In this episode of the Translating ADHD podcast, Ash and Dusty explore the concept of emotional permanence—a term that highlights the experience of being stuck in intense emotions, often seen in people with ADHD. They discuss how emotional dysregulation, a common but under-recognized aspect of ADHD, interferes with motivation, goal-directed behavior, and the ability to tolerate distress. Dusty shares personal experiences and therapeutic tools such as distress tolerance and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques that help in recognizing that emotions are temporary and learning to self-soothe rather than react impulsively.
Ash and Dusty also discuss practical coaching strategies for clients dealing with emotional overwhelm, including shifting from reactive to curious mindsets to gain clarity and make thoughtful decisions. They emphasize the importance of balancing action and patience, knowing when to push forward and when to allow oneself time to regroup. The episode offers valuable insights into managing ADHD-related emotional challenges by fostering self-awareness, gentle self-talk, and curiosity—helping listeners build resilience and make more grounded choices in their daily lives.
Episode links + resources:
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
- Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
- Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
- Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:29] Asher: Hi, I’m Ash.
[00:03:19] Dusty: And I’m Dusty.
[00:04:24] Asher: And this is the Translating ADHD podcast.
[00:08:08] Dusty: The next coaching demo is going to be with me on Thursday, June 11th at 8 p.m. EST. If y’all want to come and you do have to be a Patreon subscriber to come to that, so it’s a good time to go sign up right now. And we still have room for folks to join the ADHD bootcamp coming up June 7th.
Well, it’s starting June 7th. It is the annual like very late spring cleaning, decluttering and make your home ADHD friendly extravaganza that I run. So if you have been feeling overwhelmed by your space and you’ve thought to yourself, I really just need like a big, solid chunk of time where I can just really get into this and dump out all these drawers and boom boxes and I just, you know, I just really need a bunch of uninterrupted time.
I got you. That’s what we’re doing. But I’m going to do with you, and I’m going to hold your hand and it’s going to be great. So go to ADHD studio. Okay to sign up for that.
[00:59:17] Asher: And listeners, I am still taking new clients. So if you’ve been thinking about one-on-one ADHD coaching and in particular with me, now is a great time because I’m often perpetually on wait list. But I’ve got the room right now and I’ve freed up some extra slots in my schedule. So if that’s something you’d like to explore, visit my website coachasher.com. Fill out the form and then you and I will have a conversation from there. So, Dusty.
[01:27:20] Dusty: So Ash.
[01:28:19] Asher: You want to tell our listeners what we’re talking about today?
[01:31:13] Dusty: Today we’re talking about something that I once heard coined emotional permanence.
[01:37:03] Asher: Ooh, what does that mean?
[01:39:17] Dusty: I was waiting for. Yeah, for a while. The term object permanence was really popular in the, like, grassroots ADHD community, and people were using it to kind of mean this idea that, like, once you put something away, you sort of forget that it exists, not that you actually forget that it exists, but you forget to remember that it exists.
And so this concept of emotional permanence is kind of the same thing, but for emotions, and I think people have used it in a variety of ways. But the way that really resonated with me was this idea that when you’re inside an emotion, like when you’re really emotionally dysregulated, which is an experience that we have as neurodivergent people, that you almost kind of lose sight of other emotions.
And this concept is really interesting to me because emotional dysregulation isn’t a part of the DSM parameters, so to speak, for ADHD. But it’s widely known that people with ADHD do, experience emotional dysregulation. And so for the listeners, how we define emotional dysregulation, or rather, how I define it at least is emotional dysregulation is when you are experiencing an emotion that is disproportionately strong for the for the situation.
But it also has to do with, an inability to self-soothe as well as an inability to tolerate distress. And it’s this last piece that really resonates with me around the concept of emotional permanence. So what I’m talking about is, like, let’s say that I get upset about something like, I get really, really sad. Or maybe I get into a feeling of like rejection sensitivity, or I get really angry about something I tend to stay in that emotion for like way too long, and it impacts my ability to do other things.
