How would you define self-esteem? The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “belief and confidence in your own ability and value.” No definition of self-esteem ever satisfied me because I cannot answer this simple question: Which one is the self, the one judging, or the one being judged? Where did the judging self come from anyway? Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki described the judging self as “extra.” “It is like having a head on top of the head,” he said. “You don’t need the extra head.”

I don’t believe the problem of “low self-esteem” is about judging oneself negatively. I think the real problem is the creation of a judging self. Allow me to contrast what it means to judge your value and abilities (the self) on the one hand, and your performance on the other. They’re not the same.

First, why would you question your value? Unless you believe that some people are born without value, how could you have no value? What does having no value look like? What is the value of questioning your value? I suppose my life may lose value when I’m breathing my last breaths, but I don’t think I will be too concerned about it then. I’ll get back to you on that!

What does it mean to “have confidence in your abilities” as some dictionaries define self-esteem. You may feel confident when observing a particular skill you have, but the action of recognizing an ability is observing. You may feel confident about one ability and be confident that you lack another. If you are aware of your abilities, and those you don’t possess, what is there to question? You can develop abilities, and you can accommodate for those you lack.

If you don’t read music, you can learn how. If you have a learning disability that makes it nearly impossible to learn how to read music, you can dedicate your time to another hobby, or do as my mom did and learn to play piano by ear. I can say that I’m confident in my knowledge of grammar. I’m equally confident that I have a poor memory and have learned not to rely on it. I rely on tools and strategies instead…and other people.

Evaluating performance is different from judging the self. It has a function. If you began music lessons last week, you are not going to play a recital this week, but you and your teacher will be evaluating your progress weekly. Evaluating progress helps you know how to allocate time for studying and practicing. You are not judging your value or your abilities when learning something new, you are simply observing progress in your skill development as you proceed from one lesson to the next.

Here is my suggestion for what to do about the judging self. The moment you notice that you are constructing a judging self, just observe that you’re doing it…without judgment…and say to yourself, “There’s that.” Say no more. Don’t say, “Oh, there is that damn judge again; why do I do that to myself?” That is judging. Acceptance of a tendency or an inclination is more informative and useful than self-criticism.

Saying “there’s that” allows you to simply notice the judging self. It prompts awareness that you are capable of dividing yourself into two selves. The bottom line is this: you can question your value and your abilities, or you can silence the judge.

It has always bothered me that many people, doctors included, tend to view anything that deviates from the typical as being abnormal or broken. The common medical perception of synesthesia illustrates this perfectly. Doctors don’t generally say, “This is an incredible gift; how can we give it to other people?” Instead, they say, ‘What went wrong in this poor fellow’s head, and how can we fix him? — from John Elder Robison’s book, Switched On: A memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening (2016).

Synesthesia is a rare neurological phenomenon where the stimulation of one sense produces sensations in another. Robison could “see” sound waves that corresponded with the sound he was hearing. That ability made him an exceptional sound engineer for the rock group Kiss. He tells the reader that when one’s competence is exceptional, people will overlook differences as eccentricities. 

Coincidentally, I read the above quotation from Switched On a few days after writing “Don’t Fix Me” (Last week’s blog). Robison is on the autism spectrum and has been extraordinarily successful in multiple careers: sound engineer, inventor of toys, corporate executive, auto mechanic, shop owner, photographer, author, speaker. There are few people like him. Most of us will never achieve a fraction of what he has achieved. Despite his successes, he had significant social problems and has important things to say on behalf of individuals living with a neurological difference. His willingness to be different was a liberating quaility. 

I’ve read John Robison’s books and heard him speak in Nashville six years ago about his eventful life as an Aspie (his name for persons with what we used to call Asperger’s Syndrome). His books are informative, entertaining, and well written. Look Me in the Eye is an autobiographical story and his first book. He followed with Be Different and Raising Cubby (Cubby is his son).

Switched On is a New York Times bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. It is a good read that informs the reader not only about TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) and its effects on autism, but about how our brains work. The perpetually curious Robison started researching the science and interviewing the researchers while a TMS research subject. This book is an interesting update to his personal story, and I recommend it. 

I recently caught the end of a radio interview with someone whose wheelchair mobility was limited by lack of access to buildings in the community. To those who thought his disability needed to be fixed, he said, “Don’t fix me; fix my environment.”

The disability of ADHD is invisible to most people. The presumption that my less visible disability needs to be fixed is offensive. Here is what I wish to say to those who want to fix me: “Fix your presumptions about me instead.”

