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 vibe that some of the energy drinks have. The peach tea and akai berry flavors are my current go to’s 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. 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From American Giant American Giant’s clothes work harder and are wearable season after season. Their greatest hoodie ever made is made of the highest quality materials that are cut and sewn right here in the United States so you’re investing right back into your local community. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for American manufacturing and hard working Americans. Something other megacorporations don’t care about. From fleece to knit, all in a range of colors for versatile daily wear. American Giant Delivers everyday pieces designed for everyday life. Feel the difference of quality made to last clothes from American Giant. Get 20% off your first order with code STAPLE20@ameran-giant.com that’s 20% off your first order at American with code STAPLE20. 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 are listening to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am ready to roll. I just through my phone across the room, literally through my phone across the room so that I could get rolling on this podcast. Like, oh my goodness, why is it so hard for me to just press record and start talking? I asked my brain or like asked myself about 30 minutes ago, what would I do if there was no drama? Like, if I literally was incapable about having drama around recording this podcast, what would I do? I’ll just do it. There would be no thoughts. There would be no resistance. There would be no I don’t want to. There would be no I’m vulnerable and I’m opening myself up to criticism and exposure. There would be no this takes too long. There would be nothing. I would just say, sit down, press record and start talking. So that is the mode that I am trying to get myself into today. What an interesting question, right? Like asking yourself, what would I do if there was no drama, no resistance, no thoughts or feelings about the task. Just doing the task. Mind blowing. I want to tell you something that happened this weekend and I hope it will be an example of what is possible for you when you totally screw up. So I had a meeting scheduled on Sunday afternoon. I know that’s really weird, but I was really looking forward to it. And it was like with 10 other people, people that I wanted to impress, if we’re being honest. People that I wanted to think that I was amazing. And I was so ready. I was so excited. I got my video and everything set up like an hour before because I was going to work in our bedroom since we live in a pretty small house. That is a thought. I know it. But for five people. I’m just saying our house is pretty small. So on a Sunday afternoon when Everybody’s home. I was like, I’ll just be in the bedroom and everybody else can, you know, be watching TV or running around, and it doesn’t matter at all. So I got it all set up. I was ready to go. I was literally just like, sitting there waiting. I log in three minutes before the scheduled time, and I log in. I, like, show up, you know, like, my video shows up and it is so obvious that they’ve been in the meeting forever. And, like, there’s nine of them. And I show up and in my brain I’m like, wait, I’m confused. Like, oh, there’s people here early. Like, that’s. Immediately my brain goes to like, clearly, I haven’t done anything wrong here, right? That’s. I don’t know. Some of you have the go to where you automatically think you’ve done something wrong. I have the go to where I automatically think other people are wrong. I think both of those scenarios are not ideal, right? Whichever one is your norm. But I’m of the type that just like, I just assume it’s someone else’s problem. So I’m like, oh, like, my goodness, why are they so early? That’s really weird. But it only takes me like a split second to realize like, no, no, this meeting’s been going on. So they’re like, hi, Kristen, how are you? And I was like, hi, am I super late? And they’re like, yeah, this started an hour ago. So I showed up and hour late. Not because I forgot about it, not because I couldn’t get on or like, something went wrong, but just because I did not do the time zone conversion properly. Even though I looked it up, I didn’t do it properly. How crazy. And of course, I had, like, immediate shame, immediate embarrassment, and also disappointment. Like, I really wanted to be on the call. I was really looking forward to this meeting. It was just a very interesting experience. So first of all, they were super kind and the instructor was like, it’s no problem. I’m going to end with everyone else and then I’ll stay on. I’ll tell you what you missed. So that was not a problem at all. I got what I needed to from the call. But the disappointment and the shame and embarrassment was what I had to deal with after. Right? Like when we hung up. And it was a really interesting experience because I knew that I had some options. I knew that I could beat myself up and spiral out. I knew it. Like, I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I know what it’s like. My brain’s like, I’m ready if you