Today's episode is all about how to be PROactive not REactive. ADHDers spend so much time putting out fires and reacting to everything happening around us. But if we're going to truly make forward progress on our own dreams and goals, we're going to need to put down the fire hose and start making some purposeful decisions. 

BUT HOW? Tune in how to find out:

1. How to create a vision even if you can't picture things in your mind's eye 
2. How to make a plan, even if it's only for the next hour
3. How to drop the drama around the timeframe (spoiler, it doesn't all have to happen today)

This is the perfect episode for you if just don't feel like you're moving forward the way you wish you could. 

And if you love this class, check out my ADHD coaching program FOCUSED for even more support.

Come hang out with me on Instagram HERE

Danica @theempoweredtherapist specializes in healing from attachment wounds, sexual assault, emotional neglect, vicarious trauma, intergenerational and identity-based trauma, and work or academic trauma. 

In this DEEP convo, Kristen and Danica discuss the following topics: 
Complex Trauma
Is it ADHD or CPTSD?
Attunement
Attachment
Somatic Experiencing
How to Identify a Trigger
The Complexity of Healing

Danica is a therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) in Dallas, TX. She co-owns Empowered Healing Dallas, a group practice where she provides trauma-informed therapy using somatic, relational, attachment, and parts work approaches to treatment.

Danica is passionate about support for therapists and provides counseling services, mentorship, supervision, and consultation to mental health providers looking for trauma-informed support. She is deeply invested in equity, social justice efforts, and destigmatizing mental health treatment, and utilizes her Instagram platform, @theempoweredtherapist to provide education and support to the broader community.

AG1 Athletic Greens 

I’m really enjoying these episodes with my FOCUSED community, and I hope you are too! Today, Sue Peters is with me, and we dive into the difficult world of chronic pain through an ADHD lens.

When Sue was finally diagnosed with ADHD in her mid-twenties, she had already identified that there was something different about her and had even tried reaching out for help. But ignorant and insensitive “experts” failed to give her the guidance and support she needed, which left her with a lot of rejection, shame, and emotional pain from childhood through young adulthood. Everything compounded when her family went through a scary surgery situation with her child, and one day she woke up with immobility and excruciating pain that changed the course of her life.

Sue and I discuss how things like trauma and emotional wounds can eventually weaken the immune system to the point of breaking down physical health, and how important it is to receive therapy and coaching in a way that’s sensitive to ADHD. Listen in to hear her incredible story of resilience with ADHD and chronic pain, and how she’s working through it all at her own pace, finding her path, surrounded by community.


Are you being treated for ADHD but still aren’t quite achieving your potential? Try my group coaching program FOCUSED and experience the difference.

Be sure to hang out with me on Instagram HERE.

Shout-outs:

@kamden_adhd 

Christine Hargrove is a a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia whose primary focus is on exploring financial therapy and ADHD relationships - an important and rare combination! We very quickly realized one episode was not enough, so stay tuned for part two with practical tips.

Before we dive into money talk, Christine shares her own story about how she came to receive her own ADHD diagnosis. It was missed for years because people told her she was “too smart” to have ADHD. I especially love this part of the episode because I think it will click with a lot of people regarding the fear and feelings of defeat that can come with receiving or not receiving a diagnosis due to ignorant stigmas and misconceptions that have followed ADHD for years.

When it comes to finances, mental health experts often avoid the topic, deeming it too controversial or because they’re simply not money experts. And money managers are nowhere near equipped to support clients through the emotions, trauma and complicated feelings surrounding finances that many people have. 

As we’ve discussed throughout this podcast, so much of the work with ADHDers is in encouraging them to trust their own authority and ability to make decisions. This is one of Christine’s main focus areas in financial therapy - equipping adults to get comfortable with calculated risk and understanding that you don’t have to wait to make a decision until it’s perfect.

To follow Christine’s incredible research and work, visit her website at ChristineHargrove.com. And if you’d like to gain some confidence in decision-making with other ADHD adults, come join my group coaching program FOCUSED.

Come hang out with me on Instagram HERE. 

In this episode, I’m joined by my FOCUSED client Michael Johnson, who shares his ADHD journey that led him to being coached and now becoming a coach himself.

I love our conversation because Michael is so open and honest about his weaknesses and the self-discovery that led to him evolving into a much more self-aware and balanced person today. 

If you've struggled with horrible self-talk, disordered eating, and difficult relationships, this episode is going to be right up your alley. 

In case you haven’t had enough of ME talking about emotional regulation, Michael discusses from a client perspective why he truly believes it is the number one skill for adults with ADHD to learn. 

Do you ever feel that your ADHD symptoms aren’t actually the biggest problem, but instead it’s the layers of self-judgment and blame that you pile on top of yourself after noticing the symptom holding you back?

Have your lack of emotional regulation skills led to you self-soothing in unhealthy ways that keep you in a bad cycle?

Listen, share with friends and look into being coached by Michael at onethoughtcoach.com. You can find Michael on Instagram @michaelgarrettjohnson

Come hang out with me on Instagram HERE.

Maggie Patterson is a vocal advocate for humane business practices rooted in respect, empathy and trust. She’s the host of the BS-Free Service Business podcast, and the co-host of Duped: The Dark Side of Online Business.

