Foreign.

Welcome to a Monday episode of More Yourself and today I wanted to talk about something that I guess I want to always talk about things that impact me personally that I struggle with and then hopefully share and we can learn and grow together.

And I'll just provide some maybe some more practical tools and hopefully help you wherever you are in your week.

So today I wanted to share about mindfulness for ADHD and it was inspired by an email I got from Dr. Megan Anna Neff, who is a fantastic neurodivergence specialist and I think she's a psychologist.

And it's all about mindfulness on the go for brains that don't sit still.

And I read it and I was thinking oh my goodness, it's so helpful to have mindfulness through a neuro affirming lens because we read so much about mindfulness, we learn so much, it's so important that we must do it.

And when you have a brain that doesn't see, sit still, when you have a brain that you really, really struggle to just be in the moment, to be present, to then struggle to not do any of that makes us feel that we are, there's something wrong with us.

Other people can do it, but why can't we?

And I think it's really important that we can break it down and find a way for us to lean into ADHD mindfulness.

However that looks and interesting.

One of my early guest episodes was with Dr. Lydia Zyloski who wrote a book about ADHD mindfulness and she is a psychiatrist I think, or a psychologist, excuse me if I can't quite remember and I quote her in my book actually in the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit because she really is at the forefront of understanding the difficulties that we find with mindfulness and why as neurodivergent people we struggle with it.

So as you may recognize in yourself that we struggle to be present, we also struggle with ruminating, overthinking, self criticism, judgment, inner judgment, worry, anxiety.

And all these things keep us from being in that present moment.

So perhaps we are thinking and ruminating on things that have happened in the past which often can lead to feelings of very low mood or depression.

And then we can also be very much in the future future mode where we are worrying this anxiety about what will be control that we're feeling or we don't know the outcome, we're worried about how we're going to feel or perhaps just anxiety about an event in the future.

And all of this if you think about if we are living constantly flitting between past and future and not really being in the present.

We're out of our bodies.

We're not feeling grounded, we're not feeling stabilized.

And I very much can relate to that.

So we have to actively notice, we have to actively recognize that we find it, you know, a struggle to be mindful.

We find it a struggle to be present.

We often have very busy brains, ambitious brains, brains that want to do a lot, brains that have lots of ideas, which is fantastic in very small bouts.

But when we are constantly in this whirring mind of ours, and maybe for an hour, that's fine.

You know, when we really need to get things done or we need to brainstorm, we need to come up with with ideas, or we need to be resourceful or problem solving, all of that fantastic.

However, we then need to come out of this frazzled, anxious, frenzied, restless state of mind and bring ourselves back into our bodies.

So that is what I notice for sure.

And when I got this email from Dr. Neff, I was thinking, oh, this is brilliant, because I want to share it with you and then be able to just pull out some of the things that I found very helpful.

Now, one of the biggest things, I think, with feeling overwhelmed with all our emotions and feelings is perhaps not actually knowing what it is that's causing us to feel overwhelmed.

So we can just feel really irritable or restless or nervous or anxious, but we might not be able to be in the emotions or understand the emotions enough because so much else is going on that we just have an overarching feeling of doom or dread or overwhelm.

And what I find very helpful and what I suggest, maybe if this is, you know, something you relate to, is being able to name it, is to be able to just take some breaths.

And for me, the breath is always, always, always the anchor to mindfulness, no matter what.

Three or four lovely deep breaths with your eyes closed, with your hand on your heart, other hand on your stomach, deep breath in, really long breath out.

That really settles the nervous system and tells us it's safe just to be in that present moment.

Gives us that clearer mind, that calmer, more parasympathetic nervous system to be able to go within a little bit and name what is going on for us.

And we can do this while we're walking.

We can do this in the car, we can do this in the shower.

We can do this wherever we are.

We can just stop for a minute and just be like, oh, what is that?

What is that?

That's going on for us.

And when we are in this very busy world of ours, this dopamine inducing and attention grabbing economy where dopamine and scrolling and just constantly being on is almost celebrated and unfortunately normalized.

Now it's normalized just to be constantly busy that it can be really hard for us to step into that moment of pausing and just stopping and being, going back to almost notice.

