Translating ADHD

This week we continue our exploration of big signal emotions as we explore rejection. Cam and Shelly discuss that with ADHD on board it’s not just rejection, but the fear of rejection that has the biggest impact. Cam and Shelly discuss the relationship between fear and rejection and how rejection comes from a place of fear. To examine this more closely, Cam takes listeners back to a time in life w...

This week we return to our exploration of big signal emotions as we dig into shame. Shame is no stranger for those of us living with ADHD. Shame is often the root of many downstream emotional responses, like imposter syndrome and rejection sensitivity. As one walks through the world with an invisible disability like ADHD, one can see how shame can manifest. Cam and Shelly discuss how years of dism...

This week Shelly and Cam use a client story as a vehicle to explore emotion and emotional dysregulation. To have ADHD is to have challenges with managing appropriate and measured emotional responses. But that is not all. Emotion is key to the motivation system and developing new awareness and learning (All three barriers). Cam and Shelly look at emotional dysregulation beyond the term and, in Tran...

Emotions are key to driving beliefs and behaviors. They also play a big part in effective ADHD management. Emotions also drive big signal responses like rejection, sensitivity or imposter syndrome. Those big signal responses can really impact our ability to identify and circumvent First Barrier dilemmas. The First Barrier of ADHD is the barrier to new awareness. Emotions like blame can cloud our j...

Shelly and Cam revisit the First Barrier of ADHD - the barrier to new awareness - by illustrating a client’s own experience with struggling and eventually succeeding to generate new awareness. In Shelly’s words “to walk this world as an ADHD person is to walk this world misunderstood”. Because of the first barrier of ADHD, it can be extremely frustrating to know when we are struggling, and - when...

This week we are delighted to present another special episode dedicated to exploring the lived experiences of people of color with ADHD by presenting an interview with coach and therapist Romanza McAllister LCSW. Romanza is a trauma-informed psychotherapist and ADHD coach in New York City.  She is a mental health advocate and very active in the leadership of ADDA. In this episode, Romanza speaks a...

Why is it that we stray off the path we know - of best practices, best strategies and best resources? Why is it we struggle to recognize we have left the path and additionally, struggle to relocate the path once we have realized this? This challenge with generating valuable awareness at the right time is a signature ADHD dilemma and creates the biggest obstacle to meaningful change and even addres...

Shelly and Cam continue with the ever-expansive topic of context with respect to ADHD with a deep dive into how our unique wiring is connected to our unique value at work and in the world. In this episode, they explore how contextual wiring presents in a few examples and how to leverage this ‘super strength’ throughout the week. They distinguish how big value is not the same as the big signal (epi...

Shelly and Cam continue the theme of exploring context by introducing a process for shifting to a better mindset. Context informs our current narrative and our narrative informs our mindset or the way we perceive our world. They share a simple three-step process of Pause, Disrupt, Pivot to shift from a negative context to a positive one. Shelly shares an excellent story of how she uses the process...

Shelly and Cam stay on the topic of context but shift to its positive elements. They distinguish the value of ‘Who’ and ‘Why’ questions and how they inform the frame or context those of us with ADHD put around our experience. Both Shelly and Cam share how the tone of their own ‘Why’ questions early in their careers led to very different outward manifestations but similar feelings of frustration an...

Shelly and Cam continue to explore contextual pitfalls and ADHD. Last week they introduced contextual mad-libs. This week they explore two more contextual challenges, ‘locking in’ to a limiting narrative and conversely ‘spinning through’ multiple narratives. Both are contextual in nature and a very ADHD Valley experience. We constantly tether to how we relate to our world, drawing frames of refere...

Shelly and Cam continue to discuss the concept of context as it relates to coaching and to the lived experience with ADHD. We are wired for context and the compelling narratives that can drive behaviors good and bad. Today we delve into how being wired for context is not so helpful as Shelly shares a concept that one of her clients termed ‘contextual mad-libbing’ - where one inserts their own narr...

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 ho...

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...

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 forw...

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...

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 behavio...

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...

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 re...

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, A...

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 pro...

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 con...

This week we are delighted to present another special episode dedicated to exploring the lived experiences of people of color with ADHD by presenting an interview with ADHD Advocate Kofi Obeng. Kofi is a mechanical engineer who lives in South Carolina. He was diagnosed with ADHD in the early 2000s. He is a father of sons with ADHD and has become very involved with the ADHD community. He is a co-fa...

One of the biggest dilemmas we face in our professional lives as ADHD people is the when, what, and how of disclosing our ADHD. Through client examples and years of experience, Shelly and Cam discuss the opportunities and pitfalls of ADHD disclosure. The hosts focus on the rich middle ground between ‘share everything’ and ‘share nothing’ and how the Understand, Own, Translate work listeners are do...

Romantic relationships can present tremendous challenges with ADHD in the equation. Romantic relationships produce big, intense signals that can block out other things. This is especially true because of the emotional investment that comes with a romantic relationship and the emotional dysregulation that comes with ADHD. Shelly and Cam continue their discussion on ‘seeing oneself in the picture’ a...