How ADHD Regulation Changed My Daily Life
If you've spent years managing your ADHD symptoms from the outside in with tips and tools and calendar systems and productivity hacks, and still feel like you're holding it together by sheer will, this episode is worth your time.
Jenna shares her own story here, the real one, starting from postpartum and an ADHD diagnosis she didn't see coming, through seven years of dysregulated entrepreneurship, and into what her life looks like now that ADHD regulation is the foundation instead of an afterthought. She's describing what happens when the nervous system stops running in survival mode, and it shows up in the ordinary details of a Tuesday morning.
The through-line of this episode is the ADHD dysregulation cycle and why it's so easy to miss. When you're in fight-or-flight, the brain isn't flagging it as a problem. It's filing it under "how things are." The overwhelm, the paralysis, the all-or-nothing thinking, the crash after a productive stretch - none of that gets labeled as dysregulation when you're inside it. It just feels like your life. And the regulation work Jenna describes changes those things not by managing them, but because the nervous system underneath them is different.
What the episode covers:
How ADHD dysregulation shows up across daily life, including in the moments that don't look like ADHD at all
Why the frantic-crash cycle is a fight-or-flight response, and what that reframe actually changes about treatment
What Jenna noticed after hundreds of hours working with ADHD clients one-on-one before she built her regulation framework
How ADHD paralysis disappears (or becomes rare) when regulation becomes a consistent practice, not a crisis response
What managing ADHD without medication looked like for Jenna, and why she's careful about how she frames that
The difference between surviving daily functioning with ADHD and being present for your own life
Why late ADHD diagnosis in women so often goes undetected, and how Jenna's own story reflects that pattern
The part worth sitting with is what Jenna says about the external not doing the internal work. The degree, the income milestone, the business finally gaining traction - those things arrived for her, and she still wasn't regulated until she did the regulation work. She's not making a motivational argument there. The practical implication is that you don't have to hit every external marker before the internal work becomes available to you.
ADHD nervous system regulation doesn't make you slower or less capable. For Jenna, it made her steadier, and steadier turned out to be what actually built the business.
"And I have not gone on medication. I've done nothing but regulation work."
Grab Jenna's free The ADHD Regulation Guide to step one of the regulation work Jenna walks through in this episode.
Join the waitlist for Jenna's ADHD Regulation Method certification if you're a clinician working with ADHD clients.
And Jenna's book, The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, is available wherever books are sold, and worth checking your local library for.
Connect with Jenna
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More about ADHD with Jenna Free
ADHD with Jenna Free is a podcast for adults with ADHD who are done surviving their symptoms and ready to start thriving with ADHD without the endless tips, hacks, and workarounds that have never really fixed anything.
Hosted by Jenna Free, a Canadian Certified Counselor (CCC) and ADHD therapist, this show exists to give you a completely different way of understanding ADHD in adults and the signs of ADHD in women. Because the reason you're stuck, overwhelmed, and exhausted isn't a lack of willpower, it's that your brain is running in fight or flight. And once you understand that, everything changes.
This podcast covers the full experience of living with adult ADHD: the real science behind procrastination in ADHD and ADHD task paralysis, ADHD executive functioning strategies that work, why ADHD and perimenopause collide in ways no one talks about, and the honest, solution-focused conversations that most ADHD podcasts aren't having. Jenna also shares her own story, what it looks like to go from chronically dysregulated to genuinely thriving, so you can see that this is possible for you.
This show gives women with ADHD, and anyone who has ever wondered whether ADHD can be diagnosed in adulthood, a path forward that isn't about coping harder, but healing.
I’ll answer questions like:
Do I have ADHD?
What is ADHD task paralysis, and how do I get unstuck?
Why is my ADHD getting worse in my 40s?
What does ADHD and perimenopause do to your brain?
How do I manage ADHD emotional dysregulation without medication alone?
Why do I procrastinate so much with ADHD?
Why don't ADHD tips and tricks ever work long-term?
What does it look like to thrive with ADHD
Can you heal ADHD symptoms without just white-knuckling through life?
What does nervous system regulation have to do with ADHD?
How do I stop feeling overwhelmed with ADHD?
If you're an adult with ADHD who's tired of the commiseration and ready for a show that believes your life can look completely different, you're in the right place.