are. Like, we can go for it. But also I knew that I was just really feeling some feelings. Like I was really feeling shame. I was really feeling disappointed. And I just wanted to give myself an opportunity to feel those acute emotions. Those emotions that come from clean pain, right? The clean pain of showing up to something that you thought started at 4, that actually started at 3 and being kind of exposed and embarrassed there. I knew though that I’m an expert or my past self is an expert in dirty pain, which is like compounding the problem and beating myself up for it. So there’s the clean pain of like, oh my gosh, I’m an hour late, I can’t believe I did that. And the embarrassment and shame from that. But then there’s the dirty pain of like, you’re such an idiot, you can’t get anything right. How could you even call yourself an ADHD coach if you can’t show up to a freaking meeting on time? What is it going to take for you to be a grown up? What is it going to take for you to follow through and do things, you know, properly? I don’t know, you fill in the blank. So I knew that I had these two options available to me and I am so proud. I did not go down the dirty pain road. I just allowed myself to really feel disappointed. Like I really felt so disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to this meeting. I was like so ready. I was super prepared and you know, I totally missed it. And then I allowed myself to feel shame or embarrassment. It was really like embarrassment, I think, which is not a feeling that I often feel because I’m pretty open. I don’t mind people I don’t know, like laughing at me or like, it’s totally fine, I can be goofy and that kind of thing. But the embarrassment of like showing up so late and being totally clueless, that was real and just I really, really felt it. It was uncomfortable. I spent probably 25 minutes with those two emotions kind of flip flopping between disappointment and then embarrassment and disappointment and embarrassment. And once in a while shame would come up and shame was mostly created by the thought of like, I cannot believe I am a coach who can’t get to a meeting on time. Like that was shame. And I really just spent some time there, spent some time with disappointment, spent some time with embarrassment, spent some time with shame, Processed it like it is disappointing that I missed the meeting. However, I did get what I came for and yeah, I was able to move on in A pretty clean way. It took me about 20 to 30 minutes, and then I was pretty good after that. Maybe it took a whole hour, actually. But really, that could have derailed my whole week. Right. That could have distracted me from getting anything done the next day, and it didn’t. And I really am convinced it’s because I spent time allowing myself to feel it. So I want to encourage you, when you have those moments of clean pain, allow yourself to feel it. Get very clear with where the emotion is in your body. So I was feeling embarrassment, like a burning sensation in my chest, and it was the first time that I had ever really identified, like, a burning sensation with an emotion. But I am getting much more profound with my emotions, so I’m really excited about that. Those of you who, like, binge this podcast, and I know there’s so many of you, you reach out to me all the time and tell me that you binge it, you get a very fast progression in about 76 episodes. Right. Of someone who was completely emotionally illiterate, who was just like, yeah, I don’t really do the feelings thing to someone who is now becoming very proficient with her emotions, and that’s available to you too. So I just want to let you know that if you’re not someone who’s ever really understood emotions and how they feel in your body and how they affect your behavior, I invite you to begin that. Because, honestly, being able to process and allow the shame, embarrassment, disappointment, it made it so that I could continue to function the rest of the day. And now when I think back on it, it was about 24 hours ago. I’m not triggered. I’m not like, you know, all of those emotions don’t come back up for me. I’m just like, yep, that was a thing that happened because I really did process that emotion. So when I was in the middle of it, I kept asking myself, what would I tell my clients? If I was coaching a client on this, what would I tell them? How would I hold space for them? How would I help them process their emotions? And sometimes that would be help to think about, like, what would I tell my best friend? Or, what would I tell my spouse if this happened to them? Or what would I tell my kid? You know, would it be like, yeah, you’re an idiot. That totally shouldn’t have happened. It’s really dumb that you let that happen. Like, no, you wouldn’t. You would be like, it’s okay. You’re allowed to be upset about that, but you don’t have to let it Ruin you. So I want you to begin to treat yourself the way that you would treat someone that you love. All right, so today we’re going to be talking about your memory. And spoiler alert, your memory sucks. If you have adhd, your memory sucks. So that is like the biggest point that I want to communicate today. If you have adhd, your memory cannot be trusted. Okay? It’s really