The Liz Moody Podcast - Top Therapist: Your ADHD Tools Won't Work Until You Treat THIS Hidden Cause

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

It seems like everyone has ADHD right now, and it turns out, there’s actually a very good reason—I haven’t heard anyone else talking about this and it made me feel SO seen and so hopeful.  In this episode, I’m joined by top ADHD therapist, Jenna Free, who helps us understand why we feel distracted, bored, jittery, procrastinate, unable to focus, and all of the other things that lead to us diagnosing ourselves off of relatable ADHD content. Whether you have diagnosed ADHD or you just feel like you’re checking every symptom box you see online, this episode is going to give you a huge aha moment and a ton of very usable strategies that are going to help you feel SO much better. 🎧 What you’ll learn: • Why calendars, timers, and productivity hacks keep failing you + what to do instead • Why your phone addiction, impulse shopping, and doom-scrolling aren't willpower problems • The three tools that can transform how your brain functions for good • How to finally make progress on the things you keep putting off • How to stop living in "potential" with one powerful question For more from Jenna Free: • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adhdwithjennafree  • Website: https://www.adhdwithjennafree.com/  • The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation Book: https://amzn.to/4vtTh4p  Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome.Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our  highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes.  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: • Birch: go to BirchLiving.com/LizMoody for 20% off a new mattress. • Timeline: visit Timeline.com/Liz to save up to 39% off. • Branch Basics: head to BranchBasics.com and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off the premium starter kit. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 422. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It seems like everyone has ADHD right now, and it turns out there's actually a very good reason for that, but it's not what you might think. My guest today therapist, Jenna Freight, has identified the key reason why we feel distracted and addicted to shopping and addicted to our phones and bored and jittery and unable to do tasks without procrastinating and unable to focus and all of the other things that lead to us diagnosing ourselves off of very, very relatable TikToks. I haven't heard anyone else talking about what we're going to get into today about this underlying cause. And it made me feel so seen and so hopeful. So whether you have diagnosed ADHD or you just feel like you are checking every symptom box that you see online,

this episode is going to give you a huge aha moment and a ton of very usable strategies that are going to help you feel so much better. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where we uncover the real reasons that you are not feeling the way that you want to feel, and we get you real solutions to the problems that are plaguing you. All right, Jenna, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. My number one question for you is I scroll on TikTok and I see all these posts like, my ADHD brain makes it impossible for me to get out of bed in the morning. My ADHD brain, it never shuts up.

My ADHD brain makes me try to do a million things at once and never get anything done. And I am like, yes, like check, check, check. I feel this. Even reading your book, I related to almost every single thing that you put in the book. I felt really, really seen. But I have never been diagnosed with ADHD. I have always been like, are these symptoms of ADHD? Or is this just what it is like to be a person in the modern world?

Like, do we all have all of these ADHD like symptoms because of how we have structured society at this moment? Such a good question. So it's a little complicated. So one, some people really do have ADHD. I think some people think, oh, it's not a real thing. So there is definitely an ADHD brain. and we see it as a brain difference. So it's not bad, it's not good, it's just a difference.

But the symptoms of dysregulation are almost the same as the symptoms of ADHD. But if we're dysregulated or in survival mode, it will feel like we have all those things where I can't get up. I want to do everything at once. And the thing is, I don't think we really know what ADHD is in the current climate because we've conflated ADHD and being in fight or flight and put them together. But a lot of ADHDers are in fighter flight, and that's what I help people do is to get out of that fighter flight

because many people will relate to the regulation work because not they have ADHD, but because they're in fighter flight. So that is really my focus is that regulation piece, not necessarily even ADHD itself. So how should we suss that out?

You said a lot of us can't even tell if we have ADHD because we're all in this state of dysregulation. Does it matter? Do we need to get a ADHD diagnosis? Do you think that's beneficial in some way? For some people it is and for some reason. So one would be medication. Most people can't get medication without the diagnosis. But if we are just looking to make things better, there's tons we can do without a diagnosis without knowing for sure. And regulation is one of those things. And it's going to help everybody who's struggling no matter what kind of brain they have. A lot of adult women are getting diagnosed with ADHD right now. Why is it so hard for women to get diagnosed with ADHD?

And how are we missing all of these women until later in life? Yes. So historically, we had a very limited view of what ADHD was, little boy running around the classroom. Well, for girls, whether it be nature or nurture, I don't know if anyone knows for sure, but we are a little bit different. We hide it better. We are taught to be quiet, sit still, be nice. So there can be a lot of people pleasing and it's an internal struggle more than the external that a boy running around the classroom might show. So when you're young and you're not inconveniencing anybody, you're doing okay in school, she's fine. So I think a lot of us got missed. I was also diagnosed at 32. At 32. How did that diagnosis come about? After I had two kids in a year and a half,

my coping mechanisms or how I was functioning, it just didn't cover up all the cracks anymore. And I really started to see like, I don't think this is normal. I don't think it's normal to be like devastated that I've to sweep the floor. I was just overwhelmed by existence. And everything felt like I was walking through quicksand. And so that's when I started going, I think something's up here. And how did you actually get to your diagnosis? Because I think a lot of people will bring these symptoms to doctors.

And doctors are like, well, that's being a human in the world today. Like, good luck. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, it wasn't on TikTok or anything like that that I saw it, but I did. do some Googling and went, I think it's ADHD. And if it's not, I don't know what it is. So I went to see a psychologist specifically to get an assessment done. I hear that from a lot of people where, oh, I just went to my doctor and they said it's fine. You got to go to someone who's actually going to do the full assessment and then give you an answer yes or no. For some people, it'll be no.

It's not when I go get it. You always get a yes, of course. But that can be a little bit more certain. How did it change your sense of self to have the diagnosis? It was a relief for me. I know some people also feel grief or sadness with it. And I think that's mostly, what could I've done differently? How could my life be different had I known this before? But I was lucky enough to have scrambled through life in a way where I was okay. So I really was like, oh, thank God. That explains so much. I'm not crazy. There really was something going on here. So I felt really good about it. And do you think that we're under diagnosing ADHD because so many of these symptoms of dysregulation are just the symptoms of modern life? Yes, I think the diagnosis is going up right now

and people get scared of that. It's like, why? What is our biggest fear? And I think people's fear is it's just going to be an excuse. If you get an ADHD diagnosis, you're going to use it as an excuse not to work as hard, not to have to do the things that I'm working hard at doing. If someone who doesn't have the diagnosis, I haven't met anyone who is seeing it that way where, oh, I get the diagnosis and it's an excuse. If someone's getting a diagnosis that's happening so much more now, you can just see it. Okay, now I have a bit of a window into what I'm struggling with and now I can work on it. And that's going to be some sort of regulation.

So whether the diagnosis is ADHD, even if it's not, like you said, just because it's normal doesn't mean we need to be living like this. Yeah. And I also am like, what's normal anymore? Like people are like, oh, a neurotypical brain. I'm like, who is this mythical creature who has a neurotypical brain these days? Society is not conducive to not feeling burnt out, not feeling dysregulated, to getting all of the things that we are putting on our plate done regularly.

And then I think it becomes really hard to sort out. And then I think everybody's like, well, if everybody has a. ADHD. Does anybody have ADHD? It's just like a very tricky milieu right now. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the one thing there is believing that it's possible to feel good and not be dysregulated, no matter who you are, because I do get that a lot. Well, isn't that just how everybody is? So just because everybody's miserable and unhappy, we're going to stay miserable and unhappy or disregulated or in a panic or in frantic tizzy all the time. And that's really how I started doing this work and figuring out regulation work for ADHD was, okay, I have ADHD.

And even if someone who doesn't, I'm struggling with XYZ. I don't want to live that way. So what am I going to do about it? And then that's how I got to finding some answers for that. So you were a therapist at the time where you got your diagnosis. Did you begin to shift your practice towards these ADHD-focused methods immediately? Or what was that journey like for you? Yeah, I actually got the diagnosis at the end of school.

So I was a student therapist at the time. So when I came out of that to work for myself, I went straight to ADHD. So I was working with adults with ADHD, but I was using the old methods. What are the old methods? Give them a calendar, give them a tool, give them a timer, give them tips. It's just like, okay, it's just the way it is, man. So here's your floaties, like, try not to drown. And that is what therapists are taught.

And I was giving it to my clients. They'd come back the next session going, oh, yeah, I didn't do that. Quickly thought about that right before our session. Is that the issue? Like with the calendar, the tools, the stuff like that is, like, we're like, oh, thank you for this calendar, I'll use it for two days and then never again. Yes, because if you're disregulated, if you have a foundation of being in fight or flight, that shit's not going to work. I see it as like whack a mole. Well, just whack a mole, try to get those symptoms down. Eh, it's all you can do.

I saw that that wasn't working. And working with people for hundreds of hours, I saw the number one thing that stuck out to me that made me come to this conclusion was the frantic crash cycle. I literally wrote down this quote from your book because I have never felt so seen. So you wrote, I started to see that every single person I worked with experienced the same cycle as me, frantically rushing to get it all done, whether physically or mentally or both, and then crashing, scrolling on the couch, unable to make dinner, or even decide what to eat. Became clear that ADHD itself isn't our biggest burden. It's that we're stuck in dysregulation, which creates this frantic crash cycle that makes our

symptoms much worse. I truly have never read a paragraph in my life that I'm like, that's my life. Thank you so much for describing it. If I experienced those cycles, does that mean that I have ADHD? No. It just means you're in fight or flight. So this is your paradigm shifting approach to this. This is like this will be very helpful if you do have ADHD, but also many of us who are scrolling

on TikTok resonating with all these posts. We're like, oh my God, this person is speaking right to me with this ADHD post. Even if we don't have an ADHD diagnosis, this will help because we are likely dysregulatory. Absolutely. My next endeavor is widening it to the scope of just people in general. But what's cool is how we've used the regulation work to treat ADHD symptoms, which has not been the typical approach before. So it's kind of taking those two apart. It's like, oh, the ADHD brain and the fight or flight symptoms, maybe those aren't one in the same and they're not inevitable. Would you say that anybody who has ADHD is dysregulated, but not everybody who is dysregulated has ADHD? That's

perfect. Yes, exactly. We're going to get into all this like regulation stuff in a second, but I do want to give people these like things to look out for. Like maybe if you heard that quote and you're like, aha, that's me or like this applies to me. But I want to just get into some of these other symptoms. What can undiagnosed ADHD or dysregulation feel like?

