This episode is sponsored by CURE Hydration. All right, I’m going to be real with you. Drinking water is boring. My ADHD brain is like, wait, we have to do this again? Like every day, Multiple times. What in the world? And because I’m running from meetings to coaching calls to kid chaos, staying hydrated is not something I’m naturally good at. It’s not something I naturally think about. That’s why I’ve been obsessed with Cure hydration packs lately. CURE is a plant based hydrating electrolyte mix with no added sugar, only 25 calories, and it actually tastes good. The watermelon and berry pomegranate have been on repeat for me. I’m actually like really running low on those flavors, which is so sad. They’re refreshing without being too sweet or artificial. It feels like my water finally has a little bit of personality, which I enjoy. I really do. What I love most is that CURE uses a science backed formula that hydrates as effectively as an IV drip. So when I’m scrambling through my day forgetting my water again, CURE helps me to catch up fast. I throw a few packs in my bag and it makes drinking enough water simple. Which for my ADHD brain is basically a miracle. So staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, tastes great, and it actually works. And bonus, CURE is FSA HSA approved. So you can use those funds to stay hydrated. The smart way for I have ADHD podcast listeners. You can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really does help to support the show. Don’t just drink more water, upgrade it with cure. Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree. Zoe, this thing weighs a ton. Drewski, live with your legs, man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter? He’s talking to you britches. I’m not. 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Cancel finance agreement. 256 gigs $830 eligible for it in a new line, $100 plus a month plan with auto to count 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.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 Kristin Carter, and I have adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships with, 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 91. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, and I am. I am ready to roll. I’m recording this in my son’s room on his bunk bed. It’s very, very glamorous, you guys. My life is so glamorous. Just trying to get somewhere where there’s no noise. Do you know what I mean? All right, today we’re going to talk about how to stop spinning. And I love talking about this topic because I think it is so perfect for, for all of us with adhd. Okay, so spinning is when your mind is just racing and you’re completely spaced out. Totally useless. Yeah, we’re gonna talk about how to combat that. But first, how are you? How are you? I’m so glad that you’re listening. Whether this is your first episode or maybe you’re a longtime listener, I’m just so glad that you are here. I haven’t mentioned this in a while, but if you wouldn’t mind, please, please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast. It makes a big difference. Go ahead and do it now while you’re thinking about it, if you haven’t already. And while you’re at it, give it a Like or rating, especially if you listen on itunes. I feel a little bit like a YouTuber right now. Like, don’t forget to like and subscribe. If I hear Mr. Beast or Preston plays or any of those stinking YouTubers that my kids watch over and over and over. Say those words one more time, I’m going to scream. And actually, my six year old loves to say, don’t forget to like and subscribe and turn on post notifications or whatever it is. It’s hysterical when he says it. Anyway, you know, I have three kids, three boys. They’re obsessed with YouTubers, and I hear these people screaming and laughing in my sleep. If you’re a parent of young boys, I’m sure you understand. But Anyway, as the YouTubers say, don’t forget to like and subscribe, guys. It really helps other adults with ADHD find this podcast and get help. And I am all about that. I’m all about it. All right, that’s kind of painful. Thanks for sticking with me. But seriously, did you like and subscribe? Because I hope you did. Okay, so today we’re going to discuss how to stop spinning. Here’s how I define spinning. Spinning is when we are completely caught up in our heads. We have ruminating thoughts, we have intrusive thoughts. We’re not grounded in what we need to do. We’re jumping from one thing to the next without really accomplishing anything. We. We’re totally spacing out, we’re procrastinating, or we just can’t seem to get like a problem or an issue out of our heads. We’re just like totally caught up in our minds and we’re not really present with reality. Now, spinning is something that all humans do, right? But for those of us with adhd, it’s extremely common. And what I found with myself and with my clients is that most of the time when we are spinning, we’re actually resisting negative emotion. So there’s some sort of negative emotion in our body that we want to avoid. And it could be consciously or usually it’s unconsciously. And