Love this. The more I come to understand the bipolar diagnosis I was graced with in 2005, the more I recognize the super powers it can bring with it. Not just the high highs (though those are fun, who are we kidding), but the way the lows force me to take stock, hibernate in a dark dark cave, and compost the pain of the world.
I’m a late diagnosis AudHD middle aged woman (re: hormones have been exaggerating some of my brain issues for about a decade) and your guided meditations have been a total game changer for me. I never could get into it with other approaches. My autism traits can make language confusing, opaque, illogical, seemingly random…so words matter when trying to meditate. My current struggle is not wanting to meditate because it makes me feel more balanced and it’s not familiar! It’s a bit scary in fact. I so wish I could share what you do with other people like me because it gives me so much peace and acceptance when I do it. I loved a recent one you did about “stepping back” - I can now visualise this idea and feel calm if my ADHD is driving my autistic need for control and order insane. The way you teach has allowed both of these brain styles coexist more smoothly instead of constantly battling it out in my poor tired skull…please keep up all you do for the neurodiverse community and help us to spread the word! I’ve literally never seen meditation geared for us, when the approach to language is so integral to our condition. I wish I could share it somehow
Great to meet you Andrea! I'm glad the practice have been so supportive. I hope I'm direct enough for autistic folks, I've been learning more about some of the language needs there. According to my autistic friends I have some traits too, so the learning continues. I'm pretty sure the two most influential meditation teachers I had in my life were both autistic; there are system competencies in meditation that can really play to some autistic strengths. Funny about not wanting to meditate because feeling balanced is not familiar - I get it! Nice to be connected .
I woke up this morning thinking about my family's obsession with work. Some of us are workaholics: my dad was a surgeon who left the house at 6 am, returned for an hour at 7 pm, and then went back to the hospital till around 11pm. He took one day off every two weeks, on Sunday afternoon...sometimes. My sister was similar until she got fired.
My mother had terrible anxiety and OCD to the point that just fixing a meal seemed extremely difficult, and it often took hours later in her life. My brother has never had a job. It's as if we only know how to do extremes! I think most people are not very well adapted, as you say, to the 40-50-60 hour work week. They either use work to escape from people, or they feel ashamed that they can't work at the insane level that capitalism seems to demand, and they become too demoralized to do anything. It has taken me a while to feel less bad about my non-workaholism! How crazy is that.
Wow. This article really made me realize that all those things you describe.... that's me!!! That's the me I have worked so SO hard to build a "disguise" for in order to blend in and function in society. How much energy I have spent to keep that up has been crushing and painful, yet I did not dare let anyone know that for fear of being found out or looking weak. I had finally gave up trying to "blend" because I just couldn't sustain it. I felt like a failure for just letting go, like I lost at the big game of life and dress up. Turns out thats exactly what needed to happen! Your words confirm that for me. This gives me a whole new outlook on how to apply my meditation practice and move through the world without a mask! Thank you for this article and describing your experiences. This is a big paradigm shift for me.
Will read this for sure! 👍🏻 I’m a 45 year old guy from the Netherlands. I have (in my view a light form) of ADHD. Worked my was through University and worked a management consultant for 15 years before getting children and going for a healthier work-life balance. I have been meditating almost daily for a few years now. Currently recovering from an almost burn-out (after being stuck for a few years) where ADHD played a greater role than I have realized before. Looking forward to connect here! If you have more info around meditations and ADHD / personal growth please let me know! Thanks!!
What a refreshing viewpoint. Only diagnosed with ADHD this year, the signs were blindingly obvious. Learning more about the sensitivities makes so much sense but the medical model doesn't cover it. Thanks for being open and sharing.
Wow !!! This was an amazing interview! I am learning so much from you on this topic and things I never thought of how it relates to my personal ADHD brain and the impact and feelings associated with it. Thank you again for bringing this topic to light and I especially love how you highlighted the gifts that we have and we do. You are inspiring me ! I do improv for communication for executives and it would be great to do a class on this so we shall see. And now I understand why it’s so hard for me to pick one topic to stick with in my work. Much gratitude for all that you do for this community.
My ADHD brain was literally just now working out how on earth is meditation going to do anything for me?! I've spent over 40 hours, but with still no way of bringing it to mind during the day...
I'm using it as a way to ground myself, due to having Fibro, and arthritis all over - and now severe tendon issues - I CANT go out and do the long walks which used to act as my grounding & mental health cure....
But during a meditation, I'll *try* so hard to have a home base, but it ends up being about 10 different ones and I don't know which one to choose and my attention just bounces around.
I'm sure I'm doing everything wrong..
I'm really having such a horrible time at the moment.
