Latest / ADHD Strategies & Support for Women / Another ADHD Tax: Why We Trip, Spill & Lose Track of Things | Ep 157

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Another ADHD Tax: Why We Trip, Spill & Lose Track of Things | Ep 157 · ADHD Strategies & Support for Women

• 0:29
  Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
• 0:31
  I'm Renee and the host of this podcast.
• 0:33
  Excited to be here today.
• 0:35
  Talking about something else.
• 0:37
  What should I talk about today?
• 0:39
  I am led by not a sense of organization but a sense of curiosity of what questions I have about ADHD and sharing those those answers with you.
• 0:52
  And I apologize in the last episode if the sound was glitchy at times.
• 0:58
  I don't have a sound person.
• 0:59
  I am the sound people.
• 1:01
  And I've noticed sometimes when I listen to a podcast that's live, I watch Survivor and sometimes they'll have like 10 minutes after they'll have a live podcast covering what happened or on the Traders or something.
• 1:14
  And sometimes there's issues on the live sessions that will be hard to listen to like one person super loud or echoey and the other person's not.
• 1:23
  And then I find when it's released the next day, all the sound sounds good because they probably have sound people who take care of that.
• 1:30
  I have a harder time setting up this like taking care of the sound problems after it's been recorded than preventing it before and testing it out.
• 1:41
  And I did test it out a little bit yesterday, but I forgot and had a little setting checked.
• 1:46
  That's actually for when I teach yoga for farther away.
• 1:48
  And so it made some sounds, but maybe you didn't even notice.
• 1:51
  I didn't even need to say all that.
• 1:53
  Just know that I'm aware when it is a little off and hopefully that won't be an issue for you any other time.
• 2:01
  But we'll never know until it happens.
• 2:04
  But I want to talk about a few things.
• 2:07
  So one thing that is a term for ADHD problems is the ADHD tax.
• 2:15
  I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but the ADHD tax is the price that you pay when things cost more money because of something you did due to ADHD or your symptoms with adhd.
• 2:29
  And that could be a lot of things for me, I see it in food wasted, like buying food and then it spoils because I forget.
• 2:38
  I don't remember that I have it or something and then it gets rots in the fridge or I never cook it or I know it's there but I don't feel like making it.
• 2:48
  And.
• 2:48
  And then that's a problem.
• 2:50
  So that could be one.
• 2:51
  Another one could be missing a deadline and missing out on an opportunity because you miss a deadline.
• 2:59
  So that could be a tax that's not necessarily monetary or you miss a deadline like for pre sale or something or a concert or something.
• 3:07
  And you could have gotten the tickets sooner, but then you didn't and now you're paying more or you.
• 3:15
  I've missed a deadline once to renew my homeowner's insurance and normally I was on top of that, but it wasn't automated.
• 3:24
  They don't allow automation.
• 3:26
  And I'd been out of town, came back home, didn't realize that was something that got lapsed and it cost more money because I had to pull some strings.
• 3:35
  And there can be things like that for you where you pay a late fee for not paying something on time or just.
• 3:42
  It can be even a tax of time you forget to return something, you could get your money back.
• 3:48
  That's money lost.
• 3:49
  But if you think, well, I can call them and talk to them and maybe they'll make an exception or waive a late fee, I've done that many, many times.
• 3:59
  And depending on who it is with the returns, often they'll let you return it past the due date or the QR code is expired.
• 4:06
  You can still do that, but it's a tax of time.
• 4:08
  It takes a lot of time.
• 4:10
  What about the tax of injuries or broken items or even just time wasted from dropping things and having to clean it up?
• 4:21
  And this can happen with ADHD for a lot of reasons.
• 4:25
  So I dug into it quite a bit to find out why.
• 4:29
  What's happening in our brains that's making this happen.
• 4:34
  I can, I can figure out more why the forgetting stuff happens when it's something like a deadline or something that's like, that's a to do.
• 4:44
  It's a single to do item that I didn't set up a system to make sure I remembered whether it was a big sign or an automated email or whatever setting up autopay, if that's available.
• 4:56
  So those are things that could fall apart because I didn't do the prep work.
• 5:00
  But there are things that are in the moment and that you do that happen so quickly.
• 5:06
  Like dropping a homemade cheesecake that was non dairy, that took a lot of time.
• 5:14
  And dropping in the whole thing like breaks and spills and so it's a big mess.
• 5:20
  I've taken butter out of the microwave before and didn't really think to see how hot it was.
• 5:27
  Had my hand drop the whole thing.
• 5:29
  Glass everywhere, glass and butter spilling is not, it's not easy to clean up.
• 5:33
  It's not a good combination and the oil and everything.
• 5:36
  But multiple, multiple things that cost me more time or cost money.
• 5:41
  Like popping popcorn without a bowl or without the lid, you know all that popcorn's wasted.
• 5:45
  Unless my counter was so, like, unless I really thought it was clean enough to eat off of.
• 5:50
  But I don't.
• 5:51
  I don't know.
• 5:52
  I don't know.
• 5:52
  Other people are on that counter, too, so.
• 5:55
  So I, you know, I have to throw that away.
• 5:58
  So what I wanted to find out is why are we not able to.
• 6:03
  And maybe children, your children, maybe this isn't something you struggle with, but you teach a class, and there's students in your class who are like this.
• 6:10
  Or you have children and you're like, why can't you just do this?
• 6:14
  Why can't you just do this?
• 6:15
  Maybe this can give you some insight, or you have a friend with adhd, or maybe they don't know they do, but these kind of things happen.
• 6:23
  And as I learn more about adhd, there are things that I don't do that other people do or that I don't deal with.
• 6:30
  And yet it helps me have compassion for them or patience with them.
• 6:34
  You know, someone's not letting you talk at all.
• 6:39
  They're, you know, monopolizing the conversation or whatever.
• 6:43
  And sometimes that's, like, that might be okay, depending on how well you know the person.
• 6:49
  But if you're just getting to know them and that creates a feeling in you or you just feel this way of.
• 6:55
  They're not even interested in me.
• 6:56
  They just want to.
• 6:57
  They just want to talk.
• 6:58
  You know, they just want, you know, now that I know about adhd, more, and I've always known that I could have that tendency, but I try to have some kind of a balance with it.
• 7:10
  But it does help me be more patient, because not everyone has the awareness or just recognizes what they're doing or recognizes how it might impact another person.
• 7:20
  So, you know, it helps me be patient.
• 7:22
  But back to this unawareness of your body and why that can happen.
• 7:31
  Why you can run into a wall, bump into a corner, slam your finger in the door of a fridge, a car, you know, door, door, all kinds of things.
• 7:44
  I've shut the car door, a suburban door, on three of my fingers one time.
• 7:49
  Left hand swings the door shut.
• 7:51
  Right hand in the doorway of the driver's seat.
• 7:56
  It hurt.
• 7:57
  I mean, it actually shut all the way.
• 7:59
  My fingers were stuck.
• 8:00
  I had to open the door in pain and take my hand out.
• 8:05
  And I'm going like this with this hand, but it's actually the sand.
• 8:09
  But things like that.
• 8:10
  It's like, why?
• 8:11
  Like, why did I do that?
