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’re listening to the I have ADHD Podcast, episode number 198. I am medicated. I’m caffeinated. And I am ready to roll. How are you? How are you today? So good to be here with you. I am really glad that you press play on this podcast. I know you’re busy. I know there are literally millions of podcasts that you could be listening to. But you decided to take a chance on this one. And I promise to do my best to make it worth your time and attention. We’re in the middle of a series on executive functions. And today we’re talking about emotional regulation.

As we get started, I want to clarify why we’re even bothering to talk about executive functions for so many weeks in a row. As an adult with ADHD, your executive functions are impaired. It’s a huge part of having this disorder. You need to know that right off the bat. Yes, you struggled to focus but ADHD is so so so much more than an inability to focus. ADHD is a disorder of self regulation, we struggle to focus. Sure, but listen, we struggled to focus because our executive functioning skills are deficient, and we can’t regulate ourselves properly. So our focus goes everywhere, our attention goes everywhere. Let me say that again. Because I think it’s really important. And I want to make sure that you hear it, we struggled to focus because our executive functions are deficient and we can’t regulate ourselves. We can’t regulate our attention and keep our attention on the right thing for the right amount of time. We can’t regulate our behavior and make ourselves and our bodies do what the heck they’re supposed to do. And we can’t regulate our emotions which and this might surprise you directly impacts how productive we’re able to be. So executive functions matter a whole lot, which is why we’re dedicating a lot of time to it. The best part about executive functions, though, is that they can improve over time. So yes, you it each deer have sucky executive functioning skills.

However, they can be improved. But the first step to improving anything is just like knowing what the problem is, right. And so that’s what we’re talking about in this series. Now, executive functions are the brains management system that work together to help us accomplish tasks and pursue goals. Each individual executive function matters, and they don’t work in isolation. They all work together to help you be an adult, and get dishes done. Okay, there are six executive functions, self awareness, inhibition, working memory, emotional regulation, self motivation, and planning and prioritizing. Each of our executive functions is impaired. But remember, it’s on a spectrum. So you may have a few executive functions that work pretty well. And then a few that are working at a huge deficit, it’s going to vary, it’s going to be different for all of you. But what we do know is that all adults with ADHD struggle with executive functioning across the board, it’s a thing for all of us. It’s a hall mark of ADHD.

We’ve already discussed working memory and inhibition. And today we’re going to talk about emotional regulation. This is a little known aspect of ADHD that in my opinion, has probably the biggest effect on us. I spend so much time coaching adults with ADHD, on their emotions in my coaching program. It is a huge, huge, huge thing. adults with ADHD struggle to regulate their emotions. And that’s a really boring phrase.

So before you tune out and die of boredom, just give me like three minutes to hook you in because I’m telling you, this is everything. Now it’s widely known in human psychology that emotions drive our actions. But when I say quote, unquote, widely known, what I mean is, the experts know it, but I had no idea it was a thing until like five years ago. Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t I know that emotions have an effect on what we do that the way that we feel leads us to take Like action, whether action that serves us or action that doesn’t serve us. Raise your hand if you feel like you are always stuck taking action that doesn’t serve you, my friend. The problem is an emotion. Like, oh my goodness, I’m so loud right now, I hope that you can, I hope you can handle it. I’m getting really fired up. And as I was making notes for this episode, I was realizing that like, I’m going to have to work pretty hard to regulate my own emotions as I record this episode for you. Because it just makes me so upset that we we’re not talking about this, that we’re not taught this in school that we’re not told this at diagnosis, like why don’t we know that emotions are everything? Why aren’t we told that when we take action, that isn’t what we want to do. So like, maybe we’re watching Netflix, instead of doing the thing we want to do. The reason for it isn’t that we’re lazy or stupid or dumb. The reason for it is that we feel horrible, and we don’t know how to regulate our emotion and get into a better feeling emotion.

Okay, I’m just gonna, like stop my tangent and get back to my notes. Your emotions drive your actions. You take action from your emotion, I take action from my emotion. And developmentally typical humans are able to soothe and regulate their emotions, so that they can take action that serves them, so that they can take action that moves them toward their goal, so that they can take action that allows them to keep their job.