so we go kind of like up into our heads and we just start spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. And it’s as if our brains have, like, detached from. From our bodies. So we have our brain and we’re stuck in the brain, we’re stuck in the mind, and we’re just kind of spacey and spinning and not really present with how we are feeling from the neck down, from the chin down, right? So we distract ourselves with our thoughts or with being spacey or with food or with Netflix or video games or alcohol or whatever. And it’s all just a ploy to avoid feeling. Now this, like I said, is not usually a Conscious choice. Our brains are just doing it naturally because we never really have practiced feeling our emotions. If you’re anything like me, you’ve never really practiced feeling your emotions. Okay? So I just want to pause here and remind you that I’m a life coach, all right? I’m not a therapist. So I do believe that unprocessed trauma can also lead to spinning. And if you know that you’ve experienced trauma and you haven’t processed it, you haven’t worked it through with a trained therapist, then these tips probably won’t work for you. And I beg you to seek out a professional who can really lead you through addressing these underlying trauma issues that you’re dealing with. Okay? So this episode is not for those of you who have like really specific traumas that you’re working through. This episode is just for the people who find themselves just kind of like on a day to day basis in their normal life, having those days when, when they’re totally spinning out and they just don’t understand why, like, what is happening here that I am just so detached from my body that I’m so detached from my tasks that I’m hopping around from thing to thing and I’m really not making progress on anything. Okay? So listen, when you notice yourself spinning, procrastinating, ruminating, not sleeping, not eating, or maybe overeating, it’s a very good guess that you may be resisting some negative emotion. And so I want to introduce you to something that I call, wait for it, the power move. It’s a totally made of concepts that I think is brilliant. And I want you to consider adopting it, okay? Because in my opinion, and in my experience, it’s one of the most important and effective things that we can do to stop spinning and stop buffering and get ourselves back on track. All right? So the power move is when you stop and you drop into your body and you allow yourself to feel like. Are you disappointed? Because I’m thinking that you are probably thinking that the power move is some sort of like karate hiya type move, but it’s not. It’s not as fun as that. It doesn’t sound like really powerful at all. And I know it doesn’t sound like sexy or fun, but I’m telling you, it is so worthwhile, okay? Because I’ve coached hundreds of you all and I’ve coached myself, and by the way, I’m like the most difficult client that I have by far. And when we’re spinning and when we’re spacey and we don’t know why? And we can’t make ourselves do the thing that we really want to do, and we can’t sleep, and. And we don’t know why. And we’re overeating or over drinking, and we don’t know why. It’s because, nine times out of 10, it’s because we’re avoiding feeling. Okay? We’re avoiding feeling badly. So our brains are actually doing the spinning as a protective mechanism. Our brain is just doing its job. It’s trying to protect us from the pain of our emotion. So our brains want to keep us spinning. They want to keep us moving and distracted and hopping from one thing to the next so that we don’t have to feel. But the most powerful and the most effective thing that we can do is to stop. Consciously move from our heads, where everything’s going a million miles a minute, and into our bodies, where we can actually find the vibration of emotion and process it and allow it. What is it that I’m feeling right now? What is it that I’m avoiding? Where is it in my body? And can I sit with it here just for a few minutes? Now, I want to give you a couple examples of how this could play out, because some of you, I can just feel it. I can feel you being like, I don’t really like this episode. It doesn’t really apply to me. It’s not really what I need, because what I need is help with my adhd. I am telling you that one of the reasons why our brain keeps us distracted, one of the reasons why our brain keeps us going from one task to the next without really seeing the thing through, is to avoid feeling badly. So if we’re willing to open up to negative emotion and feel badly, you will notice that you will be more clear, you will be more present, and you will be more focused. All right, so examples. Here we go. A couple of weeks ago, I was coaching a client in focused, and she had had a falling out with one of her best friends. And she wanted to be friends free from thinking about the relationship. But it just kept coming back to her mind, and she would just notice that it just kept coming back. Like an intrusive thought. It just kept coming back, coming back, coming back. Okay. She was ruminating on the thoughts about it, and