What if your struggles with focus weren’t a moral failing, but simply a different rhythm—one that can be guided with care rather than shame? In this episode of *Rhythms of Focus*, we explore the well-worn path of self-blame that so many adults with ADHD and wandering minds know all too well. Together, we’ll consider how we can fall into the trap of “trying harder”, and how discover how agency and the practice of caring for our Future Selves can transform the way you organize your days.

Key takeaways

- Recognize how leveraging shame and self-criticism only deepens the cycle of overwhelm and guilt

- Begin building a foundation of trust in your own rhythms, making it easier to release shame-based strategies and foster agency

This episode also features an original piano composition, “Folktale.”

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Keywords

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #SelfCompassion #Agency #GentleFocus #CreativeRhythms #LetGoOfShame #TaskManagement #PianoMeditation

Transcript

"Maybe I was born lazy."

"Maybe I just need to try harder. "

Despite your best efforts, another deadline slipping by and a familiar wave of guilt and shame rolls in. Some of us double down, hoping that shame will help us do better next time, creating this ever- worsening cycle.

But couldn't there be a better organizing force?

The Cycle of Self-Blame and "Trying Harder"

 As wandering minds, we often consider our troubles moral in nature. Maybe we were somehow born lazy.

If we could only muster more willpower discipline, we'd be fine. Holding things in mind harder, trying one list after the next, creating this sea of post-it notes blaring reminders in a barely balanced set of files on the desktop-- all have this way of collapsing into piles of incomplete projects and missed opportunities, each resonating more shame.

Just trying harder is like someone who's nearsighted is trying to see better by wanting to. It doesn't work and often leaves the ceiling worse, like squinting until we get headaches.

Often the world around us doesn't recognize this sense we have of this Magnified Now that I described earlier in this series. They never experience what that could possibly mean-- this Magnified Now. And they view these collisions and misplacements that we get into as motivationally- based.

The conclusion is that we are morally flawed. We hear some version of,

"If you really cared, you wouldn't forget!"

We hear that from others, and as we internalize it, we hear it from ourselves.

And so once again, we muster up the courage and try again.

With every error, we yell louder. Not only through self recrimination, but in the seas of sticky notes and the reminders and how we write our tasks and where we write them and demands and all caps and bold and saying, "Do homework!" "Write the report!" "Do the thing!" as well as the angry questions that follow, like

"Why can't you just do it?"

Maybe if we yelled at ourselves enough, that'll fix the problem.

Leveraging Shame

In other words, we leverage shame.

The trouble is it can work.

For example, let's say you miss an appointment. "Well, next week I shouldn't miss that appointment because I'm going to feel bad enough to remember." But let's say you missed that one. "Well, now I'm just gonna feel worse and that'll do it."

And now if it works well, you've just reinforced that you just needed to feel bad enough.

The trouble is that leveraging shame beyond the major pain it inflict on ourselves, injures us further. We now not only have feelings of guilt and shame, but also this constant worry of gathering more simply by trying.

The world becomes increasingly painful and dangerous. All of these attacks and self- recriminations build over time. At a gut level, we regularly receive this message that the world is a place that we're incapable of navigating, and we confirm this for ourselves.

And it must then, we conclude, stem from this moral failing.

A Clear Mind is a Better Organizer

What's missing is the central notion that we can organize based on having things genuinely off of our mind, that we can use this lack of frustration, irritation, shame, and the rest as being the principle around which we organize ourselves.

If we develop these methods of putting things that we want to be reminded of, when and where they would be useful, that they would stay out of our way when we don't need them, that we'd be ready to engage them when we reach out for them. Wouldn't that be a better way of managing things? Of course, this is much more easier said than done, but this is the practice of caring for our future selves.

If, for example, you knew that an appointment reminder would appear, clear of other distractions with enough time to wrap up whatever you were doing, showed up, that it also gave you directions to wherever it is that you wanted to go, that it told you where all the things are that you needed, and if you had practiced that enough that you felt that that happened over and over- you're developing a trust between your present and future and past self.

If that were the case, wouldn't it be easier to consciously let things go? Wouldn't it be easier to not shame yourself into doing these things?

Now there are a number of skills here to practice.

Being able to wrap something up, being able to guide that momentum that you're in into something that you would hope you'd be able to return to. Clearing space to have reliable reminders and the like. Yes, there are a number of skills to practice, but they are learnable.

If you take each one and begin to practice each one, eventually you have this group of things that come together and support you.

So for those of you who are caught in this cycle, know you're not alone and that there are gentler, more effective ways of guiding your focus.

As this series continues, I hope to continue my argument of how a Visit- based system can become this nidus for change. It's not the entirety, but it is a solid foundation.

As you practice, really experience the sense that you can put things where you want them to show up, to remind you, and stay out of the way otherwise, you start to develop that trust. And maybe then you can start shedding those more shaming methods.

Music - Folktale

  Every time I sit to play a piece of music that I've composed, I'll play it differently than I did before. I quickly get bored when a piece stays the same. I suppose there's some lesson of life always being about change in there as when a piece stops changing, I stop playing it.

This piece called Folktale is one of my older pieces starting maybe 30 years ago or so, and it's had quite a while to evolve.

The piece is written in F minor. It's mostly in three-four time, this sort of waltz time. And being in a minor key, I know a lot of times we equate a sort of sadness to it, but I really wonder if we're confusing that with contemplation, with reflection.

Why does it always have to be sad? Why not thoughtful? Yeah. Maybe that's just me. In any case, I hope you enjoy it.

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The Weekly Wind Down is an exploration of wandering minds, task and time management, and more importantly, how we find calmer focus and meaningful work.