← Translating ADHD
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- [00:02]
A
Hi, I'm Ash. And I'm Dusty and this is translating ADHD.
- [00:09]
B
Don't forget, on the 29th of October, I'm going to be doing a live coffee chat for patrons at 3pm PST October 29th. So if you are a supporter of this podcast, come hang out with me. We can talk about your favorite Star Trek episodes. I'm curious to know which one is your guys favorite. You can ask me questions about ADHD or other things and I would love to meet y'.
- [00:32]
A
All.
- [00:33]
B
So let's do it.
- [00:34]
A
If you'd like to join in and you're not yet a Patreon subscriber, you can Visit the website translatingadhd.com and click on the Patreon tab. And for five bucks a month, that will get you access to this event and our other monthly live events and to our podcast Discord server.
- [00:52]
B
So Ashley, what are we talking about today?
- [00:56]
A
Dusty, Today I want to revisit a model that I still use frequently in my own coaching called yours, mine and ours. When I pull this model out, it's usually some sort of interpersonal dilemma. Be it boss, subordinate, be it with a co worker, a friend, a spouse, a family member, and the opportunity here is a couple of things. Number one, it's about distinguishing those of us with ADHD are really prone to blame sponging because we've had this repeat experience of missing deadlines, not living up to expectations, forgetting and having things actually be our fault. Having good intentions in relationships, but not matching that good intention with action. Because of our ADHD and because of those repeat experiences over a lifetime, we kind of tend to default to things, things being our fault or our responsibility to fix. So when someone else is upset with us, we can often just go to this sort of defensive place where we're assuming that we're at fault and that's the place that we're starting from. And so one of the things that this model helps us do is distinguish what's mine and what's not mine in this situation. So when I'm working with a client on this, what we will start with is what's yours and what's not yours, what's your stuff in this dilemma and what's not your stuff in this dilemma. And where ours comes in is what, if anything, is the opportunity to co create here, to come together, to work together to have a better solution. And in some cases the opportunity is none. In other cases the opportunity is great. Great. It just depends on the particular dilemma. I think the other thing that this model does really well is it helps reframe situations where we may not have the type of control that we would like to have in a situation. And I'm actually going to start with an example that is about that. I am working with two business partners right now. I am working with them individually. We've done some collaborative coaching, and now we're doing individual coaching because that's what makes sense for where both of them are at this point. And they both have adhd, but they have completely different ADHD challenges. So I'm coaching with one of the partners who is actually pretty good at showing up on time and meeting deadlines. That's not where her ADHD struggle lies. But her partner, that's exactly what he struggles with. Meeting deadlines is a huge challenge for him. And that is what he and I are coaching about right now. So she shows up to our last coaching session with the topic of collaboration and what she's really asking for. And I recognize this right away, particularly since in this instance I'm coaching them both, is she's looking for him to have a different experience. How can I show up differently so that he can have a different experience? Now, that's not how she's framing it, but it's something that I recognized up front and suggested to her. And then I immediately pulled out this yours, mine and ours model. Now, right now, for the two of them, the hours, there's not much to be done there because he's trying to do his own work on his own challenges. He doesn't know what support looks like from her right now because we're still in very early days of trying to have a different experience there. And so, interestingly enough, this helped us kind of pivot the conversation from, how can I help him have a different experience when he's the roadblock to the most important thing to what does it look like to have agency and choice with the way things are? This is his stuff. This is something that I don't have control over in this moment. So what does it look like for me to show up differently? And so what we came to is, number one, she still wants to ask for the collaboration. She still wants to kind of push for, hey, do you think we can work on this project today? Do you think we can knock some of this out together and collaborate on this today? But the big difference maker there is, if the answer is no for any reason, that is his stuff. Her opportunity in that moment is to detach from that because there's nothing more for her to do. There's nothing more that she can do in that moment to have a different outcome. It's not within her control. And so the language that we kind of came up with is if I can't collaborate on the most important thing, so if the most important thing is collaborative and I can't collaborate on the most important thing, then what the other thing that this did is it allowed us to circle back and pick up a thread from a previous coaching conversation in which she was expressing the desire to do more intellectually challenging work and to have more agency over what challenges she's setting for herself, which is kind of leading to seeking out client work and projects where she can be the lead, where she can be the one in charge. So it's this sort of desire, independent of this dilemma, but also an opportunity to pull on that thread and explore as a potential solution to this challenge that exists between these two partners.