The unedited transcript for this episode of ADHD with Jenna
Early Signs of ADHD and Dysregulation
Jenna Free [00:01:28 - 00:02:14]: [00:01:28] All right. [00:01:29] So when I look back at my life as someone with adhd, and if you have it, you've had it your whole life, when I look back, I definitely see how ADHD has affected me in a few different areas, mostly in sometimes when I would have called it depression. [00:01:46] But now I see it was the crash of that dysregulation cycle. [00:01:49] And had I known that, I would have really gone about it in a different way. [00:01:53] But I definitely have some big stretches of time where like, oof, I was struggling and really in that low energy place, I also see it in, you know, always just have been thinking I think differently than other people. [00:02:06] Oh, I'm so unique. [00:02:08] I don't see it that way or I don't do it that way. [00:02:10] Isn't that interesting? [00:02:11] Now that I know why, it makes a lot of sense.
The Turning Point: Motherhood & Overwhelm
Jenna Free [00:02:14 - 00:02:59]: [00:02:14] But the biggest thing that happened to me that had me actually starting to look into what's going on here, I think something's happening that's out of the quote, unquote norm. [00:02:25] And that was when I had my first baby. [00:02:29] Postpartum was rough, very, very difficult. [00:02:33] And of course postpartum depression. [00:02:35] Can happen to anybody. [00:02:37] But it felt very different. [00:02:42] And even as I was coming out of that kind of acute, like first six months, I still felt so overwhelmed by the tiny, quote unquote, simple things of caring for a child. [00:02:55] Those repetitive small tasks you have to do again and again.Jenna Free [00:02:59 - 00:03:25]: [00:02:59] And I know a lot of people feel that, but it was so acute that I was like, something's up here. [00:03:03] Like sweeping the floor felt so hard. [00:03:06] And I had always felt that way where I would like be overwhelmed by, you know, taking care of a home, daily tasks. [00:03:12] I have. [00:03:13] I say this a lot. [00:03:14] You probably heard me say it before. [00:03:15] But the thing I reflect back on is when I asked my roommate in university, do you ever not want to take your socks off at night? [00:03:22] Cause and you have to put em back on in the morning. [00:03:24] Like that to me was overwhelming.
Jenna Free [00:03:26 - 00:04:12]: [00:03:26] So I would cut corners, like, I'm gonna leave my socks on even though I'm hot because I don't want to have to put socks on. [00:03:33] Like, that was overwhelming. [00:03:34] So it's the overwhelm of the simple things that really was a flag for me of like, that's different. [00:03:41] So as I had two kids in two years, I really was in survival mode in every way. [00:03:49] Nervous system, mentally, physically, all of it. [00:03:53] And so I was diagnosed with ADHD in grad school to become a therapist after I'd had two kids in two years. [00:03:59] And then I was in grad school, then the responsibilities, and there was just so much going on in my daily life that it surpassed my coping skills. [00:04:10] It was just a mess.
Jenna Free [00:04:12 - 00:04:42]: [00:04:12] I was upset all the time. [00:04:14] I was overwhelmed all the time by everything. [00:04:16] I wasn't enjoying any of life and I knew something was going on. [00:04:21] So it did take a couple years. [00:04:22] I did say to my mom, like a couple years before I got my diagnosis, I think I made hd and externally that doesn't make sense to a lot of people. [00:04:30] And that might have been why if you got diagnosed later in life. [00:04:33] Why? [00:04:35] Because I was decent in school, right? [00:04:37] Pretty good, actually. [00:04:38] My life was going, quote, unquote, okay.
Diagnosis and Rethinking ADHD
Jenna Free [00:04:42 - 00:05:18]: [00:04:42] I mean, if you do know you have adhd, then you kind of reflect of like, oh yeah, I did have like four careers, but at the time I was 30. [00:04:49] My life changed a lot. [00:04:51] Like I've always said, like, I feel like I've lived like four lifetimes. [00:04:54] I was like 27. [00:04:57] I can see it there. [00:04:59] But you know, only child, girl, goody goody perfectionism, all of that stuff doesn't look like what most people think of adhd. [00:05:10] Looking like so my mom was like, there's no way now that we know more about adhd, she's like, oh, yes, I see. [00:05:16] We bailed you out a few times in life.Jenna Free [00:05:18 - 00:05:42]: [00:05:18] You randomly switched everything. [00:05:20] We were, like, on board and supporting you. [00:05:22] So of course, I did have that support and that privilege of support where my life didn't crumble. [00:05:27] Had I been completely on my own without, you know, know, the love and support of parents. [00:05:32] Yeah, maybe it would have been more obvious sooner. [00:05:34] Right. [00:05:35] So it depends on your situation as well, of how you get diagnosed and when. [00:05:39] So I was diagnosed with ADHD while in grad school.
