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- [00:04]
A
You are listening to the Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast with your ADHD coach and expert, Zena. Hello, my friend. Welcome back to Navigating Adult ADHD Podcast. Now let me ask you something. Do you consider yourself to be an active relaxer and do you struggle to switch off, right? Like your body might be, say, sitting down, you know, you might be still, but your brain is still going like your brain's in another world, completely running circles around your to do list and telling you about all the things you haven't done and you should be doing and all of that. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too, right? I have always called myself an active relaxer. I've always said, like, I really struggle to switch off. Now, before we get into this episode today, I want to be 100% transparent and upfront and tell you, I do not want to work today. Like, I just don't feel like it. I am not in the mood for working and I'm here, right? Obviously I'm recording this podcast for you. I'm doing it. Like I'm showing up, doing the things on my list that I need to get done and I want to get done. And I'm feeling all of the feels about it. Like I'm feeling all of the negative emotion, right? Like, I'm feeling the pull to do anything other than work, right? Even when I love recording this podcast most of the time, right? Like today I just don't want to be at work. I just don't want to work, right? And here we are. And I was thinking about this because the reality is that we both do things that we don't want to do, like all the time. I don't want to get up at 6am when the alarm goes off. I yesterday, right? I did not want to wash my hair. I just hate washing my hair. Such an a non joyful experience, right? And I did it anyway, right? Like I'm always doing these things I don't want to do even when I don't want to do them, right? Over the weekend, we had to bug bomb the house because we keep getting these whitetail spiders and they're like poisonous here in New Zealand, and we keep getting them in our. In our bedroom. And so we had to like bug bomb the entire house. It's a total mission. You had to like lock the cats outside and shut up all of the house and then you've got to air it out and wipe down all of the surfaces and wash the bedding and all this shit. And I did not want to do that. And I did it anyway, right? I did not want to work today. And here we are. And I chose to share this, I think, to normalize, like, this kind of negative emotion. Like, does it suck to not want to do things and do it anyway? Yes, it sure does.
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Right?
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Like, I'm sure there are times when you just don't want to work and you go to work.
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Right?
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Do I like feeling this way? No, not particularly. No, I don't.
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Right.
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But at the same time, does it mean that I shouldn't be working? Does it mean I shouldn't do these things also? No.
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Right.
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Like, feeling this way is totally normal. Doesn't mean I like it.
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Right.
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It is hard. It is uncomfortable. And it's also the right thing for me to be doing.
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Right?
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I wish we could take the hard away. I wish we could take the discomfort away. I really do.
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Right.
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And until I discover that magic pill, because I promise I will, like, share it with you when I find it.
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Right.
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A
The reality is that, you know, we have to do things that we don't want to do, right? Like, and we. We choose to do them anyway.
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Right?
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So I just. Yeah, I could totally go off on a tangent and record a whole podcast about that, but I just wanted to offer that we do things every day that we don't want to do, things that have a lot of negative emotion. And that's not bad, right? It's uncomfortable as fuck. But what if it's the right way to go, right? What if it's a sign that you're growing, you're moving forward, you are adulting successfully, right? I've talked about it on the podcast before. Life is 50 50, right? We're not meant to feel happy and good and positive all of the time.
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Right?
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It's 50 50. Half the time we'll feel like us, right? Today being one of those days for me.
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And half the time, we'll feel awesome.
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And we're doing it. Right? There's nobody on the planet who gets to escape experiencing negative emotion. Half the time, life is going to feel like crap. And that's okay. It's meant to.
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B
Right?
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A
I'll link to that episode because, like, maybe you need a refresher. I think I might go listen as well. I might need the refresher too, right? So, all right. Total detour. But let's come back to talking about rest. Rest does not come naturally for those of us with adhd. Right? I have never been someone who naturally just knows how to rest. And when I need to rest, right? Our ADHD brains default to go, go, go, right? Just do, do, do, right? Stay busy, right? Rest, to me, has always felt boring. Like, it's kind of seemed pointless or unproductive, right? I've also thought, like, what am I supposed to do? Like, just sit here and stare at the wall, right? Like, really, it's like watching paint dry. Stuff that. And here's the truth. We also live in a hustle culture, right? This. This world that implies we should do more, be more, have more. Hustle, hustle, hustle, right? And that hustle culture also implies that productivity is a measure of self worth, right? Like, how much you're doing and how busy you are doing depends how good you get to feel at the end of the day. And with adhd, we feel that pressure even more, right? I was reflecting on Covid the other day and how I felt during COVID especially when it came to rest, because I know that Covid was a very difficult time for so many people. Like, you know, there was the loss of loved ones and, like, a lot of awful things happening around the world, and then having to be in lockdown for many people, that was a very stressful situation. But for me, in lockdown, I thrived. I actually enjoyed being in. In the COVID lockdowns. And that sounds probably so weird, and I know that, but at the same time, it was like this permission to rest with no expectations. Like, for the first time ever, the whole world was kind of at a standstill. We just kind of hit pause on everything, and there was just no expectations. They were all taken away. No one was out there, like, just crushing it. Like, it was like this kind of permission just to rest for a little while, right? The world's just kind of, you know, come to a bit of a pause, just kind of rest, right? And everyone around us was kind of doing that same thing. I remember I've never seen so many people out walking in my neighborhood and saying hi to people. And it was just wild to me, right? But everyone was doing that. Nobody was moving that fast. Yeah, you get people running past what have you, but, like, just a lot of, like, slow, leisurely pace. And because everyone else was doing it, I didn't feel guilty at all about doing very little. Like, and I wonder maybe you can relate to that too. Maybe you're like, man, you're crazy. I hate it.