If somebody's trying to listen, they're trying to suss out if they have it, obviously like go to your psychologist, try to get a diagnosis. But what are some behaviors in science that they could look for? I'll give a little reflection into what I was feeling before I got my diagnosis. So laying there on the couch going, oh, I should really clean the house. Oh, it's overwhelming. I don't know where to start. It feels like, I won't do any of it. It's just like I'm overwhelmed by the concept of doing anything. I never felt like I had enough time. Oh, I could, you know, tidy for 15 minutes. Oh, I don't have time for that. So I always felt like I was in a

rush. Exhaustion, just tired all the time. Something I see more recently is like people are like, What are hobbies? If I have time to myself, it is spent crashed. I'm on the couch. I want to scroll. I want to zone out. I want to watch TV. And we say it like we want that,

but I don't think that's actually a true desire. It's simply all we feel we have the capacity for. And often when I reflect, I don't feel good afterwards. Exactly. What do we get wrong about recognizing ADHD? I do think we are too limited in our symptom terminology. So we go, oh, you're ADHD paralysis. you have waiting mode, you procrastinate, and it's this really rigid prescription.

A lot of people are going to relate to that who don't have ADHD. But also, even if you have ADHD, sometimes that terminology and that specific way of seeing things keeps us stuck. So we go, that's the ADHD brain. I experience paralysis. So why would I work on that? I've been told that's what comes with this package deal. With the regulation work, one of the pieces that you have to have is the belief that we can change. Because I was someone who really was stuck in paralysis for like weeks on end, especially as an entrepreneur.

You have that flexibility. I would just be doing nothing for so much of the time. I'd say almost two years now have not experienced paralysis. I get overwhelmed. I get dysregulated. I still have my stuff. But a few of those big symptoms have been gone. And I think that's really cool. So I think we're too rigid with what we call ADHD symptoms and then telling people that's just how it is. that really keeps us stuck. Are there any symptoms that you think are just part of the diagnosis? Like we cannot move them. They are untouchable. Yeah, I think everything can be improved. But I would say what's left over for me and not every single person is going to be exactly the same. Memory, I still have a really hard time with like short term memory. My calendar is so specific because if I lost it, I would literally be like, where am I going? Who am I? I don't know anything.

Even last weekend I was doing a talk and my friend came with me and we're going there. I'm like, oh, I forgot my water bottle. I forgot this. She's like, take mine. It's like no matter how regulated I get, no matter how much. Okay, what do I need? I'm still going to drop the ball in the detail. So I do find those to be still there.

Wait, the ladder's really interesting to me. I always joke that I'm really bad at transition. So like if I'm at home and leaving home, I have really hard time. Or when I was at work and leaving work, all my friends at work would get really mad because it'd be like, Liz is going to take like 15 minutes to transition. to make sure she has her water bottle and all of our steps. Is that a sign of dysregulation or ADHD? It could be both. So when we are obviously in that fight or flight state, we have actual less blood flow to our prefrontal cortex. That's the part of our brain responsible for prioritization,

planning, logical thinking, you know, details, all of that. So if we have no blood flow to the brain, we're kind of scattered, we're a bit reactive, we're not as thoughtful and mindful. When you do go to your doctor when you went to your psychologist and like got the actual test for ADHD? What are the types of questions that are on there? Everyone I talk to you seems to have a different experience. So I do think it's quite subjective. It's not like, you know, something, you get a blood test. Oh yeah, I've celiac disease. ADHD is still a little subjective, right? You're just talking to a person and they're going, hmm, you fit the bill. So I do think there's a rigidity that people think it's like black and white. So it's still a bit up in the air. Well, it's symptoms based, which I also find

interesting because I was doing a little bit of research on it. And there's There are physiological things happening in your brain that are leading to this. There's chemical changes. There's some structural changes from what I was reading. So I'm like, why can't we, I don't know, like scan our brains and get a more concrete diagnosis versus something more symptom-based? Yeah. Yeah. You're self-reporting of your symptoms. So it's a bit tricky. But in my experience, one of the things they had me do was like this computer thing where you had to click the letters as they showed up and I had a couple of these like technical tests. Okay. And then more. I like that more. Yeah, and then more of an interview after.

Interesting. My sister, she's a psychologist, and she said that it's like very long. So she's like, her problem with the TikTok diagnosis is that she's like, there's just no way in 90 seconds you're achieving what I'm achieving in this like multi-hour long experience. Yeah, for sure. But what I like about your approach is you're like, if this resonates, it is because you are dysregulated. So here is how we can help. Yeah, absolutely. How can we know if we have anxiety versus ADHD or both?

When I work with people, they'll go, but I always. I also have this diagnosis of anxiety. I also have this diagnosis of OCD. That's very common. I have that. Okay. I actually bought this. Here we go.

All of that. What's the root of all those things? A system in fight or flight, right? It's feeling unsafe, trying to control, trying to keep myself safe. So it's all rooted in the same thing. When I'm actively working with someone, I say, let's just call it dysregulation and see what we can do with it. Like, let's not work. Well, is this part, anxiety, is this part?

OCD, is this part, the 80? it's kind of irrelevant. Let's work on getting you out of fight or flight and then see what's left over at the end. And what usually is? A lot less. A lot less. It is pretty cool. I was just on one of my calls yesterday with my groups and someone was like, oh my God, I am feeling a change that this is my fourth thing I've tried.

Four different approach. And I am feeling changes and it's been like four weeks. It's really impactful because if you think about like the root of the issue, If you go straight to the root and you're really untangling it, that's going to give you a lot more effects than when you're trying to come from the top of behavior change. I'll really try for this routine. I'll really try to use this calendar. That's only going to affect a little tiny bit on the top. When we do that regulation, we're going to really digging.

You're digging deep. You're going into beliefs and why is this? Why am I my resistant to this? And looking at all this stuff, whoa, that's going to have a big effect. Why am I so dysregulated? Well, I can't tell you. But what I've seen for ADHD years or anyone who's different, I do think being a neurodivergent person or person who functions differently than the norm, societal norms, whatever we see that as,

you are just going through life just that bit with a bit more friction, right? Oh, I didn't do that, got in trouble for that. Oh, I was late to that. And it's just that little poke, poke, poke, poke, puts that system on the defense. And now we're stuck there. And that's the problem with it. It's the fighter flight being a chronic condition. So it's like our flip got switched on and now it's stuck there.

So what we want to do is start working on turning it off going, you know, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe. So it could stay off most of the time. And I'll get a switched on when we're really stressed, when we have something big going on. We don't want to function with it. It's interesting because I'm thinking about like who are the people that society is really set up for. And it actually is like a pretty small minority. Totally. So then it makes sense that if you're not in that very very.

small minority that you would be somebody who's going through life with a little bit of friction. Yeah, absolutely. Do you take medication? I do not. And how would you work with somebody to decide whether or not they should be taking medication? I am definitely not pro or con medication, but I did find when I was diagnosed, I was like crying to my husband like, I need meds, just give me anything. I'm dying. But it was like right at the end of my schooling. And I knew there might be side effects. As I was wrapping up, I didn't want to be dealing with that. So I just wrote it out. And then my life, got a little easier when school was done. So I said, let me just see what I can do. And then I stumbled upon this and now here I am. And I feel so solid and so strong. But with or without meds,

regulation is going to help. Some people need the medication to like get me up to a state where I can even contemplate this stuff. Like this takes a bit of effort. I get it. Also, the more people do this work, they may find my meds are actually dysregulating. Oh, that's interesting. Because it's pumping me up. Yeah, it's getting me energy and getting me to go, but I'm kind of like a spinning top. and then I crash when the meds wear off. So for some people, it's going to get you in the nice step up where, oh, I feel capable to do this work. And for some people, it's going to be, oh, this is actually tipping me over the edge and making

it worse. You said, and I think this is in one of your online videos, that the number one question you should ask yourself if you're trying to decide whether or not you should take medication for ADHD is how do I want to feel? And is this medication helping me get there. And I thought that was really helpful. Yes, it's a very subjective. Again, there's no blood test.

Oh, yes, this blood pressure medication is working. Do you feel it's working? What do you want from it? Do you even know? I think some people do just take it because they go, oh, got the diagnosis. That's the only thing there is to do. So I'll take the medication, which is fine. But you do want to feel, well, is this helping?

What is it? What do I want it to do? And yet, what does helping look like for me, which I think is really interesting. Okay, we're going to get into regulation. Awesome. Now, you talk about three different types of regulation. We have nervous system regulation, thought and belief regulation, and behavior regulation. Can you explain the differences between those three? Yes. So first I wanted to clarify

regulation. Here's what people think. Emotional regulation. That's not what I'm talking about. If one more person says emotional regulation. What is, like, what does emotional regulation look like? Like I don't even know if people know, but they use that word because we are reactive. Oh, so it's like, don't show your anxiety. It's almost like a different form of masking, emotional regulation. Right? And I just think it's, it's weird thing to try to do because you're kind of saying the emotions are wrong or bad. Yeah. But it's an upper symptom. If your nervous system is in fight or flight, meaning biologically in my primal state, I feel unsafe, yeah, of course you're going to be reactive and snappy and cry really easily and flip the lid as they, that's literally a term

in the psychology. Yes, but this is not the problem. This is the problem. So we're not trying to like regulate the symptoms. We're trying to regulate the root. Yeah, exactly. And then secondly, people think nervous system regulation. They think yoga, meditation, calm, quiet rest. That's also not what I'm talking about. Nervous system regulation is involved, but I really focus on in the moment, nervous system regulation, which is very different than task-based regulation. Okay, so it's not an ongoing thing. It's in the moments of activation you're regulating. Well, in the moments of your life. So task-based regulation, to me, me would be anything you could check off a to-do list. Oh, I meditated. Check. Done. No.

You can't go about your day and be in a frantic mess just because you meditated for 10 minutes. So that's not going to work. Yoga. It's lovely. Those are icing on the cake. Sure, do those things, but that's not going to get your system, right, flip that switch off enough. Yeah, it's interesting. I think about often how we get good at what we practice. And so if we're practicing chaos, 10 hours of our waking lives a day, And then we're doing 20 minutes of meditation. We're only practicing that common focus and attention state for 20 minutes. So I do think that you're saying is like we need to practice it all day long. Yes.

