like, Oh, this is really interesting. Ah.
I’m just taking a pause here because I feel a little bit sad. Nicole says it’s my birthday today, and I made it clear with my husband what I expected of him. He said he couldn’t commit so he stayed home instead of instead of celebrating with me, it feels terrible, but a good boundary, I guess. I don’t know what to say to that, but I love you, and happy birthday, and I’m so glad you were born. So glad you were born. Yes, you’re absolutely allowed to just touch the good feeling, like dip your toe in and and back off. That’s totally fine. Rebecca again, like titrating it, if it feels scary, if it feels overwhelming, if it feels like so foreign, and you’re just like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want just touch it. Just give it a little touch. And this every day, just try to come back to it. Can I touch it for five seconds today? Can I touch it for 10 seconds today? Can I allow it in my body? Imagine if every day we just added five seconds, okay, Nicole’s getting a lot of love in the chat, just for the listener who’s listening to the replay. So much love in the chat. And I just we adore you, Nicole, and you deserve to be celebrated, and we want to celebrate you here. We absolutely do.
We absolutely do. I didn’t get to all of my notes. I’m a little bit sad. Let’s just go quickly through the rest of it. I really want to encourage you. And this kind of is speaking a little bit to what Nicole is doing, making sure that you are surrounding yourself, or at least have a go to person that can celebrate you. You need to at least have one who is one person in your life that can celebrate you without judgment and without jealousy. Does this group count? Yes, of course. Do I count? Of course? Course, of course, of course, of course, of course. Do I also hope that you have someone in your circle of influence that is also able to do that? Yes, I do. I would really like this place is a good start to understand how it should feel in your body, to understand what it should feel like to be safe and celebrated. Okay, so it’s a good start. And then what I want you to do is take that into your life and find someone in your real life, who is also who? Who can match you there? Of course, that means that you’re celebrating them. You’re not getting jealous of them. You are. You’re just like able to give that to them too. Yeah. Michael said, I just realized that one of my desires for marriage is to have someone who will celebrate me and I can celebrate them. Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s a really healthy thing to put on a list. I totally agree. Tamara Amber says I need to find some friends same this is, this is something that I think and pray about almost every day, like two friends is just not enough for me. I need to find some friends too. I’m working on it. I’m working on it.
Okay, so making sure that you know who you can’t celebrate with is really important too. I am positive that you can point to people in your life and say I could never tell you anything like I could never share this win with you, because you would get mad at me, you would judge me, you would dismiss me, you would downplay me, you would, you know, fill in the blank. So, like, we all have some of those, let’s just make sure we have at least one person, or we’re on the hunt. We’re on the prowl for one person that can celebrate Good point, Felicity. Felicity says you don’t have friends because all the cool people are off limits because we’re your clients. That’s so true. Boundaries, baby. That’s so true. Okay, I just really want to make sure that we’re reframing a little bit here where our brain tells us we’re not allowed to celebrate something because everyone does it, or it’s too simple, or it’s the bare minimum. And I just before we leave, I have to say, if it was hard for you, then it’s hard. It doesn’t matter. The comparison to other people does not match her, and you’re allowed to acknowledge. This was a really hard thing for me, and I did it. I will say this to my team, and they just kind of roll their eyes, and I’m like, I don’t care. Like, I wrote that email. I did it. I’m so proud of myself. And they’re like, meanwhile, they’re like, we write emails all day long. It’s like, literally our job. And I’m like, Okay, well, this is hard for me. There has to be a level of like, this is hard for me. And so I get to have celebration around it. I get to have satisfaction. I get to have accomplishment around it. Okay, okay, so here’s a couple things that you can do in your celebration practice. The first thing is just remembering that like celebrating is a thing. Acknowledging the good things that you do is a thing. And so that might require setting a reminder for yourself, like once a day, like stop and celebrate, stop and feel satisfied, stop and list your accomplishments. If you were, if I were to sit with you and make you list your accomplishments, it would be a long list. I know that you’re like, not on Kristen, like, yes, it would. It would be a long list. Start to make a list of accomplishments and feel satisfied about it. Start to build a body of evidence for your own brain, so that you can point to it and say, Nah, you’re not right brain. I’m not a screw up, or I’m not whatever. Like look at my list. It’s not like you all are carrying around a to do list, but are you carrying around a have done list?
