A Relationship with Oneself

The word “relationship” has come to mean romantic connections in our culture, generally speaking. We do, however, have many other types of relationships. Family, friends, colleagues, classmates, all different, all varied in their management.

There is one relationship type that I fear we forget, and, if we do remember, neglect. That is the relationship with yourself. Olivia Penpraze said “Remember yourself as a little girl, she is counting on you to protect her.” How many of us give thought or effort to this protection and care?

Many people have “best friends”, people they confide in, rely on for advice, and in whom they have implicit trust. We treat our best friends very well and with a great deal of kindness. We encourage them, help them see their strengths and not dwell on their weaknesses. What contrast might we find if we compare our compassion toward that beloved person and toward ourselves?

An important element in any kind of relationship is trust. Anyone with ADHD can tell you it's very difficult to trust yourself when you are constantly doing things you know aren't helpful or even things you are unable to explain. So how can there be trust in that relationship?

Rewards are another stumbling block. If we promise ourselves a reward for some task and don't deliver it right away, or worse don't deliver it at all, the promise of reward ceases to be at all effective because there is no trust.

It takes time, but it is possible to regain this trust in ourselves. I believe the shape of what will garner this trust will look different for every person. The basic idea to regain trust is to promise something and then, no matter what happens, deliver it. At first, of course, the distrust will remain. Over time, however, the brain can learn that change is, in fact, occurring. What we promise does come to pass.

I wrote a blog post about motivating myself with a movie. The update on that experiment is that I entirely failed to reward myself with the movie. I lost faith in myself through that. This would not have happened if I had watched the movie. It seems a small price to pay.

Nothing is perfect, obviously, and of course sometimes life will prevent us from following through on things. The idea is to be as consistent as possible, and not give into the inner-nay-sayer and decide, after the fact, that we don't actually deserve that reward after all.

How is your relationship with yourself?

App Spotlight: The Rock Clock

I have quite a wide variety of interests, I always have. I know a fair amount about several subjects you might not expect. I must say, however, that wrestling was never an interest of mine. So if someone mentioned Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, I would only have known him from his acting career.

More recently, a client put me onto a very unique alarm app. The concept seemed super cool and only grew more interesting as I investigated it further. At its core The Rock Clock (iOS or Android) is an alarm or wake-up app. It has several tones to “wake my @$$ up”, including my personal favourite “THE ROAR”. It begins with the noise of a crowd, then a chant of “Get up! Get up! Get up!” Highly motivating even though I’m not a pro wrestler trying to stand up from the mat.

It also incorporates goal awareness. You enter your current goal and the app keeps it in your face as you use it. When you mark the goal as completed you hear Dwayne say “Great job.” and a message appears: “PROJECT CRUSHED”.

My favourite part of the app is the fact that it is part of a bigger project by The Rock. The example goals on the app show that not everyone's goals are fitness related. ‘Learn a new language’ and ‘Finish screenplay’ are there alongside ‘Gain a pound of muscle’.

When I visited www.projectrockofficial.com I was even more impressed. Clearly Dwayne Johnson has untold depths of character and a desire to help his fellow man I never would have discovered if I hadn't looked further than his wrestling career or celebrity status.

So now I have a new goal: challenge every assumption I have about everything. And thanks to The Rock, I am one step closer to achieving it.

Iced Time Blindness

In the summer months I like to have something readily on hand to drink that’s cold and isn’t water. I also don’t drink alcohol. I’ve used frozen juice, as well as powdered iced tea, and those are all well and good. There’s just something about homemade, fresh brewed iced tea. Or rather, sweet tea, as my American pals might say, because I don’t think I could ever drink it without sugar. I am weak.

ADHD has a real problem with time, including a phenomenon known as “time blindness”. Basically this means we have no clue how much time has passed at any given moment. We can look up from something and almost always be surprised at what the actual time is, either that it has sped by or dragged along. This produces a mindset of “now” and “not now” being the only two states of being. This makes it hard to wait for anything, as one example complication.

Homemade, chilled, iced tea is a lot like time blindness. Either it is “now”, made, cold, delicious, or it is “not now”, unmade, perpetually at least a few hours in the future. So I began a habit of making a batch every day, to replace the batch I was currently drinking. I was making an effort for “not now”, which, even though logically I know “I’ll be thirsty tomorrow” still seems like a funny thing to actually be doing.

This is a hurdle anyone with the “now” and “not now” brain filter must contend with daily. We all do things (or fail to do things) that benefit us down the line. The trick is finding out how to do it and do it more or less consistently. I have imagined the result in my mind (which is especially easy to do when I’m drinking iced tea made the day before) and that can provide motivation. Another way to overcome this challenge is to make contracts with yourself or others, or simply to make the action or habit a Rule, something you do, no matter what, because it’s 2:30PM on a Wednesday.

Time Blind Iced Tea

• 8 cups boiling water
• 2 tea bags, orange pekoe
• 1/3 + 1 tbsp. (or to taste) white sugar
• 1/3 + 1 tsp. (or to taste) lemon juice

1. Steep tea bags in water 5-9 minutes, or to desired strength. Stir in sugar, ensure it has entirely dissolved. Stir in lemon juice. Remove tea bags.
2. Cover with a cloth and allow to cool at room temperature until it reaches a temperature you find acceptable to place in the fridge. Chill overnight. Serve with a lemon wedge on the glass, if you’re feeling that.

What can you do now that will benefit your future self?

Captain Motivation!

ADHD has a hard time with procrastination and this is a relatively well known fact. What isn't as well know is why this challenge occurs. Recent research has suggested a factor might be our reward systems. This is a neurophysical term that basically means motivation. Dopamine is a neurochemical that allows the brain (ADHD or not) to sustain motivation.

The ADHD brain produces lower levels of dopamine ordinarily, however it has no trouble working on something fun, because the enjoyment is producing dopamine which allows us to focus. But take away that enjoyment, and the dopamine it produces, and it becomes significantly harder to sustain focus, sometimes to the point of a physical impossibility.

I was faced with a challenge of dopamine production this week. I am working on an extremely boring task and was flagging in attention and motivation. To make matters worse the task was also extremely mentally taxing. When my brain works harder, it requires more dopamine to function, which means the small amount of dopamine I had was being used up faster.

I had been working on the task for several days when one day I saw that Canadian Netflix had added Captain America: Winter Soldier. Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of my top fandoms and I hadn't been able to see the film when it was in theatres, so I was very excited. Due to issues of morality and technological incompetence, I do not stream or pirate media of any kind.

So I decided Captain America would be my reward for finishing my task. The prospect of being able to watch this movie provided me with the dopamine I needed to finish the task in increased mental comfort. I finished in 3 days.

What do you use to leverage your motivation?