And it can be very, very small. So I would start with people. One, they need to know what does it feel like in my body to be dysregulated. Some really quick signs would be tense. Shoulders are up by your ears. A lot of us have TMJ trap. Yeah, I have that too. Cool.

This whole episode is going to be like, oh, there I am. Hello, everybody. rushing. That's my favorite sign because it's such a flag. It's so obvious, right? You can like see yourself running around the house. Yeah. And I watched a TikTok once that was like, we're not getting time back. You know, when you're like frantically loading the dishwasher versus com. So then you're like, wait, why am I doing this? And you're saying because we're dysregulated. You're literally running from a bear. We are primal beings. And that's a big part of regulation work or effective regulation work is really understanding. We are animals. We think, oh, we're so evolved. No. We are little, small. scared animals running around. We have to realize that because then you understand your own behavior so much better. I just would rather be like a house cat lane in the sun. It's given the option of animal. And we can get there. We can get there. But so for that, the in the moment is when I notice I'm rushing, I slow. It's long term and it's slow, which the dysregulated brain wants to overhaul our lives by Monday. But that doesn't work. Slow and steady wins the race is the saying for

reason. So it's really just like, oh, I'm observing when your shoulders are up here. Slow down. Bring it down. And you're training your brain in those moments. You're training your brain to make that your normal reaction, your normal state. Well, what you're really doing is getting the evidence of, oh, took a deep breath. I relaxed. Bear didn't get me. Oh, that's cool. Because your system literally doesn't know the difference. It thinks. Wow. She's rushing around like crazy. there must be something chasing her. Got to remember, think primal. Why would I be doing this?

Oh, but I'm not. The reality is I'm safe in my home. I understand not everyone is, but assuming you are physically safe, we want to show your nervous system that you are, and you can only do that through action. So that's nervous system regulation. You also had these other examples,

like these little sneaky signs that we felt threatened, like avoiding work until the night before it's due or snapping at your partner. Would that mean we're in fight or flight and we need nervous system regulation or a different type of regulation? You need all three. All the time? But yes.

But the base is that nervous system. Because if you're continuing to rush around, you're continuing to hold your breath and be really tense. Yeah. Nothing will change. Nothing's going to work. Okay. So when I am avoiding work until the night before, my hand is up, assume my hand is up for this entire episode. Or snapping at my partner because, like, he's disrupting me.

What should I do in those instances? Yeah. So we're still in fight or flight. So those are all just signs. So we want to do the same thing no matter what. So one, am I through the day aware of my own dysregulation and interrupting it? And then we're going to add on these other two layers that we're going to talk about. Okay.

So thought and belief regulation. Yes. Thought belief regulation is different. This one's unique. People do not think of this when they think of regulation. They think somatic. It's in the body. Don't worry about the mind.

You think your thoughts and beliefs aren't linked to your nervous system. Like the way we think has been formed by a biolite. system that thinks it's in danger all the time. So our thoughts and beliefs are going to be rooted in scarcity, fear, urgency, guilt, shame, negative self-talk, judgment. Oh, my hands still up. Hello. All of that is dysregulation. Our system's trying to keep us safe. If we are using those in here is because we are dysregulated. That's not natural. That's not normal. And by normal, I mean inevitable and like part of the human condition. Yeah, it's actually sad because it is probably normal. but it's not inevitable. Yeah, it's common. It's common, but it doesn't need to be our reality. Yes. Okay. So what do we do about thought and belief regulars? Yes. This is my favorite part. So the first thing I like to notice is when we're fighting with reality. I call it potential. So we live in two places. We have potential and we have reality. Potential is pretty much anything that you can't touch. I'm here talking to you. That's the reality is just what's in this room. Anything else would be potential. Oh, I really. I really. I really. I'm here talking to you. I'm here talking to you. That's the reality is just what's in this room. Anything else would be potential. Oh, oh, I

really should have said that differently. Oh, what am I going to do after this? Oh, what have I doing tomorrow? Oh, my gosh. I'm anxious about how this is going to go. Or even like what is she thinking about me in this moment. Exactly. It's shoulds judgment, negative self-talk, planning and thinking instead of doing. There's a lot of stuff where we are spending our time and energy that gets nothing, and we get nothing for it. Yeah. 80s years like, I'm so exhausted and I did nothing all day. Oh, you were working hard, but you were working hard up in potential. Oh, interesting. Not in reality where we get fruit for our labor. You put the clothes in the wash, you get clean clothes. You type on your computer, you get finished work. You walk to the

store, you get milk. Okay. I'm going to push back slightly. My brain tells me by constantly monitoring every little thing, I am mitigating disaster. Like I'm controlling people's thoughts of me. I'm controlling how I interact with people in a positive way. And it has thus far benefited my life. So if I stop, everything could just all fall apart. That is the definition of dysregulation. So what's so tricky about being in this fight or flight state is how you have done things has kept you alive. You have so much evidence that it works. You would have had the same results if you were present and regulated and relaxed, but we don't know that because I haven't done that. Yeah. So it goes, well, look, it's working. Yeah. I'm an end of one. And the end of one is pushing me in

the direction of dysregulation. Yes, your system wants to stay there. It literally thinks it's saving your life by rushing, being frantic, worrying, being hurt on yourself, it's keeping me alive, is preventing me from death. Like, we've got to realize primal animal. Well, and even the death, we've talked about this on a lot of other podcasts, but in our primal brains being kicked out of the group, equates to death because it literally did at one point in our history. And so there's the real death, but then there's also like, if the, if people don't like me, I will literally die. There's a part of your brain that believes that. Yes, but that's the primal part, right?

But current reality is not typically that. So when we're in that mismatch where, wow, my system is acting as if I'm about to die. And the reality is I'm safe. My God, we're missing a lot of great opportunity to enjoy life. So do you think awareness is the big part of the, like, if I'm like, this has worked for me for my entire life, but I feel awful often, is the awareness, the thing that snaps me out of that, or do I need just to accumulate proof points in the other direction? Or like, what's the secret? Yeah. So for everything I teach, there's two steps. Awareness and interruption. So, for example,

the physical dysregulation, I need to be aware I'm rushing. I need to be aware in my shoulders drop by my ears. If that's just how you function, you don't even notice it. There's nothing we can do. So we have to be aware. And then for the physical piece, the interruption is slow down. The interruption is right? I'm interrupting that physical state. Well, same for thoughts and beliefs. So I'm aware that I'm in potential. Oh, I see. I'm sitting on the couch going, I shouldn't be sitting on the couch. I'm so horrible. Why aren't I getting up? Oh, I'm in potential. Interruption? Can I come back down to reality? The reality is, whatever it is, now what? That's my favorite line. Wait, so the reality is, whatever it is. I'm on the couch. Oh, so it's not, okay, it's not like I'm not working.

That's a thought, right? The physical reality. The reality is I'm sitting on the couch. Now what? I could get up and do a dish. Can I come back into this body and walk from there instead of swirling around and potential and trying to orchestrate everything? What about non-physical realities? Like, the reality is my company is going to announce layoffs tomorrow.

The reality is I have this presentation due and I haven't started it. it yet. What do we do with those? Yeah, I love that. The reality is I haven't started it yet. Now what? Start? It's really simple when we come back to the reality. We're accepting what is because whether you accept it or not, it is what it is. It is with a next step. It's not about complacency. It doesn't mean, oh, the reality is I haven't gotten started on my work, so I'm just going to keep not starting on my work. And that's how I am and I suck. Right. That's not what we're talking. talking about. Because it's a, like, it's a story that's later. You're coming right back into potential. So the reality is very neutral. It's just simply what is. And can I go from here? Can I drop out of all

of that potential? And then take maybe one step of action. And that may just be, so I'm going to relax on this couch that I'm on. And maybe that's the move right there. But you'd be amazed at how over time it trains your system, it's safe to just be here. You don't need to be hypervigilant. You're okay, not beating yourself up about everything. You preserve energy, and then especially for ADHD, you're really exhausted, they will find, oh my God, I'm getting way more done, but I'm not trying harder because we can't try any harder than we're trying. It's just putting that energy somewhere different.

And a little trick if people are having a hard time with that, because that's big. That is hard to be like, I can't accept reality because it's so horrible. It's what I like called GPS thinking. If you've put an address in your GPS and you're meant to be going west, but you go east for five miles, the GPS doesn't say, you idiot. You're so stupid. I can't believe you went this way. You've wasted so much time.

What were you thinking? It just goes, turn right. Like, it accepts where you are and redirects from there. And it's so powerful when you realize, oh, my God, imagine if my time was just spent, okay, well, I want to head this way instead of spending an hour about how I shouldn't have gone this direction. And because you're still alive, we say, oh, that helped. But as we've seen, it play out in the reality is it doesn't.

or people wouldn't be listening to this episode and relating to it, right? We would be thriving. Okay, I have two questions. One, you said your favorite sub-question for all of this is the now what. Can you explain why that part is so important? It gives us permission to move it along, right? We're not sitting. We're not dwelling.

We're not stuck because acceptance does not mean stuck. It does not mean complacent. It just means, oh, can I put my feet on the ground where I have any power whatsoever and take one step from here. So my clinical sound for regulation is do-to-de-de-do. That's the clinical term. And we want that energy to life. Like, I'm moving along.

I'm not stagnant. I'm not stuck in the quicksand, but I'm also not running down the hill trying to keep my feet under me. So that Nawa gives us like, okay, well, what's one little step I can take? If I'm freaking out, oh my God, I should have done that yesterday.

I should have done that yesterday. Well, the reality is I didn't. Now what? I could start it now. Like that's the only place I have any power. I can't do anything about yesterday. Thinking about that, being hypervigilant about that, beating myself up about that.