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Lockdown, right?
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And maybe that was your experience because it kind of. You were forced to stop, and that was really uncomfortable too, right? But imagine if we could give ourselves that same kind of permission without needing a global crisis. So one of the challenges that we face when it comes to rest is having tied our self worth to our level of productivity. And this was me for years, like so long I would decide whether or not like I was a good person, whether or not I got to feel good about myself based on how much I got done that day, right? I remember when I was like in the travel industry and you had like these diaries and they had your to do list for the day and your appointments and all of that. And I would like look at that diary and if I had crossed off everything, right, or almost everything, then usually like I would feel good, like I'd achieved a lot that day and I got to feel good about myself. But if I kept kind of, you know, avoiding that one thing and pushing it to the next day and the next day not crossing it off, or if I hadn't done much of my list, right, then I would feel terrible. How messed up is that, right? Like basing how I get to feel my self worth on a to do list and how many boxes I ticked wild, right? But if I didn't tick the boxes, right, If I hadn't done enough on that list, I would punish myself, right? Like I would often take a lot of work home and I would stay up late trying to get my work done and like, you know, again, like feel bad for having not done more and make my do more so that I could go to bed feeling better about myself, feeling like I'd achieved enough, feeling worthy, right? But the trouble with that is that when we overwork like that, like when I was doing that, staying up late and you know, trying to cross more items off my list, I was stealing from tomorrow and the next day, right? Like I would go to work the next day and I would be depleted, right? I would have had good intentions to get up early and do some exercise before work. And I would never do that, right? I would sleep in and I would like start feeling like really tired and I'd be depleted, I'd be less focused. I mean, guess what? I'd get less done that next day, right? It's like I'm borrowing energy at this ridiculously high energy rate. Interest rate, not energy rate, interest rate, right? So there is this myth in society that, you know, the more you do, the more worthy you are, right? And we've really bought into that. We've internalized this idea that busyness makes us valuable, right? I don't think I've come across an adult with ADHD yet who hasn't tied their self worth to their level of productivity, right? Myself included, right? If I'm not doing enough, I'm not worthy, right? And Brene Brown, love Brene. She calls it hustling for our worthiness. And us adhders, my friend, we are Olympic level hustlers, right? We're always trying to prove that we are enough, we're good enough, we're valuable enough by doing more, more tasks, more off the list, right? More everything. But your worth is not measured by what you do, right? Your self worth is not measured by your output, my friend. You are valuable just because you exist. I have talked about this before on this podcast and sometimes I like to give this a visual of, you know, at what point do we decide that somebody is valuable or not valuable? At what point do we decide that you are a good enough or not a good enough human, right? And you know, if you think about your kids, right? If you have children or if you've got like nieces and nephews, if you've got like a really close friend with like a little kid, right? At what stage do you decide that they are good enough or not good enough, right? It's often easier to kind of think about it with people outside of us. So if you were to imagine like there's a baby born into the world, right? And we take the baby and we go, is this one good enough? Yes. Put it in the good enough pile. Hang on. Another baby. Not good enough. Put it in the not good enough pile, right? Like there's no kind of place in which we decide that someone is good enough or not good enough. Like, we just get to decide for ourselves, right? And unfortunately, we keep making bad choices and saying we're not good enough. I need to do more to prove myself, to prove my worth, to earn, you know, feeling good and being allowed to rest, right? But I'm saying that that's bullshit, right? You are a valuable human because you were born into the world. You exist. Congratulations, welcome to the club. You're already good enough. Now you don't have to prove anything, right? You've already made it. Some of you will be like, what? Another issue when it comes to rest is that we're often afraid of what we're going to hear in the quiet, right? So sometimes we avoid resting because we are terrified of what we might hear in the silence. And by that I mean in your own head, right? When you slow down, when you get still, you're alone with your own thoughts, right? For some of that, for some of us, that is fucking terrifying. I don't want to hear all the shit that my brain is saying, all of the mean things, all of the regrets, all of the things it's telling me I should have done or did wrong or haven't done, and all of the mean things that my brain can say to me. So instead, we keep busy, right? We might scroll, we might drink, we might numb out with, you know, like, binge watching television, avoid whatever, so that we don't have to hear that. And this 100% me. For a number