And, weirdly, ADHD time blindness isn't helping because I'll be all "Yes, I'll get onto that tomorrow" and then all of a sudden it's 7pm tomorrow & I don't know where I've been or what I've been doing, aside super upset & stressed at my body for not doing what I need it to
I’ve wanted to write a reply to this ever since it first popped up here… but it appears I’m very much like you, because as much as I relate to almost everything you say here, I also seem to be incapable of putting into words what my ADHD brain feels like. It’s like that ADHD part of my brain is a toddler trying to shove it’s way into my coherent thoughts going “me , me , me look at me , let me tell you, show you” spilling everything and running around in circles.
I’m not diagnosed. German upbringing taught me to hide all the flaws, live with the turmoil, normalize it, until eventually I came to a breaking point when my marriage fell apart. That’s when I found you on the Calm app. You have taught me to embrace and accept. To seek equanimity. By sharing your own struggles you’ve made meditation accessible and I didn’t feel like once again I was failing. I embrace my spastic mind now and laugh when it’s especially active. All those thoughts, wanting to know answers to everything , feelings turned up to turbo… yeah exhausting like a toddler. But who I am. I have 3 adult kids. One diagnosed on the spectrum, the other two also somewhere on it like me. We can be a funny group together. I’m smiling writing that. Before I found meditation and equanimity I worried about us, wondered how we would survive. Now I accept it with loving kindness and there is peace in that. Of course it’s not all roses and I still worry at times. It’s a daily process. Until the end. This is the human condition . And I’m ok with that. Thank you Jeff . Thank you for sharing pieces of your beautiful mind and allowing so many of us to see themselves and all their perfect imperfections.
So much great stuff here. Being neurodivergent is hugely challenging but also hugely rewarding, and I wouldn’t want to be any other way. Totally agree that we need to stop referring to anything that makes someone different as a disorder.
This conversation made my heart so happy. I discovered you, Jeff, on the Calm app before ADHD was ever a thought in my head. I had always hated meditation because of my inability to sit still, focus on my breathing, and "not think" (impossible), and for some reason (maybe fate) I tried one of your ADHD meditations for the hell of it...and just fell in love. It was freeing. It was compassionate. It was loving. I absolutely loved it...and that moment was perhaps the first moment on my own journey to getting an official ADHD diagnosis (something that seems soooo obvious now, but was literally never even a consideration for 40-plus years. Crazy.) I cannot thank you enough. You are the (only) voice I return again and again to meditate; you make it accessible and fun and funny and human. I am so grateful to you for more than you know, and I will forever be a follower and a fan of your brilliant ADHD mind and beautiful, smart, accepting practice. Thank you is an understatement.
Love this. The more I come to understand the bipolar diagnosis I was graced with in 2005, the more I recognize the super powers it can bring with it. Not just the high highs (though those are fun, who are we kidding), but the way the lows force me to take stock, hibernate in a dark dark cave, and compost the pain of the world.
I’m a late diagnosis AudHD middle aged woman (re: hormones have been exaggerating some of my brain issues for about a decade) and your guided meditations have been a total game changer for me. I never could get into it with other approaches. My autism traits can make language confusing, opaque, illogical, seemingly random…so words matter when trying to meditate. My current struggle is not wanting to meditate because it makes me feel more balanced and it’s not familiar! It’s a bit scary in fact. I so wish I could share what you do with other people like me because it gives me so much peace and acceptance when I do it. I loved a recent one you did about “stepping back” - I can now visualise this idea and feel calm if my ADHD is driving my autistic need for control and order insane. The way you teach has allowed both of these brain styles coexist more smoothly instead of constantly battling it out in my poor tired skull…please keep up all you do for the neurodiverse community and help us to spread the word! I’ve literally never seen meditation geared for us, when the approach to language is so integral to our condition. I wish I could share it somehow
Great to meet you Andrea! I'm glad the practice have been so supportive. I hope I'm direct enough for autistic folks, I've been learning more about some of the language needs there. According to my autistic friends I have some traits too, so the learning continues. I'm pretty sure the two most influential meditation teachers I had in my life were both autistic; there are system competencies in meditation that can really play to some autistic strengths. Funny about not wanting to meditate because feeling balanced is not familiar - I get it! Nice to be connected .
My heartfelt gratitude for you, Jeff.
This shines a bright light on not only the pain and suffering, but the gifts the neurodiverse beings are to this world.
I woke up this morning thinking about my family's obsession with work. Some of us are workaholics: my dad was a surgeon who left the house at 6 am, returned for an hour at 7 pm, and then went back to the hospital till around 11pm. He took one day off every two weeks, on Sunday afternoon...sometimes. My sister was similar until she got fired.
My mother had terrible anxiety and OCD to the point that just fixing a meal seemed extremely difficult, and it often took hours later in her life. My brother has never had a job. It's as if we only know how to do extremes! I think most people are not very well adapted, as you say, to the 40-50-60 hour work week. They either use work to escape from people, or they feel ashamed that they can't work at the insane level that capitalism seems to demand, and they become too demoralized to do anything. It has taken me a while to feel less bad about my non-workaholism! How crazy is that.