• 8:13
  Why did I not know?
• 8:14
  For years and years and years, depending on the car, Hitting my car, hitting my car, hitting my head at the top of the car.
• 8:22
  You know, like when you're getting out of the seat and there's the opening and you don't gauge it quite right, of lowering your head so you can get out of the car.
• 8:30
  I.
• 8:31
  Thankfully, the car that I'm in now, that doesn't happen.
• 8:34
  It's not the same ratio, but it's happened many times.
• 8:37
  It can hurt even fireplaces.
• 8:39
  It honestly makes me more, like, more cautious for everyone else.
• 8:47
  Like, oh, I don't want you to hit your head on the counter if you're, you know, like, if I've gone and cleaned the floor underneath and I stand up, I hit my head so hard on a granite or
• 8:56
  whatever kind of marble countertop we have, it hurts so bad.
• 9:01
  So I warn other people of that.
• 9:03
  Whether or not they have the awareness, I don't know.
• 9:04
  But I don't want to sound like, oh, watch out, watch out.
• 9:07
  You know, like.
• 9:08
  Like, I'm freaked out, but I don't want them to have the same things happen.
• 9:12
  But some things, you think you might realize it, right?
• 9:15
  Like, we have a mantle, fireplace, mantel, and it pokes out very pokey on the sides.
• 9:21
  I hit my head on that one time when we first moved here.
• 9:24
  So I changed things.
• 9:25
  I changed where the couch was, I changed where what I had in that cupboard.
• 9:29
  So if I was getting something out of the cupboard, I would not stand up in that way.
• 9:33
  I'd only kind of.
• 9:34
  Kind of come over from this side.
• 9:35
  And so I change a habit or a system to help with that.
• 9:39
  But a year or so later, like, it literally walked into that point.
• 9:43
  Like, it hit me right above the eye.
• 9:45
  Why didn't I see that?
• 9:47
  Like, what.
• 9:47
  What is going on there?
• 9:48
  So I wanted to look into that.
• 9:50
  And from what I've learned, it can be a combination of things.
• 9:54
  It can be executive dysfunction of thinking of one thing but not thinking of the other.
• 10:01
  So you might be thinking of what you need to do.
• 10:03
  Like, when I was on the floor, I was cleaning, I was thinking about that.
• 10:06
  I wasn't thinking of the awareness of what's above me.
• 10:09
  You know, even if I thought about it before, I might get down there and forget and clean for a little bit on the floor and stand up and hit it.
• 10:15
  Another thing can be your feedback in your mind of how far away things are and what you're sensing as you're walking around.
• 10:26
  And it's kind of interesting because we think of time blindness and not being able to assess very clearly what's happening in, in time where other people can.
• 10:38
  And time blindness and space blindness.
• 10:42
  And I don't know if space blindness is a term that experts use, but just let's just call it that.
• 10:48
  It's a physical distance, distance and, or even just a physical awareness.
• 10:54
  I don't even know when I run into things.
• 10:56
  It's not that I'm necessarily not perceiving the distance.
• 11:01
  I'm not even perceiving that that is there.
• 11:04
  Like if I run into the edge of my dresser, which I did this morning in the dark and ran and got ice cuz I bruised so easily.
• 11:11
  But if, if I did that, that was in the dark, so I'll give myself a pass on that.
• 11:15
  But, but you know, it's not like it hasn't happened when I was awake when I do that.
• 11:19
  It's not like I'm, I'm misjudging where the corner of that dresser is.
• 11:25
  I'm forgetting that there's a dresser there.
• 11:28
  I'm just walking.
• 11:29
  I've got, I've got something in my mind and I'm just gonna go do this and.
• 11:33
  Oh yeah, there's a dresser there.
• 11:35
  Oh yeah, there's, you know, there's those drawer handles in the kitchen.
• 11:39
  Some of them in our last kitchen, they come out really, really wide and they were probably from IKEA or something, the people who remodeled the kitchen before we moved in.
• 11:48
  But it had a couple inches of handle outside where the screws were.
• 11:52
  So it's this big long bar.
• 11:54
  And so many times it got stuck on the belt loop of my pants or who knows how it got stuck in.
• 12:01
  You know, like it caught, caught my clothing.
• 12:03
  You'd think I wouldn't walk so close to it, but I did.
• 12:06
  And so it can be, it can be for a lot of things.
• 12:11
  And with the time blindness, we might be thinking of what's happening right now and get sucked into it.
• 12:18
  Or we might get into a hyper focus mode and forget about what time we need to be somewhere or not estimate like what, what felt like it was only 10 minutes was actually 45 minutes.
• 12:30
  And you know, that's why alarms are so valuable is that we can hear that and go, oh, it's actually been 45 minutes.
• 12:38
  Really?
• 12:38
  I thought it was just 10, you know, and so what we're doing in the moment, in the now can prevent us from recognizing something else, like predicting time for later or, or something we're just, it's just not on
• 12:53
  our mind or it's just not accurate or even not predicting how many things you have to do like.
• 12:58
  Or not predicting or assessing correctly how many things you have to do in order to make that deadline of leaving the house or getting on the computer for a telehealth appointment or whatever it is.
• 13:10
  You might pack too many things in because you're not calculating it correctly.
• 13:15
  With the space blindness, you have what's right in front of you, what you see.
• 13:21
  And that might be like literal blinders.
• 13:23
  Like in the olden days, I mostly saw on cartoons and stuff, but they'd have.
• 13:26
  The horses have blinders so they couldn't see left or right, and they just go.
• 13:31
  And I feel like my brain does that sometimes.
• 13:35
  I'm just seeing point A, point B.
• 13:38
  I'm trying to get there.
• 13:39
  Not always rushing when I have an injury or something, but sometimes I am.
• 13:43
  Sometimes it's that impulse control problem of, like, I'm gonna do this and you just bolt.
• 13:49
  Or the hyperactivity, your body might move faster than you're aware of.
• 13:53
  We see that with children a lot.
• 13:54
  Right.
• 13:54
  They're jumping off of the couch.
• 13:55
  They're.
• 13:56
  They're doing all this stuff.
• 13:57
  They have all this energy, and you're like, slow down.
• 14:00
  And they think they're slowing down, but they're really not slowing down.
• 14:02
  And so that might play into it.
• 14:04
  If you have that.
• 14:06
  Those impulse and hyperactivity energy that just, you know, you have it in your mind, I'm going to do this.
• 14:13
  And you're doing it before you've even completed that thought.
• 14:16
  And so you're thinking of what you're thinking of, but you're not thinking of what else might hit your body or your body might hit it.
• 14:26
  The door frame, your shoulder.
• 14:30
  I've probably mentioned this before, but, you know, my husband never runs into things, and we've been married almost 39 years.
• 14:36
  Is that right?
• 14:36
  Yeah.
• 14:38
  And he asked me early on, like, why.
• 14:40
  Why do you run into things?
• 14:42
  And I said, I think my eyes just try to clear it.
• 14:45
  I think if I'm.
• 14:45
  If my eyes clear it, I'm good.
• 14:48
  And.
• 14:49
  But then, you know, I hit my eye before, so that threw that theory out the window.
