A Simple Tool For Focus
ADHD Art Witches, I found the way, the truth, and the light...
Inside: An essay about an effective tool I’ve found to help with my ADHD. Also a free downloadable (15 min) “Easy Intuition Meditation” for subscribers to help access their intuition anytime. Folks who listen to the Voice Over, I added a few little extra bits in for you here, hope you enjoy!
See if this pattern sounds familiar…
You get behind on work (this is especially easy to do if you ‘re your own boss). If your work is creative work, it’s probably non-linear, with many unknowns. There’s no one to tell you how to do it. Maybe you procrastinate when you don’t know the answer, like me.
I’m a slow writer. I get up. I sit down. I make coffee. I pet my cats. But with each hour that ticks by, I get more overwhelmed.
Because if the work that I’d intended to complete that day doesn’t get done, it means I’ll have to do it the next. But I already have something on my plate for the next day, so now I’ll have twice as much work to do, and now I feel like I’m falling twice as behind.
This is a pattern that is VERY familiar to people with ADHD. Overwhelm is like our life partner.
And, if you’re like me, you try things to help. You try everything you can think of:
You try keeping to-do lists, but then you have dozens of to-do lists all over the place that you lose
You try making rules about your phone. No phone before 10am! But then when you brake your rule you feel guilty and demoralized
You try the Pomodoro technique (which DOES really help, I’ll be honest, but only if you can get yourself to sit down and start doing the thing)
You try listening to classical music while you’re working (this also helps, but again, only if you can get yourself to START working)
Now, I know in our social milieu we’re supposed to orient towards pleasure and resist the capitalist imperative to measure our worth by our productivity. And, I agree with that position. I’m an advocate for it.
But sometimes that imperative can feel a little gaslighty for us ADHD folks because — well, there are things we WANT to get done. That we ENJOY doing. That we can’t get done because: executive functioning!
A sense of accomplishment is good for our soul. But we can’t access it if we can’t get ourselves to do the very thing we care about most.
And living that way doesn’t feel like an act of rebellion against the kyriarchy. The kyriarchy DOES NOT care if I finish my next book, but I DO!
ADHD often feels like being in the 8 of Swords, trapped in a bind from which you should be able to liberate yourself, but you just can’t figure out a way.
That is until I found…
… the Sun!
Awhile back I listened to this book on cultivating mental health that said “studies have shown” that exposing yourself to sunlight for 10 minutes upon waking (ideally before 9am) could seriously improve your mental health.
Reader, I was like, “Whatever.”
I was like, “that will never work. People and their silly tips, [eyeroll].”
So I forgot about it.
Fast forward a year, and while I was on instagram I saw some mental health meme-er saying the same thing. “Sunlight is the cure!”
Okay, so, I decided to try it. Couldn’t hurt.
NOT because I thought it would help with my ADHD. I did it because I thought it MIGHT help me have more energy throughout the day, since I’ve been feeling sluggish lately.
Historically, I often do a little sun ritual (the Gayatri mantra) in the morning, but it really only takes less than two minutes, not 10.
Because, just as often, in my haste to try and outrun my ADHD, I aim to work first thing in the morning so that I at least finish…something.
… but then what happens is I start working immediately, ineffeciently, and slow-pokedly, and end up going the whole day without going outside. And sitting around in the dark only makes me more sluggish and uninspired.
Enter, the sun!
I decided to try going for a walk first thing in the morning. Literally, I wake up, slither out of bed, throw on a sweatshirt, and head outside. I have slip on shoes outside my door so that I don’t even have to bend down to put them on (hilariously, if I have to stop to tie my shoes I am unable to motivate myself to do this).
I walk around my neighborhood. I greet the crows and the parrots and the dogs getting their morning walks. I take the easiest, funnest routes so that it’s just about being in the sunshine and enjoying myself.
And friends! I made an exciting discovery.
When I take this morning stroll – which takes me between 20 and 30 minutes – when I come back, it’s easier for me to focus. I’m more creative. My mood improves. I have more energy. And then I tend to go to bed earlier, which means I also get up earlier, which means I also have more time to create.
!!!
And what’s REALLY great about this is that I’ve been able to stick to it. It’s so easy, with so few decisions to make to get outside, and it’s so FUN (especially bc I get to visit the neighborhood cats and dogs) that unlike so many other things I’ve tried, I’m able to stick to it with ease!
Huzzah in all directions!
The witchy angle on this is that there is medicine in light, in water, in plants, in earth, in wind.
There is medicine in attending to the rhythms of life, and the rhythms of our own bodies in relationship with the sun and moon and seasons.
It’s easy for us to forget this and think it’s just a metaphor.
It’s easy for us to think that all that witchy stuff about the medicine of the earth is romantic and dreamy and beautiful and everything, but that what really matters is working harder.
Every time I doubt the power of the marvelous kin that make up our collective universe, the sun, the moon, the biome, every time I succumb to the fear that capitalist colonialism has instilled in me, I am reminded that, as the Star Goddess says, what we need has been with us from the beginning. And that the nature of – well – nature, is generosity.
I know that this technique may not be available to everyone, for a variety of reasons. But for those of you to whom this technique is something you could practice, I’m eager for you to try it and let us know how it goes.
I’m so curious about your life and experiences.
Sending the pleasure and vitality of the Solar power your way.
Love,
Amanda
Easy Intuition Meditation MP3 - A Gift For Subscribers
So many of you emailed me to say how much you got out of the intuitive practice we did at last week’s Full Moon ceremony that I wanted to give you something you could use every day. This practice is simple and short (15 minutes) and is designed to:
Help you with ANY decision you need to make
Strengthen your intuition and self trust
Be accessible to you anywhere, at any time
Bolster your creativity
Provide you with tools you can use to help you with whatever comes next
Can be used daily to help guide you throughout the day
Hope you enjoy!