9: Transcendental meditation mantras? You're ADHD! Let's start slow!

In this episode we're going to take some much needed time out and we're going to think more about your body and your mind. It's time for me to introduce you to your 'Energetic Care Kit'.

 

By the end of this episode, you'll be fitter both physically and mentally.

 

So entrepreneurs with ADHD know very well that there are two main areas where things go completely off the rails.

 

Things tend to go off the rails when we shift gears from one thing to another, or when we failed at the gear shift and went on a side tangent, or got sucked into hyper focus on something that really doesn't matter in our day. And 3 hours later we resurfaced and think, oh my God, I've just completely screwed today up. Like today's gone. Might as well burn my life down and disappear into the wilderness because I just can't function in my life anymore.

 

Neither one is helpful.

 

So it's not helpful to not be able to effectively shift from one gear to the next. Okay, so shifting from like answering emails to going into client meetings, right? If you spend too much time answering emails and then get sucked into like a YouTube video watching thing, you may miss the meeting. That's not good.

 

Likewise the punishing yourself bit that you do after you accidentally spend too long on something or get distracted, that is also not helpful.

 

So in today's episode, I really want to talk about what is your energetic care kit that you can employ whenever you need to switch gears or to reset yourself when you have had a completely ADHD moment, hour day, whatever, and need to return to factory settings.

 

So I'm going to be covering a couple of things in this episode.

 

First and foremost, I want to talk about spiritual practices. And I'm saying spiritual practices because I want whatever that means for you to come up in your mind. If that calls to your religion that you believe in and it empowers you and it makes you feel grounded, then let it mean that.

 

If it means meditation and mindfulness and doing something that helps you Zen in and be better grounded, then let it mean that. If you have witchy tendencies and it means doing some casting or some incantations, then please let it be that.

 

Because remember, the only wrong way to do something is to do it in a way that doesn't work for you.

 

So full permission here to incorporate whatever your spiritual practice is into your day to day. Because here's what a spiritual practice does. It often grounds you into the here and now. It often helps you get super flipping clear on what it is that you want for yourself, for your future, your family, your community. And it also operates like a tiny ritual everyday that helps you start the work.

 

So I'll share what I actually do. I do this practice. It's a meditation that I developed with my intuitive coach who works with spirit guides and things like that, just to give you some insight as to how I run my business. So I do this meditation where I imagine, like, my heart is just full of colors. And for me, I associate different colors with different relationships. So my relationships with my clients and my potential clients are very blue and green and a combination of that. So I imagine, like, my heart space is just full of blues and greens.

 

And I imagine that as I'm focusing on that life force in my chest, that it's being sparked in the chests of those people in the world who need my help, who would benefit from talking to me, who are starting a business and don't know what they're doing, who could just use some help and are open to getting the help.

 

I then just ask the question, you know, what do you need to hear from me today? What's the message you need to hear? What are you struggling with? What do you want? And that's, honestly, where a lot of my content comes from, is whatever answer comes up. And who knows if this is my intuition or spirit guides or God or massive consciousness in the universe, but whatever it is, it helps me get settled into my day.

 

It helps me shift from Katie, the dog mom, who just had an uncomfortable amount of coffee and took her dog to the dog park, where the dog yapped at everyone and, you know, hasn't brushed her hair yet into here I am. I'm here to be of service, and I'm here to work with my clients, and I'm here to do some good work in the world.

 

This practice also only takes about, like, three to five minutes, depending on how frazzled I am when I sit down. And it's funny me sharing this, because I have this voice in my head that's telling you, like, don't tell people this. This is so weird. Like, people are going to think you're a freak. They're not going to want to talk to you.

 

And I just want to tell myself here, because we've never been shown a model where our spirituality can be brought into doing our work. We've never been shown a model where, like, religion is allowed in the workplace.

 

 There was a coworker I had way back then when I was in college, when I was working at a resort on Cape Cod, and he was Muslim, and Muslims have to pray five times a day.

 

And so part of his day, and they were very accommodating at this resort.. they set aside an office where he could go and do this really quick. And I always thought about that and thought, oh, my God, it would be so nice to have a reason to just check out for a moment, go and spend some time with your higher power, get grounded, remind yourself of why you're here and what you're up to. And I think that's such a beautiful practice. And full permission as you're designing your own business, as you have this freedom and flexibility to do whatever the f you want in your day to create these moments for yourself as part of your routine.

 

Now, there are two sides to this. There's incorporating spirituality to help you get set up for the best, most successful day, and then there's also incorporating spirituality to help forgive yourself when things go off the rails.