Oh, that. I meant to say that as well. The other aspect of emotional dysregulation that that distinguishes it as dysregulation versus just like feeling a strong emotion is the inability to engage in goal directed behavior. Well, experiencing that emotion. So like when you’re really emotionally dysregulated, it also interrupts your ability to get other things done, which is already impacted by ADHD.
But I think we don’t talk enough about the fact that, like, strong emotions get in the way of our ability to stay motivated and follow through on things, and that’s certainly true for me. So with emotional permanence, for me, what’s really interesting is this idea that, like, if I’m experiencing some really strong emotion, usually negative, I’m unable to work towards goal directed behavior.
Like I can’t stick to my routine, I can’t get work done. Yeah, I might have said to myself, you know, today I’m going to sit down and do my taxes. Just can’t do it. Can’t get myself to do it because I’m so inside this emotion. But I almost, like, lose sight of the fact that I’m not always going to feel this way.
So there’s kind of this additional level of distress that happens where I’m distressed about the, you know, whatever the incident is that caused me to feel this way. But I’m also distressed by the emotion itself. And this feeling like I’m going to be stuck in this feeling forever. So it’s like I can’t remember a time that I didn’t feel this way, and I can’t imagine a time where I don’t feel this way and I’m just, like, stuck inside that feeling. Did that happen to you, Asher?
[04:39:12] Asher: It absolutely does, Dusty. And I think as a coach, that can be doubly frustrating because we can know how to name the fact that we’re there, but that that unto itself maybe isn’t enough. Years ago on this podcast, Kahneman I talked about when he first started coaching me and how I was very stuck on the couch, very stuck in inaction.
And the metaphor we used at the time was it was like being on Hoth, the ice base from Star Wars, right? Like the door is closed and I’m just in there by myself, unable to get out of that place. And I would say that that place for me is very much this phenomenon that you’re describing now, just being stuck in a particular negative emotion and not able to get any traction out of it.
[05:31:12] Dusty: Yeah. And I think something that that’s really interesting too, something I’ve always flagged around emotional dysregulation. So like it it relates to our productivity rate, our ability to be consistent, to follow through on plans. Because when I’m super dysregulated, like everything goes out the window, if I had any, you know, what we might think of as willpower or executive function to like, get myself to do a thing, it’s completely gone.
Like it’s spent just trying not to, like, blow up and lose my mind. Right? And then, yeah, like it exhausts me to be to be in such a emotionally heightened state. But then also there’s this piece around, like reactivity and impulsivity, right. Like as people with ADHD, we struggle with impulsivity. Right. And we struggle with reactive action. I guess that’s really just another kind of impulsivity.
But I think it’s so much worse. If you can’t imagine ever feeling better without doing something right. And so there’s this peace around distress tolerance. Because really, like that’s one of the hallmark things about emotional dysregulation is people with ADHD tend to have a decreased ability to tolerate distress, not just emotional distress, but like the distress of being bored, the distress of feeling like you need to do something but can’t do it in that moment.
Like we have a really hard time tolerating any level of distress. But for me personally, if I’m inside a strong emotion and it feels like I’ve always felt that way and I’m never going to stop feeling that way, there’s then an increased motivation to take some kind of impulsive or reactive action to, like, relieve the pressure like a thermostat.
If I’m if it’s at work and I have a job and my boss, you know, makes me feel like a jerk and I feel like, oh, I just can’t work here anymore, I’m not appreciated. Like, I’m a this is a dead end job. My life is going nowhere. You know, if I get into that rumination spiral and I can’t tolerate that distress, and I can’t hang on to the fact that, like, I’m not always going to feel as, like, amped up as I feel right now, there’s a much higher likelihood that I’m going to, like, reactively quit right?
And so, on the other hand, distress tolerance literally looks like the the opposite of emotional permanence. It looks like being able to remember that, like, okay, this is just one moment. Actually, now that I say that, it kind of makes me realize this is also related to like ADHD, time blindness now, not now, right? Like the only thing that exists is the now.