Okay, and here’s where ADHD comes in. People with ADHD are deficient in the skill of emotional regulation, our brains didn’t develop properly in this area, and this skill is impaired. Now, there are several parts of the brain involved here. But the main one we’re going to focus on is the amygdala. The primary job of the amygdala is to regulate emotions. Okay, that’s the primary job that’s your job amygdala, regulate my emotions.

However, one study that I will link in the show notes found that in the brains of people with ADHD, the amygdala is literally smaller than those in the control group. And as per usual, of course, more research needs to be done. But what we do know is the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex in someone with ADHD, they’re supposed to work together to regulate emotions and to make good decisions. But in ADHD brains, they don’t. Okay, so we can pretty much blame the amygdala, it’s also something with the prefrontal cortex, we know they’re supposed to work together, the connection is a little bit frayed. All right. And so here’s what that means when you get fired up, and you will, obviously, you have a hard time calming yourself down. And since we take action from our emotions, maybe you say something that you wish you didn’t say, or maybe you do something that you wish you didn’t do. When you’re activated, you don’t naturally D activate the way that a neurotypical person would. So let’s make it super relatable.

Have you ever yelled at your boss, and then wish that you hadn’t? Have you ever fired off a Facebook rant and then felt embarrassed about it the next day? Like, oh, my gosh, what was I thinking? Have you ever gotten so excited about an expensive item and press Complete purchase, but forgetting to take into consideration how much debt you’re already in that you’ve just let the excitement be in the driver’s seat? I know I’ve done that. Have you ever had a fight with your partner in the morning, and then you’ve gone to work and not been able to get a single thing done because your entire body is still reeling from the fight and all you can do is think about the fight, talk about the fight ruminate on the fight all day long. It’s like you might as well not even go to work that day. Or have you ever had a tiff with your kid like in the evening, and then not been able to sleep at all because your body is so fired up and just simply will not calm down? Like is any of this relatable to you at all? Okay, this my friend, is because you struggle to regulate your emotions. And since you may not have even known that emotions were a thing that you needed to pay attention to. You’ve been powerless to change anything. And this is what I mean when I say it gets so angry that the adult ADHD community at large really has no idea what it truly means to live with this disorder.

Don’t misunderstand me I’m not mad at people with ADHD. I’m upset with how little information our clinicians give us at diagnosis. My goodness, why don’t we talk about this when we’re diagnosed? Hey, Since you are just diagnosed with ADHD, what that means is you’re going to struggle to regulate your emotions. And here are some resources for you on learning how to do that properly. Would that be so hard? I have this idea, I shouldn’t even talk about it.

But I have this idea. And listen, if one of you wants to like, preemptively do it before me, please do, I hope you do someone steal this idea, and do it. I want to partner with a well known psychologist, and I want to create an adult ADHD information packet or pamphlet that’s handed out to every single adult with ADHD upon their diagnosis. That means that the clinician does not have to be an expert necessarily in ADHD, but they can give the new diagnosi their information packet. And it’s just like, very simple. Here are the things you need to look out for. Here’s what you need to know about the disorder.

Here are some resources for you. Here’s some books for you. Here are some free things for you to be able to get to know what it truly means to have ADHD. Can someone please do that? Can one of you please Can one of you please do that just call a psychologist and work with them to get it done? I want to do until but like, I got other stuff on my list. You know what I’m saying? Okay, let me move on. Let me move on. Every single ADHD or who has the privilege of being diagnosed should be told this information upon diagnosis, but most are not. And I certainly wasn’t. So this is the part where I have to work on regulating my own emotions, so that I can get back to finishing this episode.

Alright, let’s review. Let’s let’s do a review ski. All right. Executive functions are the brain’s management system that work together to help us accomplish tasks and pursue goals. So if you’re someone who has ADHD and you are beating yourself up, because you are not accomplishing tasks, and you are not pursuing goals, I want to let you know that it’s because of your deficient executive functions. So if you can learn about them, and begin to improve them, then you will be able to accomplish the tasks and pursue the goals. Okay, continue to continue.

