This episode is sponsored by Cure Hydration. You know that moment for me, it’s around like 2 or 3pm when my ADHD brain just decides we’re done for the day. We’re done here. The afternoon slump hits, the lights go off upstairs and suddenly answering an email or doing basically anything feels like climbing a mountain. That’s when I reach for Cure Energy. It’s a clean plant based energy drink mix made with 100 milligrams of natural caffeine and electrolytes so I get the focus and hydration boost I need without jitters, without a crash and without that like I drink battery acid vi that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and acai berry flavors are my current go tos. Crisp, refreshing and they don’t taste fake y’. All. They don’t taste fake. I’ll drink one before recording a session or when I need to get help through like that afternoon drag. And honestly I I drink it anytime. My brain just needs to cooperate. What’s wild is that Cure Energy is only 25 calories and has zero added sugar. It actually helps me stay hydrated while giving me energy. Okay, I love coffee, but coffee could never Staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love CUR Cure. It’s clean, it tastes great and it actually works. And remember, Cure is FSA HSA approved which is amazing. You can use that money to pay for cure and for I have ADHD listeners you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you do get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about CURE right here on the podcast. It really helps to support the show. Don’t just drink more, upgrade it right with cure. Save over $200 when you book weekly. Stays with VRBO this winter if you need to work, why not work from a chalet? If you haven’t seen your college besties since, well college. You need a week to fully catch up in a snowy cabin. And if you have to stay in a remote place with your in laws, you should save over $200 a week. That’s the least we can do. So you might as well start digging out the long johns because saving over $200 on a week long snowcation rental is in the cards book now@verbo.com. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of 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’re listening to The I have ADHD podcast, episode number 166. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am ready to roll. Hello, hello, hello. How are you? How are you today? It is a gorgeous sunny July day and I am so pumped to be here with you. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, my skin is tan af and I am loving life in the summertime. There’s just nothing like it. I just love it so much. Today we’re going to be talking about pardoning your past self, letting go of all of the things that you beat yourself up for. Sounds like fun, right? I promise, I promise, I promise. This is a life changing concept, so hang with me. It’s going to be so transformative. But first, if you’re listening to this in real time, I want to let you know that my signature course, the Inconsistent Entrepreneur, starts today live inside of Focused. Now, this is a course that is always available to Focused members. Workbook and video classes and coaching calls and all the things, but I’m reteaching it live all throughout the month of July. And we start today. Today, Today, today. So if you’re an entrepreneur and you want to learn how to stop being paralyzed by the need for consistency, which is total bs, and I’ll teach you all about that. And you want to stop procrastinating and you want to stop being a weirdo about selling to your customers, then join Focused right this second and you can attend all of the eight Live Inconsistent Entrepreneur classes. I’m so pumped. So this means that if you attend live, I’ll be able to answer your questions and you’ll even have the opportunity to be coached by me on your specific business needs. But you have to join Focus in order to have access. So go to ihaveadhd.com focus to sign up and you’ll have access to the Live Inconsistent Entrepreneur course. And listen, if you miss the first class or two, it’s not a big deal. They’re going to be live, they’ll be recorded. You can watch the video replay in our portal or you can listen to the audio replay in our private podcast feed. So go to ihaveadhd.com focused to join me for the inconsistent entrepreneur course live. I’m excited about it. I’m really, really excited about it. I gotta tell you, I have a lot of, like, new things happening right now. And while you would think that I would be really happy and excited about it, I also feel, like, really scared and really terrible. But I think that’s just the way life is. I think that’s just the way life is. So deep breaths. Deep breaths. Okay, Today. Let’s talk about today. Today’s episode is all about pardoning our past selves. Now, how many of you spend the majority of your brain space beating yourself up for the things that you did in the past? Shaming yourself for who you were in the past? How many of you have flashbacks to things that happened decades ago that you’re still judging yourself? 