And so in order to tolerate distress around mood, you also have to be able to scope time and remember, okay, there was a past in which I did not feel this amped up, and there is going to be a future in which I’m not going to feel that this amped up. And there’s an amount of time in between those two times where I am going to feel amped up.
But that but time is passing, and with the passage of time, my mood will improve. But if we see time in this flat way, that’s just now or not now. And everything in the now is like like an Instagram post. Like it’s it’s permanent and there’s a heightened emotion in that. Now it makes sense to that. There’s going to be this kind of this kind of like amplified distress around the feeling being everlasting. Does that make sense?
[08:31:25] Asher: Dusty, this makes a lot of sense to me. And I think we encounter this quite often in the practice of coaching our clients. For example, I’m working with a client right now who long term, no, she does not want to work in the same type of job and certainly not in the same industry that she’s in right now, and she’s questioning, do I just quit my job now and take a bit of a sabbatical, which is possible for her?
In fact, our first our first step in figuring out whether it was possible for her not was for her to sit down and talk with her partner about the realities of making this choice, about whether or not they could financially sustain it, what that would look like for the two of them, etc. and there are some good arguments for taking the time off.
They have a second home that they need to clear out and sell. She doesn’t feel very settled in their current home, because they’re kind of in this in-between stage where they’ve moved in together, but they’re just hasn’t been time to, like, finalize that process, to decorate, to settle into the environment in a meaningful way. And that is having an impact on her.
So there are some very compelling reasons to take this time for herself, especially since it is theoretically possible financially. But what was interesting is after she had that conversation with her partner, she came back kind of second guessing herself and wondering and asking the question, what’s the powerful emotion here? Like what’s going on with me emotionally right now that is making this feel so compelling right now?
Like, is this something I need to do right now, or is this something that could wait? Our second session on this topic ended up being around kind of trying out the idea of, can I make forward progress on these things while still working at this job? After getting some clarity about where she’s really at job wise, right, getting out of that heightened emotional state about it and getting a more accurate picture of where she’s at and what may or may not be possible.
And I was honestly actually surprised by that, because I didn’t take our initial conversation to be that sort of reactive, clean slate thinking. But she was noticing that in herself, especially once it became more possible. Right? We went from not knowing whether or not this was something that her partner would be on board with it, that could be workable from that angle to having that barrier removed.
And I thought it was really interesting that the next place she went was, am I thinking about this emotionally in a healthy way, or am I experiencing some dysregulation that’s causing this urgent feeling of I have to do this now?
[11:18:08] Dusty: Yeah, that tracks like that’s a really good example. And what I love about that example though, is like your client had the awareness to be like, should I trust this emotion? And I think that’s where people get in trouble because like, I know for me, like I’ve had friends be very caught off guard. I’m very surprised. Like, you were just saying, kind of.
You were a bit caught off guard. I’ve had friends be very caught off guard and very surprised because when I get into a mood and sometimes again, it can be a really positive mood, but it’s like the mood changes my whole reality, right? Like what feels possible, what I’m motivated to do, what’s important to me, how I felt about a situation right, like I could.
Sometimes I’ll be like, really? I’ll be like, I hate this job. I’m gonna quit this job. You know, my boss is a jerk, right? And I might be venting about it to friends and then down the road, I’m like, oh my God. Like, I’m so excited about this opportunity. Worked at it. I’m like, you know, it’ll catch them off guard.
They’ll be like, I thought you hated this job. The way that I feel about it completely colors a lot of things. And I think that piece where you were, you learn to identify the fact that emotions do that to you and, like, should I trust them is actually a really important, like, really, really key part of managing this.
Because as long as you buy into the emotion and how it colors the reality, you’re going to keep being a victim of impulsive, reactive action as well as like what you’re motivated to do and where you spend your time and energy is going to keep flip flopping too, right? Like it’s going to be hard for you to make measured, consistent progress towards something, right?