Jenna Free [00:05:42 - 00:06:14]: [00:05:42] I was in grad school because I had been a coach for intuitive eating for seven years, and I wanted to kind of take that next step to become a therapist, thinking, oh, I'll work with intuitive eating, disordered eating, eating disorders, and that'll be my specialty. [00:05:56] Just because it's what I've known for seven years. [00:05:58] Because prior to that, I had healed my own relationship with food with intuitive eating. [00:06:02] So that was my passion at the time. [00:06:04] But it had been seven years. [00:06:05] Right. [00:06:06] That was something I stuck to for quite a long time. [00:06:08] But then when I was diagnosed with adhd, that just felt more relevant.
Learning About ADHD: External vs. Internal Strategies
Jenna Free [00:06:14 - 00:06:52]: [00:06:14] I was more interested in that because I had healed my relationship with food for so long that, yes, I could talk about it all day, but it wasn't as exciting to me. [00:06:23] And of course, with the Adichi brain, we know we want to be interested in what we're doing. [00:06:27] So I started learning more about adhd. [00:06:29] I did a few courses, and I got what I got from that, which really was, we don't know what to do with ADHD years. [00:06:36] Give them these tips, give them these tools, give them this calendar, give them these ideas. [00:06:40] Right? [00:06:40] It was very external. [00:06:42] Even as a therapist taking courses to work with ADHD clients, it wasn't much about the internal world. [00:06:49] A lot of it was about Band Aid approaches.Jenna Free [00:06:52 - 00:07:32]: [00:06:52] And we've talked about that before, and it kind of is what it is. [00:06:55] That's the message I got. [00:06:56] So, okay, that's what it is. [00:06:58] All right. [00:06:59] So I got started seeing clients, and after, you know, probably hundreds of hours of working with people one on one, talking about their experience, talking about their struggles, talking about how can we make this better. [00:07:10] And then, of course, living it myself, I really started to see this cycle, this frantic crash cycle of, oh, my God, I have to do everything. [00:07:21] Oh, my gosh, fear is a motivator, perfectionism, all of these different things that kind of the puzzle started coming together of we're in survival mode. [00:07:30] Like, this is a fight or flight response.
Understanding the Survival Mode & Dysregulation
Jenna Free [00:07:34 - 00:08:13]: [00:07:34] And that actually connects to a lot of our symptoms and makes things make more sense in my mind, because I'm not of the school of thought. [00:07:41] It's like, oh, ADHD is some weird random thing where you have all these arbitrary symptoms. [00:07:47] There's nothing you can do about it. [00:07:48] This kind of connected things and gave it more of a ro, which is like, oh, it's all connected through the lens of dysregulation. [00:07:57] When we are in fight or flight or in survival mode, this is what happens. [00:08:02] And so I started identifying in both my experience, you know, because what these people were sharing, I was like, well, me too. [00:08:08] My experience and their experience. [00:08:11] Okay, I see the all or nothing thinking.Jenna Free [00:08:13 - 00:08:43]: [00:08:13] I'm seeing the extremes we get stuck in. [00:08:15] And I'm seeing how being in fight or flight mirrors ADHD really closely. [00:08:21] So once we started working with people in that lens, ooh, some changes were happening because before I was giving people, here's, you know, a strategy, here's a tool, here's ideas, and they would come back either. [00:08:35] Didn't do it, didn't execute it, just like, whatever, okay, well, let's keep. [00:08:40] Keep trying. [00:08:40] Keep trying. [00:08:41] Just don't give up. [00:08:41] Keep trying to.
The Power of Regulation: A New Approach
Jenna Free [00:08:43 - 00:09:10]: [00:08:43] But this angle of, okay, let's see what this does. [00:08:46] And then while I was working with people, of course, I was practicing this myself, of observing my own brain being really curious. [00:08:53] And that's an important mindset in this work for you as well. [00:08:56] Hmm. [00:08:56] Isn't that brain doing something interesting here? [00:08:58] What's happening there? [00:08:59] Oh, I see what my thinking is doing. [00:09:02] And so I was doing the work while I was helping others do this work, and I was feeling less drained. [00:09:08] I. [00:09:09] I was feeling less exhausted.Jenna Free [00:09:11 - 00:09:41]: [00:09:11] I was having less of this intense crash cycle. [00:09:14] And then so were my clients, and it was so exciting. [00:09:18] Now, if we look like two years later, I have only gotten stronger and stronger and stronger. [00:09:22] In the opinion of this is the answer. [00:09:25] This is what we need to be doing. [00:09:26] And if everyone with ADHD did this work first and then did the other stuff on top of that, whatever else you find helpful, we would be laughing. [00:09:37] Oh, this is really not so bad. [00:09:40] Of course it comes.
