241 - ADHD and Tension

Adults with ADHD are "now" or "not now" people when it comes to doing a thing. Let's talk about what it takes to turn not now into now! 

Mentioned in this episode:

Listen to myself and David Greenwood talk accountability on his awesome podcast "Overcoming Distractions". Here's the links to give it a listen:

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Overcoming Distractions on iTunes

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let's talk about tension. Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's open it up. Let's reveal it for what it is. It's discomfort. It's uncomfort ability. It's disagreeableness of my insides. Tension goes by many names. It's born from the Latin word succitudo, which translates exactly to this sucks. Let's talk about tension. You are listening to ADHD Big Brother, the podcast for adults struggling with their ADHD, their comorbid depression, their anxiety. Oh, it's just a new. I'm your host and your ADHD Big Brother, Rush Jones.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I've got ADHD too. I've got depression as well. It's craptastic. So let's learn some stuff. Let's laugh at some stuff. Let's make some commitments to do some stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, here's some stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Alright, welcome to the podcast. How is everybody feeling today? How you doing? How you doing? Let me know how you're doing. Um, I'm feeling the same way. Yeah, oddly enough. Let's get right into business here. Uh every episode we do the mental health report. This is us, you know, just doing our part, trying to normalize the conversation about our mental health. You know, we're not always fine. Sometimes we've got some good stuff going on, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's weird. We got to normalize being able to talk about it. So let us do that. This past week for me has been a bit about anxiety. Uh, that's been my that's been the flavor of my mental health this past week. Uh, that is the disorder that's showing its face. Anxiousness. God dang it. Um, I it sucks. Um, I've added some qi gong to my morning situation. That's a thing to work on for my wellness, right? My health and my wellness. I'm not sure wellness is like uh it seems like a big word, wellness. Maybe that's a bit aggressive. Maybe how about I'm working on my health and good enoughness or my health and okayness. How are you doing today? Uh, good enough. I'm good, I'm good enough. I will survive the day. Oh, your health and good enoughness is looking good. Um, so I just like the idea of qi gong. So I've been exploring that. Um, it feels like you don't really have to do a lot. At least the morning stuff that I've been doing, it seems mostly like delicately and politely hitting yourself with dead arms, moving air around. So that's easy to do. And if it's activating my qi, let's go. I'm into it. So I've I've been anxious. Uh, you know, whatever. We'll get through the day. Um, ADHD Big Brother stuff. Uh, I'm working on a new kind of accountability buddies at ADHD Big Brother. Uh, I think I mentioned this, but ADHD Big Brother, I feel like it's a disservice being like, hey, join our community. It's a gym. It's really a group of people, yes. And we have community-like behavior, yes. We are a people, a similar type of people gathering who have similar support needs and we have mutual concern for one another. We count as a community, but man, uh, it's a gym for getting your shit done. I think of it as an implementation engine. And that's how I use it. So if you're wondering, like, what the hell are you talking about? Um, you kind of have to scrap what you know about like social media, because I don't believe that you get true accountability from social media. It's just too surface, it's too fleeting. These are faceless people. These are name. Actually, I'll tell you what. Um, in the show notes, I was I was literally just on David Greenwood's podcast, Overcoming Distractions. Super cool podcast, super cool guy. It was a great talk about accountability, and you will get my two cents on social media over there. We talk about felt accountability, and that episode is live now. So when you're done, go uh give it a check. I'll put the link in the in the show notes. Check it out. Okay, back to ADHD, big brother. Uh, I believe, and I'm gonna base this on the my one-on-one coaching work and the groups that I run, the consistency crew, planning is something that quite often is difficult when maybe we're new to it and also when we're buried in our own chaos and our own overwhelm. It can be very hard to do. Um, it can be really hard to zoom out and get like a bigger picture, you know, when you're in it. And I find that when you ask people questions and if you have them verbalize their plans, the process is more smooth. It helps for the active problem solving. And ultimately, it actually kind of motivating uh and maybe inspiring because people are like, okay, I think I can do this. This seems doable. I'm motivated to try. It just really helps to externalize this process. And so this is what I'm doing. Uh, we just we just started this. I'm doing this inside ADHD Big Brother. So if you join, if you're somebody that wants to partner up with someone, I will show you how to plan a week your way. I'll give you a free 45-minute session. This is not the ADHD Big Brother planning system. This isn't some trademarked uh, you know, and you're gonna get my thing and you're gonna, it's this is you effectively planning the way you would plan effectively, if that makes sense. And if you want that, join ADHD Big Brother, we'll do it, and then I'll partner you with someone, and then you guys can do it together. And I'll help you set up the dynamic. I'll give you a cheat sheet, have questions that you can ask. I like the idea of trying a thing with someone for four weeks, you know, and then maybe you're partnered with somebody else. Keep