important that you know that. Now there’s different types of memory. So there’s long term memory, short term memory, working memory, visual memory, auditory memory, like comprehension, all types of memory, okay? So I want to say that different types of memory are going to affect you in different ways. It is likely that your long term memory is intact, right? So you can remember when your parents took you to Disney World when you were a kid and you rode the teacups or the Dumbo ride, right? Like that’s something that you can remember. Or you can remember when your first child was born, or you can remember your wedding day. Like those types of big events, it’s not like they’re not available to you in your memory. However, I will say that my memory of my childhood is very limited. And I believe that this is because of ADHD and, and my inability to visualize when I was a kid and a teen and a college student. So I do want you to know that it’s not like you can’t remember anything. Okay. But it is that your working memory specifically is going to be very deficient. Your working memory is the type of memory that allows you to keep something in your mind long enough to complete the task. Okay. And that type of memory, real bad, no bueno, not good at all. Also, your visual memory, which I know, I talked about recently on a podcast, your visual memory is likely very deficient as well. So working memory and Visual memory are two types of memory that are 100% affected by your ADHD. Remember, because you have ADHD, your frontal lobe is underdeveloped and it is deficient in many areas. And this means that your executive functions are not great. Wow, that was a profound way of saying it. You are so lucky to be listening to this podcast, aren’t you? Okay. Anyway, so executive functioning, not so good. So your working memory is one of your executive functions, and your working memory allows you to hold. Hold something in your mind long enough to complete it. I thought it would be fun to do a little research and look up some scholarly articles on this. I found this from the NCBI website. It’s the US National Library of Medicine. So in speaking of your executive functions. This article says the central executive is responsible for controlled processing and working memory, including, but not limited to directing attention, but maintaining task goals, decision making, and memory retrieval. So it has been researched and shown that your memory, which is controlled by your executive functioning ability, is deficient. And your ability to complete tasks and maintain your attention long enough to get it done is going to be very deficient. So this is what it means for you, my friend. You must externalize everything. You cannot trust your brain to hold the information. You cannot rely on your brain to be a storage locker for your memories, for the things that you want to do for your tasks, for your dreams, for your goals, for your vision, for your schedule, for anything that you want to complete. Your brain is not going to follow through and do that for you. What I see so often with, well, I saw it in myself and now I see it with my clients, is that we would just rely on our memories and then be frustrated that we didn’t remember. Like, I can’t believe I didn’t remember that. I’m such an idiot. Where it’s like, no, you’re not an idiot at all. You just don’t have the type of brain that’s going to remember to get it done. And so it’s our job to understand that. And as adults with adhd, it’s our job to be the expert in adhd. Nobody else is going to do it for us, not our parents, not our doctors, not our psychologists and our psychiatrists or our therapists. It’s our job to be the expert. Okay? So to take ownership and responsibility of that means to really understand that our memories are not going to be reliable. They’re not going to be a reliable source for getting the task done, for remembering what we want to do, even our vision and our goals. So yesterday I made a plan and I decided my vision and my goals, and I’m frustrated that I can’t remember what it was today. It’s because we need to write it down, schedule it out, make an external calendar or vision board or something that’s going to hold the place so that we can make sure we can see. See it and get it done. Okay, externalize everything. That is your huge takeaway from today. Number one, your memory sucks. Number two, externalize everything. Just because you have a sucky memory doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish goals or that you can’t complete tasks. It just means that you need to be smart about it and you need to make sure that you have systems in place that are going to help you. I love writing things down, and I have these huge. What is it called? Like, whiteboard sticky note things. You guys, My vocabulary today, I would say, is, like, completely off the charts, don’t you think? Like, wow. I’m sure you’re extremely impressed. Okay, so I love writing things down on small sticky notes or huge sticky notes that I have for my whiteboard. I also love writing things down in a journal. And I have this. I guess it’s kind of like a bullet journal, but it’s not fancy. I don’t bedazzle it. I don’t make it pretty at all. But I do go back and