Jenna Free [00:09:41 - 00:10:26]: [00:09:41] Still have our struggles. [00:09:42] We have our unique selves. [00:09:44] We're never going to be neurotypical, but we don't need to be right? [00:09:47] We can be absolutely ourselves, but our regulated selves and thrive. [00:09:51] The biggest change I see in myself, one is like, the experience of daily life, and then two, externally, I see it in my entrepreneurial journey. [00:10:00] So for my experience of daily life, I'm sharing this just so you get an idea of, like, what could be. [00:10:07] If I hunker down with this philosophy that regulation is the key. [00:10:12] So the experience of everyday life is just so much more pleasant and present, if you will. [00:10:20] So when I wake up in the morning and I open my eyes, instead of what I used to feel, which was, oh, my God, what's my day like? [00:10:25] Oh, my gosh, I got to start at this time.
Daily Life Regulated: From Anxiety to Presence
Jenna Free [00:10:26 - 00:10:52]: [00:10:26] And how am I going to get that many meetings in? [00:10:27] Oh, I have to talk to this person. [00:10:28] What am I going to say in that appointment now, truly, without working at it? [00:10:35] Daily life's pretty regulated for me. [00:10:37] I do get dysregulated, of course, but you typically buy bigger stuff. [00:10:41] Out of the ordinary stuff. [00:10:43] But I'll wake up in the morning, I open my eyes, it's morning. [00:10:47] Like, narrate what my brain's doing. [00:10:50] Oh, it's morning. [00:10:51] Okay.Jenna Free [00:10:52 - 00:11:19]: [00:10:52] Typically, there's a small child who has crawled into my bed. [00:10:56] Good morning. [00:10:57] And I'm just present there. [00:10:59] And I might still feel tired, but I can get up, mosey to the closet. [00:11:03] Okay, what am I gonna wear? [00:11:05] You know, am I going to the gym or am I working first thing? [00:11:09] What's happening? [00:11:09] Okay, get dressed, go over to my other kid's room. [00:11:14] Good morning. [00:11:15] Right? [00:11:15] It's like, wow, I'm just here. [00:11:17] I'm here for it.
Jenna Free [00:11:19 - 00:11:39]: [00:11:19] I'm here for the morning. [00:11:20] I'm here. [00:11:21] Then we all walk downstairs, we make breakfast. [00:11:23] I'm here chilling while we wait for the bus to come. [00:11:26] We go, we get on the bus to drop my son to daycare. [00:11:30] Maybe I'll go to the gym. [00:11:31] But none of it sounds like, oh, my God, this day. [00:11:34] How am I gonna get this day done? [00:11:35] Oh, my God, how am I gonna do it all? [00:11:37] I'm just here for it.
Jenna Free [00:11:39 - 00:12:12]: [00:11:39] It was my friend's birthday today, so I met her for lunch. [00:11:41] Then I came here, like, okay, I'll do my podcast episode now. [00:11:46] Like, I wasn't worrying the whole lunch about the podcast episode. [00:11:49] Like, I'm present with the task at hand, and that's what makes an enjoyable life. [00:11:54] That's what makes a less overwhelming life. [00:11:57] That's what makes life worth living, truly. [00:11:59] Instead of just your brain thinking all the time, well, what I have to do later, what do I have to do later? [00:12:03] Seeing that brick wall that I have talked about before. [00:12:06] But it's just the idea of perceiving everything at once that's so overwhelming.
Jenna Free [00:12:12 - 00:12:42]: [00:12:12] When you're present, you can't be overwhelmed by definition. [00:12:15] Like it's pretty relaxed when we are not in survival mode. [00:12:20] So that's the experience of daily life really the best. [00:12:24] Honestly that was the been the best part of this work for me. [00:12:27] But what's so cool is that does not come at a cost. [00:12:30] Right when we are dysregulated we think, oh my God, I have to be overwhelmed all the time. [00:12:34] I have to be thinking all the time. [00:12:35] My brain has to be going a thousand miles a minute to keep up with life because life is so hectic and life is so crazy and I have to get through it and I have to survive.