• 14:53
  I think it's just not in my brain, you know, it's just I just not always having that awareness.
• 14:59
  So you might have a proprioception issue of not gauging the distance correctly.
• 15:06
  You might be moving in a way, like bolting, going too fast or something.
• 15:10
  That doesn't make it possible for you to clear that.
• 15:14
  You know, and honestly, that I think that's something too.
• 15:17
  If you have that impatience issue with ADHD of, like, I don't like to stand in line.
• 15:23
  I don't want to.
• 15:24
  Like, I cannot sit in traffic.
• 15:26
  I mean, obviously, if you have to, you have to.
• 15:27
  You know, I'd rather be changing lanes or even get off the main road and go somewhere else.
• 15:32
  You know, I don't just, like, I don't like taking longer to do something than I need to.
• 15:36
  And I've done that because my.
• 15:38
  My house, like, even this room with what I have set up to do this podcast, I might have to zigzag.
• 15:44
  That's not the closest way to walk from point A to point B to go zigzaggy.
• 15:50
  You know, when you can just do that angle.
• 15:52
  And that's one reason I think I've gotten hurt.
• 15:56
  And it might happen for you, or you might see your kids do that, where they just like, this is where I want to go.
• 16:00
  I'm going to go there.
• 16:02
  And they don't realize there's things on the right or the left or on the floor.
• 16:06
  I don't often look at the.
• 16:07
  I mean, I actually very often look at the floor, but if something else is on my mind, I won't see what's happening on the floor.
• 16:15
  And that's how I've broken my foot three times.
• 16:17
  Is.
• 16:17
  Well, and toes and things, you know, like, if you bash your small toe or your big toe, you usually run into something you didn't see unless something drops on it.
• 16:27
  But that's a reason because you're not.
• 16:32
  You're not clearing that.
• 16:33
  You're not looking to see.
• 16:35
  Where is that brick sticking out from that fireplace?
• 16:38
  I think I need to walk around a little bit more instead of just walking right in.
• 16:42
  It does not take much.
• 16:43
  Or the edge of a door that's open.
• 16:45
  My bathroom door.
• 16:47
  I've.
• 16:48
  Yeah.
• 16:48
  Bashed my toe in there.
• 16:49
  So if you've had all these injuries, the price that you paid more how your brain works or not works, and these are things that, you know, you could.
• 17:01
  You could learn more about it.
• 17:02
  You could try to come up with skills like, what do I do?
• 17:06
  I need to.
• 17:06
  I need to think before I act.
• 17:10
  I need to look where I'm going.
• 17:12
  And you will avoid a lot of this.
• 17:14
  Can you maintain that all the time?
• 17:17
  Maybe, if you have it to the degree that I do.
• 17:20
  Can you?
• 17:20
  I don't think you can.
• 17:21
  We went on this trip to Israel and Greece, and Greece was a small part of it.
• 17:27
  Probably mentioned this before, but I'm going to stop apologizing for repeating stories because it might be something A little different.
• 17:33
  And you might not remember, but when we went to Israel, I'd already broken my foot twice, same foot, right foot, and knew that I could roll that ankle pretty easily.
• 17:43
  It had been a while since I'd injured it.
• 17:45
  It was strong, but clearly I hadn't.
• 17:47
  I.
• 17:48
  I didn't do what I needed to do to learn about what was happening in the mechanics of my leg and my foot that made that so possible to roll my ankle again.
• 17:57
  But I did know that every time I did it, I was stepping off of something a little higher onto uneven ground.
• 18:03
  So everywhere I walked in Israel, we were there for over a week on kind of cobblestone, I don't know if they call it cobblestone pathways in old Jerusalem.
• 18:14
  And so it's not a flat cement, it's not a flat, you know, pavement or anything.
• 18:18
  It is, you know, like bumpy, bumpy, bumpy.
• 18:21
  And as you walk up or down, there are stairs and there are ramps, so you could do the stair or you could do the ramps on the side, if I'm remembering it correctly.
• 18:28
  And so if you're not watching that, you know, like, sometimes my brain will have a little glitch, like, forget what I'm doing when I'm walking downstairs.
• 18:37
  And so I've learned from the many times that I've not gauged, like, oh, I thought I was on the, like already at the bottom and I wasn't, or whatever, or not gauging how far out my footsteps as I'm
• 18:50
  walking down the stairs.
• 18:51
  We used to have a house that was two story with really thick carpet.
• 18:54
  And if my foot wasn't really mindful of how far out do I step before I come down, I would hit the edge of the step.
• 19:01
  Maybe you've done this before and you're on your back.
• 19:03
  And if you've ever fallen like that on the stairs, it's a rude awakening.
• 19:07
  It's like a shock.
• 19:08
  You're just going from walking to being hit on the back and it hurts really bad.
• 19:12
  I even did it in college, I think, on wooden stairs in an apartment.
• 19:16
  But it can happen more easily, I think, with carpet, because there's an edge of the carpet that's not actually the stair.
• 19:21
  It's like, it's like if you ever played on in a creek growing up, I don't know if you've ever played along a creek, but sometimes there would be little rocks or things or tufts of plants in the creek,
• 19:33
  and you go to hop across, not realizing that the dirt under it was smaller than the Grass coming up on it, you step on it, you slip off.
• 19:40
  But, yeah, there's a lot of things to figure out to be able to not fall.
• 19:45
  And for the most part, our brains work in a way that we can just sense it.
• 19:52
  We're just walking, and if we had to think about where our feet were every time we walked, it would be really difficult.
• 19:57
  It would take forever.
• 19:58
  We wouldn't be able to focus on other things or know what we're doing if we're like, okay, this foot needs to go here and this foot needs to go there.
• 20:06
  So if that's not how our brains are designed to work, if that's not how a brain usually works, if you're usually automatically able to do that, if it's a traditional stair, sometimes you go up some stairs and they're
• 20:19
  steeper.
• 20:19
  It's in an older house, it was a different standard.
• 20:21
  Or they're outside and it's really narrow, wide stairs.
• 20:25
  And you have to figure that out if you want to pay attention to it.
• 20:30
  If you think I could fall or you know that you do fall sometimes.
• 20:33
  I watched the Fade of Ophelia video with Taylor Swift, and in that scene where they're all in their.
• 20:39
  Their water and they're doing the kind of like the old.
• 20:42
  I don't know if it was the 50s or 40s or what era where people would do that kind of dancing.
• 20:47
  Like they were the.
• 20:49
  What do they call that?
• 20:50
  The.
• 20:50
  The swimmers, you know, the synchronized swimmers.
• 20:53
  But they're standing, you know, and.
• 20:55
  And she's got the.
• 20:55
  They've got the buoys and everything.
• 20:57
  And then she walks down the stairs with no railing, with high heels on, without looking at the stairs.
• 21:04
  And I know models do that and stuff, and maybe a lot of people do.
• 21:08
  I would totally trip, you know, like, I have to look at the stairs and other people don't have to think about it.
• 21:13
  Maybe she's thinking about it.
• 21:14
  She's also thinking of her words, you know, she's got to figure all that out.
• 21:17
  So what's happening in our veins?
• 21:18
  And why is it that sometimes, or a lot of the times people can just walk without thinking about it, and other times, if they don't think about it, they fall.
