The first step to making ADHD a non-issue in your life is learning how our minds work, and providing a practice to help you realize new truths.  This is the one that will set you free from the pain of regret, and worrying about the future. This is the foundation for progress. Those of us with ADHD commonly spend way too much time in our minds.  We ruminate about what happened, or what is going to happen. The following practice likely won’t solve your problems overnight, but it is simple enough and will usually begin to create positive benefits in a short period of time.  For me, it was less than a week when I started noticing some benefits, and after 30 days my life was way better.  Let’s do a practical exercise to begin the process. If this exercise seems odd, just bear with me.  You have nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. 

First find a quiet place to sit, where you won’t be interrupted by others for five or so minutes.  Start by taking three deep slow breaths in and out your nose and relax. If you feel hyper, or your mind is going a hundred miles an hour take more deep slow breaths. This will cause you parasympathetic nervous system to calm your body.  Don’t be discouraged if calming yourself is difficult at first, this is part of the practice. 

Now find some small object close by that you can clearly see, and preferably hold.  It can be anything. I have a pen, and a coffee cup close to me.  Flowers and plants can be perfect for this. Try to avoid anything with excessive writing on it. The exercise is to begin to calmly and closely inspect whatever the object is, like you are an investigator, and that object has something to tell you.  

While you are inspecting the item, notice the thoughts if any that come up.  When using the coffee cup, my mind will often come up with thoughts about how the maker of the cup achieved certain features when making it.  When these thoughts come up, notice how your mind will naturally keep adding questions and comments. When this happens, acknowledge whatever thoughts come up but don’t add any more thoughts to them, just keep closely inspecting the object and noticing the finer details and the thoughts that come up. Continue this for five or so minutes.  Once you are done just sit quietly for a minute and notice any thoughts that arise, but don’t respond or add anything to them.

This exercise was designed first to notice the fact that your mind will just surface thoughts, without you taking any initiative to create them. As you go through life, thoughts just come up.  This is not only true for those of us with ADHD, this is true of all people. The thoughts that come up stem from everything that has happened to us and our response to it, from the time we were young. 

The second and most important purpose for this exercise is for you to realize that you have come to identify yourself with all of those thoughts that come up, but those thoughts are not you. You are not your thoughts, your past, or how you feel.  You are the one observing those things.

The third purpose is to start grounding yourself in the present moment. Most of the thoughts that upset us are thoughts about something we did in the past, or something that is going to happen in the future. You can’t actually do anything in the past or the future. Even with the future, when it comes it will come in the form of the present moment. Take a few minutes, and keep your focus in the right now. Any thoughts about past or future only exist as thoughts.

Continue this practice for a week and also do a Google search and spend some time learning about mindfulness.  There are lots of great videos on YouTube.  Here just one example.  Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments.