A (0:00)

Foreign. Hello and welcome to the ADHD with Jennifer podcast. Today we are talking about ADHD at work, keeping work in its place. And I am dubbing this the severance episode. So if you have ever been at your kids soccer game, finally have time for yourself and you suddenly remember an email you should have sent, now your whole body feels like it is going to be uncomfortable until you send that email. This episode is for you. So I am calling this the severance episode. If you have seen the TV show Severance, you will know what I'm talking about. So this is obviously a little bit tongue in cheek because on that show essentially they split the person's consciousness in two. One, I guess, version of their consciousness goes to work and the other is active in their personal life. We cannot and don't want to do that if you've seen the show, but we can do is lean into that idea of having more of a boundary, having a part of you that's able to detach from work and a part of you that's able to focus on work during work hours. So that is why this is the severance episode. As ADHD ERs, especially dysregulated ones, the mental boundary between work and life can, can become so thin or completely disappear, you might really notice this. If you are self employed or make your own hours or do not have that rigid clock in at nine, leave at five rhythm, then we really can get in the habit of taking work home and never turning off. So today we're talking about how to put work back in its place. Not with better time management, not with tricks and hacks, but with regulation. So if you've been following along or even if you're brand new, what we deal with here is our dysregulation. As a person with adhd, that brain difference is not necessarily your biggest struggle, although we call it that. It's actually dysregulation, meaning being in fight or flight. As a neurodivergent person living in a neurotypical world, you likely have been put into this dysregulated state, this fight or flight state where you are hypervigilant, you are feeling unsafe, we are rushing, we are frantic, or we're crashed or in paralysis. It's got a lot of ups and downs. We're typically chronically in this state, meaning even when work is technically done, we are still on edge, we're still feeling anxious. And this is a big reason why we have such poor work and life boundaries. Because you might be really wanting to be done at 5 your consciousness is saying, I don't want to work so much. Why am I working so much? I can't control it. That's because we're dysregulated. If you either feels unsafe to quit or maybe all morning at work, you are dysregulated and on kind of the opposite side of the spectrum in paralysis and overwhelm and not getting anything done. And then maybe you only get going at like one or two. So then you feel like you have to work till 8. And now we're in this rhythm and pattern where it's happening again and again and again and it just probably isn't working for you. And it's probably not how you want to live your life. So when we're in this dysregulated state, everything feels urgent. And when everything feels urgent, we can't stop thinking about work. And then when you have been mentally working for so long, you've been in that frantic state, maybe you're worrying, you're anxious. Then when it is time to sit down, actually take action and do the work, you might tip into overwhelm and paralysis. It's like, why am I thinking about work when I could be resting? And then when it's time to work, I can't wait. Work. Such a trap. So another thing that we tell ourselves that gets us in this habit of overworking, maybe when we want to be stopping, is I'm working to get peace later. If I work enough now, I'll catch up and then I can relax. But our system never actually turns off because when we're working from dysregulation, it creates more dysregulation. You will never work yourself in a dysregulated state to regulation. But I think that's what the brain is thinking, right? If I work hard enough, if I hammer it out, if I just get ahead of this, then I'll be able to detach. Then I'll be able to relax. But I'm sure you've seen that that is not the case because how many times have you gone, even on vacation? And either you're just dreading going back to work the whole time or you're thinking about work. Takes you five days just to relax. And then you have to go back, right? So we can see that, you know, having a break or having things wrapped up and then having time off is not always the solution. I will tell you, I work with a lot of people who have either been on leave because of burnout or going on leave from work because they just can't continue the way they're continuing. Most of these people. If we haven't done this work during their leave, they will go back and get an exact same patterns as they were in before. This time off and even recovery, quote, unquote, does not solve everything. It is not a rest you need. It is not a break you need. It is not even to get caught up in your work that you need. It is regulation that we need that allows us to do things differently. So here are a few signs that you've lost your work life severance, if you will. So you might be physically at work, but mentally elsewhere. So maybe you're thinking about your evening plan, stressing about everything you have to do after work while you're still in your workday. You're at your desk, but you're not mentally at your desk. You might be physically at home, but mentally at work. And