#102 ADHDers, We Need to Talk About the S-Word

Summary

Podcast Summary: Navigating Adult ADHD

Episode #102: ADHDers, We Need to Talk About the S-Word
Host: Xena Jones
Date: February 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Xena Jones tackles the “S-word” – should – and its profound negative impact on adults with ADHD. Drawing from scientific research and personal experience, she unpacks why “should” is such a toxic word for ADHDers, how it underpins shame and stifles action, and practical ways to shift into a healthier, more self-compassionate mindset.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Weight of “Should” for ADHD Brains

• Many ADHDers, especially those diagnosed later in life, are plagued by a constant mental list of things they “should” be, do, or know ([00:13]).
• Xena likens this to “carrying around a never ending to do list that you never actually agreed to, but somehow you're still failing at it and behind.”
• “Should” is identified as one of the biggest sources of shame for ADHDers.

2. Origins and Internalization of “Should”

• “Should” is a judgment word masquerading as advice, but actually implies, “you're wrong, you're bad, you're failing” ([01:34]).
• Xena references research: By age 10, a child with ADHD has heard 20,000 more negative messages than peers – a number that only climbs with age ([02:25]).
• Over time, these messages become the inner dialogue, reinforcing cycles of shame as real-life “failures” seem to prove these thoughts true.

3. How “Should” Breeds Shame and Inaction

• Xena discusses the emotional scale she uses in coaching, illustrating that shame from “should” is often rated at “negative 10,” one of the worst human emotions ([03:14]).

• When ADHDers set “should” expectations and don’t meet them, it feels like, “pouring gasoline on a shame fire” ([04:11]).

• Paradoxically, “should” makes taking action less likely – classic ADHD oppositional thinking means that if something feels like an obligation, the brain rebels ([05:02]).

  “Should does not give us agency, right? It doesn't give us choice. It just shits all over us, right? It feels like a demand. And what do we know about ADHD brains? Our ADHD brains hate demands.”
  — Xena ([06:05])

4. Personal Story: The ADHD Shame Spiral

• Xena shares a personal experience of spiraling into shame after filming for a documentary ([07:02]):
  • Her thoughts: “I should have answered the questions better. I should have been better prepared.”
  • The result: Paralysis, rumination, hiding – “I just kept replaying it over and over and over on this nasty loop in my head” ([08:19]).
  • Her key point: The “should” narrative wasn’t true – she did her best and showed up.

5. Moving from “Should” to Agency and Curiosity

• The alternative to “shoulding” is asking more helpful questions:

  • “Do I actually want to do this?”
  • “Do I need support?”
  • “Do I even know how?”

• Xena emphasizes: Saying “I want to be more productive” is very different from “I should be more productive” – the former restores your agency ([11:21], [11:36]).

• She coaches clients to ask, “How is that should not true?” and to gather evidence for the contrary ([12:03]).

  “When we start to challenge them, this shifts us from that judgment place into a place of, like, curiosity or compassion.”
  — Xena ([13:05])

6. Rethinking Self-Talk and Language

• The words we use matter: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can dysregulate the fuck out of our nervous system.” ([14:36])

• Thought patterns dictate feelings, which drive actions. If you want to change behavior (like procrastination), you must examine and shift your self-talk.

  “Here is the best news. Your ADHD brain is capable of change… every single time you catch yourself saying I should, you're winning.”
  — Xena ([15:10])

7. Practical Challenge and Takeaways

• Challenge: Notice every time you think or say “should.” When you catch a “should,” play with shifting it—get curious, try saying “I could” or “Do I want to?”

• Reminder: Many of our “shoulds” are inherited expectations and don’t reflect our own wants or needs.

  “You might be surprised at how much easier things feel when you stop carrying around this list of expectations that were never yours to begin with.”
  — Xena ([16:49])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the toxicity of “should”:

  “Every time we should on ourselves, we are effectively shitting on ourselves.” ([00:56])

• On shame for ADHDers:

  “When we go and add our own shoulds on top of that, it's kind of like pouring gasoline on a shame fire, right? It's shitty all around.” ([04:11])

• On oppositional ADHD thinking:

  “If I even suspect that something is an obligation instead of a choice, like my brain's out.” ([05:28])

• On the difference agency makes:

  “When we say I want to be more productive, we get our agency back, we get our power back.” ([11:36])

• Mic drop line on language:

