Originally published May 25, 2024
This is the first in what I hope becomes *a biweekly newsletter focusing on the different ways ADHD affects all aspects of your life. In this newsletter, I will draw from personal experience, the experiences of others in the ADHD community, and apply an ADHD coaching lens to reclaim our past experiences and knowledge in a way that enables us to move forward to a life that works for our unique brains.
What can be expected with each newsletter?
Each week will have a different aspect of how ADHD manifests in our lives as the topic. I’ll provide some general education on each topic. How it shows up, what effects it has on our personal and professional lives, and why.
Some examples of future topics are:
- Controlling executive function
- Memory issues
- Procrastination preventing completion
- ADHD burnout
- Dealing with imposter syndrome
- Controlling impulsivity
- Getting organized
- Do I really have ADHD or am I just lazy?
I could add way more but let’s not overwhelm ourselves (cognitive overload is another topic for a later date 😉).
How will personal experiences be included?
A majority of the time, I’ll be able to include my personal experience with these aspects. I’ve been on both sides of the coin, living most of my life without professional support and now with professional support and medication. My presentation of ADHD as combined type (both inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive) gives me a view into a lot of the ADHD experience. However, I’m fully aware that ADHD presents itself in very different ways from person to person and that my experience is not exactly the same as others.
The ADHD community is huge, and I believe that our stories matter. Representation matters. The hope is that by presenting these stories, you’ll find comfort in knowing that you are not alone in your experience. As I mentioned before in my previous article “don’t do ADHD alone”.
As time goes on, I will be including the perspectives of other coaches and people within the ADHD community.
How will an ADHD Coaching lens be applied to this newsletter?
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably noticed that each section began with a question. The hope is to approach each topic in the same manner as when coaching a client.
ADHD Coaching involves asking the client questions to explore a particular issue, feeling, desire, thought more deeply. We are trained to be curious for the client’s sake. The right question can open up a whole new perspective for the client removing obstacles that seemed too big to overcome allowing them to move forward. Honestly it’s an amazing thing to witness and is exciting to see the client light up with wonder and possibility they never imagined before.
You are all the experts of your own life. The answers are already inside of you. It’s the coach’s job to bring those answers out.
The intention is to provide an insight into how ADHD Coaching works and hopefully give you, the reader, some insight on whether coaching may be right for you.
Why is it titled “Reclaiming Your ADHD”?
It came to me after a discussion about what being an ADHD Coach does for me at this moment. The “why” behind becoming one was easy. What coaching has done for me personally was a huge part of that motivation. The insight into how my brain works and how to work with it rather than against it has been invaluable. To be able to give back and support others with ADHD in the same manner is at the core of this.
Those of us with ADHD carry around the weight of a lifetime of dealing with its effects. Weighing us down till we can’t move forward. I’m definitely no exception to this. Now that I am actively coaching, I noticed that weight was feeling lighter than I could ever remember.
Curiosity about why the load is lighter led me to the realization that becoming an ADHD Coach is my way of reclaiming a lifetime of failures, regrets, mistakes, and misunderstandings caused by ADHD by using it to support others in their journeys.
Through coaching, we do this by giving ourselves grace, exploring what can be learned from the past to gain an understanding of how our brain works, and by focusing on the moments in our lives when we showed up as our best self. Using this new understanding, we reclaim our ADHD to propel us forward into a life that fits our unique brains. One where we truly can be the person we’ve always known and wanted to be.
This is at the essence of why I started my coaching practice, and why I created this newsletter for you.
But wait, why the subtitle “*A Biweekly Newsletter”?
Because ADHD happens, duh. I’m going to do my best to get each issue out on a biweekly cadence. But as someone with ADHD, I know that meeting deadlines can be a challenge. Especially self-imposed ones. Therefore I am going to give myself the grace to get these out when they are ready, and when my brain lets me get them done. Sometimes they might be early, and sometimes they might be late. Putting the “*” on the frequency is how I’m allowing myself to work with my brain, rather than against it.
Contact me at carlos@bayareaadhdcoach.com or visit bayareaadhdcoach.com if you would like to explore whether ADHD Coaching is right for you.
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