¶ Beyond Wanky Wellness: Breathwork Power
Yeah, so I was listening to your podcast episode, Nervous System Regulation Without Wanky Wellness and Woo. And just the title threw me in straight away because I've said before many times I am actually allergic to woo.
i'm officially allergic to it so i wanted to just talk to you about the episode because you were talking about how people i think you mentioned joe wicks as an example not to pick on him but um taking ice baths and then people listen to him and think i have to do that to regulate my nervous system and then very
you very carefully described that that is not true and there are of course so many other ways to regulate the nervous system and the most powerful one of them all which i completely agree with is completely free and it's your breath and you know i heard you on that episode sigh you went like and then i did it like i copied you and then i just just thought to myself i you can feel your parasympathetic nervous systems activate instantly
It all, you know, if you, as long as you're not completely and utterly, you know, overstimulated. Yeah. You can do one sigh that takes a what? Five seconds and you'd feel completely different. you do the thing is that doesn't that's there's no nothing to sell in that though so anyway because i thought i agree you know i historically have taken lots of ice baths i don't really do it so much anymore
And one of the reasons I do it is because it makes me feel good. And actually, I'm not trying to overcomplicate it any more than that. So anyway, I'm going to stop talking for a second. What was it that inspired you to make that episode? It feels like something must have inspired you. I think, as a clinical psychologist...
And with the footing we have in science, evidence, research, whilst also being a practitioner, sitting with people who are telling us anecdotal stories of what works for them or what doesn't work for them, there is a balancing act because we can't just sit in ivory. hours of this is research when we have people telling us something that
Actually, it's really useful for them, even if that doesn't have a scientific footing. So there's a balancing act between the two. Right. But the wanky wellness bit was a bit of a soapbox because I see so many.
unregulated uneducated people in the wellness space who are talking with such emphasis as if this is the truth this is the fact and that can be dangerous because that that comes with the sort of social media influencing right so that can be dangerous people don't think that this is a must this is the pressure And having treated and worked with clinical levels of perfectionism for 15 years, I'm very careful to communicate to my community.
that just because you see one person do this does not mean that you now must and you should and you're failing at life if you don't. And that includes breathwork too, by the way. It's not like you now have to do breathwork in a particular way. But just taking a moment here and there to just go, the physiological side has a lot of research and evidence of how it activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
the rest and digest or the calm and connect and we need that we don't need to pay hundreds of pounds for things when we can take a deep breath right here right now sure
¶ Ice Baths, Adrenaline, and Individual Needs
You know, it's interesting because I've done retreats in the past. We did the last one in March and we do have a wild swimming section as part of it. And, you know, obviously it's March, so it is very cold. And I do, and people seem to feel amazing afterwards. But do you know what? After listening to what you said, I wonder if...
Part of the reason they feel amazing is because before they went wild swimming, they were shitting their pants, basically. And then after they get out, they're not shitting their pants anymore. Yeah, that's the soothing of the adrenaline, right? Yeah. Yeah, I feel really good because you've had an adrenaline, basically a threat system activation that is unsoothed because you're seeing that you can survive it. And also...
Again, I'm not an ice bath expert, so I want to caveat that. But a lot of the people who have... who are practitioners in the field also talk about the breath work you do to be able to sustain yourself to endure it. So then is it the ice bath or is it the breath work that's making you feel good? And could you do breath work whilst you're not submerged in ice?
I think it's that sense of correlation versus causation. What is actually happening here? Can we draw conclusions that this is what caused it? If you feel now regulated, is that because you've had a bit of a a high feeling is it because you feel soothed so I think we have to really consciously figure out what is it that I'm after do I need to go up
or do I need to go down? And a lot of the women I support with ADHD who are over-functioning all the way into burnout, the ones who are trying to do one more thing on their to-do list, they don't need to... get another threat system activation that is then soothed. They need to... Yeah. So I guess it's just asking yourself functionally, is this helpful or harmful?
for me the reason i started doing it was because i had these so i had seizures 10 years ago and then i uh couldn't drink caffeine anymore so i started doing cold showers and the cold showers Say, for example, I'd wake up and there'd be a darkness, that's how I'd describe it, of low energy. And I'd have the cold shower and then there'd be a lightness. Yes. That'd be it.
yeah and that's fine that's just write about it and people were going actually i've tried that and it yeah it does feel good but um but certainly the the the breath work thing is
¶ ADHD, Self-Compassion, and Perfectionism
by far the most important thing for me now. Definitely. So thinking about it through the lens of ADHD.
And also, again, it's about self-awareness there of knowing yourself really well and knowing what do you need throughout your day? It's like 24 hours of the life of an ADHD or what are your tough points? Is it about... kind of inertia or task initiation in the morning you can't get going if then having a cold shower stimulates you makes you feel more alert and you feel ready to face the day great
For some people, it's equally the opposite. Having a warm, soothing shower makes them feel alert because they feel a bit sort of cocooned into the warmth. And so this is where we can't be prescriptive. And that's what you were saying about your... You prefer warm water. Yeah, I do. And is that because you would describe yourself as a perfectionist in the way that you help other people with perfectionism?
or not yeah i think it takes one to know one right okay um my perfectionism i've spent you know 15 years working on it so it's definitely not what it was now i'm much more um able to embrace my imperfections I've had to as part of unmasking my ADHD my team who works with me in my business are much more aware of that and I've worked hard on sort of self-compassion of
basically what I call forgiveness for the fuck-ups and compassion for the chaos, because we have a lot of that, right? And that self-acceptance piece of, whoops, I've made a mistake. Whoops, I walked into a door. Whoops, I spilled coffee.
on the floor like there will be a lot of whoops moments throughout my day that's holding that a lot more lightly we're not I'm not so self-critical about it so perfectionism is associated with high levels of self-criticism and shame and so is ADHD so the self-compassion is the kind of soothing antidote of that so we're then coming back to the must take an ice bath or must
do whatever it is you think you must do. If you're watching yourself with self-awareness, how is this making me feel? What's the motivation that's in the driving seat for me doing this right now? Am I forcing myself into this ice bath because I think I should?
and it's an achievement, and then other people will think I'm great? Or am I doing it because I'm actually feeling a sense of soothing, feeling a sense of ease, it feels good? That might be a self-compassion and motivation rather than... a critical forcing motivation and what so i have not i've literally no idea about perfectionism although and i'm pretty sure i don't suffer with it myself because i'm so
blase about things and I intend to do things at a rapid pace and not particularly bothered about the outcome of them if I'm honest and I'm quite self-aware about that I think But where does it come from generally? Are we born that way? Well, it's... Different researchers say different things. Some researchers talk about it being personality traits linked to, say, neuroticism and over-conscientiousness. And other people say it's a set of behaviors.
