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- [00:04]
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. I am so happy to be here with you today, but I gotta tell you, I'm pretty flat today, and you might even hear it in my voice. So I had an injury yesterday doing the stupidest thing. Seriously. We went for this, like, beautiful walk in the redwoods forest and then went to get a coffee. And in the coffee shop, we ordered the coffee, and I went to open the door to go sit outside. And I thought this door was really heavy. I thought it looked like a good, heavy, solid door. So I yanked it with my right arm, really heavy. Like, gave it a real good tug, right? And it was a very light door. And I just felt my shoulder go. I don't know about that, right? I just felt this kind of twinge. Anyway, came back home, like, had a bunch of shit to do, did it. The last thing I did was, like, wash my hair.
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Like.
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A
Like Sunday night, washing my hair. And I was like, oh, this shoulder is not good. By the time I got into bed, I think I've pinched a nerve. And it was like, I can't even. I couldn't lift my arm above my head to tie my hair into a bun. Like, just get my hair out of my face. I was like, what? In the actual. So I can't work out today, and I'm feeling super flat. I'm kind of pissed. That's where I'm at. But life goes on, right? Got things to do, people to see, places to go, all the things. And you are one of those people that I want to be spending this next 20, 30 minutes with. So I'm here. I'm a little flat, but I am here. And today we're talking about something that is actually incredibly important. I think that this is crucial for us ADHDers to know and understand, and that is the idea of safe people and safe places, right? So if you've ever felt totally drained being around certain people or really drained in a certain environment, you are not imagining it, right? This is for you. And I really do wish that somebody had explained this to me sooner in this kind of simple way that I talk about it, because it's so easy to get, and it makes so much sense. All right, so let's dive in. What are safe people in safe places? So safe people are the ones where you can just be you, right? Completely unfiltered, mask off, right? Messy. You do not have to pretend in any way, right? And when you're not okay, it's okay to be not okay around these people, right? There's no need to mask to pretend. You can vent. You can go off on tangents. You can forget what you were saying mid sentence, and it's actually totally okay. And sometimes it's even fun or funny with these people, right? I have this one friend who I love to have coffee with. And when we get together, like, we're going off on all of these tangents and we're talking about lots of random things, and everything kind of gets tangled up and seems to come back together and we're, like, laughing and forgetting what we were saying, and it's just so fun. Like, she's one of those really safe people to be with. And I don't have to make eye contact, right? Like, that's one of the things that we can often struggle with as ADHDers is having to make eye contact. Especially when we're trying to understand something or really think about it. It really helps us to be able to look off to the side and kind of look into our brain sort of. Right. Like, it really does help us to do that. And sometimes we can feel this pressure to make eye contact. And you may have even been told that. I remember I was told that growing up by. I think it might have been my dad. Like, no, you need to, like, look them in the eyes. I was like, no, I don't need to do that.
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Right?
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And some people, you feel totally safe just to be like that with. So that's what safe people are. So safe places are the environments that we feel safe in, right? They feel cozy. They are free of judgment. They are free of expectations. They are the places where it's okay to, like, let it out, you know, just to breathe. We can really breathe out. You can recharge, you can unwind. Now, sometimes those safe places could be your car, right? Or it might be like, hiding in the toilet at work when you need to find a safe place to kind of gather yourself or breathe out, right? Like, I'm all for the toilet. I'm just saying, right? I'm going to actually talk more about that later. For me, my bedroom has always been a safe place. And sitting on my bed in particular, like, always so safe.
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All right?
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No expectations, no judgment. Can totally unwind. Breathe out all the things. So why is safety so important for our ADHD brains?
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Right?
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Here's the thing. It is huge for us ADHDers because we can only thrive when our nervous system feels safe. When our body feels safe, right? That's when we're in a regulated state and our bodies have what they need. When we don't feel safe, we get dysregulated, right? We go into a state of like fight or flight or freeze or fawn, right? And fawn is like the people pleasing type of, type of thing, being very agreeable, right? Effectively, when we don't feel safe, our nervous system is like, abandon ship.
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Right?
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We are on edge, on guard, hyper aware. And that drains our ADHD batteries so fast, right? And here's the thing. Not every place is a safe place and not every person is a safe person. And no doubt you know that one. I know you do.
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Right?