I really had this a lot when I was experiencing a lot of body dysmorphia, right? So like, I would be wanting to, you know, sort of build an exercise habit, go to the gym, all that stuff, and then, you know, maybe seeing like an unfortunate angle of myself in a picture or sometimes hearing a story about somebody having a really rapid weight loss or a big success in the gym would just regulate me to the point where, you know, like I was, I was I was yoyo exercising because my motivation couldn’t withstand my mood either.
I was really, really in the mood to do it, or I was really, really not in the mood to do it. Or I felt completely hopeless about it. And once inside that mood, I couldn’t access any data outside the mood. You know, if we if we want to just move a little bit into like kind of what you do about this.
For me, I think understanding that this closely relates to the concept of distress tolerance and the ability to tolerate distress is key to like getting through. It has been really important because I did a lot of like DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy, and a lot of that is around distress tolerance. And it’s also around understanding that emotions are not permanent.
Right. My therapist likes to say, you know, like, emotions are like a visitor in your house, right? Like they come in, they’re a guest in your house. You don’t have to like them. Eventually they’re going home. You know, sometimes you don’t know how long they’re staying, but it’s like having someone in your house over for coffee that you kind of don’t like that much, and you’re like, okay, right.
Like, I just got to put up with them till they leave. And this all plays into that concept of like, oh, sit with the feeling. And I’ve had clients ask me like, what does it mean to like, sit with my feeling or feel my feelings? And like that is a very complex answer. Like how, how what does it actually mean to feel your feelings, to sit with your feelings?
Big, big question to answer. But the first step is understanding that you can, and understanding that that is the key to feeling better. Not taking action. So I was telling you before we got on this call, for me, it was like this really convoluted process, which I would say actually linked more back to the CBT skills. I learned.
So that’s cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a different therapeutic approach. But what I would have to do personally is if I was ever in a state where I was feeling really bad and this actually happened to me just this morning. This very morning, I had this. What I would have to do is I’d have to go, okay, here’s how I feel.
I feel. I don’t know if this morning I had a lot of rejection sensitivity. I was feeling rejected. I was feeling unwanted. I was feeling like, oh, nobody likes me. I don’t I mean friends, I’m always the outsider. Like, I got into that story, right? I’m just that person that people keep around because I’m useful. Like, I really got into that space.
And so I was feeling how I was feeling was like really sad and lonely. And what I have to do with myself when I’m in that place is I have to go, okay. Can I think of another time that I felt this bad? Like, was there any other point in my life at which I had a similar feeling to this?
And I’ll think back, like I’ll time travel to the past, to another memory of a time that I felt as bad as I feel now. And then I’ll say to myself, have I been that sad since that memory? Like, have I just been in a constant chronic state of this level of sadness? Well, no. That episode I’m thinking of might have been years ago.
Okay. Ostensibly since that time I’ve felt different ways. I, I guess I eventually felt better and I’ve had happy times since then. I’ve felt a myriad of emotions. And so then I’ll say to myself, all right, if I can acknowledge that I have felt this bad before and at some point, somehow I stopped feeling that bad. Is it possible that somewhere in the future, whether it’s in a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, I will once again have the experience of no longer feeling this way.
And it’s super convoluted, but like, if I can get myself logically in my brain to that point to acknowledge, I know that this feeling has stopped in the past. Ergo, I can trust that this feeling is not going to go on forever. That is all the distress tolerance I need like that instantaneously helps me tolerate the distress, because then I can go like, oh, okay, I don’t feel good and I don’t have to panic that this feeling is going to go on forever.
Like, I can trust that sooner or later I am going to feel better. And that makes it so much easier to focus on the in the moment distress tolerance. Like, I still don’t feel good in the moment, but removing that fear that I’m always going to feel this way, or like just from just even reminding myself that I’m not always going to feel this way.