So other researchers say if they're learned behaviors and if they're behaviors, we can unlearn them, we can change those habits. And obviously some people say that it's linked to coping mechanisms. Like if we've been through something hard in life where we were constantly criticized by someone, we can learn to try to always be perfect because then we can't be ridiculed.
rsd comes in there we can't be rejected um we can't be criticized we can't be abandoned so if i'm constantly always striving to do things perfectly maybe then finally i'll feel good enough But no way in a million years that that will happen. No, it doesn't work. No. It doesn't work because it's that striving, that pursuit of the perfection is the thing that's costing you basically the propensity of going into burnout.
So you can spend all that striving, but it not only doesn't bring negative feelings, like you're feeling not enough, you're feeling... self-critical, feeling shame, but also robs you of the good stuff. It robs you of joy, robs you of sense of pride and achievement and accomplishment, like, oh, I did this thing. Perfectionism means that you're basically just on to the next thing without any satisfaction or joy from the thing you've done. Yeah. That sounds...
¶ Gendered Pressures and Imperfect Action
challenging to say the least it is it is that's why it's associated with things like anxiety disorders eating disorders depression burnout and it's a very common thing especially in women with adhd so i hate to break it to you but Male privilege dictates that you are less likely to struggle with perfectionism because the patriarchal pressure of perfection on women to look perfect as parents.
We have higher standards for us as mothers than men do as fathers. There's a lot of pressures that means that there's a different set of rules for men and for women. And women can often internalize that as I need to do this or society will judge me. Yeah. It's even, you know, if you look at young boys.
and their fathers, even in a very healthy relationship. You might say that the boy is told to go and be competitive and make things better. They might be nudged towards that or maybe pushed hard towards that. Whereas the girl has a whole other host of things to consider in that time and maybe pressures from both parents. I'm being very generalistic now, but, you know, it's just...
You know, I've seen that time and time again. It's hard. I've got two kids, a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and my four-year-old son is nonverbal autistic, really quite severe. disabilities and he so it's a very very different situation yeah in parenting him and you know darcy's only two at the moment so hopefully i mean she's a little monkey but um
It's so difficult, isn't it? Because you think how a lot of these things start so early in life. And as a parent with the best will in the world, you don't want to cause problems for your children.
occasionally you're going to say things or do things in the heat of the moment that might stick in their mind. I'm thinking back to my own childhood and things that I've remembered that have happened. So it's tricky. So if it's... either behavior or i mean what do you think so you've said that there's research behavior and learned i think it's a set of behaviors that serves a function of protecting us
I think it's a set of behaviours that when we do them, we keep ourselves safe. So if you believe that, does that make it easier to deal with? It makes them more treatable. That's what I mean, yeah, that's what I meant. And I prefer to believe in hope. You know, there's the naive optimism of ADHD, but it's also the bit that...
that little spark that I bring to my clients. Because if I'm like, this is just who you are, this is your identity. They'd be like, well, fuck trying then. What would be the point? Whereas my job as a psychologist in the therapeutic space, in the coaching space is to hold the hope.
that things could be better for you even if you made a one percent improvement on tomorrow if you reflected on what happened today and could you lower your perfectionism like could you lower your standard by one percent you know where could you invest that energy if you i mean you've got younger kids but let me assure you when they get slightly older
the birthday parties are intense, right? And the parents do this to each other. They sort of like, well, let's have a big hall party. Let's spend money on an entertainer. And this is where the sort of embracing... perfect action is really helpful to just like that will do because they don't remember the big
big grand gestures. They remember how you felt when you're delivering that. They remember how at ease you felt, how fun you were. Whereas you could have delivered a perfect party on the surface and then you were irritable as hell shouting at the kids.
being ratty about tidying up everything afterwards. And they remember that that wasn't a good time for them. They would rather have like homemade ice cream sundaes around the coffee, like around the dinner table with a couple of their mates and you being in a good mood. Yeah. And that's a great memory of a birthday. So that's what I try to teach the women who obviously with the ADHD aspect of the perfectionism together is that all of nothingness becomes immense.
If it's not 110%, I might as well not do it because then it's utter failure. So we then try to think about, well, how could you make that a tiny bit less? You can still strive for having... excellent things where it matters, but just shave some corners off where really it doesn't matter. Save your sanity, basically. Yeah, that's wonderful. You know, you've just, I made a note when you were talking because you said some, you said two things actually today, well, a few things that have just...
kind of circled into a like a little nucleus for me and you mentioned so we started off talking about nervous system regulation that that there's a lot of stuff that's basically non-experts if you will that are talking about it in the wrong way let's say basically um and then you used you talked about rsd and then you talked about
¶ Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria: Social Media Misinformation
if we have a lady like once we label something a lot of people's attitude might be oh that's just who i am so fuck trying then so i am i i may be wrong in saying this but i am cynical about the term rsd purely because i find that social media feeds are full of
the non-experts that you're talking about, albeit different ones, talking about RSD. And I think that they're actually making people who suffer from very severe rejection issues, which I'm not going to call RSD for now because I'm cynical about that term.
because it turns it into a label who are actually giving a license to those people to say it's okay you can keep doing that and i think that it's going to make these people who suffer with this thing called rsd alienate themselves from all the people around them because so for example i've seen a post by a very very popular adhd influencer in the past couple of days talking about rsd and he's saying
Basically, like, if you don't get invited to a party and you don't get told why, you know, you're causing trauma and blah, blah, blah. And it's, I think that's actually giving the people suffering with these rejection issues a license. to then speak up about why they weren't invited to that party. When they could have been invited to that... Maybe the reason they weren't invited to that party could...