Now, emotional regulation is one of those executive functions. And because you have ADHD, you will likely struggle to regulate your emotions, this will always result in you taking action that you’re not proud of. Even if it’s a really, really amazingly good emotion, you’re usually going to take action that you’re not super proud of. Because all right, and this is an interesting part. Remember how I said earlier that each individual executive function is impaired, but they don’t work in isolation. They work together like like all of the managers in a company working together to complete a task and get the job done for the company.

Okay, so let’s just take two of the executive functions that we’ve studied so far, emotional regulation that we’re talking about today, and inhibition that we talked about last week. Now, just a reminder, inhibition allows you to control your automatic urges. Do you see how we’re kind of set up for failure here? Because we struggle to regulate our emotions. And we struggle to control our automatic urges. We don’t have a pause button. We don’t have to stop and think moment. And so when our emotions explode inside of us, nine times out of 10, we’re going to take action, that’s a little bit embarrassing, because we cannot inhibit our behavior. Because we struggle with inhibition. So your emotions get really fired up because your amygdala doesn’t work properly. And then you can’t inhibit your behavior. And what happens? The combination? I know you already know, it’s explosive. You’ve lived it. I know you’ve lived it for decades. I know that, you know, different listeners may experience this at different levels. But all of us struggle with this to some degree. Deep breaths.

It’s so ironic that I’m getting so fired up in an episode about emotional regulation. It’s it’s adorable, it is par for the course. Okay, what can be done? Oh, and gee, this is an issue. What what are we going to do about it? In my opinion, regulating your emotions is a skill set. Made up of the following three things, just three things. Knowing what you’re feeling and why. Knowing what to do with what you’re feeling, and knowing how to shift into an emotion that feels better. Okay, that’s that’s what it is. So listen, I’m going to read those things again. In order to read you Let your emotions you need to know what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. You need to know what to do with what you’re feeling. And you need to know how to shift into an emotion that feels better.

I have an entire course on emotional regulation in my coaching program focused. And after you’ve completed three months in the program, you automatically get this course, it is a bunch of classes and an amazing workbook on learning how to regulate your emotions, it’s really an important skill. So I highly, highly recommend that you if you are someone who has access to therapy, that you work with a trauma informed therapist, to learn how to regulate your emotions. If you are loving what I’m saying and resonating with my approach, come join focus.

And after your third month, you’re going to get this course, I just want to say the reason why we do it after three months is because the first three months are all about triaging, and kind of plugging up all of the gaping wounds that an adult with ADHD experiences. And so finally, after three months, we find that they’re ready to receive the emotional, the deep, like emotional course. And if you don’t have access to therapy, if focus is not something that you’re able to afford, I would do some major Googling, on how to process emotions.

I would look up YouTube videos, I would follow anybody that you can on Instagram, who is going to lead you through an emotional regulation practice, okay, but I promise you this is a skill that must be developed if you want to be in charge of yourself. Not being able to regulate your emotions is not being able to be in charge of yourself, because you are so distracted by your your intense emotions, and you are unable to inhibit your actions once you are fired up. And so you really don’t have the self efficacy to be able to navigate being in charge of yourself.

Okay. And so I’m getting back to the original point, regulating your emotions is a skill set of three things, knowing what you’re feeling, knowing what to do with what you’re feeling, and knowing how to shift into a better feeling emotion. Developing what I like to call emotional literacy is probably the first step to gaining authority over your emotions. So many people that I work with, struggled to identify, understand and describe what they’re feeling. So many people with ADHD have a very, very low emotional literacy, like, unable to decipher between their emotions, and maybe can identify like angry or frustrated, but really struggle with the nuance and language of emotion. And this leaves us in a really powerless position because we’re just not quite sure what we’re feeling, or how to proceed and how to shift into something better so that we can take action that leads us to our goals. So the first thing we need to do is develop an emotional literacy.