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Where do the clients that you work with get stuck in that process and how do you help them overcome that hurdle? The biggest work in regulation is not the teaching, right? Oh, GPS thinking, just practice that. It's when people go do that and they observe what came up. Oh, I see I have an underlying belief that if I'm not hard on myself, I'll never do anything that comes up a lot. If I'm compassionate to myself, I'll be on a lump on a log, and I won't ever get anything done. So I have to beat myself up. Okay, we got to work through that because that's just more peeling the onion. So yes, we challenge one thing like, okay, maybe I don't need to be so hard on myself. Not because it's not nice, but because that's a form of dysregulation. Okay, I'm going to challenge that. And then you

go about your business and you realize, oh, that's why I do it. Because I think if I, if I'm kind to myself, I'm letting myself off the hook. What if somebody just thinks that it's like accurate and they deserve it? Like you're you're not thriving as a human. You deserve to be beat up internally. That's just all potential. It's all dysregulation. What's the reality? And we'll hear that. Oh, well, number one belief rate each dears and behind I need to catch up. It's a very disregulating belief. And that people say, but it's true. But it's true. Look, look, it's true. Everything that they're basing it on is potential. It might be like, well, a 45 year old should be. should instantly we're in potential again. What's the reality? Can we practice just accepting what is?

So what would be the reality there? It's not a 45-year-old should have done X, Y, and Z. It is. So the reality is I work at the mall. I'm going to apply for schools. Like, what do you want to do differently? Because the only place we have any power is the present. So the dysregulation around that is going to make it worse. We're going to avoid more, right? Because if I feel bad about myself, That doesn't motivate me to get, I'm really going to take life by the horns and go for my dreams. No, you're going to get burnt out, I'm exhausted by it, in paralysis, overwhelm. So it really feeds the cycle of all these problems and symptoms. It's not solving anything, but that's the dysregulation.

Nobody's choosing to be in fight or flight. And even when I talk to ADHD or online, they'll go, well, that's mean because I'm saying you're probably dysregulated. What, you think this is like a personal failing or you chose that? This is a biological response. We do have the power to heal it, though. And then the third type of regulation is behavior regulation. Behavior regulation is just where do I see dysregulation in my behavior? And we're going to see that in extremes.

So all or nothing. I either clean the whole house and wipe the baseboards and vacuum the basement or I don't even pick my towel up off the floor. Oh, no. Okay. Got more hands up. I either sit down and power this workout for eight hours or I'm not even going to open my computer. That is dysregulation. It's those extremes, just like the frantic crash cycle. And regulation, it's all about that do-do-do-do-do, that finding that middle ground.

So with our behavior, it's not about white knuckling and forcing ourselves to do things differently. It's just observing, always that two-step process, awareness of my black and white thinking or all or nothing thinking. and then I want to interrupt that with flexible thinking or flexible doing really because you have to do things differently. So for example, chipping away is one of the three specifics that's in the book. So if you're used to, I'm not even going to start unless I can do the whole thing. We want to challenge that and interrupt that cycle by going, okay, no, it's safe to chip away. I can just work on this for 20 minutes. It's okay. It's allowed. I'm safe. What's really interesting is the brain and fight or flight actually does not perceive nuance on purpose. We want to see things as,

you know, binary. Okay, it's either safe or it's dangerous. Just because it's easier to comprehend if we are running away from a bear. Exactly. So it's so primal. So what we want to do is start kind of waking that part of our brain up again. I'm going, oh, no, I can do it in little bits. I can do it in that way. There's A to Z all available to me. It doesn't have to just be one or the other extreme. And that's a real practice because that's going to also bring stuff up that is uncomfortable, but it's really, really worth practicing. I feel like there's the two ends of the extreme. There's like, I'm cleaning out and organizing my whole house. Should we not do that? Should we like stop ourselves in the moment? I would personally. Because we want to look at where does the through line go.

We are a person the whole time. So we want to look at where does that lead us? Not just was that an effective afternoon. Well, often it leads me to like finishing, taking everything out and then I get exhausted. I'm like, well, I can't organize this and put it back. Exactly. And then I'm surrounded by crap. Yeah. So a great, like chipping away would be, okay, I have an hour. I'm going to tidy for an hour or work on this closet for an hour. But you have the acceptance of, okay, I'm not going to do this all at once. That is okay. That is allowed. That is good. Progress over perfection. And then you get used to doing things in that way, you'd be amazed at how, oh my God, things take so much less effort. I just do a bit here, a bit there, and it gets done over time instead of needing to be so gung-ho

and do it all at once. I thought it was so interesting that you talked about phone addiction in your book and you were like, instead of thinking this as like a dopamine imbalance and like my dopamine is so messed up so I'm going to scroll my phone forever, I've like messed up my brain. You're like, if you get regulated, you are not going to need to reach for the screen time, to reach for the online shopping. Can you explain that relationship? Yes. So I like to see those things as I'm soothing my dysregulation. So it gives me that comfort. Oh, I feel better. In the very, very short term, obviously we feel way worse after. But if we see it in that way, it can just be a canary in the coal mine sign. Oh, I'm dysregulated because I am doing things compulsively. And that's what we want to look for, compulsive behavior. That's like I am doing my work and I compulsively reach from my phone. And like I've opened Instagram before I've even thought about it.

Exactly. You can choose to go on Instagram. We're all adults. That is part of regulation work is realizing, oh, I'm a grown up now. I'm not a kid waiting to get in trouble. And that's another side of dysregulation. If you always feel like a kid waiting to get that little slap on the hand and you did it wrong, we're living in that fierce state that we were as kids. But as adults, we can kind of come back into like, oh, I'm the boss. I kind of hate that, though. I feel so not like an adult. I drive my husband nuts with this because I'm just like, who's letting us like pay taxes? Who's letting us just like, like, We live in this house by ourselves. Like, I find it so strange to be an adult. And I don't know if that's because I'm dysregulated or that's just because it is weird. It is. But at some point, they're just like, well, you can go be president if you want to. You know what? Yes.

No, I do think it's both. I do think it's weird. I don't think anyone feels like a grownup when you're 80. But also, we are going to feel more like this feels like pressure to be an adult instead of freedom. Oh, okay. When you're regulated, the true, true poor of regulation, there's so many benefits to it. But I think the very core is freedom. I'm free to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

I'm not run by guilt and shame and random rules because that's part of all or nothing thinking. It's weird, strange, perhaps unspoken rules that we create for ourselves. Wait, like what? Like, I'm not allowed to go hang out in the yard until I've gotten all my work done. Well, because I don't feel like doing my work, I'm going to sit here and scroll then. Because I'm not allowed to go do the fun thing. or I was talking to a group today and they were sharing some examples. Oh, yeah, I can't go off a shower until my room's clean.

She's like, what does that have to do with anything? I didn't realize I was doing that. So if we notice that in the moment, like I do, I find myself postponing the fun thing until I do the hard thing, but then I'll procrastinate off the hard thing and then I never get to do the fun thing. So if we notice that in the moment, what should we do instead? Absolutely. So one would be we've got to get aware of, well, what does that rule I have in my mind?

because that's that rigid thinking, that all or nothing thinking. So it might be, oh, I see, I think I have to get my to do list done before I can do any of the fun stuff. There's a rigidity in my thinking. Okay, I want to challenge that. So it might be chipping away. Like, okay, I'll do a little bit of that, but then I'm going to go outside and read my book for a little while. And so it'll be challenging the belief or that rule.

You can have more freedom to be that grown up who can do what they want to do. And I know people listening right now are going to say, yeah, but then I'll never. do my work. That's because you're dysregulated. What's so cool about regulation is I have found as an entrepreneur who has pure freedom. I work for myself. I live by myself. I have no boss, no nothing. I now will be watching TV in the day and go, I'm bored and I'll like go answer emails. Like I genuinely want to accomplish things in a very balanced do to do sort of way. I used to lay and watch TV all day. And I would not enjoy it. I would just be stuck and frozen and so unmotivated. So just to kind of share that glimmer of, but a lot of what we're struggling with is the dysregulation.

So when you work on it, those things that we see as barriers will change. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think you said something and it brought to mind this image of like, I'm being dragged around by my brain instead of my brain helping me facilitate the life that I want. Absolutely. You wrote in your book that ADHDers have a tendency to either over-schedule or under-schedule. What are some specific tactics that we can use to schedule correctly? So that's just really looking at kind of how that all or nothing comes into play. So it's like, I'm getting all my meetings done on Monday.

I'll hammer them all out. Then I'll have the rest of the week open and do my work. How does that play out? You're exhausted by Monday. Useless on Tuesday. Barely get anything done by Wednesday. And then maybe on Friday you frantically get a few things done. It's like, let's get ahead of that and practice that flexible balance that we're looking for.

Regulations all about the middle ground. Okay, well, maybe I have two meetings every day. instead of like 10 meetings back to back on Mondays, that might feel like, oh, but I just want to get them over with. That right there is a sign of dysregulation if you're trying to get everything over with. Why? What is that our brain trying to do? It's a rush thing. Let me just get this over with.

Get this over with. Oh my God. It's so nice to just go, this is life. Yeah. There is no real over with. Yeah. Even if you get respite, it's temporary. And often it comes to your point at a cost.

Yes. And so this is really scares people. but I find it so freeing. The to-do list will never end. What's the rush? We're all trying to get to this finish. I just got to get everything done. You're going to wake up tomorrow and have more to do because we're human beings.

The definition of life is doing things until you die. So like we want the to-do list to be done. Like that's really depressing actually. Because on that to-do list is nap. Connect with my mom. Go for a walk. It's fun stuff too. Not just productivity or work.

So how do you approach calendaring, to-do list, like kind of on a pragmatistic. day-to-day basis. I give myself spaciousness. I always have some sort of break or at least I'm not required to be somewhere immediately after I have another meeting. I'm giving myself that opportunity to be regulated. I have enough space to do the home care stuff, like do the laundry and will you put that on your calendar? No. Will you put it on a to-do list? No. But that has come with time. Okay. As I'm more regulated, I find if I see the laundry baskets full and I have time, I'll put it in. I'm much more like just can do things as I see them. Oh, the garbage is full.

Let me take that out because I'm not in such a frantic tizzy all the time trying to rush from one thing to another. But all of these clients that you work with, do you suggest that they do any of these like to-do list tactics or eat the frog is a big one that comes up on ADHD TikTok of like do the really hard thing first in your day so you get the dopamine rush and then you can go about the rest of your day. Do you like any of those for the people you work with? No, I don't. We really do the regulation piece first and formal. And then it's like, okay, well, what do you need to support yourself? And let's make it as simple as possible. So I have like a paper calendar and I have this wristwatch that just has the time.

Those are my tools. When we have these complicated apps and these things that orchestrate, all this automated, my gosh, that's just more just regulation and complication. So it's really just what is the simplest possible thing that would still support me. Again, I need that calendar. If I don't have that calendar, I literally will wake up and have no clue what I need to do that day. but also I'm present enough to be able to do some things when I see them. Simplest tools are the best, I think.