Wow. This article really made me realize that all those things you describe.... that's me!!! That's the me I have worked so SO hard to build a "disguise" for in order to blend in and function in society. How much energy I have spent to keep that up has been crushing and painful, yet I did not dare let anyone know that for fear of being found out or looking weak. I had finally gave up trying to "blend" because I just couldn't sustain it. I felt like a failure for just letting go, like I lost at the big game of life and dress up. Turns out thats exactly what needed to happen! Your words confirm that for me. This gives me a whole new outlook on how to apply my meditation practice and move through the world without a mask! Thank you for this article and describing your experiences. This is a big paradigm shift for me.
Will read this for sure! 👍🏻 I’m a 45 year old guy from the Netherlands. I have (in my view a light form) of ADHD. Worked my was through University and worked a management consultant for 15 years before getting children and going for a healthier work-life balance. I have been meditating almost daily for a few years now. Currently recovering from an almost burn-out (after being stuck for a few years) where ADHD played a greater role than I have realized before. Looking forward to connect here! If you have more info around meditations and ADHD / personal growth please let me know! Thanks!!
What a refreshing viewpoint. Only diagnosed with ADHD this year, the signs were blindingly obvious. Learning more about the sensitivities makes so much sense but the medical model doesn't cover it. Thanks for being open and sharing.
Wow !!! This was an amazing interview! I am learning so much from you on this topic and things I never thought of how it relates to my personal ADHD brain and the impact and feelings associated with it. Thank you again for bringing this topic to light and I especially love how you highlighted the gifts that we have and we do. You are inspiring me ! I do improv for communication for executives and it would be great to do a class on this so we shall see. And now I understand why it’s so hard for me to pick one topic to stick with in my work. Much gratitude for all that you do for this community.
🙏
My ADHD brain was literally just now working out how on earth is meditation going to do anything for me?! I've spent over 40 hours, but with still no way of bringing it to mind during the day...
I'm using it as a way to ground myself, due to having Fibro, and arthritis all over - and now severe tendon issues - I CANT go out and do the long walks which used to act as my grounding & mental health cure....
But during a meditation, I'll *try* so hard to have a home base, but it ends up being about 10 different ones and I don't know which one to choose and my attention just bounces around.
I'm sure I'm doing everything wrong..
I'm really having such a horrible time at the moment.
And, weirdly, ADHD time blindness isn't helping because I'll be all "Yes, I'll get onto that tomorrow" and then all of a sudden it's 7pm tomorrow & I don't know where I've been or what I've been doing, aside super upset & stressed at my body for not doing what I need it to
I’ve wanted to write a reply to this ever since it first popped up here… but it appears I’m very much like you, because as much as I relate to almost everything you say here, I also seem to be incapable of putting into words what my ADHD brain feels like. It’s like that ADHD part of my brain is a toddler trying to shove it’s way into my coherent thoughts going “me , me , me look at me , let me tell you, show you” spilling everything and running around in circles.
I’m not diagnosed. German upbringing taught me to hide all the flaws, live with the turmoil, normalize it, until eventually I came to a breaking point when my marriage fell apart. That’s when I found you on the Calm app. You have taught me to embrace and accept. To seek equanimity. By sharing your own struggles you’ve made meditation accessible and I didn’t feel like once again I was failing. I embrace my spastic mind now and laugh when it’s especially active. All those thoughts, wanting to know answers to everything , feelings turned up to turbo… yeah exhausting like a toddler. But who I am. I have 3 adult kids. One diagnosed on the spectrum, the other two also somewhere on it like me. We can be a funny group together. I’m smiling writing that. Before I found meditation and equanimity I worried about us, wondered how we would survive. Now I accept it with loving kindness and there is peace in that. Of course it’s not all roses and I still worry at times. It’s a daily process. Until the end. This is the human condition . And I’m ok with that. Thank you Jeff . Thank you for sharing pieces of your beautiful mind and allowing so many of us to see themselves and all their perfect imperfections.
So much great stuff here. Being neurodivergent is hugely challenging but also hugely rewarding, and I wouldn’t want to be any other way. Totally agree that we need to stop referring to anything that makes someone different as a disorder.
This conversation made my heart so happy. I discovered you, Jeff, on the Calm app before ADHD was ever a thought in my head. I had always hated meditation because of my inability to sit still, focus on my breathing, and "not think" (impossible), and for some reason (maybe fate) I tried one of your ADHD meditations for the hell of it...and just fell in love. It was freeing. It was compassionate. It was loving. I absolutely loved it...and that moment was perhaps the first moment on my own journey to getting an official ADHD diagnosis (something that seems soooo obvious now, but was literally never even a consideration for 40-plus years. Crazy.) I cannot thank you enough. You are the (only) voice I return again and again to meditate; you make it accessible and fun and funny and human. I am so grateful to you for more than you know, and I will forever be a follower and a fan of your brilliant ADHD mind and beautiful, smart, accepting practice. Thank you is an understatement.