4. Now, here’s what I’ve learned to be true. You can’t move forward into the future when you’re shackled to the past. I’m going to say that again because I am telling you it is important. You cannot move forward and be a different person in the future when you’re shackled to the past. You’re just going to repeat the past. Raise your hand if you feel like you’re just repeating the same mistakes over and over and over. Today’s class is about untangling yourself from the talons of the past so that you’re not repeating those same mistakes. Now, this is a class that I taught in Focused a few weeks ago. This is the kind of life changing content that you get as a Focus member on the daily. I want you to listen. I want you to answer all of the questions that I ask, and I want you to see how much you can change your own own damn life in just one hour. Enjoy. Welcome. I’m so glad that all of you were able to make it today. Even if you’re listening to the replay, good job prioritizing you just showing up once in a while and making an effort once in a while. It’s enough. It’s enough. It’s enough to change your whole dang life. Not so fun. So fun. Randy Jo says I’m listening in my car. First time caller. Hey, welcome, first time caller. Love it. Okay, today we’re talking about pardoning your past self. Who. Who here feels that they need to issue a pardon or two to their past self? Yeah. How many of you are beating yourselves up for something you did or said a decade ago? Hmm. Yes. Heck yes. I’m getting heck yes. It Feels like my past haunts me sometimes, says Jessica. Yeah, I know this is a really important aspect of the work that you and I do together. And it’s an important aspect of the work that we do collectively as a community here in Focused. Because if we do not pardon our past self, it is as if we have shackles, chains, handcuffs, like, we are bound to stay the same and not progress and move forward. Maybe we progress and move forward little by little here and there, but we cannot make huge strides into the future if we’re shackled to our past. I’m going to repeat that. There’s no way to make huge strides into your future if you are shackled to your past. And the only way to unshackle yourself from your past is to forgive yourself for the things that you did, the things that you’ve done or the things that you’ve left undone, the things that you said or the things that you didn’t say. The only way to unshackle so that you can make consistent or persistent progress into the future. I’m going to drop some, like, boom, some big, huge truth bombs today. It’s going to be. It’s going to be a wild ride. It’s important, as we get this conversation started, to remind you why we should even bother. Why should we bother to pardon our past selves now? Like I said, it’s impossible to move into the future with momentum and trajectory, with yourself being shackled to the things that you judge yourself for that you did in the past. Okay? And so that will always, always, always hold you back. It will always stunt your growth. It will always make it so that progress is harder because your brain wants to go back to the past and continuously think about the things you did wrong or the things you said or the things that you didn’t say, the things that you wish you did differently. It’ brain’s way of keeping you very safe, quote, unquote safe. It’s your brain’s way of keeping you the same. I want you to think about this. I want you to think about this. Your brain does not want you to change. Does the brain have capacity and ability to change? For sure? Yes, 100%. We know that science tells us that there’s a concept called neuroplasticity. And our brains are willing and able to change. But your mindset, your brain around your mindset and your belief system, it doesn’t want to change, doesn’t want you to be different, doesn’t want you to do what’s unfamiliar, just succeed. Right? Doesn’t Want you to do the things that are, quote, unquote dangerous or scary, like put yourself out there, make an offer, ask someone out on a date, take consistent action toward your goal. Your brain is like, excuse me, no, I like us the way we are. We’re staying the same. And so in order to do that, it will often bring you back to past thoughts, to the things that you’ve done wrong, quote, unquote wrong, to the things that you left undone, things you wish you did differently. Ok. And so in order to move forward, our work together again, you and I as coach and client, this is important work that we do together. But then you all kind of collectively, as an ADHD adult community, your work together is to unshackle yourselves over and over and over and over, unshackle each other from the past and move forward together into the future. Okay, just think about this for a minute. How much time do you think you spend beating yourself up about the past? How much time do you think you spend beating yourself up about the past? This is not a rhetorical question. Jordan says, hours of my life. Not as much as I used to. Yay, Katie. More than necessary. Yeah. All the time. My whole life. It feels unattainable for some reason. Oh, this feels unattainable for some reason? Yeah. Too much time, Afraid to quantify it. Ooh, relatable. Kate says, I don’t know, I have time blindness. Oh, it’s so funny. I want you to just think about, like, what could you do with that free time if you weren’t spending your time beating yourself up? If you were unshackled from your past, what do you imagine that you might be able to do? What do you imagine that you