But there could be a thousand reasons why they weren't invited to the party. And I worry that it starts to create egotism, like an egotistical reaction. in people who are suffering with who let's be honest let's not beat around the bush they are feeling these things so i'm not not i'm not for one second saying that people aren't feeling really awful experiences
that evolved perceived rejection or real rejection. My problem is the term RSD and the way it's used by non-experts in social media and what the ramifications are. I'm rambling. Because I haven't fully formulated what I want to say, but do you understand what I'm saying? You might disagree with me, but...
I think I'm understanding what you're saying. And I think this is also how we often do it. Like we have that verbally processing it out loud to be able to kind of, Oh, this is actually what I'm thinking. So what I didn't hear was.
what the question was yeah yeah so my oh yeah my i guess my my first my question is do you feel that in the same way that non-experts are talking about ice baths being good for nervous system regulation non-experts are also causing damage by using rsd uh to say giving people a license to perhaps say this is the way i am i can't do anything about it I think it's difficult because labels, and I am someone who assesses and diagnoses ADHD as part of my job, so I know obviously...
label is something that we have to discuss critically, because the diagnostic criteria for ADHD has changed back and forth. So how is it like it is this one thing? And then in 10 years, when we maybe review them,
and statistical manuals. Again, maybe it looks different. So these are… terms we use to be able to explain something that is extremely complicated in a way that means we as clinicians can communicate with each other this is our understanding what this is and rsd as a term rejection sensitivity dysphoria is in its infancy in that sense, but it's not unique to ADHD. It is very commonly experienced in ADHD years.
But it's not unique to just that neurodevelopmental condition. It is also common in personality disorders like emotionally unstable personality, previously known as borderline. So that's my point exactly, is that... if that term that label of emotional instability personality disorder used to be called borderline and now it's not called that we don't like they're not definitive answers because they are diagnostic labels what i struggle with to come to your question around
non-experts what i struggle with that is that in today's day and age for clickbait for visibility on social media for playing to algorithms using ai prescribed hooks selling books selling books people are writing quite hyperbolic statements in general terms to make a point that could capture their lived experience which is valid.
But they're stating it as if it's everyone's lived experience, and that is not valid. So I have no issue with inspirational, motivational speakers talking openly about their experience, because me as a professional... There are limits to what I can share about my own personal experience because of boundaries, et cetera. So I love when people go out in the media and they do that and they talk openly about it.
but we are people who've done that for many for many years in terms of mental health like steven fry for instance that's not the same as saying here's the thing which is what ai always does here's the thing it's like this for everyone I can't cope with another here's the thing post. And I guess it's we have to be aware of capitalism. Is there a...
part of selling something at this? And why are you selling this to me? Are you selling this as a healthcare provider? Because I own a business, we have to make invitations into sales, I get that. are you selling that as an expert in the field as a provider who can actually provide valid treatment for this or are you selling it because you basically want to sell books like you said as a non-expert
It's a delicate conversation. So I can't, I always try to not be black and white because the standard psychologist answer is always, well, it depends.
¶ Confronting Rejection and Universal Human Shame
So I've given you a, well, it depends on, so what's your motivation? What's the mission? Are they spreading awareness, reducing stigma? Are they just there to make a buck? I don't know. I mean, because of course I get, people ask me about it all the time because it seems the most, it's the most prescient, like... term that seems to be associated with adhd that to to so many people you could think it's just a subset of adhd but like you've already explained it's not at all no and
people will say to me, how do you deal with rejection? And they'll say, do you have RSD? I was like, no, I don't at all. And I would refuse to accept it, even if someone tried to label me with it, because for so many reasons, which I can go into. Of course, when I walk down the street and I see someone I know and I wave to them, but they ignore me, it makes me feel shit. Of course, maybe the next time I see them, I'll cross the street to avoid eye contact with them.
That might happen. But if I was to say I've got RSD, what might happen to me, and I'm a very self-aware person now, I definitely did not used to be, is I might say... Well, I've got RSD, so either I'm going to continue avoiding that person for the rest of my life because I've got RSD. Or I'm going to go up to them and tell them I've got RSD and say, you can't ignore me ever again because, and this is literally, I've heard both instances of that from clients and I see it.
all the time in social media and i think these influencers are actually augmenting that giving a license to people to do that kind of thing they'll say to me okay how do you deal with it i say well i can see there's a problem i am frightened of the reaction so I go away I think how do I deal with it well I need to confront it but not from an egotistical perspective I need to just confront it to go for example what did
the quote, the treasure you seek is inside the cave you fear to enter. Yes. Basically. I love that phrase. So I've used that on slide decks for presentations once. So I do love that. It's a sense of you needing to approach rather than to avoid to get the answers and do the hard work. What you've already said is do it in my way. So I'll start. to work out when I'm ready to do that in an active, positive way. Yeah. And I wouldn't force another to do it.
it's interesting though because that example of um someone you see someone you know and they cross the street and they don't say say hello to you etc what do you do That's such a common scenario that for anyone who's not trained in CBT practices, cognitive behavior therapy, that's actually used as a training example on our courses as a kind of CBT 101, you know, helping. us to understand how the common human condition
Of jumping to conclusion, assuming the worst, that these are common thinking distortions, basically, that our brains do. I think it's probably 99.9% of human beings on the planet have that. Yeah, absolutely. We do. So I want to talk to the... Perhaps. But they might think about that in a different way of how they could manipulate that to their endeavours. But I want to touch upon the difference between that, which is the normal human condition, versus...
a disabling and crippling kind of experience of RSD, right? So everyone, if we are human and we care deeply about other people, everyone apart from psychopaths will have an experience of shame Where shame is basically the feeling that you're sitting negatively in the minds of someone else, that they are having a negative opinion on you. So that moment when you're seeing someone down the street and they don't look at you or they ignore you, they reject you effectively.
that triggers shame in various different ways. And we care about that because we are a social species. We as humans survive through the connection. tribing with other people so of course you're gonna give a damn about whether that person has spotted you are they no longer your friend right that's not unique to adhd is that's a human condition
¶ Severe RSD: Beyond Common Reactions
Like a lot of the aspects of ADHD, there are things that other people also experience. This is why it's so hard. to have these posts of like, if you do X, you might be ADHD, because it's also about the severity, like how intense does that get, about the frequency, how often does that happen for you, and the duration.