In this episode we are SPILLING ALL THE TEA. Maggie and I talk about: 

1. Self help, cults, and MLMS
2. Scammy online business practices
3. Mystery offers
4. "If I can do it you can do it"
5. Steven Hassan's BITE model of culty practices
6. How to avoid getting scammed
7. How to be ethical (what does it even mean)

Maggie is the editorial director at Scoop Studios and the creator of BS-Free Business. With two decades of experience, Maggie has spent her entire career in client services and has been a successful entrepreneur for over 15 years. 

Maggie works with service business and agency owners to build bs-free businesses that put trust first in everything they do. 

To get in touch with Maggie, you can check out the following links: 

• BS-Free Business
• BS-Free Service Business Show
• Duped: the Dark Side of Online Business Podcast

AG1 Athletic Greens

I’m very pleased to be joined by Kimberley Quinlan in this episode. Kimberley is a licensed marriage and family therapist, specializing in anxiety, OCD and related disorders. Some of you with ADHD can identify with having additional neurodivergent diagnoses, such as OCD, and you may have experienced some confusion in differentiating between the two.

As children, it was hard enough being diagnosed with ADHD and having a full understanding of what it meant for ourselves and for our parents. Now add in other disorders, and you can imagine how difficult and frustrating it can be for those who have been misdiagnosed, misunderstood and overlooked.

I myself have a child who’s been diagnosed with OCD and ADHD, with the former likely causing the latter. I’m grateful to Kimberley for allowing me to share a bit of my own regrets as a parent coming to a good place of understanding my child in order to get him the support he needed.

There are so many great takeaways from this episode. But the biggest ones I’m walking away with are that validation and reassurance are everything. If you’ve been considering an evaluation for yourself or a loved one, please look into it. It’s a vulnerable process, but intaking the right information can be so powerful.

You can find Kimberley at kimberleyquinlan-lmft.com. If you are looking for some support as an adult with ADHD, come join my group coaching program FOCUSED, where we lift each other up and learn from our collective neurodivergent journeys. 

Resources:

1. International OCD Foundation
2. CBT School
3. Podcast: Your Anxiety Toolkit - Anxiety & OCD Strategies for Everyday 
4. The Self-Compassion Workbook for OCD: Lean into Your Fear, Manage Difficult Emotions, and Focus On Recovery

This episode is a rare treat as I chat with a current FOCUSED client of mine, Jason Rowlett, @JDouglasRowlett who shares his experience of identifying and leaving a toxic work environment.

I decided to do an episode with Jason on this topic as I watched him navigate this situation in real-time and recognized this as something that likely happens to many adults with ADHD.

While ADHD can certainly manifest in our work performance and social behavior, we shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells at all times, worried about inconveniencing or frustrating our colleagues. Sometimes our work environments are just bad, and it has nothing to do with us and nothing to do with ADHD. But we often get accustomed to accepting blame and believing we’re the problem if we had a history of being treated this way as children or young people with ADHD. This can cloud our judgment and cause us to stay in toxic situations longer than we should.

Jason and I discuss in depth what toxic workplaces look and feel like. Are you receiving misassigned blame and spending significant time analyzing situations to understand where things went wrong and why you were treated negatively? Are you receiving constructive criticism or personal put-downs?

Have a listen, share with a friend, and if you’d like to see what Jason’s up to now, you can find his podcast and other content HERE.

Minaa B. is a licensed social worker, writer, and author of Owning Our Struggles. She is also the founder of Minaa B. Consulting, a mental health consulting practice that helps organizations develop psychological safety and promote mental health inclusivity. 

In this heartfelt episode, Kristen and Minaa discuss:

1. Psychological safety in the workplace
2. Bullying
3. Systematic traumas that we face daily 
4. The nuance of boundaries in relationships
5. Recognizing when you ARE the problem
6. Healing through community
7. 
   

Minaa is an expert in her field, serving on the Mental Health Advisory Committee for Wondermind, a mental fitness company co-founded by Selena Gomez. She has been featured in various media outlets, such as Red Table Talk, Peace of Mind With Taraji, BBC, and Essence. Minaa resides in New York City, and you can learn more about her by visiting www.minaab.com.

Minaa's book Owning Our Struggles can be Pre-Ordered HERE.

My regular listeners will know that I’ve been talking about my ADHD coaching certification program for the past couple of weeks. But this episode was so much fun because I had the pleasure of interviewing four of my trained coaches from the last term.

The roll call includes:

1. Jacoba Lilius - a professor of organizational psychology that plans to pair coaching with academia. Find Jacoba on LinkedIn.
2. Laura Gaynon - a professional musician and teacher with strong intuition and a holistic approach to coaching others to honor who they are. You can find Laura on Instagram.
3. Emily Weinberg - a former teacher turned stay-at-home mom that greatly benefitted from FOCUSED coaching and realized that she had the skills and the time to commit to a new career. Find Emily at ADHDwithemily.com
4. Steev Hodgson - is a software sales professional who was diagnosed with ADHD later in life and is now passionate about helping others. Find Steev at damnhealthydose.com. 

One thing that all of these new coaches have in common is being diagnosed with ADHD later in life. After receiving support through my adult group coaching program FOCUSED, they answered the call to become coaches themselves and successfully passed my certification training!

If you’re considering applying to this program, or are considering joining FOCUSED, this is a great episode to listen to in order to get a clear and honest picture of what both experiences are really like.