It's.

I see it as, as sort of stopping and hovering over myself to be able to be like, what is going on?

You are scrolling again, you're checking your emails, you're going from email to social media to this to that.

You're in over productivity mode, you're in overworking mode.

I have to take those breaths just to slow down and just to come into that stillness to regulate my nervous system.

And so when we are able to slow down, sometimes the brain gets faster, the brain gets shoutier and louder and that is okay, that's normal.

Because it's almost like our nervous system saying, what are you doing?

This isn't safe, it's not right.

You're not meant to slow down here.

But once we move through that and be like, it's okay, it's safe right now, it's okay just to take some breaths and slow down.

That is when we're able to name what is going on.

We're able to go inside.

It's almost like going inside the hole and getting a torch or a flashlight and recognizing, oh, okay, I'm recognizing the overwhelm because I've said yes to that and I've committed to something else and I have a deadline for this and my kids have got all these different activities and I'm struggling, I'm struggling to do it all.

And it's okay to almost speak to yourself and you can say it's okay.

Now I understand why you're feeling overwhelmed or now I can understand why you are ruminating or overthinking.

And I can understand and I can see that.

And I'm sending you love and I'm sending you compassion because yes, this is, this is difficult.

But right now is it okay if you are able to just see it and name it and recognise it and validate it without any judgment but also say right now I'm just going to put it to one side and that's okay as well.

And there's lots of different ways that we can interrupt patterns.

But I always think with especially our neurodivergent brains, we can't just be like, oh, that's okay, you just put it to one side and pretend it's not happening, or suppressing it or replacing it and trying to do positive affirmations.

And I do think affirmations in some ways can be very helpful, as of course, gratitude can, you know, for me, gratitude or leaning into the things that are going well can be very, very helpful.

But I also think that we can just give some space to pause, to recognize, to validate, to notice and just say, okay, this is here, this is what's happening.

Not try and argue your way out of it, not try and gaslight yourself to say that this, this is ridiculous.

Why are you worrying about this now?

This is not happening for another year, this is not happening for another six months.

And maybe you come up with things like I'm a failure, or there I go again, I've let someone down, or there I go again, I've missed something, or I've forgotten something.

And we can notice that it's kind of like an old script, it's like an old version coming up again.

And especially we find that when we are in a more sympathetic nervous system, when we are feeling more compromised, like we don't have that resilience, we don't have that, whether it's that emotional support, that physical support, we are noticing that we are feeling more or less resilient, more challenged, less resilient.

And those older, more painful thoughts and emotions come up and we are able to recognize, we're able to, especially when we've done quite a bit of work on ourselves, we can say, oh, I'm noticing that I'm having that thought that I'm a failure again and that's okay.

And you have to argue with it and you have to try and make it go away.

It's just recognizing it because it gives it distance.

So when something happens to me and I notice myself, my reactivity spiraling, I notice myself going down a tunnel of doom mongering and worry and kind of catastrophizing.

And that's a quite an easy place for me to go down.

I almost like grab myself by the shirt, just pull myself back and go, oh, okay, I see what's happening here.

This is your coping mechanism.

This is almost kind of like your safety response.

And that's me speaking to myself like I would a person who I adore, a child, a partner, a best friend.

And I speak to myself in that way that I would if I noticed someone who I dearly, dearly love going down that rabbit hole of despair.

I'm just going to Sit here with you and I'm going to let you just breathe and notice and recognize.

And interestingly, even though we're not trying to fix the situation, we're not going to try and sort of be resourceful.

Sometimes the resourcefulness and the fixing and the solutions come when we're in a calm and of a system.

But just sitting with some breath and some compassion and some validation can be so, so helpful.

Another thing that can often happen with us is that we may not quite be able to emotionally process what's going on.

We might not quite be able to pinpoint the exact things and the exact situations that are causing us to feel overwhelmed or worried or anxious.

But what we can often do with being mindful, being in that present moment, coming back to our breath, always, always coming back to our breath, just being, allowing ourselves to feel our feet on the floor, hand on our body, taking three to four breaths, whether it's 90 seconds, two minutes, that we can create a bit of sensory awareness in our bodies.