How long does that stay with you? Whereas most of us can have these like, oh my God, mortifying, cringe moments. That's part of shame. That's part of being human. But if you have RSD... In that one example, like I said, is so commonly used in education of psychologists and therapists learning CBT that all of us could jump to the wrong conclusion.
The difference is that that person might then agonise for the rest of that day, the rest of that week, not be able to sleep at night, being consumed by the feelings of how horrible it is that then not only that person blanked them, but now... Everybody hates them. Everyone must hate them because they're a worthless piece of shit. And the level of intensity in that emotional reaction can even be associated with suicidal ideation. And that, to me, explains why...
non-experts. And what I mean by that is probably anyone outside of the highest qualified clinical psychologist shouldn't be touching that subject at all. Shouldn't be, no. And that's why I do not go near it. I've not written anything about it. It's a really tricky one for sure. And this is the first time I've spoken about it on a podcast, just because you mentioned it and it was something that...
And you see, you're telling me something I didn't even think about before. We can't know what we don't know, right? This is why I think there's... Oh, I'm losing my reference here. But I think it was Einstein who often talked about how... the more you know the less you actually realize yeah yeah yeah no and it's a bit like that i even struggle when i go on podcasts to say i'm an adhd expert because i'm like but there's so much i still don't know but the admitting of that is so so important
Yes, of course. It's in its infancy. And lots of the information that I talk about, I make very clear that some of that is anecdotal because the research, again, hello, patriarchy, the research, especially around... Females with ADHD hasn't caught up yet. We don't have the rigorous RCT, the randomized controlled studies to back up what we're saying. I'm listening intently to people's stories as a practitioner who's been in psychology for 20 years. But my lived experience of ADHD...
It's not enough to explain, so that's what it must be like for you. And that's my real sort of bugbear with some of the very funny, amusing ADHD reels out there that they make it sound like. If you do this, if you get tangled into a door handle, you must be ADHD. And yes, we're more likely to do that if we're ADHD because of, you know, spatial awareness issues. But that's not diagnostic. No, it's ridiculous, isn't it? And it's like, yeah.
If you do these five things, you've probably got ADHD. If you do these 10 things, you've probably already HD. If you do these seven things, you've got RSD. It's just utter bollocks. It's such bullshit. I can't cope when we think about the level of... And then someone else sees that and then they start creating. And it creates this Ponzi scheme, basically, where everyone's using each other's methods to grow as fast as possible. And yeah, it's nuts.
¶ Ethical ADHD Diagnosis for Women
And that's the situation we're in right now, unfortunately. It is. And as I often speak to other psychologists, we often speak with peers and supporting each other and doing the work we do because it can be emotionally quite a heavy job. I actually wrote to two of my peers this week when one of my articles went live, an article covering how I do ADHD assessment, which I do as either a full day in person.
day retreat, basically being with me for the whole day and I hold you through the whole process. That is very different to how, say, psychiatry UK would do it in 60 minutes. And I know that when a woman puts her head above the parapet and writing about things that... challenges the status quo you get shit for it so I wrote to those friends saying like it's gone live the magazine piece is out and I'm not just waiting for the onslaught
Because that's what happened when I had an article that went live in The Telegraph about compassionate ADHD assessments. The comments section was wild. Go on, tell me. Awful. What happened? Just a snapshot. So it's a snapshot. So the one that stuck with me.
and triggered a bit of my RSD, but I guess it would be triggering for anyone. It said that if you just have, you know, if you just have £2,000, you can go and just buy yourself an ADHD diagnosis from a... from a girl from Sweden on Harley Street. A, I'm a woman. B, yes, I am from Sweden. But C, I am not operating from Harley Street. And I don't take people's money giving them an ADHD diagnosis. No, I mean, I've read this on your website, and it's so refreshing.
Because you see the number of people that are getting diagnosed privately where they've just gone to a person in a room and the person's not even really paying attention to them and they're just going through a list of questions and give them what they want at the end.
which is effectively a diagnosis. And they don't really give a shit whether or not they've got it or not. It's crazy. And there's so many people now, what is it, ADHD nurses, I think, were... doing the diagnosis as well so yeah that's it's such a mess It's a mess because it's an unmet need, especially for women who are less likely to present in the hyperactive tense and might have more internal restlessness and it's not been seen. So I see...
The majority of the women coming my way are now mid-30s to mid-50s. So especially when they're starting to come into perimenopause or late 30s onwards. So perimenopause can happen a little bit earlier for ADHD women and neurodivergent women. So they might feel like end of their 30s, have a few kids.
And like, why am I suddenly going bonkers? What is wrong with me? And they're not going bonkers, of course. There's just that sense of the hormonal shift makes it really difficult. So then we then see an avalanche of women. seeking out diagnosis. It doesn't mean that they weren't there the whole time. It's just the way we captured
people in diagnosis was built on boys and men and their male presentations and not about the different neurotypes and how they present in girls and women. So we're catching up. So it doesn't mean that we now have a higher prevalence of ADHD. that we did before we just now know what we're looking for that now has to be countered with counted with not finding it left right and center because you don't have the time or the inclination to do the proper thorough assessment to look at
Is this trauma? Is this anxiety? It needs to be, as part of the checklist we have for assessment, we have to tick, is this better explained by other things like anxiety disorder or... head trauma you know there's a lot of things that could explain this what happened in utero like in pregnancy for this this person so we we have to ask a lot of questions and i just don't get i mean i'm not the most
¶ Self-Talk and Neuroaffirmative ADHD Support
efficient but i don't get how someone does that in 60 minutes i can't do it not possible not possible i mean i talk too much first off but it's not possible right because i also listen and if you are truly adhd you will come to me and do exactly what we've done right now, be unprepared, meandered around, talked a lot, not been concise, and feel really awful when someone gets to the point. So I let people talk.
when i instruct them that when we get to the actual like diagnostic questions yeah you'll be like well no i don't do that but when you've told me loosely about living your life and anecdotes of things that you are good at and bad at You've already told me. So when we get to the diagnostic checklist, I often ticked a lot of the things because I've already heard them say all the times that they would forget meetings and how they're over planning and double booking themselves. Because the...
