Learning to Be Here Now
Do you feel a drive to get results? To cut to the chase? To start the next new project? Are you impatient?
The restless, driven aspect of ADHD can be an asset in a career setting, but over time it is a behavior that harms relationships and family lives, can foster mistakes, and makes inner calm and a sense of purpose elusive.
I came across the concept “difficulty in tolerating delay” in clinical psychologist Joel Nigg’s textbook “What Causes ADHD? What Goes Wrong and Why.” I thought about how our emotional discomfort propels us out of the present moment, to a more-perfect future - but only in our imagination. Impatience is an escape from the present: into a perfect future in which we have gotten results without doing the work, without having to deal with other people, without the discomfort of waiting.
The learning for me has been understanding what is happening in my brain, and what happens in life, when I feel impatient. My brain is not sure what to do - it is just spinning. In life, the present moment is when relationships develop, skills are honed, and joy found in an intimate connection with a moment. So these are what get shortchanged in the hurry for a reward: that feeling of success, of closure, that is always just a bit further down the road.
How to be more present in the moment?
Attend to the daily routines that you have created to serve your personal objectives for well-being. These ground you in your daily life and your identity - when you do these activities, you are being yourself.
Notice when you feel that restlessness or impatience, and bring your attention to the moment. What is happening in this moment; can you name it? What does the moment call for? You will feel the clenched muscles relax as you become aware of what is happening now. As you move out of the emotion, you’ll be able to access the thinking functions of your brain.
Imagining the future is an important and useful ability, but bypassing the present moment shortchanges the real future that you are creating in each moment. “Be here now” is an instruction from Ram Dass, who also said, “As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.” What do you see?
ADHD Life Support is the blog of
Susan McGinnis, CALC of ADHD Impact Coaching LLC
Coaching adults with ADHD www.adhdimpactcoaching.com