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can dysregulate the fuck out of our nervous system.” ([14:36])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:13 — Introduction to the “S-Word” and its impact
• 01:34 — How “should” acts as judgment and source of shame
• 02:25 — Research: negative messages and internalization
• 03:14 — Shame on the emotional scale, impact on ADHDers
• 05:02 — “Should” triggers oppositional ADHD thinking
• 07:02 — Personal example: shame spiral after documentary filming
• 11:21 — Shifting from “should” to “want to”
• 12:03 — Coaching question: “How is that should not true?”
• 13:05 — Curiosity vs. judgment in self-talk
• 14:36 — Words and self-talk: their impact on the ADHD brain
• 15:10 — Neuroplasticity: ADHD brains can change thinking habits
• 16:49 — Letting go of inherited expectations

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Final Message & Tone

Xena’s approach is honest, direct, and compassionately irreverent. She reassures listeners:

“You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not failing. You are simply learning how to work with your ADHD brain instead of against it.” ([17:02])

Listeners are challenged to become aware of their “shoulds,” to question them, and to replace them with agency, curiosity, and self-compassion—a key step toward less shame and more thriving as an adult with ADHD.

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Connect & Resources:

• Navigating Adult ADHD Membership
• Instagram: @navigatingadultadhd

Next Steps:
Happy should-catching this week!

Transcript

[A]