- [06:32]
B
And this is really fascinating and I'm curious how you. Because I mean, this is a bit of a unique situation where you've got two clients that you're coaching. So how does this apply when you're just coaching one person or one half of a communication partnership?
- [06:46]
A
Dusty that's a good question. And I would say really the only difference in this case is I didn't need the client to give me context about the dilemma because I already knew the context since I've worked with both of them and since I know a lot about their working partnership. But in any other case, the model remains the same. It's about examining what is the client's stuff, what is not the client's stuff, what are the opportunities to co create or not. So for example, I coached a client through a job change. She left a job where after going through yours, mine and ours, she had this new awareness that most of the challenges that she was having at work, which she was attributing to adhd, this is part of why she came to adhd. Coaching were not her stuff, they were her boss's stuff. And there was no opportunity for change there based on what she knew about her boss in that relationship. There was no opportunity to have a better experience, to come together and co create. This also comes up for my clients a lot when it comes to marital dilemmas and oftentimes marital dilemmas that do include adhd. So a spouse that is frustrated by ADHD behaviors, and in that case, oftentimes the spouse will join a coaching session or two if they're open to it, that becomes the hours. But doing yours and mine is also really nice for my clients to be able to kind of distinguish that, yes, we're having challenges, but those challenges aren't necessarily all me and all adhd. Again, we can tend to blame sponge. And in marriages, unfortunately, a lot of times, ADHD can become the scapegoat for a number of things. So stepping back and getting a healthier perspective about what is actually ADHD in my stuff here, the stuff that I need to own, the stuff that I need to work on and create change around, but also what do I need from my spouse? How do I need my spouse to show up differently here? And a classic example of that is sort of the angry spouse, which can then throw an ADHD person into that defensive place, into your limbic system, into a place where problem solving isn't possible. And so there's an opportunity there for both people to show up differently.
- [09:14]
B
I'm really fascinated by this, and I'm wondering, like, how did you come up with it? Or, like, where did the inspiration for this come from? Sorry, is this like something that came up in your own life, or is it something that you just kind of noticed was, like a theme in all the clients you were coaching, or both?
- [09:28]
A
Dusty, this actually that client story that I just told about, and I. I've told a longer version of that story on a previous episode of this podcast. But that client that ended up making the choice to leave her job, that was the session in which I came up with this model. It. It just seemed at the time it was something I tried because I was kind of hearing that the challenges weren't my clients, but she wasn't seeing that. So this was me kind of on the fly. Let's try this. Let's try and break it down this way. And I think. I think it started by me asking, like, what's your stuff and what's not your stuff? Right? So it's not like I. I came up with yours, mine, and ours right there in the moment. But we had this interest conversation about what was her stuff and what wasn't her stuff and what opportunity or not existed for change there or not. And so that conversation with that client sort of bore this model, because the next time I ran into that with a client, very different situation. It was a spouse situation. I brought that same language in. Let's talk about. Let's really examine this. Let's distinguish what's your stuff here and what's not your stuff here and look at it from that perspective, because that helps us kind of get up above it, get out of the emotion of it. And get curious and bypass that tendency to, to take on the blame, to take on the faults.