she was, like, mad about it, and she just found herself being really upset and distracted by thinking about this falling out. What I remember from it was that it was an everyday occurrence that she was thinking about it. And in that session, what we uncovered is that she never really had allowed herself to identify and feel sad and disappointed that the relationship had changed and ended. So her brain was spending so much time rehashing the events that had transpired and rehashing the conversations that they had had and being angry about what had gone on. But all of that was just an effort to avoid feeling the painful feelings of sadness and disappointment. So this session is where the power move was kind of birthed. Because I was saying to her, like, the most powerful thing for you to do in this moment is to move toward sadness. It’s to move toward the pain that you’re feeling, the disappointment that you’re feeling. Intentionally allow that to be present and validate it and feel it and cry and really process that negative emotion that you really haven’t let yourself feel yet. She had been resisting that true pain for months. And so obviously it’s not fun to feel sad, right? It’s a lot easier to be angry than it is to feel sad. But once she takes the time and effort to recognize and process that sadness, it was like, oh, that’s what’s really going on here. It’s not that I’m super mad and angry, not that necessarily there was a huge injustice that occurred, like maybe there was, but really the most painful thing. I’m just sad. This was a really beautiful friendship and it’s not the same anymore. And that will allow her to stop being distracted. It’s going to allow her to move on. It’s going to allow for the real issue to be clear. Sadness is the real issue here and to be resolved. So my coach gives this analogy and I think it’s perfect. So I’m going to give it to you as well. I want you to picture a beach ball that you’ve blown up, like one of those big, fun beach balls. It’s 25 degrees here in Pennsylvania. I would love to be playing with a beach ball right now. Lord, let summer come soon, please. Okay. Anyway, have you ever tried to hold a big beach ball down under the water in the pool? It’s really hard work and inevitably it always comes popping out of the water, right? So as a kid, my sisters and I used to do this. We had an above ground pool. It was so much fun and we were all like very scrawny little children. And we would like try to jump on top of the beach ball and like hold it down and we’d work super, super hard. It would be exhausting to try to hold it down under the water. And always, I mean, always it found a way to come flying up out of the water. And now, as I’m like, saying this out loud, I’m sure there’s some of you who are like, yeah, it’s like physics or whatever science that pertains to like. Of course there’s a reason why this happens. I’m not sure. That is not my area of expertise. Right. All I know is you try to hold that beach ball down under the water. It’s very difficult, it’s very tiring, and inevitably it always comes up, right? So this is a perfect metaphor for our negative emotion. That emotion is like a beach ball, right? When we’re resisting it, like, we’re trying to hold it down under the water. It is hard. It is difficult to do this. It takes a lot of effort. It can be exhausting. And it’s extremely distracting for our brains, right? It takes a ton of energy and effort. So we don’t even realize we are exerting ourselves like this. And we waste so much of our brain space and our brain energy resisting this negative emotion. And then we say things like, I don’t know why I’m so tired. I don’t know why I couldn’t sleep last night. I don’t know why I keep thinking about this relationship. I don’t know why I’m so drained all the time. I’m so spacey lately. I’m not sure what’s up with that. But if you’re medicated and caffeinated and still spinning out, it’s very likely that you are resisting negative emotion. And the most powerful thing that you can do in those moments of spinning is to drop into your body and allow yourself to feel. So another Focus client actually very recently posted in our Slack channel, we have our community on slack, off of social media on purpose so that we do not get sucked into the rabbit hole. Anyway, I digress. So she posted in our Slack channel that she was like, really overtired and procrastinating and not motivated. She couldn’t get herself to, like, function. And my radar, of course, like, immediately went off. It sounded to me like she was trying to hold that beach ball down under the water, right? Like, I just am procrastinating and I can’t get motivated and I’m not sleeping well. Like, I just don’t know what’s going on my radar. My alarm bell started, like, sounding like, warning, warning. Like there is some negative emotion here that is not being processed. And so I just, you know, asked some questions and investigated. And she shared that she has a lot of fear about her oncology appointment that’s coming up or that like happened recently and she’s been carrying that fear around with her but she’s