When I add spaciousness to my day, let's say I have a project and I'm like, okay, I'm going to really get ahead of this. I'm going to give myself three days to complete this project. I will wait until the last possible second to do it. I'm like, oh, look, you built in procrastination time for yourself almost. How can I stop doing that? Yes, that is the dysregulation. So what we're doing there is I can't do anything until I have the urgency, right? Motivators of dysregulation, urgency, shame, guilt, and fear.

I'm waiting for the urgency to come and take me over so it can fuel me instead of practicing the do-do-do-do-do-do, which would be, oh, I'm more consistent. I am at a reasonable pace over time and not rushing at the last minute. So we're not incapable. It's just uncomfortable. So we're really starting to build these three layers up. So it will change over time. It's not going to change immediately.

And the behavior change comes last. So we start with the nervous system state, right, the interruption of that. We work on our thoughts and beliefs and see what's getting in my way. What are my patterns? What are my behavior patterns that are dysregulated? And we slowly chip away at that. And people do fine, even within weeks of, oh my God, I started that two days before instead of 30 minutes before. never done that. So you grow the capacity. So for someone who right now is like, I just can't do

that. I get it. But it can change. And that really does start with believing that is possible. Okay. I just want to make sure I'm getting this right. Right now, I shouldn't do anything pragmatically to try to get ahead on a project. But I should practice like in the moment lowering my shoulders, breathing all these things and disrupting these thoughts that are like, you should be doing this. you're a lazy piece of shit, all of these, disrupting those in the moment. And then naturally, I will start on the project three days ahead. From both sides. Naturally, it will be easier, but we also want that little bit of effort to try it differently.

Like you said, so you get the evidence because you have a lot of evidence that, hey, that's kept me alive. Let's do it urgently at the last minute. That's been effective so far. Well, we need to get more evidence of like, oh, the other way is good too. So that would be the all or nothing thinking that was time of it. So we've chipping away. yeah, there's consciously cutting corners, so that perfectionism, we want to work on that, and prioritizing action. So instead of planning and listmaking for five hours, can we get things

moving? Those are more of a doing differently, but it's not a forced white knuckle thing. It's we really want to have a mindset of curiosity. Oh, what if I did this? What is the, what resistance do I have to starting this earlier? What are the thoughts and beliefs that come up? Complex work. It's not so simple all the time. So if somebody's thinking about a big thing they want to get done, maybe something they've been telling themselves that they want to get done for a long time, what's the thing they should do today to begin to make progress towards that thing? First would be, what is getting in my way? Because if you want to do it, you know how to do it and you're not doing it, it's not a conscious mind problem. It's something underneath. So it's either subconscious or nervous system. So what is the thing that's stopping you? And so when people even stop to think about it, they might go, oh, I'm waiting for the perfect time to have the whole eight hours because I believe I can't start unless I'm going to get the whole thing. Oh. And like the beautiful environment. I don't want to write my book unless I'm in a cozy cottage in the woods. Exactly. And so we go, okay, perfectionism is in there. All or nothing thinking is in there. Probably beliefs about I don't have time. I'm in a rush. All of that's going to culminate to really get in our way. Like I said, it's a slow breakdown of these habits and these ways of being. We absolutely can change it. So we just got to look at, well, what's in my way underneath the surface. So the first step is identifying what's blocking me. And then let's say we are like, okay, it's perfectionism, okay, it's all or nothing thinking, what's the second step?

We have to do all the work we've been talking about. So we have to simultaneously be working on the nervous system work slowly building up. In the book, it says read this one chapter at a time. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. I didn't do that. Yeah, well, that's just fine. Well, you have different purpose to read it. But perhaps if you wanted to do the work, I would recommend going back read one chapter. There's a literal like what to do at the end of each chapter. There's a little checklist because we love that. It's like, okay, let me boil it down. what do I need to work on? When I notice I'm rushing, I'm going to slow down.

Just do that for a while. Even if our goal is I want to finish this project, when I notice I'm rushing, I'm going to slow down. That's going to help. Yes. It's like that foundation, right? You have to build from the bottom up. And then when we want to go straight to behavior,

well, how do I make this change yesterday? It's more dysregulation. We have to think long term with regulation work. Do you want to change the way you function for the rest of your life? or do you want to get that project done this month? Like we're thinking big picture here. And so you have to allow it to take time, which is part of dysregulation as we're in a rush.

I don't have time for that, but you do. You've lived this long, disregulated. It does not have to all be healed by tomorrow. You'll be fine. But, okay, how do I start slowly creating change where this big ball of yarn starts to unravel? You've got to think, oh, I'm pulling out these things that I didn't realize I had this belief

and I didn't realize I had this pattern and I'm starting to build that awareness. And then everything kind of starts up all into place much more easily. I think perfectionism for me is a big reason I procrastinate because I know that I'm not going to do the thing to the level that I wish that I could do it. Is that going to go away as I regulate my nervous system? Absolutely. And it's something you can be aware of as dysregulation of like, oh, that's my system trying

to keep me safe. Because if it's not perfect, someone might say something, right? It's like your armor. It's just like disappointing myself. Like it is just like I know what I want my outputs to be. That gap between what I'm capable of having my outputs be and what I want them to be frustrates me. Totally.

Well, in the book, I do talk about the reality gap, which is expectation and the reality. And typically what we're so unhappy about is this gap, not the reality itself. Because if you just, oh, I'm just going to see what I could do with this project, is that inherently a problem? Or is it your comparison to some thing in potential? some dream. And now that's a problem. So there's so many different things and ways we think that disregulate us, right? Because the outcome of that is you don't do it at all. Well, I promise you that's worse than whatever you could have done. Like the outcome is not going to be as good as if we just accept, oh, I'm going to do what I can do. And first draft might be bad. And I'm going

to slowly build my way up. And now in reality, we're getting so much more done and we're accomplishing so much more instead of being stuck in that potential of and all or nothing thinking of unless it's perfect. I don't want to do it at all. Is there a way to make resting feel easier? All of this will really help. So when we're in fight or flight, think of that switch is stuck on. It's still on when you're at the beach. It's still on when you're on vacation. It's still on when you're watching a movie with your family, which is why we can be really like, oh, I don't even enjoy relaxing. I'm still anxious on vacation. Okay. So we want that consistent working on turning that switch off with the three layers of regulation work. But even while you're resting,

you can go, okay, am I here? Am I present? The reality is I'm watching a movie. Now what? I'm going to lay here and enjoy the movie, right? It's just kind of like inviting your brain back to where your body is. There's nothing to do right now but watch this movie. There's nothing to do right now but lay on this beach. And your brain's going to go. Yeah, it's going to be like, well, you have this and this and this and this and this. And like, what about this? What about this thing they said last week and blah, blah?

And you're just like, actually right now I'm right here. Yeah, the reality is I'm on the beach. So I use this to this day. And I'm doing this all the time. But it's so helpful. I was driving my with my kids. We were going out for dinner. And I was in my brain.

And I was thinking, oh, I had that call. It wasn't as good as I'd like it to be. I don't think I was very clear on that point. I didn't love how that go. I'm like thinking about work, but I was like, Jenna. The reality is you're driving to dinner with your kids. Be here. My life is not about work.

I don't want to be thinking about that. There's nothing I can do about that right now. The reality is we're going out for dinner. Okay, I'm going to try to enjoy it. It's not going to be perfect. But I'm aware of what's happening. I come back down to what is. And I did enjoy that dinner a lot more than had I not caught that.

Can you make like a little note on your phone? I'm like, what if I could send an email to follow up to. make sure that the thing that I wanted to say on the call was communicated. Like, what if there is, like, a microaction you could take that's taking you out of the moment? Could you just, like, jot that down? Yes, but we just want to observe where that goes into, like, soothing again. It's like, wow, every single thought I ever had, I'm jotting down or are you being thoughtful about it? Like, oh, that was a really good point.

And for that one, I did go back and, like, change your worksheet. So I was like, oh, I think the worksheet messed me up because it wasn't laid out properly. So I don't think I wrote that down, but I would be fine, right? Once I get to the restaurant in the notes app, oh, change this work. worksheet to that. Do I actually look at that later? Do I use it? Do I actually make that change? That's a different story. And as we're going to get more regulated, you're going to actually be able to do the thing. And I imagine as you get more regulated, you'll know what changes need to actually occur versus like what is the story you're telling you're telling yourself. What is what is the real

action that needs to be taken here? That's perfectly correct. And we also want to look at when we're dysregulated, one of those symptoms is going to be like hoarding. So physical hoarding. That's just a symptom of a dysregulated nervous system. So it might just be you have a lot of clutter. It doesn't have to be super extreme. But I find what's most common nowadays, digital hoarding. I have 30,000 screenshots in my phone. There's no way in hell you're going to look at those. That is not logical. That is not enough, not enough. I need more, more, more, more. What if I need this someday? That is dysregulation. I think your hand might be going up. It's up the whole episode. Yeah. You know, saving posts on Instagram or TikTok or writing notes in your notes app where you have a thousand and you're never looking at them. That is not

logical. That is, I'm soothing my dysregulation versus healing your dysregulation, which is two very different things. So do we delete? I would recommend stop screenshoting stuff. It is just telling you, I need this. Oh, yes, this is keeping me alive. This is good, right? Whatever we're doing is we're training our system. This is what we need to stay safe. It's almost like when your computer accidentally shuts down and you lose all your tabs and you're like panicked for a second, but then you're like, oh, none of them actually mattered. So whenever you like, delete it. you're teaching yourself like none of this actually matters. Yes, I am safe. I'm okay. I'm okay without it. My goal, this is lofty. I want to be like so good in my body and in myself that like I am not

overly attached to anything. Like that's my goal, even my calendar. If like if I lost it, I'd be okay. I'd be annoying. I would have to. Like you wouldn't ever be panicked. I mean, I would probably for a minute. But I'm a human. But it wouldn't ruin like your day, your life, whatever. Yeah, like that's the goal at least. And I think having that goal in mind is so important is like, what do I want for myself and believing that's possible so you can continue working towards it? It doesn't mean you have it right away. You've talked about this idea a few times of believing what's possible. What do you do when clients don't have that belief? We talk about how beliefs create the reality, I would say more than the evidence creates the belief. So if I believe, I have to rush to get there

on time. I'm going to rush to get there on time and then go, see, I was right. If I believe I can, you know, get places in a cool, calm manner, I will work to do that and then I will be right. Not because it's magical. You know, people talk about manifestation. You believe it attracts the energy. I'm not talking about that. But that's just human nature. What I believe is how I will act. So if I believe these symptoms can get better, I will do what I need to do to make it better. If I don't believe my symptoms can get better, I will do nothing about it. Well, because why would you. We're saying smart people. I'm not going to put my energy into something I don't think is going to work. So the belief is so vital. And so I think the concern people have, though, is if I believe I can be regulated and I'm not, I'm going to feel shame about that.