Someone recently wanted to fix the pace of my deliberation over a major decision, which was more in his interest than mine. “You have trouble making decisions,” he said. During that same period, more than one person said to me, “Don’t rush a big decision just because someone else wants you to.” I don’t think the first person intended to shame me. He just didn’t understand me and didn’t know that I’m accustomed to being misperceived (Still, being “invisible” doesn’t hurt less just because it is familiar).

My invisible disability puts me at risk for being manipulated. I protect myself by kindling the fire and poking the logs longer than most might in similar situations. I’m not insensitive to the effect on others, but my first priority is to make wise decisions. Once I’ve burned it all up, I’m resolute and ready to move on. My pace doesn’t need to be fixed.

Adults with ADHD encounter other adults who want to fix them. That often includes their spouses and even some well-meaning mental health professionals. You wish that others would be more willing to understand you. But first things first: You need to understand and accept it before expecting others to. That includes understanding and accepting its effects on others. Then maybe…just maybe, they will be more inclined to try to understand you instead of tyring to fix you. 

Living well with ADHD is not about fixing something that is broken. It is about understanding the disorder, accepting its effects without being defensive, sharpening the tool as needed (with medicine, coaching and good mental hygiene), and embracing your dream. It is much more interesting and useful to focus on what you want to do with your tool, your brain, than just sharpening a tool that you don’t use. It only needs to be sharp enough to do what you want to do with it.

Any notion that I need to fix you ought to offend you. Just as my office building is wheelchair accessible, I want my curiosity and patience—as a psychotherapist and support group leader—to be accessible as well. I try my best to abandon any presumptions, especially for those who have had enough already!

Don’t let anyone fix you! I’m reminded of how Billy Joel, in his early years, would end his live performances with fists raised in a boxing pose, yelling out to his worked-up audience, “Don’t take any shit from anybody!”

I’m not just a fan of Laura DiNello’s art; I’m awed by her courage to be who she is and do what she does. Her life’s story is an inspiration for women, and for anyone who would dare to make a career out of a passionate interest and a creative mind. Do you know anyone who could single-parent four children on an artist’s income? To achieve that feat required a commitment to nonstop hard work and production. Her children are grown now, but she remains prolific, as if her own life depends on it. Hers is a story of defiance, determination, and grit. (Click here to read a 2013 article on Larua DiNello)

With little support, Ms. DiNello was determined to have a career as an artist. I have visited her gallery in Charleston, SC twice in the past year. Her daughter Caleigh runs the business and has generously shared stories with me about her mother. Her admiration and respect for her mom was evident the first time I met her. I have not yet had the opportunity to meet the artist, despite Caleigh’s effort to persuade her to come to the gallery during my recent visit. Ms. DiNello was hard at work on a commissioned piece and couldn’t stop.

Caleigh describes a mother who never stops. She showed me pictures last weekend of her mother’s outdoor grills and fire pit, three brick structures that her mother recently built with no prior experience laying brick. “My mom just decided to do it and did it.” That is what Laura DiNello has always done, according to her daughter.

Caleigh told me that her mother’s bedtime is when she is too tired to continue working. Her mom works at a manic pace, she said, and always has to be busy. The gallery is full of nothing but her creations. Many of them are quite large and a product of painting, clipping, and pasting. She sometimes creates one painting from two canvases, cutting one of them up into small pieces and creating a mosaic overlay on the other painting. If you get up close to some of her work, you may see clippings from maps, newspaper articles, sheet music, post cards and who knows what else. Stand back and you will see human figures with Caleigh’s eyes. Caleigh says they are also her mom’s eyes. “It is just how she sees eyes,” she told me. Even her male subjects have those eyes.

Many of Ms. DiNello’s pieces show individuals holding animals or objects, like a bird or a musical instrument. Some of the images are of herself. I own two small pieces: “The Writer” and “The Painter.” My thoughtful wife bought each on consecutive birthdays. 

This is not an ADHD story as far as I know. But Laura DiNello’s brain is obviously one that was made to create. She exemplifies living well. Leaving the DiNello gallery, having felt the artist’s energy and seen what she has created, I feel good about life.

In recent months, my wife and I have witnessed death and grief among peers and friends our age and younger. At the same time, we are observing the end of a generation that came before us, and the inevitable health challenges that are natural consequences of aging. I’m reminded at times like this of the importance of our relationships, of being close to the suffering of people we love. When we embrace and support one another in times of pain and suffering, we are engaging with life where it happens, no less than when we embrace the gift of life and the beauty that surrounds us and resides within us.