The whole system of how we ask the questions and how we listen to the answers is so flawed. It's not neuroaffirmative. And how... what approach are you taking so say someone someone comes in for a diagnosis and they're displaying those things you've just described where they're double booking themselves for meetings and blah blah blah you know most people listening to this will know exactly what we're talking about yeah
What approach are you taking with them then to deal with that? So do you mean post-diagnosis and how I support them? I mean, a big part of the work I do as a compassion expert is developing self-compassion. for when you're inevitably going to do that again. I love the work of Russell Barkley when he talks about how you can't internalise a ramp.
If you had a physical disability, which meant that in order to get access to a building, you needed a ramp to get access, you can't then remove that ramp after six months because you've learned some skills. It is a bit like that with ADHD as well. Yes, there are systems I can teach them.
There's support mechanisms they can learn to ask for. But the self-compassion piece needs to be there too because you are going to fuck up again. You are going to make mistakes. That's part of it, right? And that's part of humanity. But it's... more often for us with a neurodevelopmental condition. So that compassion piece means that you go, oh, whoops, and you're able to...
Move on. You're not attached to your worth as a human. It's not ruining your entire day. You can figure out what to do to resolve the problem. I'm really good at solving problems because I create so many for myself. So I've had a lot of practice. And that's one of the things I teach my clients to do is that the systems, absolutely, you know, can you use tech to support you? You know, I use...
I speak to my Alexa daily. All the things that could be there as an aid or as a tool, but the tool cannot save you from yourself. Because wherever you go, there you are. And your attitude, your self-talk you have with yourself is going to follow you. So even if you've found the perfect planner, which doesn't exist, by the way, but if you found a tool.
When inevitably you will forget to use it or get bored with it, drift away from it or make a mistake with it anyway, if you then go and beat yourself up. then it doesn't matter how many systems and many tools you've got. It's the problem is how you speak to yourself internally. Does that make sense? 100%.
¶ Acceptance, Masking, and Gifted ADHD
And I would say one of the ways that I've been able to improve my relationship with ADHD, with my own personal ADHD so much, is through letting things go. and my I just say to myself and I have to remind myself of this every single day and I think ADHD or not it's it could be important for anyone is today I'm going to do the best I can and that's all I can do and any thought about it being better than the best i can do it's just a story i'm telling myself illusory story
And if I do the best I can, by the end of the day, it will be a good day, no matter what. Even if feedback I get for a piece of work I've done is poor, but I feel I've done the best I can. Now, I'm not perfect. I don't always believe I've done the best I can or I'll slip into habits of thinking it could be better. But it's just an intention to create each day.
yeah and a lot of it is to a lot of the stuff i do around the side is just to try and take my attention off of myself and that's and that has helped more than anything i think before we started recording i was saying to you how i'm not I struggle to find where the ADHD symptoms are in my life on a day-to-day basis now. And I think a big, massive part of that is because over the past few years, I've been able to take my attention off of myself.
So I probably still do a lot of the things. Here's an interesting thought. It's only just coming to my mind. Meandering around again, of course. Yes, but you're definitely not ADHD, no. But is that, I think that's the point. Maybe I've got ADHD, but the story I'm telling myself is one of total acceptance and therefore it's not bothering me anymore. That's the difference. Hey, I've literally just realized that.
I have that effect on people. It's the mind blown of the realization of like, oh, and if you would look at my community of women who come to work with me, I'm far less symptomatic than they are. That doesn't mean I'm no longer ADHD.
It just means that I have put a lot of tools in place, a lot of attitudes in place. And the fact that I've been practicing mindfulness, yoga, meditation, journaling, I've been a... been training in psychology since I was 19 of course that's probably why I'm less symptomatic and it's probably what masked my symptoms longer and why my recognition of it was so delayed i wasn't diagnosed until i was 39 and even in the diagnostic system we have boxes to tick there that says uh you know
compensatory external scaffolding for instance so that other people like a parent who provided a lot of systems for their child might have masked the prevalence of those symptoms into later into life when They went to uni or they were in their early 20s and lived independently and suddenly, like, shit, I can't cope because my mum is not here laying all my clothes out anymore. We have that equally with internal strategies.
We can see that in highly intelligent individuals that some of the ADHD symptoms are a little bit harder to detect because they've intuitively figured out ways to solve all the problems that they create for themselves, like I said. So where we have people like twice exceptional, if you're familiar with the 2E, twice exceptional, this is when we have, say, ADHD or autism, dyslexia, have one neurodivergent label.
as well as exceptional high levels of intelligence, so above 98% of the population. That doesn't mean we're, you know, better than any people, but it means we have the capacity to think laterally even more and be like, huh, if I keep doing X, I need to then do Y to change it. That's what masked a lot of my symptoms for a really long time. And I attracted a lot of women like that who are so bright, so intelligent. Right.