might be able to think about? What do you imagine that you might be able to produce or create? If you were not constantly thinking about the past, what do you imagine that you might be able to do? Oh, my goodness. Kate is preaching. She says, I imagine that I could be the freaking solution. If you were there for Kate’s coaching call. It was a good one. I might be able to be a boss. Yeah. I might be able to pass the exam. Yes. Katie’s been working on an exam for a little while. I could create my dream career. I love that. I love that. I love that. Okay, so one of the things that I like to do when we talk about our past selves, I like to remind you of how ADHD impacts your life. And the reason why I do this is because so many of you are holding yourself hostage by beating yourself up for your past mistakes. And many of those past mistakes were ADHD related. Which does not mean that we just say, well, it’s adhd, who cares? It doesn’t matter. But we can at least bring in some understanding and some compassion for ourselves. Does that make sense? There’s a very big difference between an excuse and an explanation. I am not suggesting that we make excuses for the things that we are ashamed of or that we feel guilty for. I’m not suggesting that at all. But what I am suggesting is that we bring in more understanding and compassion and explanation around it. Okay, so what do we know about humans? Humans make mistakes. All humans, many of us with adhd, tend to think that we are the only ones that make mistakes. And neurotypicals people who don’t struggle with adhd, they don’t make as many mistakes as us. That’s actually an erroneous thought in my opinion. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is pretty great and pretty awful. Everyone, myself, 100% included. Okay? All humans make mistakes. Even when we have good intentions, we often screw up. This is just humans. Even when humans have good intentions, we often screw up. Sometimes humans are mean on purpose. This isn’t even humans with adhd. This is just humans in general. Human brains are wired to protect themselves and they’ll do pretty much anything to protect themselves. Humans get tired, angry, sad, disappointed, frustrated, and all of those feelings lead to specific actions and results. And there’s no human on the planet who has lived a pain free, mistake free life. Yes. You with me? You all here? Okay, now let’s talk about adding to this. All right, let’s talk about humans with adhd. ADHD years are time blind. We have no sense of time. ADHD brains struggle to focus. We get easily distracted. ADHD brains are impulsive. Sometimes our decisions that we beat ourselves up for for years are impulsive decisions that we made due to our adhd. Again, not an excuse, but for sure we can bring in some compassion to that explanation. I don’t know why I’m having a hard time saying the word explanation today. Explanation. It’s difficult for me today. Human brains forget things. ADHD brains forget things a lot. Quickly, easily. It’s an ADHD symptom. ADHD brains struggle to understand and control their emotional responses. How many of you are beating yourselves up for exploding at someone? Katie, I am not saying that it doesn’t matter. I’m not saying that the impact doesn’t need to be dealt with. I am not saying that we should just make an excuse and move on. What I Am saying is it’s very important to understand our specific struggles so that we can have compassion and forgive ourselves for the things that we’re not proud of. Okay, you hear the difference, right? Like, I’m, I’m going to repeat it over and over because I don’t want you to hear me say, like, oh, it doesn’t matter. You have adhd. Who cares? Okay. ADHD or struggle to accomplish long term goals. ADHD brains see everything as a priority and have trouble deciphering between what’s urgent and what can wait. So if you’re beating yourself up for focusing on the wrong thing, sure, you have to deal with the impact of that, but you can bring in some compassion as to, like, of course I focused on the wrong thing. I have ADHD and my brain does not prioritize properly. Right. Okay. ADHD brains are not good at self evaluation and we don’t easily learn from our past mistakes. If you feel like you’ve made the same mistake over and over and over and over, this is one of the most annoying facets of adhd. I believe, like, for me personally to make the same mistakes over and over, that’s one of the things that I have to be very careful not to beat myself up for. Yeah, that’s one for me for sure. ADHD brains have trouble starting and finishing tasks. Awesome. ADHD brains struggle to resist immediate pleasure in order to gain long term reward. We want to feel good now. Want to feel good now. If you’re beating yourself up for making a decision that really wasn’t in your long term best interest, bring some understanding and compassion to that because your brain literally will do almost anything to feel good right this second. And it doesn’t really care about the future because remember, time blindness, it’s like, what is future? It’s not really a thing. It doesn’t exist. Right. ADHD brains have trouble following directions and doing things in order. And we have trouble envisioning the future. That is called nonverbal working memory. We have a hard time seeing the future in our mind’s eye and like, really deciphering what we want and figuring it out and following through on it. Okay, after I’ve gone through that list, I’m curious how many of you would say that you are beating yourself up for mistakes that you’ve made that were due to your ADHD symptoms. A lot of people chiming in to say yes. Megan says, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Peony says, literally everything. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Everyone is like 100% yes. Okay. So I want to really, like, lean in here and say, my friend, if you are beating yourself up, holding yourself like hostage because of something that you regret doing, something that you are not proud of, something that you feel shame for that was directly related to an ADHD symptom, it is my opinion that you have the responsibility to give yourself compassion and grace and understanding and empathy and let yourself off the effing hook. It’s your responsibility. Nobody’s going to do that for you. It’s your responsibility to understand your ADHD and to have compassion for yourself. When you mess up due to your adhd, does it mean that we don’t deal with the impact or the consequences of our decisions? No, that’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is the constant berating of self because of our ADHD symptoms is only going to keep us stuck, make those symptoms worse, and keep us from moving forward into a future. Future that is, like, free. Who. How many of you think that you need to beat yourself up for your past mistakes so that you don’t repeat them? This is sneaky, but I think your brain probably does this. I need to beat myself up for this so that I don’t repeat it. So if I just continue to remind myself, remember when you did that thing? Remember when you did that thing. Don’t do it again. Don’t do it again. Don’t be so stupid again. Remember, remember, remember. How many of you think that, like, oh, no, this judgment and shame is actually useful? It’s actually going to keep me from making the same mistake over and over. Yeah. Who just said that? Jake said, like, if I punish myself, I’ll learn my lesson. Okay, here’s a question that I want all of you to answer. How’s it working out for you? How’s it working out? Is it working? Is it? Andrew says, great, I’m a millionaire now. Oh, my gosh, it’s so good. Yeah, not at all. Not great. So far the results have been unsatisfactory. Taylor says, I can see how it’s in my way. Ricky says, not so hot. Yeah, that’s the thing, is that our brains are. Are. They’re just a little confused. They think I’ve got to keep this mistake front of mind so that I don’t repeat it. Here’s the insidious little secret there. Because the mistake is front of mind, you likely will repeat it. You likely do repeat it. Then you just have more fodder for your shame party. I don’t even know if that sentence made sense. I’ve never put those words together in a sentence before. That felt very awkward in my mouth. So funny. Okay, so I really do want you to see that your brain wants to keep your mistakes top of mind, because it’s really like trying to remind you not to do the thing again, when really what that’s going to lead to is doing the thing again or at least stunting any other growth. Right. Dora says, now I feel really bad about not pardoning myself. Guys, you’re not allowed to use this work against yourselves. I do not consent to you using my words to make yourself feel badly. I do not consent. You’re not allowed to do that. Okay, not allowed. Kristin Carter does not consent. So do not use the work here in Focused against yourself as more fuel for the fire to beat yourself up. That’s just a brain that is so convinced that you need to be beat up that it will use literally anything to beat yourself up. And so that is what needs to be really seen and addressed here. Like, if you want to use these words as fuel for beating yourself up, you need to recognize that your brain is just so fixated on beating you up, and there needs to be a boundary where you draw a line in the sand with yourself and you’re like, absolutely no more. I’m going to be kind. And every time a shameful, berating, judgmental thought comes into your brain, you capture it and you redirect it, like a toddler. Oh, we’re all done with that. We’re not thinking that anymore. Let’s move on. Oh, nope, sorry. Not going to use this work against myself. Not even going to let this go through my brain. It’s just going right out the door. Okay, okay. So how do we forgive ourselves for our past mistakes? That’s the answer that we’re all looking for, right? Like, okay, I get what you’re saying, Kristin Carter, but, like, how so the first thing that I suggested was, like, really seeing your mistake through the lens of. Was this an outworking of my ADHD symptoms? Was this something. Did this have something to do with my ADHD symptoms? It doesn’t take away all of the sting, but it can allow you to bring in some compassion. A lot of the things that I would beat myself up for were due to trauma. And so once I started to unpack my past trauma, relationship with family of origin, like, all of that stuff, I just had so much compassion for myself. Like, no wonder why I was such a weirdo when I was planning my wedding. No wonder. No wonder. Like, so