I just read an essay this morning, written by an acquaintance who died last month. I didn’t know him well, but I knew from friends about the serious health problems he lived with for many years. He had been through multiple losses in his body, part by part, for a long time. He was grateful for his life. He attributed his ability to embrace unavoidable suffering in life to his willingness to accept it all, and to his daily practice of meditation:

It is the practice of staying in the moment that allows me to benefit from a life that does not stay entangled in bad decisions and their unwholesome results, or worry myself into a ball of hopeless depression over events that have not made themselves manifest, and for all I know may never. – Michael Crowder

To read Michael Crowder’s complete essay and Dawson Wells’ reflections on Michael’s life, visit onedharmanashville.com.

Blaming your partner is a weak position in a conflict. It only increases the likelihood that your partner will be defensive rather than open to hearing you. Presuming good intentions, on the other hand, allows room for productive dialogue. That rule applies to both partners.

You may think your wife is hypersensitive, for example, while she thinks you lack sensitivity. In your mind, it is not what you just said that made her angry, but the meaning she made of what you said. Correcting her misinterpretation is not the best place to start. She hears your explanation as nothing more than rationalizing your insensitive behavior. Whatever your intentions, there is an effect.

You are certain that she is angry for the wrong reasons. She acts as if she knows your motives better than you. You are now angry that she is hurt. To her, you are just impulsive and inconsiderate.

So, what is true here? Who is responsible for what? How can you frame your challenge constructively? How can you proceed in a way that moves you toward mutual understanding and resolution?

If you continue to look for who is to blame, you will conclude that it is your partner. When you “win” an argument, you create a loser, and then the partnership loses. On the other hand, if the partnership respects the imperfection and complexities of human interaction, each partner will listen with the intention of understanding the other’s experience. Simply put, mutual understanding and acceptance are much more useful than reciprocal blame.

If the non-ADHD partner can respect the reality of ADHD symptoms and still take care of herself in relation to those symptoms, the partnership will benefit. If the ADHD partner can avoid a narcissistic tendency to be right, or the self-loathing tendency to feel permanently flawed, then the actual problem is one that the partnership can resolve. That is different from trying to determine which partner is the problem.

Blame doesn’t work. The bottom line is this: Strong partnerships can deal with life’s challenges far more effectively and easily than alienated individuals. 

by Casey Dixon, ADHD Coach (http://www.dixonlifecoaching.com/live-well-adhd)

My clients are creative and talented. They are adults with ADHD whose professional accomplishments humble me and shine like beacons in the darkness of “underachievement” that is typically associated with ADHD. They do things that parents would be super proud of, like run successful businesses, stand up in court for victims of crime, conduct large research studies on public health, care for patients in hospitals and clinics, fly across the globe to lead U.N. committees, and develop multiple projects to advance local leadership capacity and improve social welfare. They are attorneys, professors, accountants, neurologists, coaches, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

They also have ADHD. They struggle with typical ADHD challenges, like planning tasks, scheduling time, getting started and finishing their work, curbing distractions, and taking care of themselves with healthy habits. Despite the outward appearance and reality of their successes, adult professionals with ADHD also experience the daily struggle of keeping it together, managing tasks while being overwhelmed – not drowning in the shame and imposter feeling they get when they think about their own performance.

But, how does one learn to not drown? How does one learn to live well and not to just get by, stuck in the dangerous undercurrents of struggle and shame? In my experience as an ADHD coach, the shift in how you live with ADHD is tied directly to a shift in how you think about ADHD. One of my clients expressed her shift in thinking when she said, “Drowning and just getting by is not good enough anymore. It is time to live now.” This was her moment, when she chose to be fully intentional about how she thinks, feels, plans, works, and acts. In order for this shift to work, adults who have ADHD will need to explore and acknowledge both their strengths and limitations, and engage in a targeted exploration of how to optimize their own neurology, create solid external tactics and habits, and purposefully alter their context so that they can swim with ease.

It is the switch from getting by to being purposeful that allows adults to really embrace and stick with the changes they need to live well with ADHD. Learning about ADHD, therapy, coaching, and group support can help you to make the switch.
 
If you want to learn more about group coaching for ADHD, check out Live Well ADHD, my 6-week group coaching program for professionals with ADHD, and see if it feels right for you!

A wise Zen master once said that if you have a gaining idea in your meditation practice, you have a problem. Mindfulness is about being, although pop culture sells it as a way to become. You want to practice mindfulness to become better than you are. So, what is wrong with that?

I once asked meditation teacher Lisa Ernst how she answers that question. She said, “I tell my students to leave their goals at the mat.” Your goals will get you to the mat, she explained, but once on the mat, the practice is simply about being with yourself and your life as it is.