of years, I could not be alone with my own thoughts. I've told you guys before how, like, back when I was in that travel industry, right, Like, I would come home from work every day, right? And whether or not I was bringing work home, it didn't matter. I would always. My iPad would be, like, on the kitchen bench. As soon as I walked in, I would grab it and I would start playing some Netflix show. I would pour a glass of wine, right? And I would have that Netflix playing with me even when I was in the toilet. When I was in the shower, I would fall asleep watching it so that I was never alone with my own thoughts, right? That was like. To me, that was like. I didn't realize I was doing it, but, like, the idea of that was terrifying. And I obviously did it because that was kind of a distraction. That was kind of some comfort that would take me away from and not notice what was happening in my own head. I try to numb the anxiety and all of the emotions I was experiencing. I once heard somebody say that not resting is like never cleaning out your fridge because you're afraid of what you will find. That one got me good.
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Right?
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If you're never cleaning it out, imagine how much crap is going to pile up in there to the point where you can't fit anything else in. That was a good visual for me. So let's talk about some of the truths around rest, right? One of the things you may have heard is rest makes you more productive. That is true, but it's also not the point, okay? Just like a battery that has to be charged in order to be, you know, used the next day. We have to charge ourselves, too, right? But the point of rest is not so that you can just do more. For me, one of the most important things that rest allows me to do is it allows me to enjoy my life more. Gonna say that again? One of the most important things that rest allows me to do is it allows me to enjoy my life more. So. And I mean, that In a variety of ways. Because resting makes emotional regulation easier. Because that shit's hard to do when you are tired, right? When you're constantly wired and tired, that's so hard, right? But the more I rest, the more it makes emotional regulation easier, right? It also makes working, showing up, doing this stuff easier, right? It makes getting done what I need to get done easier the more I rest, right? And it makes handling difficult situations easier to navigate as well. And rest also doesn't have to be boring. That is such a bullshit, I think, kind of neurotypical way of looking at it, perhaps not to shout out my neurotypical friends, but I'm just saying, right? I'm going to elaborate on, like rest not being boring in a minute. But another bullshit belief that society has really instilled in us is this idea that rest has to be earned. No, my friend, right? That could not be further from the truth. Complete bullshit, right? Rest does not have to be earned. You can rest because you deserve rest. You don't even have to deserve it. You can rest because you want to rest, right? You don't have to justify it in any capacity, right? I value rest because I value me, right? I don't have to earn rest and neither do you. So here are a couple of things that I have learned around rest. And I've been very deliberate in kind of studying myself and studying others with rest recently, ever since at Christmas time where I had, like, I thought I'd kind of got the rest of things down, packed, and then I had this like 10 days off and it was like, whoa, this is hard, this is uncomfortable, right? So I kind of like went to town studying and experimenting on myself when it came to rest. So here are some things I wanted to share that I've learned. Rest, like, the best kind of rest is not always naps or lying down, right? Although, yes, naps are fantastic. And sometimes, like last night, for example, I was just feeling really tired after work, right? And I just wanted to lie down. And so I did. I just like literally lay on the bed and just lay down and shut my eyes. And I didn't fall asleep, but I just kind of lay there in the sun for a little while. It was magic, right? But the best kind of rest is not always just naps or lying down, right? For me, the best kind of rest is often active. And that has been my experience. For many of us adults with adhd, our best kind of rest is often active rest. And that is things like hiking or swimming or exploring new places, getting out in Natures, no screens, no distractions, right? It's engaging my senses in a way that quiets the chaos. And for me, that often looks like nature, right? Whether I, like, go to the beach, I could just sit on the beach, maybe I go for a swim, maybe I walk along the beach, or I like on the weekend. Actually, my partner and I went to a new hiking trail, a new place that we hadn't been to walk before in a different place to have coffee afterwards. Like, that was, like, really enjoyable and restful for me, right? Again, engaging my senses in a variety of ways that kind of quiet the noise of life, right? And again, it's helping me to be more present, right, with what I'm doing. Rest is so much more than just lying around doing nothing, right? It's about giving your brain what it actually craves. It craves novelty, movement, connection with nature, play, right? Sometimes getting more rest is as simple as changing the word. I've had this with so many of my private clients lately, my private coaching client, where the word rest, to them just really implies this negative attachment that is kind of hard