I love the book, Atlas of the heart by Brene. Brown if you are someone who doesn’t really understand emotions, and doesn’t really have a vocabulary or a language for emotions, that book Atlas of the heart by Brene, brown, fantastic guide for naming and understanding your emotions. Next, we need to know what to do with our emotions. So we’re feeling something but we don’t know what to do about it, which can get us in a lot of trouble. So here’s kind of typically, when we’re unaware what we do resist our emotions, we push them down or push them away. Kind of like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. It’s hard. It’s awkward. It doesn’t look cute. You know, I’m saying we try to distract ourselves with other things. But the emotion just like that beach ball keeps popping up.

So we try to watch TV or drink or smoke or porn or scroll or buffer in some way to make the emotion go away. We’re just trying to feel better and we don’t want to feel what we’re feeling. Resisting emotion is a major catalyst for procrastination, y’all. So if you are procrastinating, it’s because you’re resisting feeling something probably fear or shame. Here’s the thing, your emotions are going to keep bugging you until you’re willing to feel them. So you might as well just give it a try. Another thing that we do and this is probably relatable to most of you is that we react when we’re feeling something big. We’re not sure what we’re feeling or why. And we don’t know what to do with it.

Like what do I do with this emotion? We react? We haven’t learned to allow our biggest emotions to be in our bodies. So we react strongly when when we feel something big and, and this is in an effort to get that big uncomfortable feeling out of our body, we want to throw it at someone else. So this can look like yelling or hitting or kicking a wall, or throwing something or screaming at the top of our lungs or writing a nasty email. Okay, we’re trying to solve for that big yucky feeling inside of us by throwing it out on to someone or something else. Now, sometimes we bypass our emotions, which is like toxic positivity.

Where, okay, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. With the rise of like Tiktok coaches and fluffy self development stuff, we’re often prompted to bypass our emotions, good vibes only, right? So these so called Teachers, try to get us to shift into happy feelings before we’ve spent any time at all processing what’s really going on. So it’s like your negative vibe, like your negative emotion is like so not welcome here. It’s like such a drag. And what we end up doing is gaslighting ourselves into thinking that we’re fine, you’re fine, just keep going, you’re fine. And we try to move on before we’re ready to. Okay. relatable,

relatable or no? Okay. So when we don’t know what to do with our emotions, and we’re kind of unconscious, and we are not self aware, yet, we’re usually resisting, reacting or trying to bypass them. So let me give you a better solution. Okay? Remember, regulating your emotion is a skill set made up of three things, knowing what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. And this is where you develop an emotional literacy so that you can identify what you’re feeling. And number two, knowing what to do with what you’re feeling. And that’s what we’re talking about. Now. We know that when we are not self aware, we resist our emotions, we react to our emotions, and we try to bypass our emotions. Learning how to process and allow the big emotions that you experience will help you to regulate yourself and your behavior so that you’re not resisting or reacting to every emotion that you feel in your body.

Now, here’s the thing, the key is to actually let yourself feel emotion. And most of us just want to feel good all the time. And we think that that’s what it means to have a good life. But I promise you it’s not. That is not what it means to have a good life. What it means to have a good life is to feel the full spectrum of emotion, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but at least we’re letting ourselves feel and feeling your emotion requires getting out of your head and into your body. This is actually a brand new skill for most ADHD adults, right. So if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s no problem. I just, I really encourage you to keep digging in and learning more and more about emotions, and self soothing and regulating your emotions. Okay.

Now, the tool that I’ve found to be the most helpful and concise is called the surf tool. And this was developed by Dr. Sasha Hines who is a developmental psychologist. You can learn more about her at Dr. Sasha heinz.com. She is a colleague and a friend and a client and I adore her she’s extremely smart and someone that I have been learning from and that I appreciate so much in the coaching community. So the surf tool is an acronym, s u, r, F, and I’m going to tell you what each word stands for. And then we’re going to I’m going to kind of like take a little bit of time. So S is for stop. U is for unfold. R is for recede, and F is for find. So let’s go through each one just briefly. Stop. This is probably the hardest part, because we struggle with inhibition as we learned last week, right? Right. So stopping is actually very hard. But if you can notice that you’re feeling something big and just stop. You’ve already won.