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A
So let's start with safe people, right? Who is in your circle? This is where I want us to get a little bit reflective. I want you to think about who do you surround yourself with? Who do you surround yourself with at work, at home, on the weekends? Are they safe people? Are you able to be yourself around them? Or do you feel like you have to mask, you have to pretend that you might be kind of walking on eggshells? I remember I worked in the fashion industry a number of years ago now, and that environment did not feel safe to me at all. But I had this one colleague who was mostly a safe person for me. And it kind of depended on the topic or who we were with as to how safe I felt with her. When it was just her and I, I felt so safe, right? Like, we were often quite silly and we would have fun and she would be vulnerable and I would be vulnerable and it was great. But when I wasn't with her, I was masking constantly. I was pretending. It was really exhausting. It was very, very draining environment to be in and feel safe, right? And especially working with all women, there was like a lot of, like, you know, bitchiness and backstabbing and talking about other people and I hate that. So unsafe, so draining, right? Then, like, in stark contrast to that, I had this other workplace, it was actually prior to that one, and I had these colleagues. I had two colleagues who I worked with the majority of the time. And these two people were just such good, lovely, kind, like, inclusive humans. And it's so amazing to me because we achieved great things together in our team. We like, you know, blew budgets and like, achieved new things that hadn't been done before. And we had so much fun doing it. And it's so fascinating to think how we all felt so safe and connected. So it's no wonder that that probably played a big role in that, right? That different energy definitely impacted our ability to achieve great things together. So sometimes the people we love aren't always safe. Okay? So this can be a tough one, right? Sometimes we love people and it could be family, it could be friends, even our partners. And they're not always our safe people, okay? And it's totally okay. Like, if your family are not your safe people, it doesn't have to mean anything. It doesn't need to mean that you don't love them. It just may mean that they get some of you, but not all of you.
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Right?
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You're selective with your time and when and your energy and where you spend and share it with them. However, if your significant other, right. Like if your partner, whoever you live with, right. Is not a safe person, that is going to be like carrying around a bucket with a hole in it, right? You keep pouring your energy in and it's draining out, right? That is something to be aware of. I'm not saying they're a bad person, but be aware of that. Because if it's the person we spend the most time with, right? That's kind of like getting a virus. Something to be very aware of. So how do you know if someone is a safe person? Like, at the heart of it, you feel it. You trust your gut, right? Your intuition knows when you are safe and when you are not.
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Right?
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Safe people are the ones where you can be authentic, where you don't have to hide how you are feeling.
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Right?
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You don't have to pretend to be okay when you are not. Okay. So recently actually, I had a scenario where I totally fucked up some pricing. I was in the middle of launching something and I get a little dyslexia sometimes. Like, I mix up numbers sometimes. And I had mixed up some numbers and somebody who had joined and paid a certain price saw it and emailed me, like a beautiful email saying, hey, saw this price and it's lower than what I paid. Is that correct? And I felt terrible. I was like, oh my God. I totally if that up and I've put it out in the world and other people have seen it. Oh my God.
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Right?
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So I talked about that with my safe people, my partner being one of them, Emmett, he's amazing. He's really safe for me. And then Becca, one of my best friends, like, I talked with her about it because I was like, oh my God, I just need a word vomit all over you. All these like awful things I'm feeling, I feel so terrible, right? Like, I shared it with those safe people, right? Who aren't going to like pour fuel on my dysregulation, right? But instead they're going to help me to kind of cultivate the safety I need to come back to a regulated state, right. I actually read this study years ago, so fascinating. If you surround yourself with people who commit crimes, you are more likely to get shot. Uh huh. Extreme, right? If you surround yourself with people who commit crimes, you are more likely to get shot.
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Right?
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A
But that illustrates the point, right? Who we surround ourselves with shapes our world, right? And for us ADHDers, safe people can be the difference between dysregulation, right? And thriving. So another thing I like to. Sometimes when I'm talking about this concept and teaching it, I like to draw some circles on my whiteboard and I'll draw like a small circle and then a larger one around the outside of that, okay? And I like to think of our relationships in terms of circles. So you've got your small circle, right? Your inner circle people, your ride or die safe people, right? Then you've got that outer circle. Who are the people you may not share everything with, but sometimes they are safe. Or it might be in certain situations around certain people, on certain topics, what have you, right? That's your outer circle. And then you've got the like outside of those circles, right? Like completely outside of that, like out in space, right? Those are the people who are just not in any of your circles. And that is okay, right? Sometimes we work with those people. Sometimes they're just humans out in the world. My neighbor is one of those people. I have a neighbor who like, I could tell you like some neighborhood from hell stories, but like she's one of those people, right? Not a safe person at all, right? Just somebody random. Not everyone deserves a spot in one of your circles, okay? If you want more safe people, I highly recommend that you look for other adults with adhd. Bonus points if they have the same flavor of ADHD as you, right? So the ADHD profile that I have, and you know, a lot of the traits that I have are so similar in my best friends. And I think that that's what makes us so safe for each other, because we really, really get each other. So if you want more safe people, I highly recommend that you look for other ADHD's. So now let's talk about safe places. Because as much as safe people matter, so do the spaces that we put ourselves in, okay? So a safe space is anywhere where your nervous system, your body can relax and exhale.
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Right?
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Where you can breathe out, you can drop your guard, you can be yourself, you can, you know, stop performing or masking.
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Right?