It's like that's the joy of regulation is you can identify what you want to improve and accept where you are now at the same time. Yeah, I struggle with this with my anxiety a lot too. It's like if I accept that it's in my power. to change it than I am accepting that I could have been doing that for decades instead of like this is something that's happened to me and I've done everything that I can to feel better. And I find that really tricky even at this point in my journey with all of this stuff. Yes. And I think that's what's so cool is looking at, oh, what stops me from carrying both, right? Oh, okay, I can accept the reality because it is what it is, whether I accept it or not. And I hold the belief that I know this can get better. And so I keep at it. And if you have a regulated mindset or even aware of trying to have a regulated mindset,

that's curiosity over judgments. That's so interesting. And then we can play with it from there. And this idea of like slow and steady wins the race. How can I slowly work towards what I want? I don't need this overhaul today. I don't need this to all to be better today. But could I do something where it's like, oh, one percent better a little over time? Because if you hold that believe you will get there. I wasn't going to say this story, but this is a good example. For my book, I had a book proposal ready to go. Someone approached me. It was a very small publisher. And I thought, you know what? I think I have a really good idea here. I believe I can get a Big Five publisher. And I did because I believed it, not because it magically made it appear, but because I believed that,

I didn't take the first offer that came. And I kept working until I got what I thought was possible. And so that's just a silly little example of, oh, maybe if we hold the belief of what's possible, we will then take the action to get there. Because if I didn't believe that was possible, I would have taken whatever I could get, take that first offer. And I wouldn't have the thing that I have today. I can't help but reflect on the idea of the diagnosis in relationship to this, though, like if the diagnosis gets in the way of the belief that these things can change. And I think that's where we can separate the diagnosis from how we currently understand.

ADHD because I still think I have a weird brain. I still think I think differently. I see the superpowers of it. People talk about the superpowers of ADHD and some people don't like that because they're struggling so bad. If we could understand of ADHD, oh, that's a different type of brain that does not need to be in fight or flight. If we can see it as that, then I don't think it's limiting. If we see ADHD as what we currently think of it as with these slapped on labels and that's just how you are, then I do agree. I think it's very limiting. I'm genuinely confused how master class gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas

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I'm just like, thank God. I feel this huge sense of relief after and I don't, I have to remind myself to enjoy the journey, to feel gratitude in the moment, how can I feel more joy and appreciation for achieving the things that I achieve? We want to be aware, oh, this is me running from the bear, right? Because if I'm in a dysregulated state in the pursuit of this, oh, it's over. Thank God.

It's like, yeah, because I was functioning as if I was in danger this whole time. I was rushing. I was frantic. I was anxious. I was intense and perfectionist about it and worrying. So yes, of course, when it's over, it's going to feel like you, oh, my God, I out ran the bear. we're not going to feel good for me. I'm so accomplished. I didn't die. No, you're just going to feel

relief. So that's just a little thing to be aware of so you don't feel so bad about it. We go, okay, that's a sign that my system's in fight or flight. And so I'm going to go back to the basics and work on getting out of that. So when you are, you know, achieving these big things in your life, you're finishing your book, all these things. What does it feel like for you? It is definitely not like, wow, the switch is flipped and I never experience these things. I can still get that dysregulation going January, February of this year, just for various reasons. I was more anxious than I've been in a very long time. And so I was still feeling that like, oh my gosh, what is going to happen and getting sucked into like getting stuff over with? But I was aware of it. So I was able to

like grapple with it. And it took a while. And this is where I think we need that belief. I still held the belief of like, I don't have to be stuck in this. This is not required. because I'm an entrepreneur doing some bigger things. I don't have to feel this way. This is not inevitable. I think that's so key. And I currently am. So how am I going to keep grappling, doing my work, doing my thoughts?

Why is my brain stuck on that it's so anxious? Like I'm safe. No matter how this goes, you know, I'm okay. And it was pretty cool. I woke up probably like three weeks ago one day and it was like someone hit me on the head with a hammer. I was just like, oh. A happy hammer.

Yeah. Not a bad hammer. Yeah. Yeah, like, yeah, it's a good way of like, oh, it snapped me out of it. I was just like, oh, that's so cool. But it was because of my, I held that belief of like, okay, I know I can get through this. I know I can get on the other side. So I didn't stop with my doing my physical work, doing my mental stuff, observing where

the dysregulation was getting in my way with a mindset of curiosity. I'm like, okay, keep working through it. And the idea is the mindset of curiosity prevents the mindset of like judgment and shame. Yeah, it's just like, hmm, that's interesting. I can see the reality of that and I don't like that. I want to work on it. Okay, what can I do? You've worked with hundreds, if not thousands of people.

Is there anybody who these tactics haven't worked for? Or do you just have like hundreds if not thousands of proof points that like we should have the belief in this is possible? Anyone who has participated and shown up and I get feedback from is always like, whoa. And the biggest like testimonial I have is like this is the thing I would recommend for people with ADHD because they've tried many things. And I think the difference is, is we're going to the route and people feel that. Okay, I'm going to play you a video about a common ADHD challenge that people have. This is from TikTok. This is from Claire Bowman on TikTok. This is the worst part about ADHD.

It's not the forgetting shit. It's not overbuying. It's not whatever you want to say it is. It's the paralysis. I'm just sitting here and I have so much to do. And all I'm doing is panicking and I'm overwhelmed. I'm just telling myself, just get up and do it. Just get up and do it. Stop being so lazy. I just can't get up and do it. And I know I have so much capability. I know I could be doing so much with my life, but I just have no ability to follow through. In the moment, what advice would you give to somebody who's dealing with ADHD paralysis? Yeah, it's so hard because I feel that and I was there for so, so long, and I really know that feeling. And it is like, you feel crazy. It's like, I, of course, I can't physically get up and do it, but I can't.

So I really understand it and it's so real. And that is dysregulation. This is a fear response. So we need to go to the route and go over all. How can I work on getting myself so I'm not going into fight, flight, freeze, font? And the answer is not going to be, how do I jam myself up and force myself up to go do stuff? That is a short-term bandaid and we want to heal. So unfortunately, in that moment, the start's going to be, even though I'm on this

couch, I'm safe. Taking your deep breath, slowing down your mind. Okay, I'm safe. Even if I'm feeling physically stuck, I'm okay. I'm on my couch. I'm in my living room. And that's how it starts. And people go, well, I'll never get up and doing anything. No, not in that second, but you're not getting up and doing anything anyway. So let's work on long term. This is long term work. I'm not here to gaslight anyone and think, yeah, you read this book and you're going to be up and at him by this afternoon and everything's going to be fixed because it's not about the information. It's about the practice and that slow and steady change from that switch being on all the time to being off most of the time and then you just deal with it when it gets triggered. So in the moment, we're just

accepting the reality of like, I am stuck. I am on the couch. Yeah. So it's a physical piece of you're probably still feeling tense. Bringing the shoulders down. You probably still have a lot of mental rushing tension. We got to start relaxing. Okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Okay, you'd be amazed. They're like, wow, I'm falling into that less often now when I'm being more regulated. And then the thoughts and beliefs, yes, because if we're, oh my God, I'm so horrible, I shouldn't be doing this. The reality is I'm on the couch. Now what? And that now what isn't always like, go do the work. Then now what might be. So I'm going to just lay here. If you don't trust your own voice, is the now what tricky sometimes for people?

Yes. So we really want to try to make it as like tangible as possible. Like if you're laying in bed, I'm going to put my feet on the floor. Like not even get up. I'm going to hang my feet over the bed. And like some sort of physicality and reality is like, is there some movement here? Now what? Instead of being like, ooh, I need to know what the next 50 steps are and exactly what to do. Or it might be what now? I'm in bed. I'm going to at least relax if I'm going to be here. Right. It doesn't always have to be movement. Mel Robbins famously has this five-second rule where you count down from five if you want to get yourself out of that like stuck freeze mode to do things. What do you think of that? I do think there is a little bit of regulation in that because if you're counting down from five, you're not thinking in potential, right?

Because your mind's busy. You're forcing yourself to be in the present moment. Yeah. It's just like five, four, three, two, one. I cannot think about something while I'm doing that. Okay. Especially verbally if you're saying stuff out loud. Like five, four, three, two, one.

try to like think thoughts while talking. It's very hard. Okay. So I do think it grounds you. And then it's easier when you're more regulated to take action. But we just want to look at am I creating urgency and panic and like intensity? Or is it just kind of getting me grounded and then taking that one next step? It feels like one of the band-aids that you kind of talk about. And that's the thing. It's like give me a tip or a trick. People love to ask me that on social media. I'm like, guys, nothing I can tell you in a one-minute video is going to be worth your time. because I can give you all the tips and tricks in the world. That's not going to heal anything.

And I'm here to heal stuff. Like I'm here to do the big, deep work where the rest of your life is easier, not just, ooh, good trick to get off the couch today. Because it's not going to work. Who here, if anyone's listening, does use tools? How long does that work for you? A week? This is like rest of your life type of work.

I've been at it personally, two and a half years, three years. This is all I'll do for the rest of my life to cope because it works so good. And it's like ingrained in me at this point. And it's really about doing the most to heal it and make it easier and easier over time. Yeah, this is why you're good for podcasts because like this is where we get into the nuance. We get into the depth. It's not a one minute video. Okay, I want to play another one.

This is from Hannah on TikTok. And the title says, P-O-V, you have ADHD. Your dopamine is gone and the anadonia kicks in. And for people who are unfamiliar with anadonia, it's sort of like a low-grade depression. I call it like life is me syndrome. I feel wrong. What do you mean you feel wrong? Are you upset about something?

No, I just feel wrong. I don't know what it is. Just wrong. Are you depressed? No, I don't think it's depression. I don't feel sad. I just feel flat. I feel nothing.