• 21:29
  And there used to be some joke of, you know, like, oh, this person's so uncoordinated, they can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
• 21:37
  And somehow that was funny, you know, the jokes from days gone by.
• 21:42
  But it's actually.
• 21:45
  There's actually a lot that's going on, and the neurotypical brain can keep track of this or a brain that's healthy.
• 21:54
  So as people age, as they get older, it could be that their body's getting weaker and their legs aren't moving at the same pace or whatever.
• 22:01
  But also their brains can be declining and, you know, signs of old age with a deterioration of the body can come that with the brain too.
• 22:11
  So people can fall more easily or just not be as strong to catch themselves.
• 22:16
  I've talked a lot before about when my brain is maxed out.
• 22:19
  And that's my way of saying that the cognitive load, what's being demanded of my brain in a moment is too much or I'm feeling more stressed.
• 22:34
  And when we have more stress, then the brain might not function as easily.
• 22:38
  And that is because we're processing other things.
• 22:40
  Like, oh no, somebody doesn't like me.
• 22:43
  They think I'm really crazy because I just dropped and broke a bottle of juice at the grocery store.
• 22:48
  Whatever you're thinking might make you drop your credit card when you go to get it out and do self checkout or whatever.
• 22:54
  The more pressure you put on yourselves or more messages that you're getting, or stress that your body is taking in or information that your body's taking in gives more cognitive load.
• 23:06
  You know, it's just like you're lifting weights and you're, you're somebody else handing you more and more and more.
• 23:10
  So it's got more weight, not just, you know, to carry, but it's just more responsibilities.
• 23:14
  It's not able to function as well.
• 23:18
  And we already have executive dysfunction, so it's like now we're at a greater disadvantage.
• 23:24
  So when a neurotypical brain, a brain that doesn't have adhd, call it neurotypical.
• 23:33
  Although I think that also applies to people who don't have autism.
• 23:36
  Is that right?
• 23:36
  Anyway, so I'm talking about people who don't have adhd.
• 23:41
  And from what I've read right now the estimation, estimation is that like 6% of people have ADHD.
• 23:51
  And that number could be higher, 8 to 10%, if we look at what experts guess maybe are people who are undiagnosed because there are so many women especially who don't know they have ADHD until they're adults.
• 24:06
  And there are even men who don't know they have ADHD until they're adults.
• 24:11
  And I have those statistics, one of these tabs on my computer, but where it is, I don't know.
• 24:16
  So I won't give you that information quite yet.
• 24:18
  But anyway, so neurotypical brain, ADHD brain.
• 24:22
  So you have three things going on in the brain, brain, when or functions or things that it's trying to do.
• 24:32
  When you're trying to walk through a room and maybe even hold something in your hand, and that could be something like your keys.
• 24:40
  You're coming back in the house with your keys, but you need to get something else.
• 24:43
  And then you get back out to the car and you don't have your keys.
• 24:45
  What did you do with what was in your hand?
• 24:48
  So you're trying to do different things, but you're not paying attention to all of them.
• 24:52
  But what you need to do when you're walking is understand what's around you.
• 24:58
  So your brain is monitoring.
• 25:01
  It's like a spatial mapping of, okay, there's a piano, there's a door.
• 25:05
  I'm going to walk somewhere where there's not a piano through the door and not into the door jam or something like that.
• 25:11
  And so you're building that picture so that you can walk through it.
• 25:15
  And this is just happening without you really having to think about it with the ADHD brain.
• 25:21
  And I've guessed for me is that your map may only just cover what's in front of your eyes.
• 25:27
  It may not be mapping what's on the floor to the side up above you.
• 25:33
  Your boundaries may be a lot closer in.
• 25:37
  Maybe you are aware of some things, but not where your shoulder's gonna hit or something like that or what's on the ground.
• 25:43
  But you're watching the other things.
• 25:45
  So your mapping isn't as complete when you're not able to walk through the room without dripping or running into something.
• 25:55
  And then there's the merging of these different senses or what your body's doing.
• 26:03
  So your body is seeing things.
• 26:06
  You have, I'm going to see something and then my body's going to know how to balance and my muscles will know how to work just on autopilot.
• 26:17
  And that'd be lovely, right?
• 26:18
  I'm just walking, I'm seeing, I'm balancing, and I know how much to lift my knee or my foot when I'm walking.
• 26:30
  And if the floor's stable and flat, then that usually works well, but not always.
• 26:36
  You know, you might trip on the floor without stepping off of something.
• 26:40
  Done that before, too, and just don't pick up my foot as high.
• 26:44
  Why?
• 26:44
  I don't know.
• 26:46
  But when you have adhd, you might have to use effort to sink those things.
• 26:54
  You might have to say consciously, oh, I need to make sure I don't run into that piano when I'M walking through this room and now I have to make sure that my feet are going around the piano bench
• 27:05
  leg because that actually goes lower by my foot.
• 27:07
  And you're taking in this information and it's no longer an autopilot function.
• 27:12
  It's something that's taking some brain power, right?
• 27:16
  But if your brain's somewhere else, like I need to hurry and go through the room and go answer the door or my phone's ringing and I don't want to miss it or whatever, that becomes your priority.
• 27:25
  Your brain is.
• 27:26
  That's where your cognitive load is.
• 27:27
  It's go, go, go, you know, and that's the priority.
• 27:31
  And then you're not able to pay attention to this.
• 27:34
  Or your priority is, I need to go in the house and I need to get this so I don't forget, you know, for 4th of July, I gotta get the stroller so it's easier to walk with the baby.
• 27:42
  What a great idea.
• 27:43
  It was a really great idea.
• 27:44
  We went to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July.
• 27:48
  What I didn't realize is I'd already started my son's car, had the keys in my hands, walked in the house, got the stroller, somehow put the keys on the kitchen counter on the way in.
• 27:58
  It must have been on the way in because that's on my right and I'm right handed, that's my guess.
• 28:01
  Got back out to the car, it was running, not used to the push button car.
• 28:05
  We drove a half hour away to 4, to the fireworks works on the 4th, got there, couldn't find the keys anywhere.
• 28:11
  And that's not unusual.
• 28:12
  I have adhd, my daughter in law has adhd.
• 28:15
  My son wasn't there.
• 28:16
  So it was, the two of us were in charge.
• 28:18
  We're the ones that are like keeping it all together.
• 28:21
  So we're like, did I misplace the keys?
• 28:23
  Do we even remember what happened?
• 28:25
  And so we rehearsed, you know.
• 28:27
  Well, you had the keys in your hand.
• 28:29
  I saw you waving them like this when you went in the house.
• 28:32
  I wasn't waving them to say I have the keys.
• 28:34
  I was waving because I wave my hands all the time when I talk.
• 28:36
  And I'm like, I'm just going in there.
• 28:37
  So I'm waving my hand, she sees the keys.
• 28:39
  I don't feel the keys.
• 28:40
  I'm not noticing the keys.
• 28:41
  I don't know, they're in my hands.
• 28:44
  You know, if it was a car that didn't have a push button, those keys would have been in the car.
• 28:48
  But that's what I'm used to, right?
• 28:50
  So that was a new thing for me to take in.