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SPEAKER_01 5:40

things fresh. It's up to you at that point. Okay, so I mean, that's what's going on at ADHD Big Brother. It's I don't know what else to say, man. It is a daily marvel in there. The past couple of weeks, multiple people reached 100 days in a row of accountability, like daily posting and accountability. 100 days in a row. Multiple people celebrated 100 days of no alcohol. I mean, I don't know what to say. I mean, do you want to get your shit together? Come on down. And then you can see me trying to do my thing of giving up bread right now. God dang, it's sourdough bread. I don't know why that's so freaking hard. I am struggling with that one. But this is how it works. Eventually I'm gonna do it. And it's by keeping it visible, you know, until I get it. And this is how it works. It's like you don't wait until you get your shit together to start getting your shit together. This is a place where you're supposed to jump in overwhelmed, in chaos, stressed out. This is where you go, and we will help you. It's awesome. I love it. Okay, all right, that's enough about how amazing ADHD brother is. It's the greatest place on earth. You know what I mean? Disneyland, please, ADHD Brother. Um, all right, let's talk about tension. This is the elephant in the room. It's what nobody wants to talk about. We just want to avoid it. It's taking up so much space in our daily lives. There's a lot of tension for doing things. We can't begin to think that we're gonna solve the whole global tension demic in one 15-minute podcast. However, I would like to zoom in on the tension of doing a thing. You know how you said you wanted to do that thing, or you wanted to finish that thing, or it's your responsibility to do that thing, or you told someone you were gonna do that thing, or you told yourself you were gonna do that thing, or you told your kid you were gonna do that thing, or you or you felt like you should do that thing. You know how that happens, and then the moment comes and we experience some tension, and then we don't do that thing. What's up with that? Let us that's the tension I want to talk about today. We are a people, yes, we are, who uh tend to live and die by a feeling of now and not now. That's what the biggies out there, the ADHD big timies, they'll tell you you were now or not now, people. Does this feel right to do this right now? It's a flicker of a moment. And if there's any tension in that moment, any confusion, any uncertainty, any annoyance, it usually becomes, oh not now. And we move on and we say, gosh, I gotta figure out how to create non-tention so that I can do this thing. You know, I I need to prepare my environment or I need to do some dopamining. I need to get my spelunking gear out and go into the dopamine caves looking for nuggets. I need to find my why. I need to find why this connect to my values tree? Why? What is my laundry? Why? What is my why for sending Troy an email response? What is this is going to propel me forward? It's gotta be uh it's always gotta be so profound. I'm gonna say, what if what if we uh accepted that the tension exists? There she is. What if we expected it? And rather than attempting to eliminate it, what if we did the thing while tense with the the whole sucky feeling attached to it? The problem that with that that I see is the time blindness. That's why we can't do that. That's why we struggle with that, I think. It's like because when I'm doing a shitty task, if there's a tension to it, the dramatic feeling is that this tension will be with me for the rest of my life. I'm gonna be in this hell of this task for eternity. It's very dramatic. You know, we know it's not real on paper, but you know, it's like feelings are truth when we're in them, right? And so reality be damned, because this is what it feels like. My whole life is uncomfortable emails. Why God? So we can combat that by caging that tension and putting a time boundary on it. We set timers, like you even I talk about timers all day long. Five-minute timer, right? And we say I can endure a nightmare of tension for five minutes. Knowing that we have the out after five minutes, that helps. We don't have to take the out, but it's there. It creates uh creates hope, it creates possibility, it creates the implementation engine, the getting started. It creates a sense of freedom from structure because it's a temporary structure, right? We get to break free from the nightmare when the timer's out. My question for this particular thing is what is the smallest amount of time where it would be effortless to get started? Is it 30 seconds? Set a timer for 30 seconds, do it. And then what is the first physical thing and the first physical move of that of that tension lace task? Start the timer and just do that one thing. This is about picking up your paintbrush and practicing the art of being productive when you're riddled with your ADHD symptoms. This is an art form. You know, like we're creative people. Like let's look at this creatively. You want to like it's this is the art of doing a thing that we don't want to do. What does that take to paint that picture? Many people will push back on this and they'll be like, Well, I know myself. I still won't do the thing. In my opinion, if that's the case, then you just you require another person. It's time to hire a coach. It's if that's too expensive, it's time to join a community. Uh, it's time to call a friend. If you're incapable of doing a thing because you know yourself and you won't do it, you have front loaded your entire world with the