not really been allowing herself to move toward it and feel. So my advice, super fun advice was like set aside some time and feel fear. That is the power move. It is straight up ninja skills for the ADHder. It is to move toward the pain and process it and allow it to be present with you without making it a big problem. I’m just a human having a human experience and this is what is happening for me right now. Okay? This is why when people are like, I just really want the right planner or the right system or like just give me the step by step process, I’m like, no, you’re missing it. You’re missing it, right? It’s not going to solve your procrastination or your lack of motivation in the long term. Like planners are great, but they are not the solution to what is going on in our ADHD lives. We have a lot of life to live, right? So like we need a long term solution, not just like a fun. This will be really great in 2020. I’m going to use this new system. Like no, we need to learn what’s going to give us change that lasts. And I am telling you that learning to feel your emotions, learning to drop down into your body, get out of your head and move into your body and discover exactly what it is that you’re feeling. That is the power move. Those are the ninja skills that you need to develop. Okay? Doesn’t look super powerful on the outside. It doesn’t come with a bedazzled planner or a perfectly curated system. So if you want to like add some karate kicks to it while you do it, that could help you wrap your mind around it. So like I want you all to be adding in very powerful physical moves to it so that you can feel like it is as powerful as it really is. Okay? I’m being super dorky right now. I will move on. I will move on. If you’re not sure what I mean when I say drop into your body, I want to explain it, okay? A lot of us with ADHD, we are 100% very much in our heads. We’re in our thoughts, we’re in our brains. Okay? So when I say drop into your body, what I mean is become aware that there is existence like from the chin down. Not just spending all of your time in your ruminating thoughts or in your spaciness or in your hopping around from task to task, becoming aware that Your body is a thing and that your emotions are a thing. There are a couple of ways that I do this. Number one, I will often remind myself that I have feet. This is so dumb, you guys. This is so dumb. But, like, literally, this is what it takes for me. Like, just reminding myself, like, I have feet. And then immediately my awareness moves all the way down from my brain to my shoulders to my chest, my stomach, my midsection, like, all the way down my body. And I notice, like, oh, yeah, there’s more to me than just my mind. Another way that I do this is I do, like, an internal scan. So with me right now, unless you are driving, in which case completely, do not do this, obviously, but with me right now, just close your eyes and do an inner scan. From the bottom of your toes, from the bottom, like, the soles of your feet, all the way up your ankles, your calves, your legs, all the way up your body. Okay? Stomach, ribs, chest, throat, shoulders. See if there is vibration there. Check to see if there are emotions happening in your body. And when you feel it, when you feel an emotion, I want you to zoom in. What does it really feel like? Is it sharp? Is it squeezing? Is it swirling? What motion is it going in? What color is it? Does it have a name? This is a hard one for us. Some of us really struggle to name our emotions. This actually happened to me today, and I’m going to tell you more about it in a minute. But if you struggle to name your emotions, don’t make that a problem, please. You don’t need to also judge yourself as a part of this exercise. That is not required. There’s no judgment allowed here. But if you can put a name to the emotion. If you can’t, maybe Google an emotions list or Join Focus and I have one for you. Figure out what to name it. Is it anxiety? Is it fear? Is it frustration? Agitation? Contentment? Excitement? Anticipation? Try to name it or do your best to get as close as possible. And then once I have a name for it, this is another weird thing that I do. I go to it in my body. So let’s say that it’s in my chest and it’s kind of swirling and it. It feels sharp and it’s not really a good feeling. And maybe I’m going to call that vulnerability. Okay, so this is like vulnerability. And once I have a name for it, I make it a thing. Meaning, like, now, vulnerability is a noun. It is a thing in my body. It’s just an emotion that comes and visits once in a while. It’s an object inside of me. It sounds so weird, but stick with me because I’m telling you it has helped me. Someone who, if you are a longtime listener or if you’ve binge listened to this podcast, you know that in the first like 50 episodes, I’m like, oh, I don’t really do emotions. I’m not emotional. I don’t like talking about emotions. And that was my truth at the time. I did not have any kind of emotional vocabulary. I did not know how to feel and process my negative emotion. And it held me back for so long. And I am telling you