• 28:52
  Wasn't taking it in why I put it down.
• 28:54
  Maybe I thought, I don't want to drop the keys while I grab the stroller, but have no memory of that.
• 28:58
  And how many times have you put something down that you have no memory of it?
• 29:02
  Whether it's keys, sunglasses, phone, all the things that you misplace, AirPods, whatever.
• 29:09
  Where did I put that?
• 29:10
  I had it.
• 29:11
  I.
• 29:12
  In fact, I just coming in here to finish this episode.
• 29:16
  I had to stop partway through because my grandson called and wanted to play Yahtzee.
• 29:20
  So we played two rounds.
• 29:22
  Now it is a couple hours later.
• 29:23
  But I started out with trying to film again with the.
• 29:28
  With the glasses I had on before, and they were giving me a headache.
• 29:31
  And so I had to find these.
• 29:32
  I have four pairs with this prescription.
• 29:35
  I couldn't find any of them.
• 29:37
  And then I finally went through every purse, every bag and found these.
• 29:40
  Now I have one out of four.
• 29:42
  That's why I have so many.
• 29:45
  Oh, yeah, that ADHD tax of the price of having adhd.
• 29:48
  The reason my other glasses give me headaches is because I got confused when I was taking the test, the eye exam.
• 29:58
  Took me three times to find glasses that pretty much worked.
• 30:02
  But then I went back and found my old prescription, which is this works better.
• 30:07
  So, yeah, who knows why I can't pass a vision exam anymore?
• 30:13
  I'm so overthinking it.
• 30:14
  It's horrible.
• 30:16
  So, okay, so, okay, that's only two of the things that our brains have to do is a spatial mapping.
• 30:22
  Taking in the senses and getting them to work together.
• 30:25
  They've got to integrate.
• 30:26
  You've got to see what's around you.
• 30:29
  You've got to get your muscles to sense what they're doing.
• 30:32
  How far down do I step on a staircase?
• 30:35
  And that's something that's kind of scared me over the years, is most of the time I have no problem sensing that.
• 30:43
  But every once in a while, one of my feet doesn't quite know.
• 30:47
  Like, I.
• 30:47
  I stop mid step and think, wait, am I stepping correctly?
• 30:51
  And.
• 30:52
  And I almost don't step right.
• 30:53
  And who knows what's going on there?
• 30:56
  But yeah, overthinking.
• 30:58
  Okay.
• 30:58
  The other thing is the filtering of your senses.
• 31:03
  So you're always taking in information through your senses, and you're filtering what's important and what's not.
• 31:12
  Your target is to get somewhere.
• 31:15
  And is this relevant?
• 31:16
  When I'm passing, do I need to make a change?
• 31:20
  Is it an obstacle?
• 31:22
  Is it an actual obstacle or is it not?
• 31:24
  Do you ever see something that, that's in the room, like something that moves and you think, oh, there's like a spider going across the room or something.
• 31:34
  And sometimes it is.
• 31:35
  Another time it's just a shadow because a car goes by or something and a reflection comes through the window and you think, oh.
• 31:42
  Or you think somebody's in the room.
• 31:44
  So you take in these senses and you take in this information through your senses.
• 31:49
  That's my vision, seeing that.
• 31:51
  Or you hear a sound, you hear an alarm or something on a phone and you think, oh, that's mine.
• 31:55
  You're in a store and you're like, oh, actually that's not mine.
• 31:57
  So you're deciding is that relevant in it or not?
• 31:59
  You're making a decision if it's something that you need to act upon, act differently because of, or if it's not relevant and figuring out what's, you know, what's going to impact you or what you don't have to pay
• 32:17
  attention to.
• 32:18
  And it's important because there's so, so much information coming in and we've got to learn to let go of some of it and not worry about it all.
• 32:24
  Or take forever to walk through a room.
• 32:26
  Right?
• 32:26
  We need to get somewhere.
• 32:28
  And then the last thing is not only the muscle movement and engagement and, and our surrounding to, you know, like our muscle sensing what's there, but also the fine tuning of it is how much force do I use
• 32:47
  when I step down and, and when do I put the brakes on it?
• 32:52
  When do I stop stepping down?
• 32:54
  You know what I mean?
• 32:54
  Like, you've got to use a certain force to go down and then you have to have some little, you know, to come back to end that step.
• 33:01
  And you're just talking about going down steps.
• 33:03
  And if you've ever misjudged that and thought a step was shorter and come off of it, it's a, whoo.
• 33:14
  You know, you've got way too much momentum because your body's predicting the momentum.
• 33:17
  It's, it's, it's using that force and that stopping.
• 33:21
  And if there's more fly through the, through the airspace, you're going to have more momentum.
• 33:27
  And done that a few times.
• 33:29
  Not to the point of falling, but that's happened a few times.
• 33:35
  And then my daughter had the opposite happen where she jumped into the cement fish hatchery pool that didn't have water in it.
• 33:44
  And we were playing along it and the kids were playing.
• 33:47
  We're walking around seeing the fish, but this one was just empty.
• 33:51
  And she went to jump and thought that it was deeper than it was and broke her foot.
• 33:59
  And it just, you know, she had too much momentum for that cement.
• 34:04
  And that can happen.
• 34:05
  You know, you can see that in a swimming pool when somebody doesn't know how deep it is and you jump or even it could be just jumping off of the.
• 34:12
  A rock or something into the water.
• 34:14
  And, you know, if you, if you have more space and, you know I'm going to come down with this force, you can kind of gauge it.
• 34:19
  I'm not a rock jumper, but I have done a few rope swings in my day a long time ago.
• 34:27
  So just paying attention to what you're doing isn't always helpful.
• 34:34
  It can be helpful, and it does take a lot of brain power to.
• 34:40
  To think.
• 34:40
  Okay.
• 34:40
  And if you're just walking down steps, you know, stairs don't last forever.
• 34:44
  So, like, you know, watching what you're doing or like I said, I went to Israel and was constantly watching my steps and where I was landing because I thought, don't want an injury.
• 34:55
  Don't want that to happen.
• 34:56
  Climbed up rocks at.
• 34:58
  What's it called, the Parthenon, The Acropolis in Athens, and slippery rocks.
• 35:05
  It's.
• 35:05
  There's marble rocks there.
• 35:07
  Mountains, and even just the streets and the sidewalks are marble.
• 35:11
  In the summertime, when it's hot, and it wasn't hot then, but I'd been there once before in the summertime, it can be really slippery, and it can even be slippery when it's not hot, but for some reason, when
• 35:21
  it's hot, it was more slippery, But I was mindful of that, so I was paying attention.
• 35:25
  I was.
• 35:27
  I probably did save myself some injuries, so I should pat myself on the back for that.
• 35:30
  But at the end of the trip, on the last day in Greece, stepped off of a curb, not looking, and that's when I broke my foot the third time.
• 35:37
  So that you can.
• 35:38
  You can pay attention a thousand times, and one time, you don't.
• 35:41
  You know, there's no insurance for that.
• 35:43
  You.
• 35:44
  You just can't always pay attention to it.
• 35:47
  And why is that?
• 35:49
  So that's another thing to think about is it's not just.