Somehow it changes everything about my capacity to like, manage that emotion, because I can be like, okay, this is just a right now thing. The past exists, the future exists, and there’s a future in which I feel better. I don’t know when it’s coming, but I can trust that it’s coming. And this morning it literally took and I mean, I should say, and for anyone listening, I’ve been at this for years.
Like I’ve had to go through that. What I just described to you guys as listeners, I’ve gone through that, you know, hundreds, maybe thousands of times since I learned it because I’m a pretty moody and emotional person. But this morning, just thinking through that allowed me to then access that next set of tools. Then I started noticing, okay, you’re in this story.
Is this story still true now? Are you still that you know, kid that gets picked last in gym class? No, you are not. What is the evidence? Are there other compounding factors? Okay, yes. Like I don’t have a refill on my meds right now. I’m like on my period right now, which were like, you know, obviously I’m feeling like more rejection sensitivity and I’m feeling more sensitive and just that first bit allowed me to like, then access the cascade of tools and like, honestly, within ten minutes, like I felt fine and I was like, wow, it’s so crazy that I like, was feeling so bad because I was ready to cause some big dramatic scene with someone about it, you know? And I didn’t.
[18:27:15] Asher: Dusty, I really like your language of accessing data beyond them. Okay? I think when a client comes to a coaching session in an emotional state like this, which happens quite often and, sometimes some of my favorite coaching sessions, because it’s really powerful to see that shift happen in real time, to see a client be able to kind of step out of the powerful emotion and have a different experience with it, where all of the sudden we can get some data, some information, some clarity.
There’s an ability to be curious there that wasn’t present at the start of the session. And so you’re describing a therapeutic approach, but certainly coaching process is another way to get there. And I think this is an interesting opportunity to distinguish when you talk about getting data beyond the emotion. I think being stuck in a powerful emotion can also inhibit action when action is actually the thing that is needed.
So we have that experience on both sides, right? The the impulsive action, the clean slate thinking the I’m going to blow it all up and leave my job or, or make some other impulsive decision to alleviate the distress. But because we have that experience so often, I also experience the opposite with my clients, where they kind of don’t trust themselves to make a big decision, even if that’s the right decision.
So I’ve coached a number of clients through job changes, through career changes and being able to get past the emotion to get that data is how we get there, is how we get to a place where they trust themselves and the decision they’re making. You know, so often my clients will fear when they’re very much not engaging in clean slate, thinking that that’s what they’re doing.
I am engaging in clean slate thinking here. I’m repeating a pattern that doesn’t serve me when in this case that’s not the case. And to give you an example from my own life, I was showing Dusty before we started recording today that my office, I completely tore it apart. It is in total disarray, and I have been feeling a certain stuckness in this space for a while, and a desire to do something different with this space to recreate my workspace in a way that better serves me.
But I’ve been stuck on getting to the action of that for a number of reasons, because I knew it wasn’t going to be a small project number one. And number two, I kind of stuck in the emotion of it, of I don’t feel good in this space, but not really able to get past that to see, like, what do I need to do to have a different experience here?
And so in my case, yes, I’ve taken some pretty drastic action because the desk that was in here before is huge. And so I’ve taken it apart. It’s still in here standing up on its hind end. I don’t know how I’m gonna get rid of it yet. I’ve made a mess that I don’t yet know how I’m going to clean up, but that was actually the step that was needed to have a better experience in this space.
So in my case, there was action that was needed. But similar to what you’re describing it, the the mood of it, the emotion of it was preventing me from from taking that action or having enough clarity to understand that that’s the step that I needed to take, even though it is drastic. Right? We we can have that experience on both sides where a drastic action.
We take it when that’s not the move, but where we’re afraid to take it because we’re afraid we’re making the wrong decision, or that we’re making that decision for the wrong reasons. As people who have had that experience repeatedly in the past.
[22:19:04] Dusty: Oh yeah, I’ve done some, some wild things. But like, I think I think there’s also a kind of, powerful ness to like, you know, the the burn it all down or like, just the, you know, I’m going to dang it, I’m going to shave my head or, you know, those moments are also like, so memorable and such game changers sometimes they just can be a dice roll.
