I received some positive feedback about my new website from a ADHD coach colleague today, which of course felt great...(Click "Read More" below for the rest of the blog)
One thing she commented on was the photo on my welcome page (currently replaced by ADHD Awareness week Logo) of water flowing over rocks, saying it was a refreshing visual.
I had originally posted that photo (a stock shot from the web design site) as a temporary placeholder until I found another photo, but the more I looked at it and thought about it, the more I liked it, so there it remains. It IS refreshing, and when I see the water rushing around those giant boulders, it’s also enlightening. No matter how big our obstacles are or appear to be, we are best served by finding our true nature and our natural direction.
Often for a lot of us ADHD adults, myself included, it’s all about the boulders. They’re right on our path and rule our thoughts and actions, cause our inactivity, and we get stuck and we can’t get past them. When that happens again and again over time, we can lose our belief in ourselves, and just wear ourselves out trying to push past or through the obstacles, real or perceived. Those thoughts and beliefs become automatic.
In the photo, that water is just being water, and finding its natural direction, and in the same way, we can all move ourselves closer to our own natural direction and not just be stopped by the obstacles. Now at this point you may be thinking “Tom’s going mystical- he’s zenning out”, and there is some truth to that. The fact is that to access our natural selves, our gifts, our strengths, we learn the skill of paying attention to the voice in our head. It’s a learnable skill, like any skill, and a necessary one, and here’s why.
Most of our negative thoughts and beliefs are automatic- they crank along on their own with no help from our conscious mind, and those with ADHD are usually affected by these to a greater and more pervasive degree than others. As we work and improve on the skill of paying attention to this thought process, we are also learning to realize they’re just thoughts, and often beliefs which are not really about our true selves. That’s the beginning of taking their power away. We start to see how many of them have become boulders in our path, and are preventing you from engaging in thoughts and ideas that actually serve you well.
Learning these skills is part of a coaching partnership with me, and a crucial part of learning to manage your ADHD. Without this work, you can learn all the time management, organizational, executive functioning, and prioritizing skills you want, but it would be only half the job. I partner with you to learn the skill of paying attention to your thoughts, and at the same time, to learn new ways, or improve on current ways, you manage time, organize, plan, prioritize- all the executive functions we ADHD adults usually have issues with. Go to this link for more detail on these skills- http://www.dooleycoaching.com/skills.html
When I look at that photo, I don't see huge boulders with water struggling to get around them, I see rocks and water just being rocks and water, and a smooth flow. The less we see our lives from behind the obstacles, and get in the flow, the more we become our true selves and can move ahead with clarity.
I had originally posted that photo (a stock shot from the web design site) as a temporary placeholder until I found another photo, but the more I looked at it and thought about it, the more I liked it, so there it remains. It IS refreshing, and when I see the water rushing around those giant boulders, it’s also enlightening. No matter how big our obstacles are or appear to be, we are best served by finding our true nature and our natural direction.
Often for a lot of us ADHD adults, myself included, it’s all about the boulders. They’re right on our path and rule our thoughts and actions, cause our inactivity, and we get stuck and we can’t get past them. When that happens again and again over time, we can lose our belief in ourselves, and just wear ourselves out trying to push past or through the obstacles, real or perceived. Those thoughts and beliefs become automatic.
In the photo, that water is just being water, and finding its natural direction, and in the same way, we can all move ourselves closer to our own natural direction and not just be stopped by the obstacles. Now at this point you may be thinking “Tom’s going mystical- he’s zenning out”, and there is some truth to that. The fact is that to access our natural selves, our gifts, our strengths, we learn the skill of paying attention to the voice in our head. It’s a learnable skill, like any skill, and a necessary one, and here’s why.
Most of our negative thoughts and beliefs are automatic- they crank along on their own with no help from our conscious mind, and those with ADHD are usually affected by these to a greater and more pervasive degree than others. As we work and improve on the skill of paying attention to this thought process, we are also learning to realize they’re just thoughts, and often beliefs which are not really about our true selves. That’s the beginning of taking their power away. We start to see how many of them have become boulders in our path, and are preventing you from engaging in thoughts and ideas that actually serve you well.
Learning these skills is part of a coaching partnership with me, and a crucial part of learning to manage your ADHD. Without this work, you can learn all the time management, organizational, executive functioning, and prioritizing skills you want, but it would be only half the job. I partner with you to learn the skill of paying attention to your thoughts, and at the same time, to learn new ways, or improve on current ways, you manage time, organize, plan, prioritize- all the executive functions we ADHD adults usually have issues with. Go to this link for more detail on these skills- http://www.dooleycoaching.com/skills.html
When I look at that photo, I don't see huge boulders with water struggling to get around them, I see rocks and water just being rocks and water, and a smooth flow. The less we see our lives from behind the obstacles, and get in the flow, the more we become our true selves and can move ahead with clarity.