• 35:53
  It's not just that you have too much.
• 35:56
  Too much going on at once, but it's just that you're, You're.
• 36:00
  Well, maybe you do have too much going on at once, but you have to prioritize what you're thinking about at times or if you have a lot of Energy and impulse.
• 36:10
  You're not thinking about anything.
• 36:12
  You're just doing it without thinking.
• 36:14
  And that can happen, too.
• 36:16
  I was in Target once at Christmas time, looking at ornaments with my daughter and decided to go around a corner of the aisle and leap.
• 36:26
  Why?
• 36:27
  Why did I leap?
• 36:28
  I.
• 36:29
  I don't know if I leaped, but it felt like it.
• 36:31
  You know, I went to.
• 36:32
  To go fast and with a big step, didn't clear the corner.
• 36:36
  Maybe that's when I was leaping.
• 36:38
  I flew.
• 36:40
  Flew and kind of landed on my hands, but didn't break anything.
• 36:46
  That time just drew a lot of attention.
• 36:48
  And I thought, yeah, this is what it's like being me.
• 36:52
  Why?
• 36:52
  Why?
• 36:52
  Why?
• 36:53
  Okay, so there's a certain percentage of your brain that often pays attention to something to get it to work well.
• 37:05
  And if you do something like.
• 37:07
  Like, let's say you're.
• 37:08
  Let's take away the impulse of just, I gotta do this.
• 37:11
  But if you have accidents or something because something else is on your mind, because it takes more thought to do what you're doing, then.
• 37:21
  Then that could be the reason that you're bumping into things or something.
• 37:24
  Because let's.
• 37:25
  Let's just take the example of you're doing laundry.
• 37:30
  You think, I need some dish soap, because dish soap takes out the oil stains, and I don't have any in here.
• 37:35
  I'm going to go into the kitchen, I'm going to get the dish soap.
• 37:38
  So you go into the kitchen to get the dish soap, and you take in new information.
• 37:42
  You're in the kitchen now somebody else is in there.
• 37:45
  That might be a distraction, or you're hungry, or you think, oh, yeah, I made toast earlier and I totally forgot about it.
• 37:50
  It's in the toaster.
• 37:51
  You know, like, whatever it is, you're taking in new information, and you've already forgotten why you came in the kitchen.
• 37:58
  You might even remember you were doing laundry.
• 38:00
  But you come in there and you think, why did I come in here?
• 38:02
  I can't think of anything in here that I would need.
• 38:05
  I was just doing laundry.
• 38:07
  And you go back in there, and then you think, I need to go get the dish soap.
• 38:13
  And maybe telling yourself that again, you might remember it, but you might need help.
• 38:18
  You might need to say, like, out loud to yourself, dish soap.
• 38:23
  Dish soap.
• 38:23
  Dish.
• 38:23
  You know, whatever it is, you know, I'm going to get the dish soap.
• 38:26
  Or you might, you know, just bring something with you that helps you remember, I don't know, the shirt or whatever that you need that has the oil stains.
• 38:33
  And because you're using more of your brain activity to do that.
• 38:39
  Then you might not notice a corner that you bump into or something.
• 38:42
  So, yeah, there can be a lot of reasons that, that things don't work out well.
• 38:52
  And that's not even talking about the dropping parts.
• 38:55
  So maybe you don't trip, maybe you don't get hurt, but maybe you break things.
• 38:59
  Maybe things fall out of your hands or you put them down without thinking about it, like, you know, the keys or whatever.
• 39:04
  That's probably a more common one.
• 39:06
  But if you spill things, like, a lot of times I'll be carrying around a cup without a lid, which I should probably outlaw love for myself.
• 39:13
  But if I'm carrying a cup without.
• 39:15
  With a lit.
• 39:15
  Without a lid on into another room, I might remember that I have something in my hand long enough, like to hold onto it and not drop it.
• 39:25
  But I might see something on the floor and not planning to bend over, but I see something on the floor and I think, oh, I should pick that up and take it in this room because I'm on my
• 39:35
  way in there.
• 39:36
  Gotta, you know, gotta make use of every moment and keep things clean.
• 39:39
  And so I lean over, forgetting that this mug's in my hand that has liquid and I've spilled it.
• 39:45
  And so then I'm like, oh, no.
• 39:47
  You know, and that's another consequence is having to clean things up or just letting get go of the grip.
• 39:58
  And not only have you dropped the, you know, spilled the water or whatever it was, but you've also broken the glass.
• 40:04
  And I mentioned that, like with the, with the.
• 40:08
  The butter and the microwave and all that stuff is that sometimes we're just not processing everything fast enough.
• 40:15
  Like, oh, this is hot.
• 40:16
  I should.
• 40:17
  Or I should test it.
• 40:18
  You know, like we're not taking those precautions.
• 40:20
  With the example of me getting better out of the microwave and it was hot and I grabbed it too tight and then dropped it.
• 40:29
  You know, maybe I could have tested it first.
• 40:30
  I could have thought it through or whatever.
• 40:32
  And I've gotten better out before without a problem.
• 40:35
  But that time maybe I just was grabbing with a different part of my hand.
• 40:38
  I don't know.
• 40:40
  I don't know.
• 40:40
  I don't know.
• 40:41
  I don't know.
• 40:42
  But I want to find that information to share.
• 40:48
  I feel like when I am reading this, I'm like fascinated by it.
• 40:52
  But then I don't really like to get into the nitty gritty of the brain bandwidth, the brain power, or how it all works.
• 41:03
  There's a little example here that I Can share without getting too technical because I, I get bored with the technical and, and my eyes glaze over a little bit.
• 41:11
  But you have your cognitive lobe, you have what your brain is doing and you have your body's ability to move, Whether it's to balance, to hold on to something, to let go of it, to not grip too tight
• 41:27
  or whatever.
• 41:28
  Different things can happen.
• 41:29
  You can grip too tight and break something, you know, like crunch a water bottle or something.
• 41:34
  Not that that would be a problem, but it could spill something if you're, you know, squeezing it too tight and it's open.
• 41:40
  Sometimes when your brain is doing something like, I can't forget this, I can't forget this.
• 41:44
  I need to run in the house and do this.
• 41:45
  I can't believe, you know, we're in a hurry.
• 41:48
  So you have all this stuff going on.
• 41:50
  Your working memory is rehearsing and it's trying to do things.
• 41:55
  And then you might not be sure where it is, or you think you know where it is and you have to be able to go in and look for it.
• 42:03
  So you have the working memory working.
• 42:05
  Let's say like 80% or 95% of your brain bandwidth is just like, this is the biggest thing that I need to do right now is to make sure I don't forget this.
• 42:14
  I need to go in and do this.
• 42:16
  And, and, and maybe you have other ideas coming up.
• 42:18
  Or you might be thinking, the people in the car are upset, or I'm going to be lame.
• 42:22
  Like you're taking all that other stuff that your brain wants to do and you're thinking, not now, I gotta focus on this.
• 42:27
  And you're doing that.
• 42:28
  And then you also have to look for it.
• 42:30
  So that takes some energy.
• 42:33
  Maybe you know where it is, maybe you don't.
• 42:34
  So that takes more energy.