You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Xena. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast where today we are going to talk about a tiny word with a huge impact on our ADHD brains. So having adhd, and especially if you were also diagnosed later in life, you are going to have a whole bunch of shoulds running around in your head at any given moment. I should be more productive, I should be able to focus better. I should be able to just do the thing like everyone else does it, right? I should already know this stuff. And here's the problem, right? Should is one of the biggest sources of shame for those of us with adhd, okay? It is like carrying around a never ending to do list that you never actually agreed to, but somehow you're still failing at it and behind, right? So today, my friend, we are going to break down why should is so, so toxic for ADHD brains. Where it comes from, why it actually stops us from taking action and how we can start shifting away from the shoulds, right? And into something that is more useful, okay? If I could remove one word from the English language, right, one word from the world, it would be the word should. Because every time we should on ourselves, we are effectively shitting on ourselves, ourselves, okay? Should has got to go. So why is should so toxic for ADHD brains? So let's start with this. Have you ever felt like you are constantly behind in life, right? Like no matter what you do, there's this inevitable bar that you're meant to be reaching and you just can't get there, right? You're not getting there. That is should talking, okay? Should is a judgment word, right? Every time we should, we are shooting on ourselves or someone else. And it's sneaky because it sounds like it's just giving advice. Oh, you should go for a walk. Oh, you should know how to do that, right? But really, what is it telling you? It's telling you you're wrong, you're bad, you're failing, right? It's basically like having this tiny little asshole of a voice in your brain that says you're not good enough, right? Every single time that we should, our brain's just saying you're not good enough, right? Doesn't that feel awful? And when you hear something negative over and over and over again, it is pretty hard not to internalise it. Okay, so we know from the research. The research shows that by age 10, a child with ADHD is estimated to have heard 20,000 more negative messages than their peers, right? Compound that to the age you were when you were diagnosed, right? That means you've had 20, 40, 60, 80, 100,000 more negative messages than the people around you. And I think it probably increases with age 2. That number, right? And all of those negative messages, what happens, they get internalized. They become our self talk. And then it's even more painful when the life evidence we have seems to just prove it true over and over, right? I should be more productive, but I just scrolled on TikTok for two hours or I should be on time, but I was late again, or I should be able to do this, but I just keep procrastinating, right? And every time we don't meet the expectation that that should set for us, what happens? It turns into shame, right? And if you ask me, shame is one of the worst human emotions to feel. Like, shame feels awful, it feels terrible, right? When I am teaching emotional regulation, and actually I've just put a whole course inside the membership on how to regulate your emotions with adhd, you should totally check it out, but it's not where I was going with this. When I teach on emotional regulation, I actually draw out an emotional scale to help people understand, like, the variation of emotions that we experience as humans. And I'll put them on the scale of like negative 10 to positive 10. And when I talk about shame, right? And most people's experience of shame, it's like negative 10. It's one of the worst feelings that they ever experience. It's awful, right? And our ADHD brains are already primed for lots of shame, right? We've spent years, sometimes decades, right, Feeling like we're not measuring up to what the world expects of us. And then when we go and add our own shoulds on top of that, it's kind of like pouring gasoline on a shame fire, right? It's shitty all around. Shitty. So here's another reason that should is pretty toxic, right? Should shuts us down, right? It actually makes us less likely to do the thing, right? Think about it. Anyone, Anytime somebody says to you, you should go to the gym, listen, you should, you should go to the gym, right? How does your brain respond? Because if you're anything like me, it probably says, oh, yeah, well, now I'm not going to the gym, right? Don't you tell me what to do, right? And this is some classic ADHD oppositional thinking, right? If I even suspect that something is an obligation instead of a choice, like my brain's out, perfect example, right? Sometimes my Partner will say to me, hey, you should go for a walk. You'll feel better. You should just go for a walk. And immediately I'm like, should I? Because now I'm never walking again, right? And that's because should does not give us agency, right? It doesn't give us choice. It just shits all over us, right? It feels like a demand. And what do we know about ADHD brains? Our ADHD brains hate demands. Yeah, but it's even deeper than that, right? Like, it's deeper than just not wanting to do the thing when somebody tells you that you should, right? When we think that we should do the thing, right, here's what we need to remember our thoughts. What we think determines how we feel, right? And our feelings are the fuel that drive all of our actions. But let me give you an example of this, right? I remember back in. I think it was April of 2024, roughly around then, I had a film crew come round and they filmed me for a portion of the ADHD documentary here in New Zealand. And after they left, right, instead of celebrating it and being proud that I was part of something, like, really important and helping raise awareness and, you know, feeling excited about that, I found myself in a complete shame spiral. So I had all the thoughts rolling in. Like, I should have answered the questions better. I should have been better prepared. I should have asked for the questions ahead of time. Like, I should have just done a better job, right? One should turned into another and then another, and before you know it, it's like a massive snowball, right? My brain had just decided that I completely fucked it up, right? And then what did I do when I felt, like, all of that shame? I sat in my office staring at my computer screen, unable to focus, unable to get anything done, right? I hid away from my friends and my family. I didn't tell anyone how I was feeling. And I just kept replaying it over and over and over on this, like, nasty loop in my head that was, like, stuck making myself feel worse, right? And this is the cycle that us ADHD is can get caught in, right? Remember, a thought creates a feeling and a feeling drives an action, right? So my thought I should have done better had me feeling ashamed, right? Because ultimately I thought I didn't do very good. I didn't do a good enough job like I should have, and I didn't. So therefore, I was feeling shame. And what did I do? What were my actions when I felt shame? I hid. I was overthinking. I was isolating, like, spiraling. But here's the thing. Those should thoughts weren't actually true, right? Like, my brain wanted to fight for the death that they were so true. But what was also true was like I did the best that I could with the information I had at the time, right? What else was true? I showed up, right? I showed up, right? I gave it a go, right? Like, it wasn't until I was able to start shifting the thoughts, right? Once I identified, I was feeling shame. That was huge. And then like shifting the thoughts that I could start feeling differently, right? Because that shoulding all over myself and all of that shame, right? That was not creating anything positive for me, only negative right? Now, before we go any further, I just really quickly want to remind you that right now, if you're listening to this in real time as it comes out live, the Navigating Adult ADHD membership is still open for one more day, okay? So if you've been nodding along to this episode or other episodes, you've been listening to, realizing, you know, how much you know should has been running your life and showing up for you, this membership is for you, my friend, right? Everything you're learning here in the podcast, this membership is where you apply it, right? I teach you a model, right? A self coaching tool that I used to get myself out of the shame. I've got an entire class on that, right? And a workbook. So inside the membership, we work on shifting these unhelpful thoughts, improving your self talk, right? Building habits that actually work with our ADHD brain, right? In the membership, we're all about working with our ADHD brain, not against it, making your life easier and better, okay? Inside, you get coaching, you get community, right? You've basically got the Netflix of ADHD in there with so many resources, right? It's the support that makes all of the difference when you're trying to break out of these, like, should shame cycles, right? So if you have been thinking about joining, this is your chance, my friend, before the doors close. We only open the doors three times a year, so head to navigating adultadhd.com I would love to welcome you inside. All right, now let's get back to it. So what's the alternative? What is the alternative to shoulding on ourself, right? How do we talk to ourselves in a way that, like, doesn't send us into that shitty shame spiral and have us feeling terrible, right? So for example, like, instead of saying I should be more productive, try asking yourself, do I actually want to do this?

[B]

Right?

[A]

Do I want to? Because saying I want to do this or I want to be more productive is very different. Very different. Like, notice how it feels when you say I should be more productive. Feels terrible, right? I'm not, therefore I'm bad. I'm wrong. I'm not good enough.

[B]

Right?

[A]

That's what it's saying. But when we say I want to be more productive, we get our agency back, we get our power back. Okay? So do I need some support? Do I even know how?

[B]

Right.