expectation of failure. So yeah, you're gonna fail. I mean, you've you know, you've manifested it for yourself. You've you've called it forth from the spiritual, from the spiritual plane of productivity in the self-fulfilling prophecy of you've nostra domised yourself into not doing you've nostra donted yourself. No more nostra don't think. All right, do you want to do it? Who gives a shit about historical data and what you're so used to not doing? Do you want to get on the other end of the tension? Then let's make it visible. Let's keep it at the forefront. And then what does it take for you to do it? I'm gonna go with you require someone else until you don't. Um, this fantasy that we have of you know sucking it up and just doing it. That is quite the long game, I would say. And what does that even look like? I'm just gonna keep failing at sucking it up until one day I suddenly am an upsucker. Like I can suck it up now. Spiritual vacuum activated. I I suck it all up. I can just do things. Does that even work? It makes me laugh because I'm like, that doesn't even seem real to me. Maybe I'm just a horrible upsucker. Can't suck it up, guys. I require other people, no shame. I embrace it, I'm good with it. Um, hashtag I am getting shit done. I do it by practicing the art form. These are the things that help us to get started. These are the skills of our trade. To paint the picture, we've got to practice painting. You know, you want to learn how to get started, practice the skills of getting started. The hope and maybe the motivation that I can give you is that you get more freedom and non-structure and calm in your life when you get proficient at this stuff. And to become proficient, you have to practice. You have to practice it when you feel good, you have to practice it when you feel like shit. Your world will become more manageable. You become more confident in your ability to manage the chaos. You know, I'm coming at you from an unmedicated ADHD depresso-anxious brain. It's mother flipping craptastic. But in my experience and even in my profession, when I'm working with you, this is doable. I see it being doable. It's and it's not about having to do a remedial exercise for the rest of your life either. I mean, I get that about some of the stuff. It seems like childish sometimes. I mean, that's how I feel about this stuff. So it it's just about learning and practicing that remedial exercise so that it's there for you when and if you need it. Oh my god, when I'm depressed, doing some kind of a hardcore suck it up thing is not real. Leaning on a remedial exercise when I've got nothing to give, that's how it works. Anyway, long story short, tension exists. I don't believe the answer is eliminating it. Um, not without drugs, man. If a task is gonna be crappy and in the moment we're gonna feel tension, what are we gonna do about it? Next time you feel tension in a task, next time you remember your reminder goes off, and then you like fucked up. You're like, you didn't put a transition in there, or your brain is telling you that something else is more important, or your brain is gifting you motivation for another crappy task, and you're like, oh, I should just do that one because I've got the juice. I challenge you to be self-aware in that moment, and I challenge you to stick with your original plan and see what happens. Actually, you know what? Let's do this. After this episode, plan to work on something that you know sucks. Something that you already have on your agenda, but like, you know, you know yourself. You're not gonna do it. It's that thing that you keep migrating forward on your to-do list. It's the tenth time you've migrated it forward, and now it's just a reminder to you of a giant ug and how like we take it to mean like that we're hopeless, right? We take it to the next level, don't we? And we're like, I don't ever want to look at my to-do list again. I can't bear it. It's too much. That's the task I'm talking about. Put that on your calendar as an appointment, not to complete it. No, no, no, no. Just to put time into it. You're gonna put in some time. Let's say 30 minutes. That's easy enough, right? 30 minutes. And then when the time comes, expect the tension and push start on the timer. And then what's the first step on that task? Open the computer, go into the room, whatever it is. Do that first step and live inside that task, that hell, for 30 minutes and then quit. Spoiler alert, you will have done 30 minutes more than you ever were gonna do anyway. Keep doing that until it's done. And then you shall take a black sharpie pen to that task. That's my challenge. You said you were gonna do it. You made the commitment. And if you're still incapable of moving your needle forward, then you'll need to be joining us. It's the time to join us. We will take your MF and needle and we will rock that thing so far forward, it's gonna split your brain. That sounded violent. It's we're not a violent uh community, but we will help you keep uh a thing visible and move your needle forward, and then you'll be like, oh my god, I did a thing. And and it feels good. Um, all right. As always, reach out if you have questions. You know where to find me. adhdbigbrother.com. Links to join the community are in the show notes. Come and join our ADHD Brain Gym. You're invited. Um, let's do it for a month. Let's see what we can do together. I will be there. I will be attempting to give up sourdough bread. Come and watch me try. I will be making that visible. Where will you be? And with that, I hope you have a fantastic weekend. I shall talk to you later.