that my ability to set and reach goals has 10x’d because of my ability or my willingness to, to practice feeling and naming and recognizing my emotion. Right? This is the power move, I’m telling you, the power move. Feeling the emotion. I think it would be really helpful for all of us if we start identifying the lack of motivation, the spinning, the procrastinating as being symptoms of a deeper issue. So if we are only looking at procrastination as a symptom of adhd, then we just blame adhd. We can’t get rid of it. It’s like, well, I guess there’s no fix for it. But if we can say, hmm, there is a deeper issue going on here, I bet I am resisting some negative emotion. And we drop into our bodies to go find that negative emotion, allow it and solve for it, then that actually fixes the problem of procrastinating. Okay? Now, of course, like we are humans and we have adhd. And again, just a reminder, I am speaking in the context of someone who is medicated, caffeinated and ready to roll. Okay? So if you’re not medicated, caffeinated and ready to roll, these techniques are not going to be helpful in solving things long term. Okay? Like medicated, caffeinated, ready to roll needs to be first. However, I want you to start noticing when you’re spinning, noticing when you’re spacey, noticing when you’re not sleeping, noticing when you are buffering or watching more TV than you want to on your phone, more than you want to be. And I want you to start recognizing those things as being symptoms. And if you can apply the power move and say, what is it that I’m resisting? What beach balls am I trying to hold down under the water here? Because I see a lot of symptoms of beach balls being held down under the water and they keep popping up and I’m exhausted and it’s so much effort and I. I can’t really get anything else done because my brain is working so hard at holding these beach balls down under the water. If you can apply the power move and be like, okay, let’s drop into the body, let’s do a scan. Let’s identify what we are actually feeling and what the real issue is. Like, what’s actually going on? Am I afraid? Am I in self doubt? Am I anxious? Am I insecure? Like, what is really happening here? Am I wanting to control other people’s opinions about me? Am I afraid of what they’ll think? Like, what is actually happening? If we can really identify that it is the most powerful thing that we can do because we gain clarity. Remember, emotions always drive actions. Emotions are the fuel. It’s the gas in our tank that drives the action that we take. So if your emotions are trash, then your actions are gonna be trash. And spinning counts as an action. Okay? So notice when you are spinning, procrastinating, not motivated, and buffering. And notice how that distraction is exhausting and you feel like you’re expending so much energy and you just don’t know why and you’re not really accomplishing anything. And then apply the power move, drop into your body, notice what you’re feeling, allow it to be there without making it a problem and solve for the real issue. Then just notice how we want to resist negative emotion. And if you can imagine it as a beach ball, just allow it to be with you. Allow it to float on top of the water and it will float, float away for a while and it might come back and you can feel it again. And then it’ll float away and you’ll be able to be productive and then it will float back. But eventually you’ll get good at it. You’ll just get good at feeling and naming and allowing and processing that emotion. And it will rarely distract you like it is right now. It will rarely hijack your whole day and make you spend, spin out and detach you from what you’re feeling and doing. It will rarely do that. If you get good at the power move, you will have authority over it and your results will go through the roof. This episode has been a labor of love. It has been hard to get this out of my brain. It’s a new concept. And you know that I don’t hang on to my concepts very long before I share them with you. I am not the kind of person who like, mulls things over forever and ever and ever, like my husband does. And he works it out perfectly in his brain before he speaks it out loud. I am the exact opposite. I love to speak it out loud to you and get your feedback and what you think about it and I’ve really enjoyed coaching clients on it. And I just want you to know that this is a work in progress for me. This is something that I am doing. These are the ninja skills that I am learning. I am learning to apply this to my life and seeing my results really skyrocket and I want that for you. So I’m not willing to wait until I have it perfectly mapped out in order to share it with you. So because you’re my people, I know you can handle it. I hope you love it. I hope you apply it to your life and see what you can do. I love you. I can’t wait to talk to you next time. Bye Bye. If you’re being treated for your adhd but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join Focus. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wife 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.