 

So that's my practice for when I get set up in my day, and I'm setting my intentions for what I want to accomplished. Some days don't go to plan. Some days I say, yes, I'm going to write the 15 emails that I need to do for this launch. I'm going to get that done today. And then 06:00 PM. Rolls around, and I haven't even started it right? And at that point, what happens is I'm in dopamine deficit over it, right? And because I already feel like I'm way behind on it, even if I start it, even if I start getting it done, even if I complete all 15 emails, I'm not going to get the same amount of dopamine because I'm already late with it. I said I was going to get it done by 04:00 PM., and it's past 04:00 PM. Now. I have already failed. We all know that we do this to ourselves. We rob ourselves of the lifegiving force that is the dopamine in our brains, right?

 

We punish ourselves. We make up all these wackadoodle rules and set ourselves up for failure in these small ways. Now, you can absolutely bring in your spirituality, whatever it looks like, to grant yourself some forgiveness in these moments. You know, one of the things that I love doing, I actually keep sage in my apartment. And I don't really sage my apartment. I sage myself. I sage myself of all the judgment that I have over myself for not doing things to the timeline that I had set for myself.

 

Whatever you choose to do here, however you choose to empower it to work for you, the only thing that matters is that it helps you reset back to factory settings. The only thing that matters here is that once you do that little ritual, whatever it is, it helps you get back to the point where you get the full dose of dopamine from doing the thing.

 

So I don't care if you have put off filming seven TikToks over the last three weeks, okay, and it's already way behind and you're failing and all this stuff, whatever ritual you need to do to reset yourself so that it's a new task. You get to forgive yourself for not having done it up until now, but you get to go and do it right now, and you'll get the full credit and all the dopamine that comes with it.

 

That's the exact thing you need to do right now.

 

Maybe not right now. Like, you should continue listening to this podcast, and then after this podcast, you need to go and do that. Don't leave the podcast.

 

The next thing I want to talk about is mindfulness and meditation.

 

And I'm going to pause you here. As an ADHD person, I know the idea of meditation completely freaks us out, because when we hear meditation, what our brains immediately go to is that you're not allowed to think anything. It's the absence of thought. And for someone with ADHD, when you have 17,000 thoughts going a million miles a minute in your head at all times, that is just impossible. Okay, we're not talking about that. And by the way, that actually doesn't happen in meditation. In meditation, you actually have all the thoughts. Thoughts come up all the time, and the only thing that you don't do is you don't dance with them.

 

Okay, so you remember. Oh, yeah, I wrote a note on a postit and I left it in the bathroom on the mirror and it's behind the other postit and da da da. Like, I have to go do that. Let that go. Oh, that's right. Like the dog chewed that shoe. I need to replace those shoes. Yeah, and I need to also to get some bread. Like, can I get bread and shoes at the same place? Let that go.

 

So literally, you sitting just with your thoughts and letting whatever thought comes up just pass you by, almost like you're people watching at the park. So imagine you go to a park in springtime and it's a gorgeous day and everyone's there and you're sitting on the bench and you're just kind of people watching.

 

Now, the ADHD way of doing this where you jump up and you deal with each idea, would be the same as, like, you jumping up and trying to have a conversation with every single person who walks by. By the way, that would be so uncomfortable for them. Please don't do that. I could just imagine, like, a police officer coming on by and be like, I'm sorry, there's been some reports of you harassing people. Can you please just sit on the bench and not talk to everyone, please? Thank you.

 

Okay, so that's not meditation. Meditation is you sitting and just kind of watching the thoughts walk by and not engaging with them, not saying hi, just observing.

 

I really seem to be thinking about my shopping list today. Wow. I really seem to be thinking about that embarrassing thing I said 20 years ago. That still bothers me.

 

That can be meditation, too. And you're not trying to be a champ here. There's no winning in meditation. There's no, like, meditation gold medal. Okay, five minutes. Five minutes of you sitting with your eyes closed, just focusing on your breathing, letting thoughts pass you by. That counts. You downloading an app that helps you meditate, that does guided meditations. That also counts.