[A]

One of the other things that I love to do when I notice a should statement in my brain or when I'm coaching a client is to ask, how is that should not true?

[B]

Right?

[A]

So just this morning, I was coaching a client who thought. Who had the thought, I should know and understand this stuff. And I said to her, how is it true that you should not know and understand it?

[B]

Right?

[A]

And we found so much evidence that that was true.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So how is it true that you should not?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Sometimes that's a really good reframe to look at.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But again, asking yourself the question, do I actually want to do this? Do I need some support to do this? And do I even know how to do this? Because sometimes we're like, yeah, I should be more productive, but I don't know how. Okay, so then you need to get some support, right? So when we're able to challenge those shoulds, like I say, like, alarms go off in my brain every time I hear them, right? Literally, I see like this red alarm in my head just going off.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But when we start to challenge them, this shifts us from that judgment place into a place of, like, curiosity or compassion.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And curiosity is a very powerful way, Right. Like, it's so much more powerful than, you know, self shaming, of course, to be able to kind of help ourselves move forward, get unstuck, make progress, get ahead whatever it is we're wanting, right? Instead of I should exercise more, you could ask, do I actually want to exercise or do I just feel like I have to? Because if the answer is I don't want to, fantastic.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

You don't need to beat yourself up over it anymore. Let it go.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And if the answer is, yeah, I do want to, but I just keep avoiding it, okay, so let's problem solve that, right? You do want to, but you keep avoiding it. Do you need a different approach? Do you need some support? Do you need a new way of just looking at it? And what I mean by that is for some people, like saying, I need to exercise or I should exercise more, like is just a word that doesn't resonate. Maybe you need to say, I'd like to move my body today. Right? Sometimes just changing the words makes a huge impact. Seriously, the words that we use matter, right? There's this old saying that my mum taught me. You might have heard it, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Yeah. Maybe that is true for our neurotypical friends, but for those of us with adhd, no, right? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can dysregulate the fuck out of our nervous system.

[B]

Yeah?

[A]

Words from other people. And the words we tell ourselves, right? The way we talk to ourselves directly impacts how we feel. And how we feel is going to impact what we do, right? If we're procrastinating a lot, then there's a lot of negative emotion we're feeling and often there's a lot of shame in there, right? So if we want to change our behavior, if we want to change what we're doing, maybe change the procrastination, we've got to look at our self talk, right? Because remember, our thoughts dictate what we feel. Our thoughts determine our emotions, right? And here's the best news, my friend, okay? Here is the best news. Your ADHD brain is capable of change. Yeah, it is. It's called neuroplasticity, right? We have that in our brain. It means that over time, you can literally rewire your brain to be more supportive and kind to yourself, right? Less of an asshole with the shoulds and shitting on you right? Now, it doesn't happen overnight. No. But every single time you catch yourself saying I should, you're winning, right? Catch it, Shift it into a question or a statement, right? Every time you do that, you're strengthening that new pattern. And that matters. That adds up, okay? So, my friend, here is my challenge to you. Pay attention to how often you say should, right? Get that alarm bell ringing in your brain and when you catch it, right? Play with shifting it, right? I like the word play. Play with shifting it. Like, instead of judging yourself, get curious, Play with how you respond to that should. Yeah, I could. You know, if your brain's telling you I should sit down and write my book, right? Yeah, I could sit down and write my book. Do I want to?

[B]

Right?

[A]

Because saying that I want to sit down and write my book is very different than telling myself I should, right? You might be surprised at how much easier things feel when you stop carrying around this list of expectations that were never yours to begin with, right? So many other people have put all of these shoulds into our brains. And remember, my friend, you are not behind. You are not broken. You are not failing.

[B]

Right?

[A]

You are simply learning how to work with your ADHD brain instead of against it. Okay, so, my friend, that is a wrap for today. And if this episode resonated with you, come hang out on Instagram Navigating Adult adhd, and also come and check out the membership.

[B]

All right?

[A]

The Navigating Adult ADHD membership. It is where you will drop the shame, right? And learn how to thrive with other adults with adhd just like you. All right, my friend. Happy catching the shame this week. Sorry, not the shame, the shoulds. Happy should catching this week.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't know about you, but I just got an image in my brain of, like, running around with a net, you know, like a big net that you'd use to catch butterflies. My brain went on a tangent. There we go.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Happy catching all of the shoulds this week. Huge love. Take care. I'll see you soon. Hey, friend, if you want some more help navigating and thriving with ADHD and some help applying everything that you're learning here on the podcast, then head over to our website, navigating adultadhd.com.