many things were not in Place for the wedding party and all of the things. Like, no wonder it makes so much sense. And now instead of looking at that, you know, couple weeks of wedding festivities through the lens of judgment, I just see, like, this. So much compassion. I just see through the lens of so much compassion. Another really important aspect here is to consider whether or not you are worthy of forgiveness. I want to ask you that question. Are you worthy of forgiveness? Let me ask you this question. Do human beings deserve forgiveness? Yeah. So if we bring it out to a wider view and we say, do humans deserve forgiveness? Most people would say, yeah, probably. But then when we narrow in and we say, do you deserve forgiveness? A lot of you are responding with, like, I’m not so sure. So this is really something to consider cognitively. Like, logically, I would like you to. To really think through, like, as a general rule, do human beings deserve forgiveness? And then, like, am I a human being? Okay, I guess I deserve forgiven, right? Somebody said, I only deserve forgiveness after punishment. Ouch. And then punishment is really subjective, right? Because, like, how much beating up do I have to do of myself in order for it to count as enough punishment for me to be able to forgive myself? Here’s, here’s where I want to go back to. Is the judgment useful? Is the judgment useful? I want you to really sit with that for a second. When you beat yourself up, when you judge yourself, is it useful? Does it give you a result? How do we know if something is useful? We look at the result. Does it give you a result that you like? So, for example, I got married when I was a wee, tiny little fetus of 23 years old, which, you know, Dr. Russell Barkley has done research, and he says that ADHD brains are about 30% behind developmentally. So I got married at 23, and I was, like, operating as a teenager developmentally in my brain, okay? And, like, that checks out with my actions. And no one was able to figure out how to plan a wedding. And after I got married, I would lay in bed every night and beat myself up for the way the wedding went every night. So, like, go to bed. It was like, get out the bat. It is time for a beat down. And I would just lay there and I would remember all of the details and be like, so filled with shame, so filled with judgment. I can’t believe I did it. Oh, it’s so terrible. Was that useful? No, it did not give me any net positive results. I didn’t get to a point where I was like, and now I’ve done enough Punishing of myself, and I can move on with dignity. I didn’t ever get to that point. I had to just be like, yo, Kristen, we’re not doing this anymore. This is not useful. No mas. And it was literally just a boundary that I had to set with myself where I was like, I will not beat myself up for this anymore. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can do about it now. Sometimes, like last week on Wednesday, I hosted a webinar for non focused members. I did everything I could do in advance to prepare, but there were some mistakes that were made. And instead of 1500 people coming to the webinar, 200 people came. And I was so, like, in my head about it. I was like, what’s going on? I don’t know what’s happening? And I. I don’t think I, like, performed amazingly on the webinar because I was so in my head about it. And so because I was feeling like, oh, gosh, like I was judging my past self and being like, that wasn’t great. I was able then to take that judgment and say, okay, what do I want to do differently next time if this happens again? What’s the plan? What do I want to do differently? That was useful, but continuing to beat myself up, that’s so embarrassing. I can’t believe you did that, Kristen. Oh, my gosh. So many mistakes were made. Blah, blah, blah. That will lead me to never doing a webinar again. Yeah. Does anybody understand? So I want you to imagine an event that you are like, what’s one thing? And you can share it or not, but like, what’s one thing that you are holding on to that you are beating yourself up for? Yeah. Dylan says I beat myself right out of success. Yeah. Yeah. What is one thing that you beat yourself up for? My failed marriage. Marrying the wrong person. I embarrassed myself at work. Failing as a business owner, not being the employee my boss wanted and I wanted to be. Not being more productive. Oh, it’s a good one. I constantly think things like, you did this successfully before. Why can’t you do it now? Oh, that made me shudder. Not taking enough action, not being able to go to my kids performances during the day because I’m a working mom. Stupid things I’ve said or done in social situations. I’m not as successful as I think I ought to be. Here’s something interesting that I’m noticing about this. I’m just gonna, like, we’re just gonna get a little coachy with this because what I’m Noticing is that there are some things here to be grieved. There are some things here to feel sad about. So for example, who said, okay, here it is. So Lauren says, not being able to go to my kids performances during the day because I’m a working mom. Okay, is that something that probably makes sense to feel sad about? Like, for Lauren? Does it make sense to, like, be disappointed and sad and shed