look at what I’ve written down over time. I schedule things out in my Google calendar and I put in reminders for when things should be completed and when they should be done. Okay. So I externalize everything. I do not rely on my brain to remember a single thing. When I do rely on my brain, it does not work out well for me. This happened this weekend. I decided on Saturday that I was going to bake cookies with my kids, which, if you know me at all, is absolutely crazy because your girl doesn’t cook, especially does not cook with her kids. But I wanted to just create, like, a really sweet Saturday and be a kind mama who baked cookies with her kids. And maybe once a year, I show up that way, and it’s how I showed up on Saturday. So we had a bunch of errands to run, and one of the errands was buying ingredients for the cookies. Did I write a list? No, I didn’t write a list because I believed the sneaky thought that came into my head, which is like, oh, it’s just four things. It’s fine. Just four things. Can remember four things. So did I remember the four things? No, I remembered three. I totally remembered three. Got home and realized that we didn’t have the eggs. I want you to see that this is true for all of us. No matter how high functioning you get, you still cannot rely on your brain to remind you of the important things. It’s just not going to follow through and do it. Did we end up baking the cookies? Yes. My husband, bless his heart, volunteered to go back and get the eggs. So we were able to make them. Actually, he was like. He told me, I have been craving homemade cookies for so long that it’s like, no problem at all. And I had to coach myself to not feel completely guilty that I don’t bake for my family. I totally don’t. I really don’t it’s just not something I enjoy, and it feels really, really hard, but I actually might start doing it more often. I’m thinking about doing it. I’m not. I have not committed, but I had the thought, what if I baked cookies once a month? I could do that. So, anyway, I’ll give you an update on that later because I’m not willing to fully commit to that yet. Anyhow. Externalize everything. This means making lists. This means when you decide that you want to do something, you must put it on your calendar with reminders. So, for example, if I were to decide that I want to bake cookies with my family once a month, I would literally have to put it on my calendar with a reminder. I would not be able to just decide, oh, yeah, I’m gonna make cookies once a month and follow through on it. It’s not going to happen. That’s what we do so often is we say, like, oh, yeah, I definitely want to do this. And maybe we tell people, and then we just don’t follow through. And oftentimes other people will make it mean that we just don’t care about them or that we’re flaky. And the truth is that we just have really bad memories. Like, we totally forget that that was even a thing we wanted to do. Your brain should be used for problem solving and creativity, all right? That’s what your brain was designed to do. Your brain was not designed to remember stuff, okay? So stop asking it to remember stuff. It’s not going to. Your brain was designed for problem solving and creativity. So spend most of your time in problem solving mode and creativity mode and hop out of the memory mode. Externalize the memory. Use everything else for your memory. Your calendar, your phone, alarms. I use Siri all the time. Anytime something pops in my head, I just tell Siri to remind me. So she’s usually a very good helper. Your journal, your vision board, anything that you can use to remind yourself of what you want to get done, do not use your brain for that. There’s a really cool book called Moonwalking with Einstein. If you’re a dork like me and you love deeper resources. Moonwalking with Einstein, it’s by Joshua Foer and I really liked it. It was about training your memory and how the memory can be trained and improved. I’ve mentioned recently that there are brain training programs out there. No, I will not give you direct resources, so please don’t email me about it. But if you just do a Google, you might be able to find some stuff in your area. I have been through some brain training or cognitive therapy programs and they have worked for me. That’s just my own personal experience. It doesn’t mean it would work for you as well, but my memory has been able to improve. However, I still forgot the eggs on Saturday, didn’t I? Like, it’s not perfect. You’re still going to have to externalize everything and I highly encourage you not to lean on your own memory, but to use your brain for what it’s good at. Like really getting clear on what your brain is good at. Most likely, if you’re like me, problem solving, creativity, definitely not memory. So don’t try to use it for that. Okay, my friend, I hope this was helpful. Cannot wait to talk to you next week. I will see you then. Bye bye. If you’re being treated for your ADHD but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve been got to join Focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted. No matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world, Focused is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused for all the info.