• 42:37
  While you're doing all that, your body's got to know how to hold on to what's in your hand.
• 42:42
  Do you have a water bottle?
• 42:43
  Did you not put the lid down on the water bottle all the way while you were getting ready really quickly to go out the door?
• 42:49
  And it either tilts, you spill, you let go of it, it falls.
• 42:56
  Who knows, you know, you run into stuff and so not being aware of what's in your hand or holding your hand correctly can happen.
• 43:05
  It can happen and it seems like it shouldn't.
• 43:06
  And I, sometimes I feel like when I'm talking about these things, the only one who deals with it.
• 43:12
  But I mean, this week alone, I've already had a couple times I'm Taking my ADHD medicine occasion and not having my hand closed all the way, and it.
• 43:23
  And it falls through my finger and falls on the floor.
• 43:26
  And then I'm like.
• 43:27
  And then I go to get it, and then maybe I spill the water because I've got water in my hand ready to take the pill, or I have the pill in my hand.
• 43:37
  I decide, let's go ahead and multitask while we're at it, and let's get some other supplements.
• 43:42
  Let's get my Quercetin or whatever for my allergies.
• 43:46
  And my thing that helps me.
• 43:48
  I don't know what it's called, it helps me not get leg cramps at night or whatever, some other supplement that, you know, you read about.
• 43:54
  And so I have these in my mind, in my hand, someone in my mind.
• 43:59
  And I get my water and I take them, and, you know, that's a win.
• 44:03
  And then five minutes later, I look on the floor and there's my.
• 44:05
  My ADHD pill.
• 44:07
  And I know it's not from yesterday or anything.
• 44:10
  I don't have a memory.
• 44:11
  And I didn't actually see it go in my mouth, but I thought I took it because I took the other things, you know, take, take, take.
• 44:16
  And I'm not really super paying attention to it, but I see it on the floor and it fell out of my hand.
• 44:21
  So why wasn't my hand paying attention enough to, like, do this.
• 44:25
  Get this.
• 44:26
  Get this in your mouth and swallow and swallow without doing it too fast so you don't choke on the water?
• 44:33
  Oh, yeah.
• 44:35
  There's a lot to coordinate if for some reason it's not coming natural to you.
• 44:41
  And, you know, it can be humorous at times, but it's.
• 44:47
  It can also make you later because you have to clean something up now or you have to change your shirt.
• 44:51
  And I actually spilled on my shirt earlier, actually, in here, wasn't the shirt, but I had a different shirt on.
• 44:59
  And I came in here and I had a Zevia soda.
• 45:02
  You know, the.
• 45:03
  I mean, it's probably Zevia, but sweetened with stevia.
• 45:06
  I had it in here from last week, and I seen it in here since then, and I thought, you should take that and, you know, put it in recycling.
• 45:14
  But I didn't.
• 45:15
  And so today I thought, you know, take.
• 45:17
  And then I even wondered, like the other day, like, maybe it's not empty.
• 45:20
  And I thought, no, I would.
• 45:21
  I would have, like, drinking it all.
• 45:23
  But sometimes it doesn't all fit in the cup, you know, because it bubbles up.
• 45:26
  And so I have to do it a couple times.
• 45:28
  So anyway, so today I thought, pick that up and take it out of here.
• 45:33
  And then the glimpse of a thought, what if it's not empty?
• 45:37
  And I thought, I'm sure it's empty.
• 45:39
  So I pick it up, tipping it to get it out of this little shelf.
• 45:42
  And sure enough, it's spilled on like three things.
• 45:48
  So why do we overgrip or under grip?
• 45:50
  Do you even care anymore?
• 45:52
  Do you want to know about this stuff?
• 45:54
  But you, when you hold on to something, have you been stressed and like girded your teeth and your shoulders come up?
• 46:03
  And the same thing can happen in your hands that you can over grip.
• 46:07
  When you're stressed or holding onto the steering wheel in a stressful situation and your fingernails are digging into your hands, that can happen without even thinking about it.
• 46:16
  So it's like a white knuckle grip or an over gripping, an under gripping.
• 46:22
  Who knows why that happens?
• 46:24
  Like we can't pay attention to holding on, so we don't hold on.
• 46:28
  So this is what I read is that part of your brain stops receiving updates from how much pressure you have in your fingertips.
• 46:39
  Your brain is receiving that information to know how to hold on to something, to hold onto your phone, your brain is helping you know how much to hold on, how much to grip it and where to hold on.
• 46:50
  And you can feel it in your hand, but your brain is doing that.
• 46:53
  It's all part of this nervous system and into your fingertips.
• 46:57
  And you think that when you're holding on to stuff all the time, that you'll keep doing it at that pace because you know how to do it.
• 47:05
  How hard can it be?
• 47:05
  Like, I've learned how to hold things my whole life.
• 47:07
  Like I know how to do that.
• 47:08
  But when your mind goes somewhere else and it has to focus on this other task or your brain power, you know, your cognitive load, however you want to phrase it, goes into a new mode.
• 47:19
  Your hand muscles might just relax and gravity takes it away.
• 47:24
  You know, my, my phone here has a loopy.
• 47:26
  I don't know if you know about loopy cases.
• 47:31
  There's some negatives to it.
• 47:32
  Like I can't go flat against something.
• 47:34
  And then my magnet didn't fit right and I had to like put some angular magnet on there.
• 47:40
  Like I can't put it in a normal phone holder because this thing's in the way, but I can slide my hand through it and I can hold it more effortlessly and I have to hold it all the time.
• 47:50
  When I'm teaching my yoga classes to you know, just have it.
• 47:53
  One hand to switch the music or whatever, because, you know, impulse control problems.
• 47:56
  I feel like doing another song or, you know, just having that spontaneity in your.
• 48:00
  In your body.
• 48:01
  I don't know if it's an impulse thing, but it's definitely a.
• 48:05
  You know, I need to do something a little different here and there.
• 48:09
  I want to do this now.
• 48:09
  I want to do that now.
• 48:10
  You know, it's kind of that energy.
• 48:12
  So what about the white knuckle grip?
• 48:15
  Why would your brain subconsciously hold tighter?
• 48:19
  Well, I already gave it, you know, a clue with the driving, and it's stressful when you're more in a panicking mode.
• 48:28
  You might just contract things, you know, your shoulders, your mouth, your hands.
• 48:34
  And so you may have something in your hand that you don't realize, and you're, you know.
• 48:39
  You know, now you're spraying liquid or whatever it might be.
• 48:43
  It might not be that, but you might actually break something from grabbing it too hard or because you're squeezing tight or you're not holding it quite right, and it.
• 48:49
  And it falls and it breaks.
• 48:51
  So lots of things, but yeah.
• 48:54
  So what can you do?
• 48:55
  Can you pay attention to your hands at all times?
• 48:58
  Maybe not, but I have attempted that, and I.
• 49:00
  And I've learned a few skills, like.
• 49:03
  Like when I hold a bowl, not just to hold it from the top, because if your grip isn't quite perfect the whole time and you just barely let go, you're holding it from the top, it's just gonna drop.
• 49:14
  So I always have a finger under the bowl and a couple fingers on top.