you might be one of these more than the other. Maybe you're someone who's so frustrated that you can't focus on work, but I know a lot of us are a little excessive and actually working so much harder than we need to be. And when you're at home, presumably you could relax, but we just can't. That brain is on the job. So you might be checking email on the couch, playing out imaginary conversations with your boss or what you're going to say at that meeting tomorrow, worrying about the to do list that hasn't even started or will never end. You're just waiting to hammer it out to get it done. Some body signs would also be restlessness, inability to sit still or truly relax when you are off the clock or even on the clock. Quite frankly, we could be more relaxed at work. I really think we could afford to do that and still do a really good job. Be more regulated while at work, which this is kind of what we're talking about, is not only do we want to detach from work when it's rest time, we also want to be able to work in a more restful way. It does not have to be this exhausting. So you might have irritability, maybe either at work or with your family, or you might also be seeking things to soothe this discomfort in the evenings, whether that be, wow, all I seem to do is want to scroll, watch tv. I have no energy to, you know, go live my life after work. All right, so what do we do? What does putting work in its place really mean? When we're talking about regulation, we are talking about three types of regulation. Always with the adhd Regulation method. So the first is always the nervous system or the body. That's the root. So we want to start with the simplest cues. This is both at work and at home. It's all connected. So we want to be working on our regulation at work, but also at home. So start with the simplest cues. Slow your walking between meetings, around your house while you're doing the laundry. In both locations, we want to slow it down a little bit. We want to relax our bodies a little bit more. So if you're at home, yes, you might be sitting and scrolling, but check in. Are you super tense? Is your stomach in knots? Are your shoulders up by your ears? Are you thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm feeling so bad for scrolling. So you're all tensed up. We want to relax. Same at your desk. Are your shoulders around your ears? We can. A lot of us have trap and TMJ struggles because of this hammering, you know, emails out in a really tense state. We want to bring those shoulders back down. And another. Is your breathing. Are you breathing or are you holding your breath? When you're really intense in your work, you are probably holding your breath, and that's something we want to be aware of. Really important to note that slowing down is not laziness. Running around like a chicken with your head cut off does not mean you're a good worker. It does not make you a better spouse or a better parent. It is just your body thinking you're in danger. And you continue to signal your body, it's in danger by continuing to do that. And it's not our fault because it's not conscious. We're not doing that on purpose, but it's something we really need to be aware of. The second thing is regulating the mind, regulating our thoughts and beliefs. So we want to look at the beliefs behind your urgency. So if you feel like, wow, my urgency at work is so strong, even though Jenna talked about slowing down at work, and I want to do it, I'm invested in it, and I want to try this. I can't. My body and my nervous system is stronger than me, which it very well may be, and that's okay. We'll slowly chip away at it. But the fear is stronger than my resolve to slow down. So we want to look at, okay, what are the beliefs that are upholding that desire to rush? Might be things like, if I don't stay on top of this, everything will fall apart. If you have the sensation that you're just keeping your head above water at work, I get that. If I, you know, slack at all, I'm going to drown. I understand that feeling, but we want to notice that belief. If I'm not thinking about it all, I'll forget something. Do you try to hold it all in your mind mentally? So these are dysregulated beliefs, they're not truths. And I know right now you might be saying, but it's true. But it's true. If I don't stay on top of it, if I'm not rushing, things will fall apart. But here's the thing. I know you have so much evidence that it's true because it's how you've lived. We don't have evidence of another way because we've never lived another way. Beliefs are really tricky because you will have quote, unquote evidence for it, but that's because you believe it, so you act accordingly. And then you collect evidence and then you say, see, I'm right, and then you act accordingly. It's quite a cycle. So we do want to shift these beliefs. I hear it. If you have resistance, I understand it. That resistance is dysregulation, is fear. Your system doesn't want to drown, right? It wants to keep its head above water. And if it believes, if I relax for one second I'm going to drown, it won't relax ever. So I really get that. But we also, with your conscious mind, want to start realizing, oh, maybe that's, you know, a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe I believe that because that's how I've been living and I haven't drowned yet, right? If you are swimming like crazy, working so hard and you haven't drowned, your body goes, look, See, I knew it. I was right. We have to work hard not to drown. Well, what if the water's shallow? What if you could put your feet down and stand up? But you've never known that, so you haven't done it. So you have evidence that, hey, doggy, paddling and working my ass off is what keeps me above water. When you could just put your feet down, stand up and go, oh, this also keeps me above water. And it's a hell of a lot easier. I'm less exhausted. Both could be true. I'm just trying to give an analogy to see if you can see how we can believe things and have evidence for things. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the only way to survive. Dare I say to stand in shallow water, you're going to have a lot more energy and can thrive. Put energy towards other things than if you're doggy paddling even if you're in the same amount of water. So some shifts you might want to make if you. If I've. If I've pushed on some of that resistance and you feel, okay, let's try. Might be I can handle things as they come. This will allow your brain to just be more present. Focus on the one thing you're working on instead of always being hyper vigilant, trying to be 10 steps ahead or, you know, this is kind of cheesy, but what's coming up for me right now is like slow and steady wins the race. If you can say that to yourself, oh, yes, think of the tortoise and the hare. Yeah, that hair was very frantic, but then it was crashing and having a nap and the tortoise won. Right. That is very much what dysregulation and regulation is like. The caveat being you do not have to be as slow as a tortoise. We just want to be reasonably paced where it does not create anxiety in you to be functioning at that pace. And lastly is regulating our behavior. So this does not mean white knuckling it and forcing yourself to do things differently. What this means is we want to observe where our behavior is in the extremes. So maybe on Mondays and Tuesdays, you work so hard, you're so frantic, so intense, you're staying late. And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're not able to focus and you're barely getting anything done and just getting through the day. That would be extremes in how you're acting and your behavior and kind of what you're doing physically. We want to create more balanced behavior, more balanced energy exertion, more balanced action to find more consistency, which is going to be much more regulating. So you might even think of it on a weekly basis. Am I functioning on Monday in a way that I could function Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? I would like us to zoom out of my functioning in a way today that I could keep up for the rest of my career. But we'll start with one week, so you might want to observe. Wow. In order to work kind of consistently five days a week, which, assuming you work full time, I'm going to want to stop at 5 because I see when I work late on Monday and Tuesday, that kind of tips me into extremes. Then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm barely doing anything. You'd be amazed at how much more productive you'd be if you showed up consistently all five days than showing up intensely for two and kind of halfway for three. It really is Quite amazing. So we want to set some boundaries that can really help with dysregulated extreme behavior. So that might be having a quitting time and stopping at that time, regardless of how much work you've gotten done. Observing when you're thinking, oh, just one more email, just one more. Oh, I see. No, that's your dysregulation going, oh, if we just get one more email done, then we'll feel better. That is you externally regulating. We want to do it internally by finding safety inside of us and not needing to do more to feel okay. We want to create perhaps some digital boundaries. So I would take Slack and email off your phone. I just really have a hard time believing anyone needs to be in communication with work that much. Could email just be on your computer? As a business owner I get some people might say, well, I have a business. Do you really need to be replying to clients or things like that at 9pm Even if it's your business? I don't do that. That's, that's a lie. I don't do that often and I don't think you need to either. So these boundaries are retraining your system to do things consistently and think more long term than to hammer stuff out and then have the effect of going in the opposite extreme with your behavior and how you show up. So if someone actually offered me the severance microchip, I think it was a microchip, wasn't it on the show a few years ago? I probably would have said yes, especially as an entrepreneur. And if you are self employed or an entrepreneur or have your own business, this might be extremely relevant for you, this idea of putting work in its place and getting your life back outside of work. Because as entrepreneurs we can really identify with our work and that's who we are. Then we're always working. I probably really would have said yes because I did a few years ago, might have been five years ago now, I went to a therapist. I think I only did two sessions with this therapist, but I went and I went, look, I open my eyes and I'm thinking about work. I'm going to sleep and I'm thinking about work. I don't want to be this way. This is so painful. I'm always anxious. And I knew in my heart of hearts that was not going to make me more successful. I knew it was not productive. So I really had to work on detaching from that. Just talking to someone helped