A Blog for Big-Hearted Overthinkers

Individuals with ADHD have a unique way of looking at the world, and this can lead them to contribute greatly to the world around them. 

​Here are 10 high-achievers who have ADHD:

Want to discover even more about famous people with ADHD, check out the following articles:
Famous People with ADHD via ADDitude 
76 Famous & Successful People with ADHD via Mental Up

(The following is an excerpt from the book, Nothing Personal, Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self by Nirmala.)
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"Many of the questions and concerns in the satsangs or spiritual gatherings I lead come in a similar form:

• How do I get or keep a particular experience?
• How do I get or keep a sense of awakeness or expansion or openness or freedom or loving kindness or Presence?

Or if worldly concerns are the issue, the question is the same:

• How do I get or keep more health, more wealth, more comfort, more security, more romance?

Another form these questions take is:

• How do I avoid falling asleep or feeling stuck or being contracted or being sick or losing love?

They’re good questions. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re real for the person who’s asking them. Within each of these questions is the assumption that you need to do something-you need to get or keep or avoid something. Right there, in that assumption, is our suffering. The effort to get or keep or avoid any experience is what makes life miserable, difficult, dis-easeful.

In satsang, another possibility is pointed to, a way of touching your experience without either trying to hold on to it or push it away. It's a way of reaching out to your experience and really seeing what's it's like. In doing this, the questions become:

• How open or stuck am I right now?
• How open or closed is my Heart right now?
• How happy or sad am I right now?

And when the answer comes, the question becomes,

• What's that like?
• What's it like to be expanded or contracted or whatever it is you are experiencing?
• What's it like to have an open Heart or to not be in touch with your Heart at all in a particular moment?
• What's it like to be filled with love?
• What's it like to feel a lack of love?

This is reaching out and touching the experience as it is and also as it changes naturally. It's not a static question, but an alive one; you're never done with that question because your experience is always changing.

In doing this, rather than trying to change life, you're living life as a question.

• What's this like?
• And what's it like now that I've noticed what this is like?
• And what's it like now?
• And now that it's changed again, what's it like?

Even your noticing something changes it, so by the time you've found an answer, it's time to ask the question again.

We've been so conditioned to think that the point of questions is to get answers that we overlook that the point of answers is that they get us to more questions. The questions are as valid and rich as any answer because every answer is full of questions. You can even begin to enjoy the questions, even trust the questions, as much as any answer that comes.

When you value the questions themselves, you just naturally hold the answers more lightly because they aren't the goal. If the question is just as rich as the answer, then it's fine if the answer comes and goes. Have you ever noticed that you've forgotten everything you once understood? Every insight you've ever had has faded, and that's great because then you're back in the question. You're back in this really alive place where you're getting to find out what you know now, what's happening now, what's moving, what's changing, what it's like now. What is it like now? You'll never be done with that question. What's happening now? You could say that answers are just a temporary side effect of having questions.

​You have the right -nay, the responsibility - to do, have, and be, exactly what you want.  Your job in this lifetime is to do what’s best for you and your life, not what is best for everyone else.  If you just read that and felt a rejection to that statement in your body, or you had a thought that had the word "selfish" in it,  I encourage you to get really curious about yourself.  If you feel a reaction to the idea of doing what is best for yourself instead of what is best for others, please read When Is It Okay To Be Selfish?  ​

Here is the cold hard truth: if your energy is focused on pleasing those around you, or living by what "they" say is right/wrong or good/bad -  you will never live into your full potential or happiness. 

Believe me, I get it.  I'm a recovering people pleaser myself, and I still struggle to recognize where and how it shows up in my life.  Recovery from deeply programed ways of being is not something that you achieve once, it is something you cultivate as a life practice.  

To me, the practice is cultivating empty spaces and a slow moving lifestyle so that I have the wherewithal to be present with my life and recognize when I'm operating from old wounds or belief systems.  People pleasing doesn't often come up for me anymore... unless I allow myself to slip into not giving myself the things I need to nourish my body and soul.  When I am unhealthy and unbalanced, my old programming resurfaces.  

Below, I've shared an excise for bringing more awareness to where in your life you might have room to "clean out the cupboards", and shed things that aren't truly authentic to you.  But, remember, the cornerstone of any personal growth and development or spiritual journey is self-care.  (Click here to read the Basics of What You Need To Do a Personal Growth Journey.) 

To bring clarity to where you are limiting yourself, do the following exercise.  Remember - the more honest that you are with yourself, the more opportunity you have to transform your life! 

Action Step:
Make a list of all the things you want, but have not taken action on because:

• you feel they are “selfish”
• you are afraid of what others think about you
• you feel like you “can’t" because it will hurt or offend someone
• you feel like you don’t have permission
• you feel like you "shouldn't" want it
• you think that it's "bad" or "wrong"
• you feel like it's "unreasonable" or not practical
• you don't have time (this is a tricky one that is harder to see, but if you're too busy or don't have time for something - dig deeper, there is a nugget of truth for you there.)

Every single human has a gap between where they are - and where they want to be.  The size of this gap is created by lack of clarity, people pleasing, fear, or limiting beliefs.  The first step to reducing the size of this gap is to discover how big this gap is, and what experiences are (currently) being lost to you because of this gap.   You only get this one life - don't think for a single minute that you don't have the duty to make it exactly what you want it to be.  You deserve to have every experience that you want want to have while you are in this human form on this beautiful planet. 

The way that you want to look, the way that you want to love, the way that you want to play, the way that you want to work - it's all up to you.  There are no limits.  ​

This past year as I’ve been working with clients and chatting with friends, I’ve noticed that many people are struggling to recover from the impacts of the Covid-19 culture shifts. As I’ve listened to people’s stories of returning to ‘normal life’, they have all shared the same themes:

• Feelings of detachment, or feeling alone in the world
• Feelings of disassociation
• Anxiety, or in some cases, panic
• Confusion/mental fog
• Changes in perception
• Sensory overload
• Time management challenges
• Loss of motivation
• Increased cynicism

I’ve taken to (jokingly, among friends) referring to this as the C-Hole, short for Covid-Hole. This name comes from....
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