Hyperfocusing on what we wish we did, are doing, or what will happen can drain our energy. Let’s practice taking back that focus!
Transcription:
Hey, JoyGenea here, neurodiversity coach to those awesome different thinkers with dyslexia, ADHD, awesome adults, and we’re talking about ADHD hyperfocus and when it can go a little negative on someone with some past, present, and future thinking. So, I see this as a form of self gaslighting, that’s how I terminize it, and basically, it’s where someone will beat themselves up for the past, recent past, something simple like, ‘Man, I was supposed to work on this project and I didn’t work on it yesterday and now I’m not working on it today and I’m such a failure and look at this. I just, I always do this-” Right? Catastrophizing. But they’re obsessing with the past. Then, that’s in the present moment right, so they’re losing energy, time, all those types of things in the moment, because they’re trying to- they’re hyper-focused on it, they’re analyzing it, that type of stuff. Then we get into they start to project it into the future, ‘Well oh my gosh, if I’m doing this then it’s just going to be like that and then in the future it’s going to turn out like th-” Pause. Pause. Pause all of that, I get it. Oh I get it, but you’ve been hijacked by your hyper-focus and it’s time to take back that focus and your energy and get back into the present moment. So, when you become aware of this and if you are a loved one and you’re verbal processing with someone and you’re starting to hear that repetitive past, present, future type of thing happening just kindly say, ‘You know what? I don’t think it’s wise for us- me to continue to engage in this. Maybe you’re doing that past present future thing we watched about? Let’s pause and not do that anymore.’ And instead, here’s a really important thing, it often requires a physical movement, a physical something to get your brain to let go of that chemistry that’s going on, and so I quite often tell clients, ‘You’re going to do five jumping jacks, five pushups, and then take a really deep breath, pause at the top and let it out. And then describe five things in the room that you are looking at or that you can see.’ That helps you to get present. Don’t allow your hyper-focus to get the best of you. You deserve to have an amazing incredible life, and sometimes it can get the best of us. So, I’m JoyGenea. I hope that’s been really helpful. You have an amazing day. Bye now.