I’m saying you’re all carrying around the ball and chain of a to do list. But are you carrying around a list of like, here’s what I’ve celebrate, here’s what I’ve accomplished, here’s what I’ve completed, here’s what I’ve done. Like, maybe your accomplishment list could balance out the to do list, and you won’t feel so horrible all the time. I know I deserve a bubbly sip.
That was that was good. It was good.
You all are carrying around a to do list, and like, I haven’t done it, I should do it. I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet. Are you carrying around an accomplishment list? If not? Start one, even better, pop it into Slack so we can just yes and let sit with the feeling of satisfaction. It doesn’t have to be pride. It doesn’t have to be excitement. Can we just get to satisfied just for a brief moment? This doesn’t mean that we’re not going to continue to move forward. It just means I acknowledge what I’ve done. Maybe you want to create a done wall with sticky notes. Maybe you want to cover an entire wall with one task on each sticky note. And you just cover the wall in sticky notes of the things that you’ve done. Maybe every time you accomplish something, you light a specific candle. So like you’re sitting with your positive emotions, you have this, like, specific scented candle, and it’s like the brain sensory connection, oh, gosh, that took far too long, where it’s like, every time I smell this candle, I start to feel good and I start to feel satisfied. You. Pavlov, the hell out of yourself. Yeah, okay, um, okay, yeah, I like that idea too. Like a ritual, exactly.
Yes. Jordan said I used to frequently not allow myself to feel relaxed or enjoyment until everything on my to do list for the day was accomplished. Making a list for the things I have done might be revolutionary for that bad habit. Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
Okay, what are your takeaways here? What do you what are you going to carry out of this room? Yes, a lot of you are saying, I write my tasks on post stitch anyway I could then just transfer it to like an accomplished wall, like I’ve done it. Wait, what did you do? Felicity, she said I did it. I don’t know what she’s saying.
Oh, an urge, jar, I did it. Jar. Yes, love it. Take 10 seconds to say, I did it, yep, and feel good. Love it. Practicing the feeling, practicing feeling the good feelings. I did it, party. Yes, it’s a good reminder. This is what Michaela says. It’s a very good reminder that I need to feel safe with people. It’s not realistic for everyone to be a safe person. Absolutely, I’ve got like, three or four real life people, that’s it, and that’s on a good day. Okay. Okay. And then we got to chaos. Put Oh, part of our gratitude reflections can include our gratitude for our successes. Yes, Barbara, I love that. Despite others reactions to how I celebrate, I still, I still should celebrate Anyway, yes, oh my gosh. I feel like I have some very tangible sitting in and making space for feeling out of my accomplishments after this class. I also need to address the fear of imperfection I experience when trying to complete tasks. Yes, and that again, I just want you to notice, like black and white, thinking like it’s if it’s not perfect, then it doesn’t deserve to be called, done or completed or celebrated. Can we? Can we feel accomplished and satisfied along the journey? So I’ll bring up my book, which I try not to bring up too much, but I feel like I haven’t mentioned it in like a day or two. So I can mention it again. It’s a long journey, right? So I’m currently writing chapter four. I spent the weekend, right? Writing it. It’s not done. I still feel really satisfied with the work that I did. I worked hard. I’m really happy with it. It’s a chapter on treating ADHD and how that may impact our relationships, if you do and impact our relationships if you don’t. I’m satisfied with that. It’s not finished. I don’t know when I’m going to finish it, but that’s a problem for future me, because I feel good about what, about what I did. Okay, should we just be done? Should we close in prayer, whatever religion that you adhere to? Should we just be done? Oh, it’s chaotic today. It’s chaotic today.
Ah, okay, I was joking about the prayer, but let us take a moment of gratitude for each other, for this group, for the for the ability to be in community and be funny and feel safe and be heard. Let’s sit with gratitude of what we’ve accomplished. You all listed the great things that you’ve accomplished in the last in the last 24 hours, that’s amazing. I will celebrate the win of just having a great, super fun class that I think like, I feel like I delivered today. I really do, and I’m gonna sit with that accomplishment. I’m proud of that. So I encourage you to sit with your own accomplishments and feel satisfied at the least, maybe even proud. Okay, I’m gonna see you again tomorrow. I can’t wait. Okay, so I will see you tomorrow. Soon, really soon. 12 o’clock Eastern. I can’t wait. I will see you then, right. Talk soon. 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 I have adhd.com/focused, for all the info you.
