Translating ADHD
 

Translating ADHD

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We believe that success with ADHD is possible... with a little translation. Hosts Asher Collins and Dusty Chipura, both ADHD coaches who have plenty of insight to share navigating their own ADHD experiences, discuss how to live more authentically as an adult with ADHD and how to create real, sustained change to achieve greater success. If you are an adult with ADHD who wants more out of their business, career, and life, this is the podcast for you!

Episodes

Advocating ADHD in a Misunderstanding World

Monday May 29, 2023

Monday May 29, 2023

Asher and Cam stay with the being misunderstood with ADHD theme and take a big step back to look at the larger context of trying to seek understanding and support in a world quick to judge everything ADHD. Cam shares how a recent BCC investigative news story on private ADHD clinics in the UK unleashed a torrent of follow up stories - common fear-based themes that ADHD is overdiagnosed, that the medicines are not beneficial and stories that call into question the very existence of ADHD.

Seeking support personally and professionally is an ever changing obstacle course when people and organizations have such strong opinions about something they know very little about. Everything we’ve known about ADHD has been reinforced by research and advances in neuroimaging - that ADHD is cognitive in nature, that it is a neuro-developmental condition and that it is hereditary, that it impacts the executive function center of the brain and that it can have a dramatic effect on our ability to have agency and fulfillment in our lives.

Asher makes a key distinction between advocating for oneself and advocacy, where the latter is about general education to create greater systemic change and the former is about identifying specific areas of support for a specific situation. Ash also discusses the meaning of a label, and how ADHD is a starting place to create change. He also discusses the misunderstanding gap and compares the ADHD lived experience with his trans lived experience - that as a trans ally he made assumptions about what it is to be trans. No one can know your lived experience like you, so don’t let their strong feelings define your reality.

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Identifying Red Herrings at Work with ADHD

Monday May 22, 2023

Monday May 22, 2023

Asher and Cam continue in the vein of being misunderstood with ADHD, and how we can create our own misunderstanding in the form of red herrings that distract us from the real challenges and real opportunities at work. When we let fear inform our behavior, we can manage by avoidance.

Managing by avoidance is to avoid looking bad or to avoid not having the answer. We will avoid rocking the boat or avoid the spotlight. When we embrace journey thinking and look for the learning opportunity in every situation, we can start to get a clearer picture of the real dilemmas we are facing at work and the real opportunities at hand. Ash and Cam share numerous client stories to illustrate this dilemma and how listeners can start down this all-important path to change.

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ADHD and the Seeds of Misunderstanding at Work

Monday May 15, 2023

Monday May 15, 2023

Ash and Cam shift their focus to the workplace with regard to the current story arc on being misunderstood with ADHD. Leading with Yours-Mine-Ours, Asher and Cam talk about ADHD challenges in the context of larger potential workplace challenges that can plant the seeds for misunderstanding. There are some environments and some managers where no amount of ADHD management will make the situation tenable. Those of us with ADHD, when in a One-Down state, can feel like we are the instigators of all of the misunderstanding in a workplace.

The hosts go on to share scenarios where the seeds of misunderstanding can be planted when ADHD is in the mix: When we lean on one role to the detriment of another, when we don’t deliver on a promise, when we don’t communicate or inquire about expectations. Ash and Cam share a number of examples from clients to working with teams. A refreshing approach to what is often a difficult topic to address.

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Being Misunderstood While Misunderstanding our ADHD

Monday May 08, 2023

Monday May 08, 2023

Ash and Cam dig deeper into the being misunderstood theme by looking at the very unique ADHD phenomenon of trying to explain our ADHD when our ADHD is acting as a roadblock to new awareness and learning. Cam uses an example shared by a Patreon/Discord member on how she struggles with this challenge. The member illustrated the difference between “front” emotions and “underlying” emotions and how it is hard for her to get to the underlying emotion or need. She shares several examples - one of which where she thinks she is bored with company (front) but in actuality she is physically tired (underlying). Understanding this distinction allows her to better understand her ADHD so she can then articulate her needs to others. Getting to the emotional nuance and awareness is an ADHD challenge just like emotional regulation. So often we feel compelled to explain ourselves without fully knowing what is going on “under the hood.”

Ash continues the thread by sharing a humorous at times story about his partner wanting to install cat shelves late at night. What ensues is how the drama plays out in a series of misunderstandings for two individuals with ADHD. Ash finishes with sharing how clear communication leads to understanding, new agreements and appreciation and trust.

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Being Misunderstood with ADHD: In Relationships

Monday May 01, 2023

Monday May 01, 2023

Cam and Asher continue to explore the topic of being misunderstood with ADHD. Nowhere does this play out more dramatically than in our primary relationships. It’s nearly impossible to articulate thoughts and feelings and advocate for oneself if you are not clear on what is actually going on. The first barrier of ADHD is awareness, and we can feel the frustration and emotion from a particular situation. But ADHD makes it really hard to get to the root cause. ADHD and executive function challenges are a part of the root!

Ash shares a fantastic example of a client who feels like his spouse is ‘tossing a basketball in his face’ every time she asks him to do something, eliciting a response of frustration. As Ash and his client look ‘under the hood’, the client starts to appreciate and understand how his ADHD was coming into the situation with his spouse. With the understanding that it is a challenge with effective transitioning, he can articulate his needs to his spouse. She in turn can develop some empathy for his situation. Cam brings in the concept of context switching and how it can be difficult to shift from work mode to home mode and back.

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Being Misunderstood with ADHD: Childhood Origins

Monday Apr 24, 2023

Monday Apr 24, 2023

Ash and Cam begin a new series on a ubiquitous ADHD experience - being misunderstood. ADHD operates out of sight and in the background, yet its impact can have enormous consequences. Additionally, ADHD and related executive function challenges make it very difficult to bring the ADHD out into the open to generate new understanding and awareness for the individual and for others.

The hosts kick off the series by looking at how childhood experiences of living with ADHD create misunderstanding for all parties and lead to a sense of One Down later in life. A focal point for being misunderstood is the challenge around the universal question from episodes 10 and 11 Why do I not do what I ought to do? and the subsequent fallout from failure here. This ADHD behavior does not make sense to the observing brain, especially lack of follow-through. When children don’t do as asked, others will assume the worst. They rarely think that the behavior is due to cognitive challenges with executive functioning.

Ash shares a client’s story and his own story where the common theme was about being misunderstood. He then shares how to use the coaching skill of distinguishing to tease apart the ADHD from the experience and to differentiate yours, mine and ours. The hosts leave listeners with some ideas of how to start to shift thinking around One Down and seeing oneself in the picture.

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ADHD and the Understand, Own, Translate Model

Monday Apr 17, 2023

Monday Apr 17, 2023

Ash and Cam often speak of the Understand, Own, Translate model that is so ubiquitous to the mission of the Translating ADHD podcast - that to live fully and to have success one must understand, own and translate their ADHD experience. Today, Ash and Cam explore this model in depth through a single coaching session with one of Ash’s clients. Describing this single session checks many of the boxes the hosts have been speaking of recently like journey thinking, revealing the Meaning Maker, shifting to causation and moving away from ARC.

They also share essential elements of the coaching process and how coach and client shift from dilemma to opportunity through the discovery, action, insight model of coaching. Ash’s client comes with a specific dilemma, and coach and client quickly identify a limiting belief and a realization of the high cost of seeking rewarding behaviors in a particular way, or as the client states with colorful language, the hot, dirty coal way. Coach and client then shift into using rich metaphor work to further understand and own the behavior and start to see openings for opportunity and change.

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Short Circuiting the ADHD Meaning Maker

Monday Apr 10, 2023

Monday Apr 10, 2023

Cam takes Ash and listeners on a field trip to the land of ADHD causation, introducing listeners to Cam’s own Meaning Maker (MM). Veteran listeners will recall the challenge for ADHDers to get to causation from the Mt. Rainier Model introduced in episode 10. They will also recall Cam speaking about his Big Idea Generator (BIG). The Meaning Maker is first cousin to the BIG and is a part of everyone’s belief system - the neural system that makes sense of the world and that rationalizes choices and actions. Confirmation bias is a result of selectively picking data to reinforce a position. ADHD can super-charge the MM by plugging into our contextual processor. Informed by urgency and ARC activity, we can infuse our belief systems with “what if!” scenarios that generate doubt and worry. This gives the MM a spotlight on the stage - and an undeniable big signal.

Cam shares his own experience as a teacher more than 20 years ago when his Meaning Maker was very active, reinforcing a story that entrenched him in a perspective of one down. Ash explores this experience with Cam, extracting valuable understanding and perspective. When Cam understood the presence of the MM and what gave it its power, he was able to short circuit the system. The hosts leave listeners with steps to discover and observe their own Meaning Makers.

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Locating ADHD Behind the Limiting Story

Monday Apr 03, 2023

Monday Apr 03, 2023

Following up on last week’s episode of emotional autopilot, Ash and Cam explore some of the motivations for this behavior. We do what we need to to get through our days, and emotional autopilot is a coping mechanism for managing strong emotions and the limiting stories that can accompany them.

Cam shares three specific examples of limiting stories and how we can uncover the ADHD that is operating in the background. When we explore causation, we can start to poke holes in our stories that don't serve us. Cam specifically points to 'One Down' or 'I am not enough.' The conflict avoider and the misunderstood rebel. Ash points out distinctions where awareness, agency and choice can completely change the dynamic for the better.

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ADHD and Emotional Autopilot

Monday Mar 27, 2023

Monday Mar 27, 2023

Ash and Cam continue to pull the thread on getting distance from the Adrenaline Response Cycle as they explore common emotional responses when faced with uncertainty and challenge. Today they share the concept of emotional autopilot. We can approach our days and plans in an autopilot fashion expecting our day to go off without a hitch. We can also set our emotions on autopilot or conveniently set them aside - partitioning them from our day. We all know how this plays out. When things don't go according to plan, our emotions come out in anger or disappointment and often at a higher intensity due to emotional dysregulation. Cam and Ash tack against common suggestions regarding emotional regulation, addressing the challenge more at causation than at manifestation.

According to findings in neuroscience, the more aware we are of our emotions the more we can utilize them as a resource. Like Kelly McGonigal’s work on stress, if we shift the way we view emotions, we can turn them into the resources they are. Emotions drive our desires, our attention and our motivation for change. They can also be difficult to manage because they are stronger than positive emotions. Often the big signal is negative in nature and when we do explore emotions, the first thing we hear is our own internal negative self-talk. The hosts share different ways we can resource emotions and ‘crack the lid on the mason jar’ to let emotions inform, and not drive, behavior or responses.

Ash distinguishes emotions and the story associated with the emotions. He also shares an example where a client uses her own body awareness to better understand how her migraines are an indication of surpassing a threshold and entering the crash phase of ARC. Cam shares an example where a client uses time to process emotions in an interaction with a coworker. The hosts emphasize well known podcast concepts like curiosity and pause, disrupt, pivot to shift away from the autopilot mode.

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