to get past. Like, it implies that, you know, it's got to be boring, like they've just got to sit there and do nothing or that rest is lazy or that they haven't earned it, right? There's all of these kind of negative attachments to it. So we've played with like, well, what can we call it instead? Like, what if you called it joy instead, right? What if you made joy a priority in your life instead? Because for me, joy looks like, you know, going for coffee dates with friends, finding a new place to walk or hike, getting out in nature, cuddling my cats. Holy shit. One of the most joyful things in the world. World. Just cuddling them. Because I can, right? Being out in the sunshine, putting my feet on the grass, walking in the. In the beach with, you know, no shoes on. Like, just little moments like that can just be so joyful for me, right? So again, all of those things I just described, they pour into me. They don't take away from me. Again, it's kind of like back to the battery. They charge my battery, right? And sometimes the most joyful thing I can do is to lie on the couch and watch movies, right? So again, if you struggle with the word rest, I invite you to choose a different word, play with it, right? For a lot of people, joy is a great replacement because we kind of, you know, it's so important that we do these things that we enjoy, especially for the adhd brain because they charge us, they provide us with the dopamine, the serotonin, the norepinephrine, all of the things that we need for our brains to function and thrive, right? And they again, like that battery, they give us energy. So whatever you choose to call it, just know that sometimes you just gotta like unsubscribe from using the word rest. That's it. Another thing I have learned is to plan for rest and to actually make room for it in my weeks, right? So for example, like, I have a calendar that I use and anything in green is me and my joy. Just, just me as a priority. My joy, my rest, any of that. Like, I just have everything in green is for me and I have the whole day. Sunday is just blocked out. Like Sunday every week, 100%, my rest day every week. And I can do whatever I want with it. I get to spend it however I want, right? But again, making room for it and keeping a list of things that help you rest. So on my phone I have a list of joy things I enjoy as a reminder because, hey, we've got adhd. Sometimes we forget, right? So I have a list on my phone, a joy list of things that help me to rest, to pour into me, to charge me out. And as I said, Sunday, 100% my rest day every single week. And maybe you can't do a whole day. That's okay. What if you were to start with like one hour a week and gradually build up over time slot a little more in here and there, right? I think planning for it is really huge because otherwise, like, we just get caught up in the doing. Oh, well, I have to do the housework and I have to like, you know, have, have laundry for the week and I have to have all of this, like, yeah, sure, that stuff, you know, that's important too. But you filling up your joy and charging you is more important, right? Like you charging you up is way more important than that right now. Sometimes, as I said, our brains forget. Like my brain for sure forgets that I'm allowed to rest. I'm allowed to take breaks, right? And that rest is fuel for my ADHD brain. Like, especially when it comes to, like, lunch breaks at work, I have to remind myself to take breaks sometimes because I can just work right through and sit here and eat my lunch right at my desk. And so like yesterday I got out and I went for a walk, right? Just before lunch, I went out and I went for a walk and I got some sunshine and I came back and I just Felt so much better, right? Like, sometimes I will take my lunch and I will go to the beach, or I would just sit outside on the grass or in the sun, right? Like, taking little breaks like that are also so beneficial. And again, sometimes I have to remind myself of that. So one other thing I want to say is that rest does not have to look like neurotypical rest, okay? We don't have to do it the neurotypical way, right? If they're doing the bubble baths and whatever else, that's great. If that's your thing, hell yeah, do the bubble baths, right? But it doesn't have to look like that. It doesn't have to look like lying down and reading a book, right? If you want to lie down and read a book, great, right? But it doesn't have to look like what everyone else is doing, okay? Our rest does not have to look like neurotypical rest. What is restful for you? What is nourishing for you? What charges you up? Those are the things that we want to have happening a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more, okay? So we know, right, that our ADHD brains are wired for action. But rest is where we refill our tank, right? Rest is where we remember who we are without all the doing, without the need to be productive. Rest allows us to enjoy our lives.
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Right?
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You don't have to hustle for your worth. You're already enough, I promise. And if you need permission to rest, this is it. Because I promise you, it's going to make navigating your ADHD and thriving with ADHD way fucking easier.
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All right?
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This is your permission to rest. All right, my friend, Huge love to you. Take care. I'll speak to you next week. 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.