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A
For a lot of us with adhd, the world feels loud, right? It's full of rules and expectations and judgments and noise. And a safe place gives you permission just to, to be, to forget about all of that bullshit, all of those neurotypical expectations, right? And it's where we can recharge. Now safe places are not always the obvious ones, right? So sometimes it's a specific room, like I said, my bedroom specifically being on the bed, like super safe, right. Also for me, I love my office. That's such a safe place, right? It might just be a corny, corny cosy corner. Corny. But it might be a corner, cozy corner of your house, right? Sometimes, like I said earlier, it's your car literally, you know, parking in your driveway when you get home from work before you go inside and you just take five minutes, sometimes it's longer and you just hang out in your car, right? And sometimes it is the toilet and that's such a good one. If you're at work and you've got, you know, those kind of next to each other cubicles. I've been in that situation like, you know, where you like, literally, like, like it's an open office situation, like sometimes just going to the toilet, especially if you can get into like a disabled toilet where it's like fully walled off and there's a lot of space and you can lock the door. Yeah, right. Don't tell me you haven't just gone to the bathroom, like put the lid down and just sit there fully clothed, scrolling on your phone maybe, or just breathing, because I have definitely done that more than once and I highly recommend it. So when you don't have a safe place, that can be really hard. So I want to share a story actually about when I was living in London. So the first house I lived in when I moved to London, I was in a flat and there were, there were five of us in this three bedroom flat and there were two girls, two young girls who loved to party and go out and everything. And that's so not me. And one young guy. And then there were me and my friend who we were probably the oldest. Us two were like the oldest. We were late 20s. These people were like all early 20s. And I had to share a bedroom and a bed with my friend. Okay. And I'd come from like, I'd left behind my own like spacious two bedroom, open plan house where I had my Cat, which is such a good thing for the nervous system, honestly. Pets, so good, so calming for us. But where was it going? Yeah, so I'd left all of that behind, right? Having my own room, my own space, all of that. To be in this cramped tiny flat in London with these people I didn't know who were very different to me. Sharing a bed, literally a double bed, friggin small double bed with, with a friend of mine, right? So that nowhere in that house felt safe. My nervous system was on edge 24 7, right? Like previously being in bed had been my safe place. And anytime I was in. And being in the bedroom, right? But anytime I was in there and she came in, like, I kind of felt like I had to be on edge and you know, it wasn't the same. And that was such a difficult but very valuable lesson for me about the importance of having my own space and my own places that feel so safe. And unfortunately that situation only got worse because that friend and I, we had a massive falling out, right? And suddenly I wasn't just uncomfortable, right? I was living in a place that actually felt unsafe 24 7. I remember we were like not even talking and I would come home and she had introduced me to the friends that she had made and they were all there having dinner in our kitchen, cooking. These people are all hanging out in our house and like they said hi to me, but that was kind of it. And she completely ignored me making the shared meal together. And I just like grabbed some stuff and just went into the bedroom and sat on the bed and it was so uncomfortable. Like my own home, this place that was meant to be, you know, a safe place for me just felt so unsafe. It was so awful, right? What happened? My nervous system was dysregulated all the time, constantly in a state of fight or flight. And I could like, I was always on edge, my body felt it, right? And there's, there's no recharging. So what happens? It's exhausting, right? Again, it's like having that bucket with a hole in it constantly draining you, right? And that is what happens when we don't have safe places, right? We don't ever get to put our shield down. And everything is just so draining. Our energy, our focus, our ability to regulate emotions, our sleep, everything is just drained, right? The hole just seems to get bigger and bigger. So what makes a place feel like a safe place, right? How do you know if it is one of your safe places again? You feel it. Like we've got really fucking incredible intuition we feel things, we know things. We don't need to explain it, we just do, right? But if you look at it like your body relaxes, right? You breathe differently, you can breathe out, right? You don't feel like you have to explain yourself or be switched on, right? It's that kind of place where you can just, you know, let go, right? You're not waiting for the next stressful thing to happen, right? And for me, some of the safe places I've already talked about, like being in the car, it can be like literally just locking yourself in a bathroom, right? Just sitting on the toilet lid, right? Sometimes it's like being on the couch with a really soft, comfortable blanket, right? The beach is another one for me, right? Being out in nature, right? And sometimes it's a certain cafe where I can kind of get a specific spot that I really like that feels really safe, right? When it comes to your safe people and your safe places, you don't have to justify it. You don't have to explain it. Like, if you feel unsafe, trust yourself, right? Have your own back. Help yourself to create the safety that you need to be able to, you know, regulate. Again, calm yourself down, right? Start noticing who are your safe people, right? And start spending a little bit more time in those safe places. Start to highlight them again. Trust your gut, right? Your gut knows the vibe before your brain catches up, it knows, right? And remember, when we feel safe, what happens? Our nervous system can regulate, right? We can come back to that regulated state. And one of the biggest kind of symptoms of ADHD is that emotional dysregulation, right? That kind of ultimately feeling unsafe, right? So if we can feel safe, we can help ourselves to regulate. We can recharge, be ourselves and ultimately thrive. We're not going to be in those positions, those situations 24 7. Like, that's just not going to happen, right? But we can definitely be aware of those safe places and those safe people so that we can go to them and gravitate towards those when we need them, okay? Now, if this resonated with you, I invite you to come and hang out in the Navigating Adult ADHD Facebook community, right? So again, it's a safe place, or at least I hope you feel safe in there. It's full of people just like us, other adults navigating adhd. You want to hang out there, just head over to the website, navigating adultadhd.com and you will see on the homepage there, there's a bunch of free resources and the Facebook community is one of them. All right, my friend. I wish you a beautiful week full of lots of safe people and lots of safe places. 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.