a tear over that? I mean, I think it would, right? For sure. Like, that’s sad. But does it make sense to judge yourself and beat yourself up for it? That’s a whole different thing, right? A failed marriage. Is a failed marriage something that we will want to grieve and feel, feel sad about? Is that something that we want to allow some grief with? Yeah, for sure. Is it something, though, that we need to shame ourselves, judge ourselves, and beat ourselves up for? Do you see how instead of just being sad, instead we’re just like punching ourselves in the face while we’re already down? Right. You see that maybe feeling sad just feels really terrible. Right. And so maybe it actually feels better to us and more familiar to just beat ourselves up instead of just letting ourselves be sad about some stuff. For me, I didn’t have the wedding that I wanted. There’s grief there. Like, dang, that sucks. Do I need to beat myself up, judge myself, hold myself down, Punch, punch, punch, punch myself for that? No. Okay. How many of you are resonating with this where you would say, like, yeah, actually grief or sadness is, is kind of a more appropriate emotion here for me. Susan says, moi. I’m not saying it’s everyone, but I’m just wondering if that’s something that resonates where it’s like, yeah, maybe I am just like really sad. A lot of you are saying that it resonates. Kate says, I never thought that I didn’t want to feel sad. It’s easier to be mad at myself. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. Okay, I’m just going to take a quick break and answer some questions because I want to make sure that I get to this. Oh, Julie makes such a good point. And it’s so true. Feeling mad, it feels like a more empowering emotion, like a more powerful stance than feeling sad. I want you to think that through feeling mad does feel or like judgy feels more empowering. It feels more powerful. It feels bigger. Like I can make myself bigger if I’m mad, rather than just like the feeling of grief and sadness. Right. That’s a more raw core, underlying emotion. And so I wonder if all of the judgment that we have for ourselves is really just covering up grief that things didn’t work out the way that we wanted them to work out. I did not plan for this class to go in this direction, which is why I love group coaching so much because it’s such a collaborative process. I’m going to answer some questions. Okay. Oh, Jessica asks an interesting question. Is there a tactic to use to catch yourself in the negative self talk or the beating yourself up up cycle? I’m not really noticing. I’m doing it until later when I feel like crap and I’m buffering. I try to focus on feelings, but I don’t notice until it’s too late. So relatable. Here’s what I want to say about the work that we do together, Jessica, is first, you’re not going to have the self awareness in the moment. You’ll have it afterward. Just like you’re saying. So if you are noticing after the fact, like, oh, shoot, I just did like the shame and the beating myself up thing. If you’re noticing it after the fact, that’s perfect. That’s correct. You’re doing it right. The question is, what do you do when you notice it? Okay, so what I would really encourage you to do is to go back to the beating yourself up observing, like, oof, what was I saying? How did it make me feel? But what’s the truth here? How can I add in some compassion? How can I give myself grace for all of this and kind of reverse engineer it? Ok. And I want you to coach yourself on what triggered the beating up. Why did I kind of like wallow in it and spiral in it? What was going on in the moment? If you can really like unpack that and gain awareness around it, then you will become aware of it sooner and sooner and sooner every time. So if you all are noticing, whether it’s working on pardoning yourself or whatever skill you might be working on, if you’re noticing like, dang, I don’t. I’m not aware of it until after the fact. That’s actually great. That’s good. That’s where we start. We start noticing it after the fact. Then we kind of reverse engineer, like, what was I doing? What was I thinking? What was I feeling? Okay. How would I want to do it differently next time? And we just kind of spend time reverse engineering. I’ll say it 20 more times. Sorry. Oh, okay. Oh, this is hard. Okay, so Tanya and a lot of you have mentioned this. I haven’t really responded to it, but I have Noticed a lot of you saying, like, other people are beating me up. Some of y’ all need new people. So that’s true. But what do we do when someone that we don’t want to, like, move on from is shackled to our past? What do we do? If you have access to my work on relationships, I would highly recommend that you do some work around relationships. Because in that course, which is available to anybody in Tier two, which is, like, after four months, it’s really important to notice when somebody is safe or unsafe, whether they’re kind or unkind. And then what we want to do once, we kind of, like, notice that. And so there might be some boundaries that you want to set, Tanya, Might be a conversation that sounds like this. I know that that was very upsetting to you, and I’ve apologized for it 12 times. I do not want you to bring it up to me again because it feels really bad in my body when you do. Please do not mention that mistake again. Okay. That’s an example of a verbal boundary that we set with somebody who is trying to beat us up. Now, of course, that requires you first, like, dealing with the impact of it. I’m assuming you’ve already, like, apologized for it and dealt with it. And then some people just want to kind of bring it back and remind us of the things over and over and over. I like to hold up a hand. I love you so much. We have already had this conversation, and I’m not willing to have it with you again. People really don’t like boundaries. I set a very clear boundary with people that I love this week, and it did not go well. People really benefit from us not having boundaries. Okay, I want to talk about relationships right now, but that’s not the point of this conversation. Let us move on. Yes. I love this. Can prolonged buffering just to define this term? Buffering is anything that we’re doing to avoid a negative emotion. So it can often look like overeating, over drinking, over. Porning, over. Netflixing, over. It’s usually connected to the word over. It’s trying to escape. Yeah. Over video gaming, whatever the case may be. Can prolonged buff buffering be a form of punishment since we’re not allowing ourselves to move on? Yes. It’s one of the ways that we sabotage our own success. And we keep ourselves stuck by buffering. Instead of just feeling the feelings like, this is really sad. This is really hard. I really don’t enjoy this. This is really terrible. And so buffering is an effort to keep ourselves away from that negative Emotion. But then it can event just become like this cycle of self sabotage, really. Okay. Oh, this is interesting. Okay. So Danny says, I often find myself punishing myself as a subconscious way to show other people involved that I recognize that I did something wrong and that I regret it and I won’t do it again. I realize that punishing myself isn’t helpful to me. I recognize the problem, but I’m not sure of what to do next to make myself feel better. Okay. So I first want to ask, why do you feel the need to tell other people, I recognize what I did, I regret it, and I won’t do it again. Why do you feel the need to do it in this, like, backhanded way that’s like, I need to put myself down so that you know that I know that I was a complete jerk, and I won’t do that again instead of just saying, hey, I was a jerk. I’m not going to do this again. Wow, you guys are really relating to this. Ronnie says, it’s kind of like laughing at yourself before others do. Oh, this is interesting. Susan says, I beat myself up to others, but I do it because I’m hoping that they will tell me that it’s okay. Like, no, no, you’re okay. Yeah. Okay. So I really want to communicate that it’s your job first to decide if you’re okay or not. That’s an inside job. We often want to put it on other people, and we put our okayness out there into the world, and we’re like, somebody else, tell me whether or not I’m okay. And so we go looking for validation. We go looking for worthiness. We go looking for forgiveness. But that is an inside job. Yeah. And it’s exhausting, says Gentry. 100%. It’s also the long way around. And it often doesn’t work because a lot of you have already said this. Even if someone else forgives you, you don’t forgive yourself. So it really doesn’t even work. Right. The key here is to look at that mistake and to hold it in the palm of your hand and to say, was this intentional? Yes or no? If it was intentional, what. What do I want to think and feel about this? It’s like, I messed up and it was intentional. Like, I chose it on purpose. Now what? Look at that mistake and say, was it intentional? No, it wasn’t intentional. Okay. Now what do I do with it? Look at that mistake, like, literally. I want you to, like, hold it as a thing. I want you to be like, was this related to My ADHD symptoms? If so, okay. Can I bring in some compassion, some gentleness, some understanding, some empathy? Another way to look at it is if someone I love, like, think of somebody that you absolutely adore. Kristen Carter. Let’s just say Kristen Carter made this mistake. How would I act? I beat her up for it. I tell her, you’re so stupid. I can’t believe you did that. You’re such a jerk. I always do that. If Kristen Carter did this, how would I treat her? And then why would I treat myself any differently than I would treat someone that I’ve never even met in real life? Why would I be nicer to her? And I would be to myself when I’m with myself all the time? Another question to ask yourself was, was I doing my best? I really like to ask myself that question. So, like on Wednesday with the webinar, was I doing my best? Yeah. Was my best good enough? No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t good enough, but it was still my best. Literally the best I could do. I worked hard. So Emily asked previously, what does self compassion look like? That’s what it looks like. It looks like capturing each thought that is just attacking you and holding it in your hand and being like, yo, it’s not okay. We’re not going to focus on that. I want you to think about an airport. I want you to think about planes kind of like coming and going from the airport. I want you to think about an air traffic controller. Everybody, like, can