¶ Objective Reality, ADHD, and Suffering's Second Arrow
But then the ADHD means that they are not using their potential in any way. Because I don't think I have exceptional levels of intelligence, but I have a really unusual way of thinking. I think even compared to a lot of people with ADHD that I meet. So for example, again, thinking about the stories that we tell ourselves. So say you're walking down the street and a boy runs across the road in front of a bus.
but he doesn't get hit by the bus there is a reaction then from say i'm looking at that as he's running across the road there could be a what a stupid boy and then it could be all five-year-old boys are stupid they shouldn't be allowed out you know that could be it story that's told or it could be that parent is a shit parent how are they letting their boy run across the road like that that's a story what's the reality a boy ran across the road that's it there's no
There's nothing more to it at all. So I'm constantly watching myself for those stories I tell myself to try and un... wrap those if you will and stop myself telling those stories so i try to see everything as objectively as possible but you have to be careful with that because if you try to see everything too objectively
then you start to try and put everything in life into neat little categories. And that just doesn't work at all because everything is messy. And there's actually a story, an ancient Greek myth. called the bed of procrustes. Have you heard of that before? Yes. Yeah, I have. The guy at the inn chops off the feet or the head of his guests to make them fit the bed. Yeah. We use that. It's kind of...
called reductionism in theories. We use that as a cautionary tale to say we can't cut off the feet of people to make them fit into a model or a theory. We have to expand the theory to be flexible enough to fit the human experience we're looking at. So, yeah, it's a good myth that sometimes those myths or legends are there to capture human experience. I feel like there's more truth. For me personally, there's more truth.
in those myths if you think abstractly enough than there are in facts scientific facts not obviously not all the time but a lot of the time especially when it comes to living a life so Do you like the term ADHD? I mean, I think it has some brand issues, for sure, because I don't think it's...
I mean, everyone is talking about how it's an attention regulation problem, right? It's not that you don't have any attention. It's you're maybe unable to direct it in the way that's useful for you. So either you're... unable to drop into attention for something that you need to focus on because it's not interesting not stimulating etc or you're spending too much of your attention on things that
are interesting to you and then you neglect other things this is where we have the hyper focus attention which also is the biggest barrier that I see in people a seeking diagnosis for themselves or b supporting their loved one in getting the diagnosis because they say but they can focus they can when they were little they would sit and do jigsaws for hours
And I'm like, yes, because I like doing jigsaws. How were they with doing things that was not interesting? Having a nearly nine-year-old myself whose boredom tolerance is exceptionally poor. But he can focus for hours on end on the right thing that he's into and then you cannot interrupt him because shifting his attention out of that then is painful. It's awful.
It's an attention regulation problem, not so much of a being inattentive. And I think that gives a bad rep to the term. I think we are on... We're on the cusp of understanding neurotypes more. I think there is a lot more research needed on how it shows up. And given that so many people...
who are ADHD are also autistic and even more the other way around. Autistic have also comorbidity with ADHD. Maybe we're actually looking at umbrella terms of neurotypes then rather than here's this distinct condition. These are all just...
human orchestrated terms because we're trying to understand something complex, right? I want to come back to something you said about sort of the… the thinking of how we how we're choosing to see something so say the boy running in front of the bus who can attach an appraisal or a meaning so he ran in front of the bus that means his parents are useless or what a stupid boy etc
That appraisal, we actually do know, is the bit that causes more pain to us in our human experience than the event itself. How we describe the event is more painful than the event itself. you make a mistake, right? Say you double booked yourself. It happens to all of us. You double book yourself and then that's painful in itself. It causes inconvenience. You might have inconvenienced someone else in your diary. That's effectively the first arrow.
So this is a Buddhist kind of analogy. The second arrow of pain we shoot into ourselves by saying, and that means I'm such a whatnot. Self-critical bit. That means I'm useless. That means I'm a fuck up or whatever you say about yourself in your internal language. That is the second arrow of suffering that we ease through compassion work.
You cannot stop the first arrow from being shot because we are all imperfect. We are going to make mistakes. But the second arrow of that subjective extra evaluation of what it means about you as a person.
¶ Surrender, Self-Acceptance, and Compassion
That's the bit that we soften through therapy and coaching work. I hope that that is helpful to anyone listening. Oh, it will be. Sure. Yeah. Especially because a lot of the stuff I've spoken about over the last few years has been surrender or the surrender experiment. uh a lot of people listening like that and it's very very similar to what you've just explained but in surrender it's like the way that i talk about it is
preparing yourself each day to allow life to show you the things that make you most uncomfortable and use those organically to try to let go of them. But whenever I use the word let go, I have to caveat that because people think they immediately go to repression.
or like a pretending or creating another story that is not bothering me no no that's absolutely not what we want to be doing at all it's just acknowledging that there is that i've got a problem with something but not doing anything about it at all just sitting and just watching it, basically. And that's when the parasympathetic breathing comes in straight away. It is. It can change your perspective on something instantly. It does.
Because it's that letting go, it's a softening in the surrender. So I'm trained in acceptance and commitment therapy, which talks a lot about the surrendering. It's effectively like... stopping the struggle against the thing and when we stop stop the struggle it's like lay down our arms and don't fight against it so much
we find a sense of deeper peace and ease with it, contentment. Not to say I'm liking my situation because I'm accepting it, but I'm not expending as much energy fighting against it. And that frees us up to actually think of... solutions so by laying down your arms stop digging when you are effectively in a hole stopping that struggle means we can think what what do i need to do it's like um it's a creative hopelessness that comes
Okay, well, it is what it is. This is the surrender interest. This is really hard. And what's going to be helpful rather than harmful for me to do about it? So that's the acceptance and compassion pieces that come together. And although this might not be the case for someone suffering with very severe rejection, dysphoria is actually the example I used earlier about walking down the street is that when you do this a lot, the thought then changes from...
Why did they ignore me? To why would they even be thinking about me? Why should they be thinking about me? As in, it doesn't matter. How, what right do I have to decide what another person thinks or doesn't think? And why should I feel so important that they have to be thinking about me? And is that helping for you? I mean, it's indescribable.
how much that helps because it diminishes my ego. And I'm glad you brought that back up again because I got distracted and forgot what I wanted to say about that, as you do when you're having an interesting conversation. It's that sense of... if it's helpful or harmful right so that's why i'm always curious when someone tells me how they're approaching something what strategy they use if it's not causing them any pain and it's actually helpful great for a lot of my clients
that might make them feel more alienated and further away from people. Because saying to themselves, like, why are you such an egotist? Why do you even care what people think? I would say that then that would be still thinking about themselves. So they might not be quite ready for that. But hopefully they will be at some point if they continue to do that. I would say I'm feeling alienated. That's still me about me.