a little bit, but it wasn't until I started doing regulation that now I have a really beautiful, naturally separate personal time and work time. It's also not rigid, just sharing a little bit about my personal experience. It doesn't have to look a certain way. I do have some pretty strong boundaries of I do not book calls, either group calls or client calls or, you know, calls with people who are creating my website or anything outside of 9 to 5. Therefore I don't need to be anywhere specifically outside of the hours nine to five other than workshops, Those I do in the evening. But I'm quite adamant about that because it keeps things kind of in some boundaries. I also work in a little bit more of a do some work, take a rest rhythm. So that can mean I'm doing work in the evening. But I really don't mind. This is a personal choice. It always feels nice. It's never anxiety fueled work. It's, oh, I'll just work on this, you know, webpage, oh, I'll work on putting this, you know, substack article together. And my kids are playing and I'm just sitting there typing, like that feels fine for me. So I do choose to do that many times. But in the workday I am not going hard, you know, 9 to 5 and then also working in the evening, if that is happening. For instance, this morning I went to tennis, but this evening I'll probably doing some computer work. So it's okay to shift stuff around. It does not have to be rigid to be effective. But you do need the regulation. So the internal ability to turn it off. When I want to work, I can work. When I, when I want rest, I can rest. That is the biggest skill, especially if you're self employed. And that's what regulation is all about. And even if you're an employee, you probably have a contract that says you work, you know, 40 hours a week and maybe you're working 44 and not because someone asked you to or you need to or you must, but because you feel so guilty, you feel shame, you feel anxious, so you're doing more work. So as we think more about this, I just want you to imagine finishing your day and actually feeling done. Not because your list is complete, but because you're at peace with what you did. As someone who truly, I'm not bullshitting and I'm not trying to, you know, when I share these things, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad. I'm trying to give you hope and an idea of what could be for you. Because I did not used to be this way. I truly feel good about myself. And what I've done every single night, my head goes on the pillow. Not because I'm perfect and I'm always really productive, but because I am at peace and I know I'm always doing my best. Sometimes that looks like getting way less done, sometimes that looks like getting more done. But that's an internal state that regulation can really help you with. And imagine mornings when you're drinking your coffee and not running your to do list through your head or the day and your meetings ahead on repeat. You actually get to rest before you start work. Work does not start the second you wake up. It starts when you sit at your desk or when you clock in or whatever type of job you have. And this is not fantasy, this is not willpower. This is not, oh, you got to be super productive and you need to be perfect and you suck because you're not. This is simply regulation and it would say what happens when your nervous system stops confusing stillness, calm, rest with danger. And also that flip side, regulation will also help you stop confusing work and a to do list with danger because I know you probably experience both sides, right? Okay, I'm home. Time to rest, have fun, do things that are enjoyable and fulfilling. Wow. I can't get get my mind off of work or I'm so exhausted from work, all I'm doing is scrolling even though I don't want to. And then there's the flip side of wow, I'm at work now. I'm physically at my desk, but I'm so overwhelmed that now I'm in paralysis and I'm watching TV or I'm. Especially if you work from home or I'm doing a bunch of chores instead of my work while it's work time. Both of those are handled with regulation. All right, so if you felt seen in this topic today and if you're realizing how much your work life balance is off, this is exactly what we're diving into in the upcoming workshop ADHD at Work 2.0 Putting Work in its place. So we're going to go through how to regulate during your workday, how to stop the mental replay after work hours, and how to actually feel done for the day. We're also going to look at how to regulate when you're at home and you want to detach, how to tap into being more restful, how to challenge your thinking and your nervous system regulation and your behavior to put you into more of a regulated rhythm. And this work is really a domino effect. If you're more regulated at home, you're going to be more regulated work. If you can work on regulating at work, you're going to be more regulated at home. So they ping pong off each other. So we're absolutely going to look at both. So you can find all the details for this workshop in the link in my show notes or@adhdwithjennifer.com ADHD work. This is not about working less. This is not about being less productive. It's about finally being able to stop working when you're done and get work done when it's work time. A beautiful thing to have. I'm telling you. It is a very lovely experience. I'm looking forward to that workshop on Monday, November 24th. And thank you so much for being here. We'll see you next week. Bye bye. It.