Translating ADHD

Shelly and Cam bring forth a topic that is synonymous with coaching and the ADHD lived experience but rarely, if ever, discussed overtly in ADHD circles. Context drives so much of the coaching conversation from discovering big agendas to exploring limiting perspectives, yet we often don’t recognize when context is at work influencing our thoughts and behaviors. Shelly and Cam define context and how it is of particular interest to those of us with ADHD. Part of the neurodiverse experience is in part because many of us are ‘wired for context’ - that we process by our relative relation to our world in a particular moment. The neurotypical population is wired more for outcome, sequence or process - wired more for time. Our preference for context has us lead with curious ‘Why’ questions rather than conventional ‘What’ and ‘When’ goal-oriented questions. They share numerous examples of how context comes into play in coaching relationships and how context can be a powerful ally or a formidable obstacle. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam do what they do best, taking listeners on a journey through an ADHD-lived experience. Today they integrate all three barriers of ADHD as Shelly shares her own discovery and learning process. She digs into a recent dilemma around a breakdown with getting house chores done. Listen as Shelly and Cam explore Shelly’s journey as she bumps into and then develops workarounds for all three barriers, to new learning that she converts into new action resulting in systems and practices that reflect her current reality - the captain of her own abode. The Three Barriers are as follows: The First Barrier to Awareness The Second Barrier to Informed Action The Third Barrier to Learning Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam look at learning and its role in creating positive and sustained change. Deemed The Third Barrier of ADHD, learning is the most significant element of a change process and the one most impacted by ADHD. In ADHD land so much focus is put on the first two barriers - knowing what to do and doing what you know - that many miss this third and so essential step in moving one's agenda forward. Learning is key to our higher level TA concepts of agency, integrity (doing what matters) and living a life of purpose.   They distinguish learning as ‘the awareness on the backside of action’, connect it to the reflective practice we have alluded to in previous episodes and discuss the dilemma of how our own internal judgements cloud our past experiences (like walking through a house of mirrors). Of course Shelly and Cam share their own experiences and client experiences to illustrate the third barrier.    Episode links + resources:   Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly   For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:   Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com  

Surprisingly, this is the first episode dedicated to the topic of self-care. Shelly and Cam discuss self-care in the context of the coaching process. They discuss why they start with self-care in every coaching engagement. Clients often come to coaching looking for a quick win but they're often seeking that win from an urgent state of mind or in an ARC perspective. Shelly and Cam go on to discuss certain obstacles to self-care including “shoulds”, getting hung up in the “how”, diminishing or downplaying the value of a self-care practice and attaching extra meaning to the activity. Shelly shares an example of a client who put too much pressure on her own self-care practice but through her own reflective practice recognized the pressure and shifted the way she approached the self-care activity. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam pick up a thread from a past client conversation who was shifting from a knowing place to a place of action. Shelly shares more about her client in an active state of ‘cultivating safety’. This is significant because it is an excellent example of breaking through the ‘Second Barrier of ADHD’ - the first barrier is to new awareness, the second barrier is to new action and new behaviors. The Second Barrier is ubiquitous with the ADHD experience and likely the most maddening aspect of living with ADHD - we don’t do what we know we ought to do. This far reaching discussion explores the significance of being the ‘captain of your own ship’ and moving to a place of resilience around receiving feedback and choice on our own terms. Information about ADHD is varied in its accuracy and too plentiful. In our “One Down” position we can feel like we are not in a position to discern information, accepting some and rejecting the rest. Being at choice with feedback or advice is a key element of breaking through the Second Barrier of ADHD. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Continuing the theme of resilience, Shelly and Cam revisit COVID as a topic, discussing the stress of living with an ongoing pandemic. They share personal stories and stories from clients and how the current uncertainty in daily life creates additional stressors. Building effective resilience is about identifying and managing stressors, distinguishing what we can and can not control. With ADHD we can diminish or downplay negative inputs and just try to ‘soldier on’. Acknowledging the stress and impact is a first step in processing feelings and moving through their Understand, Own, Translate process. Shelly and Cam share the SCARF model from David Rock as a useful tool. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Hosts Shelly and Cam continue down the road of resilience with a focus on developing a reflective practice. A reflective practice is a key element of coaching and an absolute linchpin in the action/learning process. Research in neuroscience and meditation shows the benefits of cultivating a reflective practice. The population as a whole under-utilizes this practice and those of us with ADHD can really struggle in developing a consistent reflective practice. We introduce the idea of The Keen Observer, the objective partner to explore and reflect on experiences, thoughts, feelings and how we make meaning and form new beliefs. Cam and Shelly share simple practices to access this powerful resource and Shelly shares a client story where a reflective practice reveals not only a limiting belief but also a break through moment to a new opportunity. Exercises for both Fast Brainers and Big Brainers are included with our new emphasis focusing on practical application of the concepts introduced in each episode. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Hosts Shelly and Cam continue to explore the concept of resilience and focus on resilience practices. Episode 60 laid out the ‘valley’ experience - getting stuck and not finding a way out. In today’s episode we explore practices to manage those valley moments. We share more examples of challenges when we are ‘deep in the emotion of an event’ like ‘blame sponge’ and our old friend from Episode 4, Adrenaline Response Cycle. Cam shares a  humorous “brain under assault” story and Shelly does a little spot coaching to reveal how Cam used resilience practices to help him manage the stressors. Other concepts and practices to manage valley moments discussed include body awareness, elements of Cam’s Emotional Health Ladder, the power of a reflective practice and Cam and Shelly’s own Triple 10 Ascending practice and Disrupt, Pivot, Activate, Explore sequence. Emotional Health Ladder Levels (Episode 78): Level 1 Present and Calm Level 2 Attending to… Level 3 Auto-pilot Level 4 Survival Level 5 Delusional Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

Shelly and Cam kick off the second season of the Translating ADHD podcast! In this episode, we lay out what listeners can expect in the next 90 episodes. We reflect on our biggest learnings getting a 20,000ft. view of the podcast and review what our audience is wanting to see more of in each episode. One request from our listeners is to have more examples of live coaching. Another is for us to provide listeners with more insight into how they can practice the concepts presented in the show in the "other 167 hours in the week". Shelly and Cam roll out a format that not only informs the podcast but also the Discord community and their group coaching efforts. The format revolves around the concepts of Resilience, Self-Care, Agency, Project X and Purpose. These are the core elements that inform Shelly and Cam’s coaching work with our individual and group coaching clients. We will still look at common ADHD topics like time and distractibility but through the context of these five cornerstones for living a life that fits. Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com

This week, Cam and Shelly take some time to reflect on their journey in creating and producing the Translating ADHD podcast. We take some time to reflect on where we started, how we've grown, and what we've learned so far after 89 episodes of Translating ADHD. We also discuss what we're considering in the future, and how we plan to use our six week summer break. We examine ways in which we are considering evolving Translating ADHD as a show and discuss how strengthening engagement with our amazing community as a primary goal.   Episode links + resources: Join the Community | Become a Patron Our Process: Understand, Own, Translate. About Cam and Shelly For more of the Translating ADHD podcast: Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com