And I am not immune to that. I'm not pretending that I am immune to it. But I am so much better at that now through just continually letting go of things. So there's a noticing. there's a noticing and self-awareness of that's what's running through my mind it's a noticing of the story there's a caring so it's like i'll see a person walking up the street and not
oh, now I feel alienated. It's that I'm now using my energy to care for them rather than think about how that experience affects me. Okay, now I get it. Now I get it. Yes, it's a moving... moving of your attention out of yourself into the exactly the wider world as well so but that did not happen overnight that took five years at least i would say yeah That can also bring in compassion for whatever's going on for them. So in the CBT scenario game, we often don't think about actually...
Maybe they're not wearing their glasses. Maybe they're preoccupied. Maybe they're in a tent of aviation. It could be a thousand reasons. It could be a thousand reasons and none of them are about me. And I would probably say not a single one of them is about me. I think that's another thing I've come to realize. Yeah. Other people are not preoccupied with us. We are preoccupied with ourselves.
They're preoccupied with themselves. So it's that sense of self-focused attention when we try to steer our attention out of ourselves into the world. It can really liberate us. The only thing I would add to that... is to kind of soften it with a bit of compassion by saying, well, no wonder my mind gives me that kind of story based on X, Y, and Z that's happened to me. Say, maybe you've experienced bullying or alienation or teasing, which we know is...
more common in the neurodivergent community no wonder that I'm now triggered by this wondering if that person is ignoring me because I've suffered this in the past and what's going to be helpful rather than harmful right now is to remind myself that this is not about me that it's
It's understandable that I would go to that place so quickly because that's how neural pathways work in our brain, right? And then thinking about, actually, I'm going to let it go. It's probably not about me or most likely not about me. And that can be a little bit softer because what...
I can just hear what you're saying and interpreting that through the women I support through their minds would be like, oh, there I go again. I'm just a selfish prick now. It's just self-absorbed with all of the thinking. And then I'm failing at that as well. So it's that sense of, okay, well, no wonder. It's understandable for the human condition that our brains...
which have evolved very weirdly. Our brains are tricky and they will jump to these conclusions. And as soon as I notice that, I can just name it as that's just thinking. It's just...
¶ Social Media, Addiction, and Intentional Tech
Jump into the conclusion and we can let it go. Like you said, the surrender can come in. That's a wonderful way of describing it. And actually, I will say to people who are interested in this, is that you do get to a point where... you actually start to welcome the discomfort because then you realize there's another part of you that's got what I describe as a problem, but you don't have to use that word, that needs to be ironed out.
There's some discomfort in this. And, you know, for probably 30 years, I ran away from discomfort. And then for the last five or six years, I've just walked towards it. Well, that's something else to thank the patriarchy for, because this is what it teaches men to do, to not face their emotions, to not have emotions, to not struggle, to be fixers.
Again, none of us are winning in that space. So learning to sit with your discomfort and be vulnerable rather than having to be strong all the time, that is a really tough thing to do when you think about 30 years ago. what a man was expected to do and what he was supposed to look like. It's...
Yeah, it's again more noticing. So a lot of the things that I teach in psychology, we have to be humble to the fact that it's not just a within you kind of problem, it's an around you problem as well. The societal structures around us that dictate how we should be. So it's, yeah, it's an internal pressure that we give ourselves, that second arrow we shoot of self-criticism, but also an external pressure of perfection, of needing to be strong or needing to be...
or whatever the pressure is dictating for you to do, it's not escaping any of us. Do you find that with the people that you work with, that social media is making this type of thing worse? Yes, I would say so. I once did an article for the Irish Times, I think, where we're looking at the rising rates of perfectionism in young girls.
Because obviously now, especially when you have the clever trickery of AI, what bodies look like on social media, it's ridiculous. And you don't have to say that this is AI modified. When you look at... Places like, I mean, it's not just social media, but it's also where we consume things. Young girls hang out on cheap consumer sites like Timu or Sheen. And if they have AI modified models.
showing what this garment looks like and that's not a realistic body that doesn't exist and we know that from you know even more primitive forms of retouching that even if you can tell yourself this is not a real picture this is a retouched picture or this has been airbrushed or this has been AI'd, your brain still consumes and absorbs that image as a standard to adhere to. It is scary AF.
Very. Have you ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman? No, I haven't. But thanks for the book club tip. Yeah, mid 80s, 1985, I think he wrote it. And he died before the internet.
before the world wide web was invented i think i think and he it was basically a critique on television but he was effectively talking about 2025 yeah the only difference is we didn't have the tvs in our pocket back then no and that's i guess to to kind of counter what people say that adhd is not a thing we're all just um you know we're losing our attention because we're constantly on our phones and yes that is part of it I think that means that people who are
Let me rephrase that. Brains that are craving that simulation are more likely to get hooked on those devices. I don't have a single one of my ADHD clients who does not have a problem with how much they use social media or just scrolling on their phone in general. And that's not causing the ADHD, it's the ADHD that makes you drawn towards that.
it's engrossing right and it's it can do what you said earlier like it helps us escape discomfort it's highly distracting and then we don't have to think about whatever we feel underneath that so again it's correlation of causation so Yes, we are potentially amusing ourselves to death because we get such quick.
doses of stimulation and a lot of the work that I do with clients beyond say the breath work we talked about and the self-awareness self-compassion is to create joy and stimulation dopamine energy
in safer, more helpful and healthy ways than just getting your hit from scrolling on social media. So that's why it's not just... regulating down calming down and soothing yourself it is also up regulating so you get a healthy drive so you can do things that feel meaningful to you without spending 20 30 hours a week on your phone
What I do is I use Opal on my phone and I just block it indefinitely. It's just on and I can only access it for five to 15 minutes at a time. And obviously it shuts itself down after that period of time. And then when it shuts itself down, it sort of wakes me up to go, oh, I'm wasting my time. And one of the reasons why I'm so strict about this is because I started to notice that going on social media for too long was starting to distort time.
for me yes starting to make time feel faster than it really was or i was wasting time or it was just like days felt skewed one way or the other and that this is not good And you know that's having two young kids. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's actually having not so much Ronnie, but having Darcy, our daughter. I am now much more vigilant myself.