[22:40:20] Asher: Well and Dusty, not to veer off topic too much, but that’s where journey thinking comes into play, right? When we’re when we’re looking at our past experiences like I’ve coached clients to a different resolution or a better understanding of some previous clean slate action that they regretted by way of looking at how that action got them to where they are now.
So the action itself, in hindsight, might they have done something different? Yes, but it is unknowable how that might have changed the trajectory of where they are now. And so kind of coaching, coaching through hindsight in that way can also be helpful because certainly I have taken clean slate actions in the past that I, I regret, but I’ve also made my peace with those actions because I, for the most part, like who I am now and like where my life is now and wouldn’t necessarily change that.
[23:37:27] Dusty: Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s there’s no use crying over spilled milk, right? Like the you just beat yourself up about it. What’s the what’s the point. And I also want to say like, I think this distress tolerance piece or this whole like, thinking like, like you were just saying, this idea of accessing data beyond the mood. This can also come back to that concept of speaking to yourself in a gentle and firm voice versus hard and soft, which is something I talk a lot about in my coaching.
So here’s another example is an example I use with clients all the time. This one time I remember I was I was really upset about the state of my kitchen. My kitchen was really, really messy. It was after a long day. It was at the end of the day my my daughter was a toddler. I was single parenting and my kitchen floor was like absolutely filthy.
And I remember thinking to myself, okay, I need to sweep the kitchen floor. But just like we were talking about last week, I had this like really hard core case of the I don’t want is only I don’t want to sweep the floor. I don’t want to sweep the floor, I don’t want to sweep the floor. And I was like, you have to sweep the floor.
You have to sweep before you have to sweep the floor. And I ended up getting into sort of that, like what Brennan Mohan calls the wall of awful. And like he talks about Hulk smashing through the wall of awful, which is basically just saying, like using getting into your adrenaline response cycle, like beating yourself up, you know, you’re you’re being mean to yourself until you get adrenaline going, and then you use that adrenaline to kind of break through the the free State and get to the other side.
So in this case, I was beating myself up. I was saying things to myself in my head like, what kind of adult are you if you can’t even sweep your kitchen floor? Like, how are you ever going to keep your house clean? Like, what’s wrong with you? Blah blah blah. I was being really mean to myself until finally and this is so funny.
So I went in the kitchen and I started sweeping the floor, and I was crying like I did not want to be sweeping the floor so much that I started. I was like, sweeping and weeping, and I was like, let’s paint the floor. And like, I do like sweeping the floor takes like, not even five minutes. But I just had this moment, Azure, where I was sweeping.
And then I stopped and I was like, wait. And I did the same thing. I went to myself. Have I ever swept a kitchen floor before? And it didn’t feel as hard. And I thought about it and I was like, yeah, okay. I’m definitely it doesn’t. I don’t recall it feeling this hard to sweep the floor every time.
So ergo, I can’t think of a time where it felt easy to sweep the floor, but I know it must exist. And then I stopped and I said to myself, and I’m like, if hypothetically, I can acknowledge that I have swept kitchen floors before and it didn’t feel as hard, is it possible that it won’t feel so hard tomorrow?
And maybe I should just do it tomorrow when it doesn’t feel that hard? Because I can do it now, but it’s really costing me. Or maybe I can just do it tomorrow and it might feel easier. And so I put the broom down and I walked away. And the next morning, lo and behold, when I wasn’t tired, exhausted at the end of a long day, like having restraint collapse, I walked into the kitchen.
I picked up the broom. I swept the floor like it was nothing. And that. And like, honestly, that was like such a. I always think back to that memory because first of all, what I did in that moment is I went from being hard on myself and beating myself up to being gentle with myself, saying like, not like letting myself off the hook.