You can only start where you are to get where you are going, and so you must know and accept where you are in order to see a path. Then, keeping your wheels on the tracks, and returning them to the tracks as necessary along the way, are the present moment tasks. That is how we get things done. This is mindfulness in real time, in your daily life. Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck calls it Everyday Zen.

Our capacity to conceptualize the future is part of what makes us human. Our species would not have survived without the ability to anticipate. And yet we would not have survived by spending too much time in our heads, perpetually wishing for life to be different than it is, or living in regret for mistakes we have made. The balance of imagining a future, learning from the past, and accepting what is true in the moment, is a prescription for real growth and meaningful action.

Living well with ADHD is neither about striving just to keep your head above water, nor perfecting your brain in order to perfect your life. It is about acceptance (of your brain and your life) so you can actualize your vision with your good enough brain. Someone at last night’s ADHD support group suggested that because we do many things exceptionally well, but don’t do everything exceptionally well, we believe we are never good enough. We are not measuring up, even to our own expectations.

When you are mindfully engaged in activity related to your vision, good enough is enough. When you are busy rejecting or perfecting your brain, it is never good enough.

Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till its over.” For those of us with ADHD, it ain’t urgent till it’s urgent. You may not have a normal experience of urgency until you are fast approaching a deadline. Like a cat who isn’t interested in a moth until it flies, you are unconcerned about a deadline until it is flying toward you.

I once asked a bright seventeen-year-old with ADHD why she thought people like us don’t activate until pressed against a deadline. She replied something like this: “I think we don’t really believe the deadline is going to come until we are close to it.”

A sense of urgency is a feeling that follows the thought of something needing your immediate attention. The reason you lack that sense of urgency when faced with routine or boring tasks, or tasks that require sustained mental effort, is simply your neurological difference. You just don’t get that alert from your brain chemistry that neurotypicals get when reminded of a deadline. Medication that stimulates the normal release of your brain’s dopamine can improve the internal alarm system. External alarms, like alerts on your phone or computer, can supplement your brain’s compromised attention manager.

If you have a co-existing anxiety disorder or OCD, you might be an exception. Adults with ADHD who are anxious or compulsive tend to arrive on time for their psychotherapy sessions. Worry is only pathological when it is excessive and protracted. It has a normal function. I would have a better relationship with deadlines if I had a more normal capacity for worrying. Normal worry serves to remind us of this thing called future.

Since you don’t have an effective internal alarm, try using an external alarm. Develop a habit of using the alert function on your preferred electronic device, or keep a paper calendar with you at all times. Then look at it often! Do not use your spouse like a calendar…it is not good for your relationship! If she already is your external alarm, relieve her of that burden. She will be grateful! She doesn’t like that job. She just worries that you will continue trying to rely on your unreliable memory. If your working memory doesn’t work, stop trying to use it. Forget it!

You can live well with ADHD, just as you are, if you are mindful and willing—mindful of how ADHD symptoms affect you, and willing to take charge and use the tools in your toolbox. I am 24 hours ahead of my deadline for posting this blog…thank you!

I learned today what it feels like to have your car alarm go off while you’re sitting in the driver’s seat, parked in front of a friend’s restaurant where patrons…right in front of you…are occupying tables on the covered patio on an unusually warm day for January, eating their lunches within twenty feet of your barking car. One patron walks over to the screened window to see if it is his car that is creating this protracted disturbance. After seeing your flashing lights, he returns to his table…and now you are watching people who are watching you!

I know now what it is like to learn on the job—by rapid trial and error—how to turn off a car alarm when the electronic device on the key chain no longer works because you washed it in the washing machine two months before, and you’ve had to lock and unlock your car the old fashioned way. I know what it is like to appear clumsy in front of others while experimenting to disable the alarm because you have to get out of the car and let all the restaurant patrons see you…the tall guy scrambling out of the little white car…with parking lights flashing in sync with each honk of the horn while you manually lock the car door, successfully silencing the alarm…and after two or three minutes in the spotlight, you walk rapidly from the car and away from the patio, into the front entrance.

No one is hurt…not much time is wasted…your spouse isn’t there to feel embarrassed and annoyed at you…there is no one around who is likely to criticize you…and with years of experience in the involuntary spotlight of your ADHD, with a greater-than-average potential to experience such public episodes, and your greater-than-average capacity for divergent thinking and rapid processing in an emergency, there is no reason to re-experience any of the shame that you felt as a child with your undiagnosed difference. This is living well with ADHD!