B (6:32)

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?

A (6:46)

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.

B (9:14)

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?

A (9:28)

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.

B (10:54)

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?

A (12:12)

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.

B (14:27)

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?

A (15:21)

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.

B (16:31)

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.

A (16:40)

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.

B (16:53)

And I'm Dusty.

A (16:54)

And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.