You know, it’s not that I didn’t try. I was really, really trying, but I was. I need to be gentle with myself that moment go, okay, you know what? This is not the right moment to sweep the floor. Whether you sweep the floor right now or you do it in the morning, nothing is going to change materially. It doesn’t make you a better, worse adult to go to sleep with a dirty kitchen floor tonight.
Like it doesn’t actually mean anything about you. Dusty. I use that gentle voice with myself the next day. It didn’t cost me anything. It cost me no spoons. It was easy. And that’s when I learned if I’m really pushing myself to do something that isn’t super urgent or super high stakes and is feeling that hard, and I’m tempted to get into like I start beating myself up about it, that’s the time to, like, go.
Whoa, Hans! Hands off! Leave this for, like, better spoons. Dusty, leave this for the version of you who doesn’t find this hard to do. Because that version of me is always coming again. And I’ve rather than it. And it’s different than procrastinating, right? Procrastinating to me is being like, okay, I don’t know what I’m going to do. This.
All I know is I don’t want to someone to to avoid it. Whereas this is like, okay, I’m not the best person to do this right now. There’s there’s someone better suited to doing this than me, and it’s like me in three hours or like me tomorrow. Like there’s another Dusty out there somewhere in the near future. I can’t feel it.
I can’t feel the near future. But I hypothetically know exists as a concept. There’s some Dusty in the near future who is better suited to this? I’m going to trust the universe that she’s going to show up and take care of this. And I don’t have to do it right now because it’s really hard for me. And and so that also, again, I think lends itself to distress tolerance because you have to know where to take pressure off yourself when you’re trying to tolerate distress.
Right? Like what? What makes distress so much harder to tolerate as well with ADHD is the fact that, like we, we experience that interruption when we’re emotionally dysregulated to, taking action towards, you know, goal directed behavior. Right? We get stuck. It’s like, oh my God, I have to go pick up the kids from school, or I have to clean my room, or I have to go to the gym, or I have to make dinner, and all of a sudden, all of that stuff feels so impossible to do when you’re dysregulated.
And so it’s more distressing to have to push yourself to do things when everything feels so hard. And if you can take some pressure off yourself, that’s also going to go a long way towards being able to tolerate that very, you know, upsetting feeling emotion.
[29:03:01] Asher: Does see in the in language that we’ve used on this podcast before. I would describe your experience with sweeping the kitchen floor as a pause, disrupt, pivot moment. You were able to pause and get curious enough about what was going on, to recognize that now is not the time for you to tackle this, and that you could trust yourself to tackle it at a future point, and that it would likely be easier for you at that future point.
And so to wrap up for today, I think a helpful concept here in the concept that we use in coaching to have a different experience to get out of these powerful emotions or get up above them enough to get the data, is curiosity. You cannot be curious and afraid at the same time. So if we are able, in a coaching session, to shift away from negative emotion and shift to a place where you are now looking at this with some amount of curiosity, then you are going to be able to see the dilemma in a different, more useful way, because now it’s not clouded completely by the current mood or the current emotion.
And this isn’t always possible. As a coach who who does this with people every day, sometimes I get stuck in a feeling and I’m not able to self coach myself to get up above it. But even in those instances, just recognizing and naming, as you’ve been saying, does say that that I’m here, but I’m not going to be here forever.
And so adapting my now to the fact that I’m here, whether or not I like it, but also knowing that I’m not going to be here forever can be a useful strategy. In the meantime, right? Like you’re not always going to be able to create that shift right away. But certainly the opportunity is how can I how can I look at this with some amount of curiosity, rather than beating myself up about this dilemma or letting the emotion tell the story about this dilemma, what can I be curious about?
Here is a great way to sort of try and break that cycle for yourself, and certainly what we would be doing in coaching. Anytime a coaching client arrives in that kind of place, the first order of business is to see if we can’t shift to a more curious mindset about whatever it is they’re grappling with totally. All right, Dusty, I think that’s a good place for us to wrap today’s episode.
So until next week, I’m Ash.
[31:28:26] Dusty: And I’m Dusty.
[31:29:29] Asher: And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