Okay, well, maybe you'd feel better if you did something that you enjoy, don't you think? No, I don't. I don't care about anything. I don't want to see anybody. I don't want to do anything. I don't feel like doing anything. There's just no point. But what do you want to do then?

I don't want to do anything. There's no point. I just want to sit on my phone. That's literally all I want to do. And I don't even really want to do that. What is the first step if we feel flat and our lives just feel unenjoyable? God, I'm a broken record. That's dysregulation.

So what's really cool is in this work, one of the topics is like, wait, wait a minute. What is the point of all this? What is this for? What is the purpose of life? Because I refuse to believe we're here to check off to do lists until we die. So if that's not the point of life, what is? Every single group I work with has two themes, connection and enjoyment or experience of life. Like that's the point, is to be with my people and to enjoy this ride. What are the two things we cannot do when we're disregulated? Connect and enjoy and be present. So yeah, life's going to feel really freaking dull because we are literally unable to connect with what matters. So when you're disregulated,

when you're in fight or flight, yes, it's going to feel like what's the point of all of this? I'm just rushing around just to go to bed and do it again tomorrow. I don't have the capacity to put the effort into the things I love or enjoy because I'm so exhausted. I've been frantic and now I'm crashed. So what we just want to know is, I'm dysregulated because she said like, well, what is this? I don't know. That's dysregulation. And just knowing that goes, okay. Okay. Now I know what to do. So in the moment, she's going to take a breath, stop, interrupt the thoughts with different thoughts, and then maybe start to make these behavior changes that is going to perpetuate this cycle where she won't feel that way at some point.

Yes. And it's not overnight. And that's what's really hard. A dysregulated brain wants instant results. It wants big. It wants flashy. It wants impactful. Which is part of that all or nothing thinking, right? Well, small things couldn't possibly be effective. So we want to challenge all of those beliefs and go, oh, what if, you know, these little tweaks along the way signal to my system, hey, it's safe to just turn that switch off. You are okay. Let's get blood flow back to the brain. Let's access that ability to connect, to be present. Oh, life starts feeling richer again, even if you're still going to work because I get that comment a lot. Will I be more regulated if we didn't live in capitalism?

Okay, but here we are. So how do we live? It's reality and possibility. Yeah. How do we live this beautiful life that we have? And often it is. Yeah. It is interesting.

I talk to a lot of people who are like, but what about this? What about this? What about this? And it's like, yes, stuff can feel really terrible in the world. And this is the life we have. Like, we've got to make something of it. Yes. And for that, one of my dysregulating beliefs that I see a lot is like this

dysregulation is justified. Meaning, yeah, but the state of the world. You being in fight or flight stuck on your couch is not helping the state of the world. And I do think there is a little bit of morality in there. We feel guilty if I'm regulated and I feel okay in my home cooking dinner and someone else is in a different part of the world in pain, I'm a bad person. So I do think there's a lot of beliefs we can start like taking down to go, oh, actually when I'm regulated, when I blood flow to the brain and I have capacity and energy,

I can raise money. I can go volunteer. I can actually do something about it when we're not in a fight or flight state. And again, once you build that relationship with your brain, it will give you ideas for ways you can make a difference that you might not have right now. Right now you might be stuck in the reposting things on Instagram, reading the news, trying to get informed. But you're like, I can't do anything.

I have no power in this. But maybe once your brain is regulated, you'll see the agency and the power that you do have. Absolutely. I have a speed round for you. This is a list of common ADHD struggles. And I just want you to share, I know the answer to everything is technically like get regulated, but like in the moment or a belief you could switch or a mindset or something that's at the root of it. When I need rest, I scroll my phone for six hours straight and end the day feeling worse than if I'd worked all day.

We would want to look at what's getting in the way of doing something different. There's a rigid rule there. Well, I didn't get all my work done. So I can't go hang out with my friends. I had a client who was like, oh my gosh. The other night I said no to my friends. They wanted to go to the river. I was like, no, I can't. I have so much work to do. And she sat home all night and scrolled.

Oh, no. It's like, go to the river, girl. Like, do the enjoyable things? You want to observe. Do I have a rule and potential? None of this rooted in reality. It's not a rule that's real. How can I challenge that rigid thinking to allow myself to do the genuinely fun thing, even if I don't have all my work done? I know exactly what I need to do. It's sitting right there on my list and I physically cannot make myself start. So we want to look at why. Like, what's in the way? And I think that's the biggest thing. theme is like getting used to looking under the hood. Well, what's that about? Right? That curiosity mindset. Hmm. Is it because there's so much on the list. I think I have to do it all. Now I'm overwhelmed. So now I'm stuck. Oh, could I chip away? What if we're doing one thing on the

list is enough. So I would look at what's stopping what's stopping us. In the name of chipping away, if we want a to do list, do you think it should be shorter? Yes, especially if you find it overwhelming. I could have a list of 10,000 things at this point. And I'm so rooted in reality. I'm like, well, yeah, can only do one at a time though. So I am chipping away just by the nature. But for other people, when we're not there yet, that might be like, so yes, I would go like, go to the basics. What are the things you would like to most get done today? Take off the rest. Because in some people's to-do list, it'll be like, paint the bathroom. And it's like an idea they've had for three years. It's like, let it go. It's not happening obviously anytime soon and you're fine without it.

Yeah, that's interesting. Or like go to the paint store and pick a color. Like can you make it much smaller as a task versus like. versus like what the where do you even start with that? I don't even know. Okay. I sit down to work, check my emails, check my text, work a little bit more, check my slack. And before I know it, hours have gone by and I've barely gotten anything done. Ah, yes. So observing that hoarding, hoarding, checking.

Oh, so the way that's hoarding behavior is like checking my email and then switching to slack and checking my slack and then checking my tax. I'm just like hypervigilance. The story I tell myself is I'm looking for some sort of like good news or something. Sometimes I even do this, I'll lay in bed until I get good enough news from some sort of notification that then I get up. Do you know what I mean? So that's what I tell myself. But this is actually, you're like, no, this is hoarding behavior. Yeah. Well, it's at least like soothing your dysregulation, right? So it's overchecking, hypervigilance, busy work. Like it feels productive, but I'm actually not having to do anything. So it's a bit of that soothing the dysregulation. So if we don't want to do that, we want to challenge that, which might be, okay, some people have heard this before. I've set a timer for 20 minutes, just do my work in that 20 minutes and see what comes up.

Oh, I want to check it so bad. Well, why? What's that about? It just feels easier or I'm dysregulated by this project or whatever it is. But starting to break that down so that we're not in that compulsive behavior. Again, compulsive. Is it compulsive or are you choosing to do it? You get to choose do whatever you want.

It's like, wow, I can't focus on my work even when I want to. That's how we know the compulsion is there. And that's where the subconscious and nervous system are. So as much as possible, is it better to like not check? I feel like I'm ambing up my nervous system by not checking. Do you know what I mean? In the short term. Okay.

Right? Because you're doing the opposite. So the checking is soothing. So the not checking is unsoothing. Uncomfortable. Okay. But this is healing and soothing are two different things. If you are soothing dysregulation, you are fueling dysregulation.

Oh. Every time you check, you're going, yes, checking's keeping me alive. Checking is keeping me safe. So we've got check more and more. And it's like calming me down in the moment. Yes. And that's exactly why it feels like it's helping you. Because like, oh, it makes me feel safer.

So let's keep doing it and keep doing it. It's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse. Versus the first moves of regulation are really uncomfortable. It's like, okay, I'm not going to check. And I have to train myself out of that sometimes. I'll check my social media, like likes and my comments. I'm like, girl, is getting out of hand. And these systems are designed to reward this behavior.

So I think that's one of the tricky things. And again, the idea that like we're all struggling with these issues is because we work in these systems that are designed to encourage these behaviors. So you have to override it. Totally. So how do you recommend we deal with that initial discomfort? Is it just the breathing and the children relaxing? Yeah, it really is like, okay, this is uncomfortable. And it's so much as awareness, you'd be really amazed at just being aware of all this. I'm a primal being. This is what's happening. This is not danger. This is just my system feeling unsafe because I've been checking to soothe. And now I'm not checking. So I'm not soothing. But I'm going to heal instead.

And that is, okay, I'm safe. You know, what is the belief? Oh my gosh, if I'm not checking all the time, my whole business is going to crumble. I've really had to work on beliefs about like that my work is fragile, that if I'm not on top of it 24-7 is just going to crumble and everything I've built is going to be lost. That's still a little bit there. So I have to challenge that consistently. That makes no sense.

That is your dysregulation talking. We can take the day off of social media. I can take the day off of checking. It's okay to, you know, go sit in the yard and read about. book instead of sitting by my computer all day. And so you have to do a bit of work around it and be aware of it. How long can you sit and do a chunk of work for now, straight? Like, can you sit for three hours and write without getting distracted? Depends what I'm doing, but I don't think I'm even doing that. Oh, do an hour of this. Okay. I'm going to go do something else. Yeah, it's too intense.

Yeah. Is that all or nothing? Okay. Yeah, I have no intensity. And it's what's so amazing is I've achieved more with the softness, no intensity, slowing down than I ever did when I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. People fear that. Like, oh, well, regulation slow down. It's just about feeling good and being calm. No, you're going to be so much more successful, so much more productive, but it's very counterintuitive. No matter what I do, my house is a mess. I've tried every system. I've tried every organizational hack. And no matter what, I live in squalor. Yes, it is not an outside problem. The tips and tricks and hacks aren't going to do it is an inside problem. We are dysregulated. It is overwhelming. We are perfectionist about it.