 

This is one of the most gamechanging things I've added to my repertoire to help me be more effective as an ADHD human. This helped me through college, this helped me through numerous jobs, and it helped me in my business today. And I want to remind you, the only wrong way to do something is to do it in a way that doesn't work for you. So find your own way and I'll share, I learned transcendental meditation in college. I got trained by a transcendental meditation teacher that has been super effective for me, but it's also not for everyone. But what you can do here is just try different things and see what works for you. There's also this kind of fun mindfulness meditation that you can do. And if you take a mindfulness meditation class, there's one exercise that they have you do that has to do with like you're given two raisins, and so the first, raisin. You actually take like ten minutes each. Two, Raisins. It's insane, but you spend all this time looking at the raisin and noticing the color and feeling it and all the stuff, and then you taste it. It's a whole long, drawn out process, but it's amazing how much calmer you get. If you can find the Raisin exercise, we'll try to find a link and share it in the show notes. Raisin exercise for mindfulness meditation is an experience I feel like everyone with ADHD should have. Unless of course, you don't like Raisins. Then don't do it.

 

The next topic I want to talk about in your energetic care kit is one that often goes completely overlooked. And it's the most basic thing in the world, people. Rest. You need to rest. You need to be sleeping eight to 9 hours a night. None of this I'm going to sleep when I'm dead bullshit. If you wait to sleep till when you're dead, you're probably going to die sooner. Let's not do that. Let's live longer. By the way, you know, something that I read the other day is that people with ADHD on average, live twelve and a half years less than a neurotypical person. And there are many factors that go into this, but we're more likely to be obese. We're more likely to have, like, I think, high blood pressure, heart problems because of a whole bunch of factors. But I guarantee you in here is that we don't sleep enough. And when you don't sleep enough, your hormones can't regulate themselves, and when your hormones can't regulate themselves properly. You have a really hard time knowing when you're full. You tend to overeat. You also tend to not pay attention while you're doing stuff. You get into auto mode. And I don't know about you, but I definitely can call back to a couple of times, more than a couple, where I've been sitting in front of the TV with a bag of chips at my side and all of a sudden the bag is empty and I don't remember eating them all. Let's live longer, okay? Let's take care of ourselves. Let's give ourselves the rest so that our bodies can function well.

 

And finally, let's talk about exercise. In this podcast, we're talking about how you can function best as an ADHD- preneur. We're in our heads so much, we're using our brains. We're doing a lot of thinking. We're offering services. Yes, we are thinking beings and we do have to keep our brains in line. But guess what? We have a whole other meat sack attached to that brain. Exercise is so important for your body. Again, exercise helps you sleep better. It helps you focus better. It also helps you be sexy, which never hurts your confidence. Go out and move your bodies, people. And you don't have to do it perfectly. I know so many of us with ADHD, we are all or nothing people, okay? So like New Year's resolutions really flip us out because we're like, I'm going to work out every single day. I'm going to do heavy weight lifting and then I'm going to go for a three mile run and then I'm going to do an ice bath. And guess what? That's not realistic for most of our schedules, right? You set yourself up for failure the moment you set that into motion, okay?

 

So if like day one of you setting an all or nothing fitness goal, you fail, go for a five minute walk and let that count. Give yourself a dopamine hit of counting that as movement. Counting that as an exercise. You want to stand in your kitchen and do some jumping jacks. That counts. It doesn't not count because you're not wearing workout clothes or sneakers.

 

One of the things that I found really works well for me is when I am exercising and I am using some kind of exercise tracking app that helps me give myself credit for what I did. So when I'm in a running phase, I really like using RunKeeper because it shows me like what I've done. The only thing that annoys me is sometimes I forgot to turn it off and then it shows up like 3 hours later that it took me 40 minutes to run a mile. I'm like, no, that's not how long it took me. I stopped moving like two and a half hours ago and you've just ruined my time. You know, whatever works for you. Whatever will help you get an extra kick out of that dopamine hit.

 

My mom is so funny. So a few years ago I got a peloton and I told her about it and she was really jealous and so I bought her one.

 

And when she started using it, I get a phone call from her and she'd be like, Katie, I'm so morally superior today. I'm like, really? Like, what did you do, mom? And I'm thinking she gave to a charity. Maybe she volunteered her time she fed the homeless, she's like, no, I worked out. I'm so morally superior to everyone else. Like, I worked out today. And I love her because it's so true. You do feel morally superior when you do something that's good for your body and let's just own it. Let's just own it. Because when you do something that's good for your body and then you go and brag about it, it gives you that extra dopamine hit. Like she doesn't even realize that she's hacking her own ADHD here. How cool is that? And so if you have worked out today already, guess what? You're morally superior. Go you!

 

If you want me to walk you through a specially designed guided meditation for adhdpreneurs, click the link in the show notes that will take you to weenie.com/members. Not only will you get access to the meditation, but members can enjoy a free coaching call with me once a month. Access to other ADHD, adhdpreneurs in the community, off of all future programs with me, and other exclusive bonus podcast content.