Like we can just ground into our bodies to create this, what Dr. Neff calls a doorway into the present, which I think is so lovely.

So that's whether you are just, you know, putting your hands in warm water, you are putting your feet on the grass, you are putting your hand on your belly, you can feel the breath, breath coming in and out, just engaging in our sense or one sense or senses, noticing the, you know, the noises.

I often do this on a walk where I can just listen to the birds, or I notice the leaves underneath me, or I use essential oils very much, you know, as part of my daily thing is I have essential oils everywhere I go, in my bag, in my office, in my bathroom.

And I can just ground myself into the oils where I can just.

The oils are kind of like an anchor to feeling karma again.

And this sensory feeling of going back into my body can often be something that overrides those very, very noisy thoughts that sometimes I can't decipher, sometimes I can't make sense out of.

And that in itself can just be a lovely grounding thing.

And it's a really lovely thing for kids as well, just to have an anchor so they don't feel anxious when they do go into that sort of spiraling, when their nervous system does go into that sympathetic mode.

And it does feel difficult to reclaim that control.

We can do this also with our bodies.

Using our bodies in stretching, in humming, in singing, in chanting, in tapping, we can find ways where we just become mindful.

That is why I, my non negotiable, is my yoga class, a restorative yoga class once a week.

Because the gentle movement and the breath work for me, grounds me so much.

And I have an hour outside of my head.

And because it's a continual flow, that continual flow really, really helps me to get out of my head, ground myself back in my body.

I kind of wanted in this episode to really allow you to take away the pressure of what mindfulness might be to you, where you have to sort of almost sit there and really notice everything that's going on and make it feel like a very difficult chore.

When we have a brain that almost acts as a block to being, to feeling present.

And that, to me, can feel very.

It can feel like another challenge.

So just come back to a way of mindfulness that works for you.

Now, there's lots of things that you can do.

You can get a book.

You can get amazing cards.

I've actually got cards in front of me here which are 50 mindfulness activities for kindness, focus and calm.

And they're actually kids cards, but it says, actually ages 4 to 104.

And they're all illustrated, beautifully illustrated.

And you can just pull, pull anything out where you know, you're finding something, from a fist squeeze to words to yourself, to a gratitude practice.

I actually really love these because literally, when you have nothing left, you have no resources, and you just can't even think of what you need to do.

It's almost just like pulling a card.

Pull a card, whatever comes out is the.

Is the card for you that you need to ground yourself that day.

And you could make it like a lovely habit.

You know, sit there with a hot drink, pull one of these mindful cards, find the exercise.

They're all so simple, really nicely laid out, and you can just find that exercise.

And it keeps the novelty there.

It keeps it kind of like quite fresh as well.

I can do that.

I do this with my kids.

I actually say that I do it with my youngest because she's still willing to do things like this.

But if you really, really, really want to simplify it, the key ways that I would find more mindfulness is naming it, naming what's going on, giving yourself that distance of, oh, I'm noticing those thoughts of criticism, self criticism coming up, and that's okay.

And they're there and I'm just going to recognize them and I'm going to send myself some love and give myself that validation, that compassion, that kindness, which is all about.

It's all about self compassion and self kindness, you know, mindfulness and being present and just being in that conversation with yourself for 90 seconds is mindfulness.

You can go on a lovely walk, notice what's going on, the noises, the smells, the feelings, the sensory side.

You can use essential oils, but to just take away all of the complexity of finding mindfulness is just naming what you're feeling, accepting it, and finding a way that works for you in whatever your nervous system is needing right now.

And if in doubt, get those cards or use AI Put into AI and say, I struggle with mindfulness.

I'm neurodivergent.

This is what typically shows up for me.

And please give me 10 exercises that will help me lean into being present and being grounded in my body.

So I hope that episode today has helped you.

It was something I guess I needed, so I'm sharing that with you.

And here's to more groundedness, more expansiveness in our breath, more noticing our feelings and giving ourselves self compassion and allowing our busy, busy brains to step aside and calm our nervous systems so every day we feel more in control and less reactive and we can respond more with more love.

More love to ourselves.

So I will see you on Thursday for our guest episode and I hope you have a good week.

Take care.

If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.