• 49:18
  And I even try to do that with, like, a cup or a mug or something if I can, you know, I have some little awareness and a little plan, you know, and you might do that with things that
• 49:31
  you might drop or if you drop anything.
• 49:35
  And trying to focus harder doesn't always work when your brain is needed to be doing it something else, but it might help some of the time.
• 49:44
  And so what can you do to help?
• 49:48
  Maybe you can let go of something else that you're required to do, maybe even physically.
• 49:53
  Sometimes I'm carrying so many things and I think, put all this stuff down and use both of your hands to do this one task instead of trying to do it all with this one hand and, you know, like,
• 50:05
  put something on the hood of your car while you're doing that, because inevitably I'll drop things or, you know, just end up with a bigger disaster.
• 50:17
  Oh, yeah, putting the mug down.
• 50:20
  Even if you don't remember where it is later, even if you can't take a mental picture of it at the time.
• 50:26
  A lot of times we do that without thinking about it.
• 50:28
  But you, you know, I gotta put this down.
• 50:30
  And if you have a habit of.
• 50:31
  I'm gonna only do this one thing with both hands.
• 50:35
  I need to make sure, you know, I'm.
• 50:37
  I'm aware of what I'm doing.
• 50:39
  I'm giving more attention to it or not trying to take a responsibility like carry something else, then that can help.
• 50:44
  And then.
• 50:45
  Yeah.
• 50:45
  Using lids.
• 50:47
  Using lids.
• 50:48
  Using lids.
• 50:50
  Oh, my goodness.
• 50:51
  Okay, so I guess the bottom line here is anything that you can do to simplify your process.
• 50:59
  Sometimes you have so many ideas going on in your mind of what you need to do and try to maximize it, and you can't think of all those things at once.
• 51:08
  And even if it's just before you take a step to do something, look what's in your hand or, you know, just scan your surroundings or something.
• 51:19
  If you can get yourself to slow down just a bit, then that can help.
• 51:23
  Or take things out of your hands so that you can use your hands to do something else.
• 51:27
  If you tend to drop things like I do.
• 51:30
  I was thinking about it with.
• 51:32
  I mentioned taking my medicine, and a lot of times I find my ADHD medicine.
• 51:36
  Well, I know I'm dropping it or I find it on the floor.
• 51:40
  Thankfully, I clean the floors before my grandchildren come over, so that won't be a problem.
• 51:45
  But I realized that after talking about this, that holding the supplements, you know, supplements are usually in those veggie caps.
• 51:54
  Holding those and my ADHD medicine, which is really tiny.
• 51:59
  At the same time, I have to use my fingers to hold the bigger things.
• 52:03
  And then it opens up my.
• 52:05
  The space between my fingers where the other one can fall through, which makes sense.
• 52:09
  And making a cup to hold everything instead of just using my fingers to hold medicine.
• 52:14
  Oh, some people put it in the palm of their hand.
• 52:16
  I've never done that.
• 52:17
  You know, like put it in your palm of your hand, use your other finger.
• 52:19
  Fingers to pick it up.
• 52:20
  I just realized, you know, when you have memories of like, I've seen other people do this.
• 52:25
  I never thought to do it myself.
• 52:27
  Yeah, life, life, life, huh?
• 52:29
  But just full disclosure here.
• 52:31
  I recorded this a couple days ago and went to edit it yesterday and found that the end of it was missing.
• 52:39
  So if it feels a little choppy, that's why I'm just coming back on here.
• 52:44
  Probably different earrings and a slightly different black shirt on.
• 52:48
  But.
• 52:49
  But Basically, if you're finding yourself bumping into things, dropping things, having that consequence, that adhd, tax, whatever it is, B, getting injured or dropping things, breaking things, running into things, spilling things, understanding why that your brain can't possibly
• 53:11
  do it all and it can't be mindful of where you put things in the process.
• 53:15
  It just can't.
• 53:16
  And even a neurotypical brain might struggle with it, but they also might not have so many ideas coming in wrap of fire that you just think, oh, and then I'll go over here and oh, I forgot to get
• 53:28
  a drink too, or whatever it is that's in your daily life.
• 53:32
  I know mine.
• 53:33
  The things that I forget, the things that I drop, the things that, that I tend to be doing.
• 53:39
  And then sometimes it could be something totally different.
• 53:41
  You just don't know.
• 53:42
  But be patient with yourself, recognize these things happen.
• 53:47
  It's not that you're awful or not working hard enough at it.
• 53:53
  I mean, a lot of these things just happen when we have so much going on that we can't prevent it.
• 53:58
  And other times we can be more mindful.
• 54:00
  And in those moments I can go, oh, yeah, should I really be running?
• 54:05
  Maybe I'll slow down.
• 54:06
  You know, you think of little children at the swimming pool and you always say, you know, slow down or walk or don't run or whatever it is.
• 54:13
  Just give yourselves the same message of not going as fast or just noticing what's in my hand right now.
• 54:19
  Should I have it all in my hands or should I put some of it in my purse?
• 54:22
  Should I put some of it down?
• 54:24
  Hopefully you'll find it later.
• 54:26
  We can't pay attention to everything, but just knowing that can help you hopefully either strategize or give yourself a little pass when it doesn't go as well as you'd planned.
• 54:40
  And I guess that's it for now, really and truly.
• 54:44
  And who knows what happened to the end of my last recording.
• 54:48
  I must have accidentally hit finish.
• 54:50
  But it actually, it gives you.
• 54:52
  Oh, I guess it doesn't.
• 54:53
  I thought that if you hit finish, it would say, are you sure?
• 54:57
  And then pause is different.
• 54:58
  Maybe I went to hit pause and hit finish.
• 55:01
  Who knows?
• 55:03
  Who knows?
• 55:03
  Giving myself a pass on that one too.
• 55:07
  But I'll be back.
• 55:09
  I feel like I'll be more consistent right now because I know I'm going to be gone a lot.
• 55:13
  My daughter's getting married in a week or six days and then the following weekend we're going down to Miami again.
• 55:19
  Or more wedding, post wedding things.
• 55:23
  And then there's a lot of birthdays and then there's Halloween.
• 55:27
  So it's making me.
• 55:28
  I guess that's what it's like, right?
• 55:30
  When we know, like people are coming or we have some reason to be more structured, then sometimes we are more structured.
• 55:37
  Hopefully, huh?
• 55:40
  Yeah.
• 55:40
  I guess that's it for now.
• 55:41
  I'm so excited about my next topics because I've been looking into a lot more and hopefully I'll be in a I'll be able to deliver it in a way that makes sense to you because I know my brain
• 55:53
  can go everywhere.
• 55:55
  Thank you.
• 55:55
  Thank you.
• 55:56
  I will be back again.
• 55:58
  Until then, feel free to reach out to me.
• 55:59
  Go to my website, renee-allen.com and I'll be back again.
• 56:03
  Bye.
• 56:05
  Help other women find the show Rate Review Share with someone you know Help other women find my show Rate Review Share with someone you know Hurry before you forget Open windows broken and shadow Frozen dreams are left for
• 56:32
  tomorrow.
• 56:57
  Rewind I've run out of time to sing melodies and harmonies I'm cut short the silence of sound has yet been found but not by me.