Okay, you’ve already won. Seriously, if you can just stop this is a huge part of it. So when you stop, you recognize that you’re feeling something like oh, something’s happening. That feeling I want you to think of it as like an alarm bell Warning, warning, something is happening here. Okay? And instead of ignoring or reacting as per your usual, remember, you’re not a robot. You’re a human. This is the part where you remind yourself that Gaining authority over what’s happening for you emotionally is the key to taking action that you will be proud of a say that line again, because it’s frickin good. This is the part where you remind yourself that gaining authority over what’s happening for you emotionally, is the key to taking action that you will be proud of. Okay, so first you have to stop. And then you let the emotion unfold. So this is where you get out of your head and into your body. You let that big of motion kind of crash over you like a wave. You may even want to picture the ocean and the waves that might be helpful to you. If you’re like a visual person. There’s no writing here. There’s no thinking here, there is just saying it’s okay to feel this. It’s okay to feel this. Let’s say you’re feeling intense rage, it’s okay to feel this. It’s okay. Let’s say you’re feeling intense excitement. It’s okay to feel this. It’s okay. This is something for you to do in your body. There’s not really brain work other than telling yourself, it’s okay to feel this. You just want to take some deep breaths. And kind of if you can turn your gaze inward into your body and find that emotion. Where is it? What is it feel like? This is usually not a very pleasant experience. But with practice, I promise you, it’s not always so excruciating.