- [10:54]
B
Yeah, this is, I mean, I'm, I'm glad because often, you know, when we talk about different coaching approaches, you know, we've, we've kind of all been around the block, but I've never heard it put quite this way. And I think it's really useful because certainly I have a lot of clients who do exactly what you're talking about. They take too much blame for stuff that isn't theirs because like you say, Ash, they're just so used to being the person in the situation who's wrong and assuming that they have to do all the fixing. But I think there is a piece here as well around agency. Right. Like when you are feeling, like when you're feeling that you're the person doing everything wrong and you're, you know, you're messing everything up and everything's on your shoulders, I think there's also a sense of control that's taken away from you because now it's just about you being reactive and responsive and you're constantly in this, like, reactive fix mode and you can lose some of that agency around, well, what do I want? And like, where do I have. Yeah, where do I have agency? Where do I have control? What's my agenda? What can I, what action can I take that's going to make me feel good and feel that I'm proactively helping myself or, or showing up the way that I want to show up?
- [12:12]
A
Exactly. Dusty. One pattern I do see in my coaching where this is really helpful is the intersection of an ADHD spouse and an anxious spouse. Because an anxious spouse, particularly an anxious spouse that maybe leans a little Type A, you know, wants things to be done a certain way, is kind of a linear thinker. Can mean that the ADHD person's inability to sort of follow along and do things the way that the anxious spouse would like them to be done can provoke an anxious. Because so an emotional anxious response from the anxious spouse, which doesn't serve anyone right. And in that situation, again, the ADHD spouse is often feeling, I'm, I'm at fault, I'm at blame. This, this is all me. If I could just, if I could just live up to my spouse's expectations, this would stop happening. But stepping back and examining that, there's two people communicating here, right? And so if you're coming at me angry and anxious, of course that's going to provoke an emotional response. I've had a couple of clients for whom they sort of recognize that their spouse has that anxious personality. And it doesn't show up all the time. It just shows up at certain times. And so part of the what's mine becomes around. I want to show up differently here. I want to have my own pause, disrupt, pivot, where I don't let this knock me down so many pegs, where I don't let this affect me the way that I've let it affect me before, where I don't let this become about my failure or my inability to. I can kind of just separate and recognize that my spouse is having an anxious mom. But I don't have to take what's being said at face value. And I can advocate for communicating differently in these situations. There's where ours is, right? I can communicate for. Okay, yes, my ADHD may be showing up and causing us challenges here, but this way of communicating about it doesn't work for me. Right. Doesn't help us get to any sort of solution.
- [14:27]
B
Damn, that's powerful. The main thing for people listening at home, I hope, is just this idea that, you know, if you are stuck in that cycle of always feeling like you're wrong, of always feeling like you're to blame, if you're, you know, caught in a cycle of feeling very reactive, you know that you always have to be cleaning up your messes, and you know that there's a better way. And that part of it is stepping back to do that, examining, like you're saying. And it's hard to do that when you're kind of moving too fast, right? And you are like, oh, no, now there's this. Oh, no, now there's this. Because I think often when there's fault, there's also crisis, right? Even if there's not crisis, we'll make there be crisis. So I. I think the big takeaway for listeners here, Ash, is to like, to step back, to slow it down and to ask that question that you're asking, what's yours, what's mine and what's ours?
- [15:21]
A
Exactly, Dusty. To. To. To take a pause and examine it differently, right? Because in that moment, we're going to have an emotional response. We're going to have that emotional response that wants to take what's happening at face value, that wants to blame sponge, that wants to avoid or run and hide or make it go away. This is an opportunity to think through it differently. And the reason I like the example that I brought at the front is sometimes it's also an opportunity to think differently about. Okay, if there is no hours, then what does being at choice look like in this situation? And that very first client that I did this with, that's what we got to is if this is true. If you know that there is no opportunity to have a different experience with your boss and that your boss is the cause of a lot of your dilemmas and stress and strife at work, then what does it look like to be at choice here? And that was when she was able to make the decision to leave.
- [16:31]
B
Well, that is some powerful stuff, and I'm glad you taught me that because I can already think of a few clients for whom this would be a really useful model. So thank you.
- [16:40]
A
Nice, nice. I love that you're going to take this into your own coaching and perhaps someday we will revisit it again with some examples from your client work. But until then, I think this is a good time for us to wrap for today. I'm Ash.
- [16:53]
B
And I'm Dusty.
- [16:54]
A
And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.