you picture it? Picture an airport, like very busy international airport. And I want you to picture the air traffic control tower, okay? And I want you to think about the thoughts that kind of fly through our heads. I want you to think of our thoughts as those airplanes that are just kind of like some are just flying by, some are landing, some are taking off. And your executive brain, your watcher, your self control system is the air traffic control tower. And you’re noticing what’s passing by. And so you might notice some judgment thoughts. You’re so stupid. I can’t believe you did that. I was so done. You might notice some. Some judgment thoughts, but I want you to wave those thoughts by, like, like plane flying past the airport. Like, nope, there’s no room for you right now. Nope, somebody else is in line. We’re not dealing with this right now. Right? It’s just like, let that thought pass. The only thoughts that we want to land are thoughts that are going to serve us, Thoughts that are going to serve our end result, thoughts that are going to give us an outcome that we want that will be helpful to us and to other people. Beating yourself up is never helpful to you or to anybody else. And so my goal, my prayer, my wish, my hope is that you can begin to look at the mistakes that you’ve held onto that you thought were useful to kind of remember and keep around and issue pardons. I pardon you for that. It’s in the past we’ve dealt with the impact of that. And you’re pardoned. All done. Let’s move on. ADHDers are not very good at boundaries. Kind of as a whole, we’re not great at it. But an internal boundary is a line that you set with yourself that say, nope, we’re not doing this, Kristen. We are not doing this. We are not going down this James bio right now. And you redirect to a different thought. You redirect, like, let’s go for a walk. You stand up and get a glass of water. Like, you just redirect your brain and make a decision not to beat yourself up. It’s work, y’. All. It’s work. It’s not like, you know, if it were easy, you would have done it a long time ago. Yeah, this is work. Are you willing to do the work to set yourself free from the past? It’s just like we need to make a conscious, collective decision to be done with beating ourselves up. We need to make a conscious, collective decision to unshackle ourselves for the mistakes that we’re ashamed of and to make better choices moving forward. Right. Okay, here’s a really important last question. Instead of shame or self loathing or self judgment, disappointment, how are you going to choose to feel about yourself today? Now, if you’re stuck in a shame spiral, it’s very hard to move that emotional needle all the way over to, like, love, elation, inspired. But can we move the emotional needle from self loathing to, like, acceptance? What if we just got to acceptance? Emily nailed it. She got there first. I love it. What if we. What if we just move that emotional needle just over a little bit from judgment to acceptance? What could change for you in your life if we move just a tiny, slight, slight, slight, slight bit to acceptance? Someone says it’s not easy to do. Yeah, of course it’s not. Who cares? Who cares? It’s so worth it because it’s not easy. Like, who cares? Parenting isn’t easy. We still do it. We still love it. Marriage isn’t easy. We still do it. Jobs aren’t easy. Working out isn’t easy. Like, none of it’s easy. It’s not easy. Like it will change everything. Yeah. Much better than being angry at myself all the time. Yes. Megan says we have ADHD and we’ve been living in this neurotypical world. We can do hard stuff. Totally. The important thing here is when you notice the self loathing and the beating yourself up, you figure out how to do the work of shifting into acceptance. And you might have one foot in self loathing and one foot in acceptance and you might teeter for months between the two. And then eventually you’ll spend, you know, a little bit more time. A little bit more time and the scale might balance where it’s like, oh, I’m equally self loathing and self accepting. That doesn’t suck. It’s better. And then the scale starts to tip a little and you’re like, oh my goodness, I’m barely beating myself up anymore. And once in a while, of course, we hop back into that self loathing, self judgment, berating, shame spiral. But it’s not. It’s not the familiar state of being. It’s not our set point. For those of you who have heard my work on set point, okay, go issue pardons to your past self. Give yourself so much compassion and love. Decide to accept yourself. That is an action. Acceptance is an action and it’s also a result. Right? We want acceptance to just happen to us. No, this is a choice. It’s an action that we take over and over. Go be great. I adore you. I adore you. Okay, talk soon. Bye. Hey, Adhder. I see you. I know exactly what it’s like to feel lost, confused, frustrated, and like no one out there really understands the way that your brain works. That’s why I created Focused. Focused is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself, feeling better, and creating the life that you know you’re meant for. You’ll study, be coached, grow, and make amazing changes. Changes. Alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more.