And all or nothing thinking. We're frozen. So that's what's going on. I just had someone that was talking to dealing with this. And she was saying how her husband left for the day. And so she was going to, oh, I'm going to rip out this whole closet and do this whole thing. And she had this whole plan. And she's like, but I didn't do it. I'm like, yeah, well, there's all or nothing thinking. She's like, well, and then as we were talking, she's like, oh, yeah, well, I'd didn't feel enough to just do like one drawer. It's like, well, there you go right there. Because it's not enough and enough is a feeling, not a number. So it's just like lack, which is a very dysregulated way of seeing things. So if I can't do it all, I can't do anything. She's like, he came home and it was messier

than when he left and I was so excited to like do a big clean. I said, yes, do we see how the mechanisms of dysregulation in reality keep us stuck. The idea is a great idea. Let's overhaul it. Let's clean this whole room. Okay, but what the reality is that makes you do nothing because it's too overwhelming. It's too much. You're in freeze versus we challenge these thoughts. We challenge our habits and we start doing things in a more regulated way. And I have seen people go, oh my God, I'm chipping away at the house. It's the first time I've ever made progress. I don't need a secret hack or way. I just need to be present and not be frozen. I see on ADHD talk a lot the idea of if you are going to set something down, put it away, like don't put it down, put it away,

don't put it down, put it away. Do you like that at all or no? I do in a way, I do like to look at, well, why do I put it down and not put it away? Is it because I don't believe I have enough time and am I in such a rush that I don't have time to go put this thing away? Probably. So if we can look at more of like what's underneath that, why am I just putting things down willy-nilly and not taking the five extra steps to go put it in the drawer, probably because you're rushing and go do the next thing. So yes, I like it, but with a little more death. I ghost my friends and family for weeks. Replying to text feels like a huge task and then I feel guilty for not responding, which makes me less likely to respond. Yes. Oh, the joys of dysregulation. Such a cycle, right? It's

avoidance cycle. So I've avoided it. Now I feel guilt and shame, dysregulation. So my solution is to avoid it further. Obviously, it's not logical. But dysregulation is not logical. It makes no sense. It's just trying to stay in the comfort, the comfort zone. So one, we want to look at what stops me from answering text messages. Is it Fawn, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, people pleasing? Oh, well, I actually want to say no to this person, but I'm uncomfortable doing it. So I'm not going to reply at all. Is it all or nothing thinking? I have 10 texts. I don't have the bandwidth to answer all 10, so I'm not going to open them at all. I think for me, there's like, I have, like, I think I could check. Let me see, actually. Do you want to guess how many unread texts I have right now?

I don't think I can handle it. This is between all my text messages. So it's between WhatsApp and my normal text. I want you to guess. God, 72. I can't even do the math, but I have 1,176 unread text and 1,172 unread WhatsApp messages. Oh, my God. So if you're listening to this and you're my friend, it's not because I don't love you.

I am dealing with this regulation over here. But for me, the reason that I don't reply is because I want to do like, a witty, great, perfect reply. And then that feels like a lot of energy. So then I postpone it for later. Yeah. So for my clients, I'm like, you know, you can like click on it and give it the heart. Don't even respond. But that doesn't feel like enough. Right? So we do nothing. So I ignore them instead. Is that the solution? Of course not. And we know it logically. Yeah. But that's the dysregulation. It's like, well, like, if it can't be perfect, I'm going to ignore them. Well, that makes no sense. What could I do? A to Z, right? A, B, C, D, F, you have so many options.

which one seems accessible right now is practice using the best one you could do at the moment. Maybe it's an acknowledgement in a heart. Maybe it's sometimes you do, oh, it's before bed. I have some time. This is my best friend. I am going to, we can be flexible. You don't always have to take the quickest way to get it done.

But can I practice the flexibility? Because I have zero text. And that's why is because once it comes in, I'm like, do you not, did you have to get over carrying what people think of you? to be able to reply. Do you know what I mean? Because it is like there's this like trying to reputation manage a little bit. Yes, yes. Which is that fawn piece, right? Fight, flight, freeze fawn. I'm worried about people think. I'm putting my thoughts in their brain. I'm trying to micromanage their thoughts about me. And it's really regulation is really about like realizing

what's my sphere of influence, me, my nervous system, my brain, my actions. I do not control anyone else. I do not control anyone's feelings. I do not control anyone's regulation. And I, I will want to be a loving friend. I want to put effort into stuff. So I do. But a lot of that perfectionist stuff is like, I bet anyone who you respond to does not really care. They're like, oh, great. She said yes. We're going to go to that thing together. Right. I just, what's the point of the text? Oh, to give a yes or no. Well, why am I making a paragraph like it's really funny? Yeah. Okay. Let's do two more. I compare myself to other people who seem to hold it altogether effortlessly and come to the conclusion that something is just fundamentally wrong with me. Yes.

comparison is a mechanism of dysregulation. It's like, where am I fitting in the tribe? Am I safe? Am I, am I, in my adults? If I'm on the ends, I'll get pushed out of the tribe. Like you said, like you said, like pushed it to the group. But that's not the reality anymore. So we want to be aware of it. Eh, that's what my brain's doing. It's trying to keep me safe. It's really quite irrelevant what Susie and Johnny are doing. There's no effect on my life whatsoever. Can I just focus on my sphere of influence? What am I doing? What am I not happy with? Doesn't mean you're happy with your life and you don't want anything to change. But let's think about what do you want for your experience of your life, not, oh, well, Susie has so much more than me. So that's why I want more.

Like that's very dysregulating, doesn't feel good, and actually has the opposite effect where you can go, why bother? Look how much further she is ahead than me. That's going to take so much work to get there. So I'm not even going to try. Versus, here I am. Now what? I actually do want to go back to school and get a new career and blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. You can also so see how we live in a society that is increasing this dysregulation and also increasing ADHD diagnoses because, like, I am exposed to what Susie and Johnny are doing in a way that I never before have been in history. And so, like, of course, I'm going to be comparing more than I ever have in history.

And so it is harder to bring myself back to what do I want for me. Yeah, absolutely. And we don't want to blame that, right, and keep that stuck. This is where that belief comes in. It's like, I really hold the belief of like, I can do things the way I want to do them no matter what everyone else is doing. Prior to this, I did intuitive eating work, binge eating work. I healed my own relationship with food. And you have to really understand that like, oh, I live in diet culture, but I don't have to subscribe to it.

And so I had to like rewire my brain because I was very obsessed with the way I looked. I modeled overseas. It was like who I was and it was very toxic. And so I had to do a full mental shift of like, just because the world's obsessed with this, doesn't mean I need to be obsessed with this and I was able to remove myself and I truly like do not buy into all that crap anymore and I'm just very focused on how I feel and my health and not looks. And so that was an amazing shift and showed me the power of like, oh, we can do things differently even though it's a societal norm. So even if comparison, rushing, being really busy,

frantic, intense is the norm. That's irrelevant to me. I don't want that. So I don't want that. I can do things differently. That's why I do this podcast is I always, always, always believe we have levers we can pull. And so my work here is like, how can I help you find your levers? And your levers might be different than other people's, but I always believe we have agency. I love that. We have some agency.

We just got to go find it, you know? Yes. Okay, let's do this as the last one. I impulse buy something that I don't need for the dopamine hit of purchasing it, feel guilty immediately, and then forget to return it before the window closes, which makes me feel even more guilty. Ah, yes, a nice storm of dysregulation. So yes, one would be that impulse buying that is soothing dysregulation. So for everybody, if you're going to take this approach, I encourage people, forget dopamine. Forget that, I don't even use that word. I'm soothing my dysregulation.

There's something in me that feels so uncomfortable that I'm doing something like, I need that and I need it now. I was like, why? Someone's going on then? Because if it's not like a mindful choice, something else driving the ship. So it's dysregulation right there, but then we feel guilty. So we know that's like short-term soothing the dysregulation, but it fuels the dysregulation, especially if we have like money troubles and stuff now. It's just compounded. So it's not logical. Yeah. We know it's dysregulation. And then I'm so overwhelmed with life and I have so much to do that I don't have time to go take the package back, which is just talking to somebody about this. They're like, this should be so hard. I'm like, no, it's total. It feels so hard. Yes. Yeah. It's normal though. But we want to look

Under the hood, it's not about the package. What are the thoughts and beliefs? What is the dysregulation underneath it? And is that, like, why I just have so much to do that never becomes the priority? What's going on there? And so it's always that like exploration that's so important. In a nutshell, what is one thing that you used to believe was true by ADHD and you no longer do? That our symptoms are static and we can only cope. What's one habit? And this can be in the dysregulation space or any other space that you want, what's one habit that's changed your life? Slowing down. People don't like that one, but that is huge. Like, even when I'm late, I do not run. How extensive is this? Are you walking slowly? Are you? Like, jokingly, sometimes I'll do,

like, turtle time when I'm like, I have nowhere to be and I'm just strolling around town. I'm going to, like, really be slow just to, like, reset. There is this, like, brain body circle, though, you know, And it's so self-reinforcing. I do think when I am going really slowly. I found this. I've done meditation retreats and they make you do like walking meditations. And it is interesting how slowing your body down even like more than you would want to naturally slows your brain down. Totally.

But even if people start with just like not rushing. Yeah. Blow the dishwasher at a normal pace. And which you can do that as an, let me see if I not trying to get this over with. Could I just do it instead of trying to get it over with? Because if I'm trying to get something over with, I'm going to run. rush. What's one thing that somebody can do the second that they turn off this podcast to feel a sense of that hope and that possibility and that things can change? One thing we can start with is just

the awareness piece. Can I start feeling that tension? Oh, I'm disregulated. I see the rush. Oh, I'm disregulated. Oh, I'm disregulated. Oh, I'm disregulated. I'm just regulated 24-7. I'm like, yes. I know. That's okay. Yeah. But it's like we have to start getting the awareness and the most, I tell people like, put your dysregulation goggles on. Like, are you seeing things in that lens of like, oh, I'm a primal animal. My system is feeling afraid. Oh, that makes a lot more sense why I'm doing all this. Because then once you start seeing it, you can't unsee it.

And then you're like, wow, I've something I can work on here. Whereas if you don't see it, it's just your normal. And that's just life. Nothing we can do about it. I love it. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your wonderful book, The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation and also maybe your programs or anything else that you want to spotlight? Absolutely.

So the book is out now. It has the philosophy from E to Z in there. So you can really go through it one chapter at a time and do the work. I also do this work with clients in ADHD groups, as well as all my information can be found on jennifree.com. Amazing. This was wonderful, Jenna. Thank you.

Thank you so much. If you love this episode, we are also doing an episode in our ranking series where Jenna is going to rank all of the ADHD advice from the internet. So make sure that you follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen, so you do not miss that. also, if you could take one second and send this episode to a friend, one person who struggles with this regulation, one, that would be hugely helping them out. And two, it is the best way

to support the show. It is so appreciated just from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you massively. You can find all of the discount codes that you heard in this episode at lizmoody.com slash codes. And I love you. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.