So if you can allow the emotion to get intense, but you’ve paused Remember, you’re not taking action you are in the action of processing and allowing that emotion. And you’re expanding maybe your chest and your abdomen and just all of the space around that emotion, you’re just opening it up, and allowing the emotion to exist within you allow that emotion to move through you. And eventually, we’re going to get to our which is recede. After a little while, usually a couple minutes, the intensity of the emotion will most likely recede. Want you to picture it like the wave that we talked about it crashed over you. And now it’s kind of being slowly sucked back from the shoreline. Now, another wave might come crashing over you at some point and that’s fine, you can go ahead and let it crash unfold over you until it recedes. Now, if the emotion doesn’t receive on its own, don’t panic, what I recommend doing is setting a timer so that you can just have a practice of processing your emotion, you can have a practice of allowing your emotion, but like dude, I know you’ve got a job. I know you got kids, I know you’ve got a life like you can’t just lay around and process your emotion all day, every day, I get that. So if you can just kind of set a timer like okay, I’m going to take 10 minutes, and I’m really going to feel this and then I need to get on with my day. Okay. And then once you’ve stopped, you’ve let the emotion unfolds, and you’ve allowed it to recede. The next thing you’re going to do is you’re going to find the name of the emotion. Now, maybe you already know maybe you’re like I know it’s rage, great. But it’s possible that emotion comes up for you that you don’t know how to identify, you don’t really know what you’re feeling, you just know you’re feeling something. And so once you’ve had a chance to allow it in your body and really process it, it’s a lot easier to now go find the name of the emotion, I like to use an emotion wheel. You can just Google it, it’s super easy to find, just like literally Google motion wheel. And so many of them will pop up. If I’m not sure what I was experiencing. That’s kind of one of the ways that I’ve been able to help myself figure it out. And also I’m just gonna plug Brene Brown’s book again, Atlas of the heart because it’s so helpful in describing emotions. And then you want to figure out why the emotions there. So you’re going to find the name of the emotion and you’re going to find out why is there Oh, I’m feeling rage. Because I’m thinking my bosses and aihole My boss shouldn’t have done that. Oh, I’m feeling shame because I’m thinking I’m a terrible mother. Of course that makes sense. All right. So you’ve stopped, you’ve let the emotion unfold within you the emotion has receded and then you found the name of the emotion and the thoughts causing it. So essentially, you’re a whole badass. You’re a whole badass who has authority over what’s happening inside of them. them. Now, what’s frustrating is that neuro typicals will usually go through this process pretty naturally. But for those of us with ADHD, we have to be taught, you’re going to have to teach yourself how to regulate your emotions. Or you can employ the help of a trauma informed therapist, or a trauma informed coach like myself, okay? It’s really, really important that you understand that this is one of the most important skills in managing your ADHD, be medically treated for your ADHD, if that is accessible to you, and to learn about your executive functions, specifically your emotional regulation and how to do it. Remember, regulating your emotion is a skill set made up of three things, knowing what you’re feeling and why. So that’s developing an emotional vocabulary, knowing what to do with what you’re feeling, how do I process this, which is why we went over the surf tool. And then lastly, knowing how to shift into an emotion that feels better. So you’ve processed the emotion that you were feeling using the surf tool or some other tool. And now you’re ready to shift into an emotion that feels better. All of us want to feel better, even me. But I’m here to remind you that that’s not really the point of life. The point is to experience whatever is real and authentic and happening in your body and your brain, okay? To make space for it, and to observe it and feel it without judging it. So like, yeah, it would be great to be super happy all the time, I guess. But that’s not really the way that the world works, right. And when you are at that point where you want to shift into a better feeling emotion, I want to remind you not to invalidate what you’re feeling, that negative emotion is real. Whatever was coming up for you was valid. We’re not here to judge what you’re feeling or tell you that you shouldn’t be feeling it. We’re not here to avoid feeling badly or bypass your unpleasant emotions. We’re here to actually acknowledge what you’re feeling and hold some space for it. Give you some time to process it. All right. But all of that being said, after you’ve spent some time processing it and feeling it, you may want to shift into a better feeling emotion. This is the part where I just don’t think we have time on an episode. To do it, I’m going to try to be really concise. But this is a lot of information for one episode. So I’m gonna like distill it down to the main points. If you think about emotions, like fuel in a car’s gas tank, you are the car. What kind of fuel are you using? Right? So if overwhelm is your fuel, you’re going to spin out, if shame is your fuel, you’re going to hide. If dread is your fuel, you’re going to ruminate. If determination is your fuel, you’re going to figure out how to get it done. If acceptance is your fuel, you’re going to allow yourself to breathe. If guilt is your fuel, most of the time, you’re going to make things right. Okay. So identifying your emotions is a skill and processing your emotions is a skill and then shifting your emotion is also a skill that you can learn. It’s going to take some time, it’ll take you some practice, but I want you to pull a couple neutral ish emotions that maybe you could practice. So for me those emotions are acceptance, and willingness and determination. Most of the time, what I want to feel is excitement, and anticipation. But that is usually too far fetched, because when I’m feeling dread and overwhelm, shifting to excitement is just a fantasy. So if I can shift instead into acceptance, or willingness or determination, that will be a really big deal. So your job then is to download your thoughts on what would I need to think in order to feel determined? What would I need to think in order to feel acceptance? What would I need to think in order to feel willing? All right, and then practice shifting into those emotions. And what’s so cool about the surf tool is that you can use it to practice feeling neutral and good emotions to is not just for use on negative emotions. It’s also for use on neutral or positive emotions. And if you find that you struggle with this, if you find that it’s like a shifting is so hard First of all, again, plug to reach out for support. Okay, therapist coaching, some sort of like free YouTube series, something that will give you extra support. But also remember that you are a hybrid vehicle, you can shift between feeling terrible, and feeling okay? You can shift between those emotions throughout a day and still get your work done. Whew, this was a lot. I hope that it wasn’t too much. I’m having a little bit of self doubt here. But I’m just going to believe that it is going to be exactly what you needed to hear. Remember, executive functions are the brain’s management system that work together to help us accomplish tasks and pursue goals. emotional regulation is one of those executive functions and because you have ADHD, you probably struggled to regulate your emotions. Now, this is a problem because if you struggle to regulate your emotions, you will always take action that is a little bit iffy. But when you learn to regulate your emotions, then you can learn to take action that you are proud of. I adore you. I hope this was so helpful. I’m gonna talk to you next week. Bye bye. Hey, ADHD, er,

I see you. I know exactly what it’s like to feel lost, confused, frustrated and like no one out there really understand the way that your brain works. That’s why I created Focus. Focus is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself feeling better and creating the life that you know you’re meant for. You’ll study be coached, grow, and make amazing changes alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit I have adhd.com/focused to learn more