To make sure that, well, I say make sure, but try our very, very best to shield her from a lot of this for as long as possible. But easier said than done, I know that. It is hard, but I can sense that there's a backlash coming. Obviously, people in my space have been talking about this for a long time. I mean, I recall this.
having conversations about smartphones and tablets, screen time with parents when I was last working in Sweden, which was... over 15 years ago and the power struggles that parents were having with young children because they couldn't come off the devices and I've been saying for a long time that like this is not good there's nothing wrong with technology like I am an old
gamer nerd um that can be lots of fun doing gaming but it's about intentionality you said the word intention earlier today and i'm like Yes, that's it. It's being intentional, conscious, self-aware of how we purposefully go in to use something. So you go in, get the connection out of it, and then go out. Just the bit of like, oh.
It's like a time warp. How long have I been on here? That's the bit that I think we can set up those parameters like Opal does and not affiliated with Opal, but I absolutely love it. Recommended to my clients as well. What is the purpose? And it's helped me to say, oh, I'm now going to, I have to post, like, I want to post something on stories. So I'm going to set a break for five minutes and I go in and do that.
And that's how long as it takes to do that. I don't need more time than that. If I spent half an hour on Instagram, I know I got distracted and I went into some other rabbit hole. And that consuming rather than creating is not helpful for me. It's helpful for me to use social media to spread my awareness of ADHD. So then I have to go in with a purpose. Why am I going in right now? Is it I want to go in because I want to reply to a DM or...
I'm going to check the details of a workshop I want to go to. There's a purpose to why I did that right now. That's absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with using social media, but just make it social. Knowing the story of the guy who invented the infinite scroll can help.
¶ Ancient Wisdom for Humane Technology
Do you know that story? He's so depressed and so upset with himself for inventing it that he created the sense of humane technology. And actually, when I read his story, it reminded me exactly... obviously in an abstract way, of Frankenstein. Frankenstein creates this monster and the monster follows him round wherever it goes, killing his family.
Yeah. And that's pretty much exactly how the guy who invented the infinite scroll. Now, the infinite scroll was only invented because they were trying to optimize constantly. And actually, all this optimization is bad for us, but good for them, as in good for the money men. Yes, because we stay longer on content where there is also sponsored ads present.
I've heard a similar story, and I can't fact check this, so take a picture of salt, but I've heard similar story about the guy, it's always a guy, the guy who invented the like, struggling with the external validation of the like button, regretting. ever inventing that function, because it's become such a crippling anxiety for people feeling like I didn't get any likes. Yeah, it's Ted Joyer, who is an American writer.
who usually writes about music, but he has a list of 30 books that he recommends that every technologist reads to help them be more humane. And the... Frankenstein is in that list. And also Faust, which is a story by Goethe of a guy who sells his soul to the devil for all the information in the world or all the knowledge in the world, not information. And the list goes on. But he also in that list is...
You mentioned the human condition earlier. Do you know the book by, is it Hannah Arendt? Arendt. I don't know. She wrote it in the 1950s. It was basically called The Human Condition. Again, all these books are amazingly helpful for me to help me. Basically just... manage my technology usage, I would say. But it's sort of like, I don't know if you read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Oh, I love that book. It's books like that or...
George Orwell's 1984. These were so ahead of their time. And if we read them now with knowing what we know now with the world we live in, we're like,
holy crap, how did they know? How did they know? And no doubt, being the missionaries that they were at the time, they were also heavily criticized for writing such madness. So... this is what happens when we are pioneers when we're trying to be ahead of the curve it is going to be uncomfortable it does ruffle feathers and we can then be taken down on the internet in the comments section as you know
horrible things to happen and it's just standing tall in why am I doing this what purpose am I doing this for and really connecting to that constantly that those books were written with the purpose of trying to prevent bad things happening in the future you know it's there's yeah there's this shows how we think differently i suppose is that your your thinking is quite existentialist quite you know
really thinking about what's not being said here. Your thoughts on The Matrix, yes or no? Did you watch it back when it came? I haven't seen it since the early 2000s. It hasn't aged well. And now every single time, I think every time I hear the term The Matrix, it just makes me think of Andrew Tate and it makes me want to punch a wall. Exactly. He just uses it all the time.
Anyway, not that I watch his videos, but you see them sometimes, don't you? Yeah, it's the manosphere madness. But there will always be movements in society that are not... helpful and not founded in compassion. I'm more of an Alan de Botton kind of guy than an Andrew Tate kind of guy. Yeah, I like that.
He has this TED Talk called A Gentler, Kinder Philosophy of Success. And I just think that is amazing. Yeah, he's a lovely guy. I quoted a lot of his work in my book when I wrote about... the lasting connection and how you use compassion to develop kind of well understanding yourself and your partner more so yeah he's he's done a lot of of spreading that awareness of a gentler method so
Yeah. I think we got sidetracked. But I hope I've answered all the questions. You have, you have. It's been wonderful. So... Go on and tell the listener where they can find out more about you. You've already mentioned your book, so you could talk about that again if you want. Shameless plug that came in there.
So yeah, that's the lasting connection. Quite relevant for neurodivergent couples where we need a lot of compassion for ourselves as well as our partner who might be of a different neurotype. But the way to find me is to tune into my podcast. pause, purpose, play. And when you listen into this, Joseph might even have been on it because you've booked yourself in. And you can hang out with me on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Michaela Thomas on LinkedIn and TheThomasConnection on Instagram or my website, thethomasconnection.co.uk. Wonderful. Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you.