Success Through Regulation: Internal and External Wins
Jenna Free [00:12:43 - 00:13:17]: [00:12:43] We think we need that in order to be successful. [00:12:47] But I have been so much more successful while I've been present. [00:12:52] Calm, a little bit slowed down, as in I'm not frantic. [00:12:56] I wouldn't say I'm slow, I would say I actually talk quite quickly and I work quite efficiently but I'm not rushing ever. [00:13:06] And that has created such amazing results externally. [00:13:10] So the experience is so much better internally and the results are better externally. [00:13:16] Win, win. [00:13:16] This work is truly.Jenna Free [00:13:18 - 00:13:54]: [00:13:18] And I've seen that, you know, if you just try to take something a little bit more tangible, I've seen that in my entrepreneurial journey, which I know a lot of you ADHD years are. [00:13:26] This is the work for an entrepreneur or a self employed person with adhd. [00:13:30] I'm telling you it's gonna save your life and your business. [00:13:34] So for seven years I was dysregulated. [00:13:37] I had a business partner and honestly that probably kept me in check a lot more than had I been own for seven years. [00:13:43] But I was dysregulated and it showed, right? [00:13:47] Our business did not have a flow, it did not grow over time. [00:13:50] For seven years it was very up and down and up and down. [00:13:52] It was a roller coaster in and of itself.
Jenna Free [00:13:54 - 00:14:28]: [00:13:54] Success wise, income wise, productivity wise, all of it. [00:13:58] I remember even for six months I had such a crash that I couldn't even post on social media. [00:14:03] And we had a pretty big following at the time too, like 125,000 followers on our intuitive eating page. [00:14:09] And so it was like a good thing we had going and I literally couldn't even post something. [00:14:15] I was so, so crashed. [00:14:19] After all that dysregulation, you know, nothing had any growth. [00:14:23] It would just like something might do well for a month and then it would crash. [00:14:27] That was for seven years.
Jenna Free [00:14:29 - 00:15:23]: [00:14:29] It finally came to a close where, you know, kind of crashed at a level where it's like, okay, I don't think this is sustainable anymore. [00:14:36] That's when we both went to grad school, became therapists, and that was great. [00:14:40] As the last two years as an entrepreneur, I have had steady growth every single month of those two years. [00:14:47] I am actually building something that feels substantial and like, isn't going to blow over in the wind, which is how it felt before. [00:14:57] I am less overwhelmed by it. [00:14:59] I show up every single day and I just do, do, do, do, do, Work away, work away. [00:15:05] It's not like I'm hustling and grinding. [00:15:07] But you don't need to, right? [00:15:09] If you're in the sustainable, consistent energy and consistent, I mean flexible, healthy consistency, not rigid, perfectionist consistency, man, you can build something good, but regulation is required for that.
The Importance of Presence and Incremental Progress
Jenna Free [00:15:23 - 00:16:00]: [00:15:23] Even if you're not an entrepreneur, just observing anything, you're working towards anything you want in life, Are you rushing it? [00:15:32] Are you trying to get there faster? [00:15:34] Skipping steps, you know, even, like when you start a hobby, oh, I should be good right away. [00:15:38] That's never going to happen. [00:15:40] So if we want to be at pro level at lesson one, we're never going to get anywhere exercise even. [00:15:48] Okay. [00:15:49] I went to the gym one time. [00:15:50] Yeah, you're not going to be lifting much weight. [00:15:52] You're not going to be able to run very far. [00:15:54] But then you go again and again and again and it feels slow and we're impatient and we want results now.Jenna Free [00:16:00 - 00:16:31]: [00:16:00] I want to look different now. [00:16:01] I want to be stronger now. [00:16:02] I want to be lifting the huge weights now and then when we can't either give up going to all or nothing, thinking, paralysis, overwhelm versus when you're regulated. [00:16:13] I right now am working on exercising more regularly and lifting weights specifically. [00:16:18] And I am really seeing like, wow, the actually the incremental increase on the weights I'm lifting feels small day to day, week to week. [00:16:25] But it's. [00:16:26] I think it's been five months now. [00:16:28] And I'm definitely stronger than I was at the beginning.
Jenna Free [00:16:31 - 00:17:01]: [00:16:31] But you don't see it such a good analogy. [00:16:34] Like, you don't see it each day or each workout, but then you look, you know, four months later and you go, whoa. [00:16:39] Actually, look, I'm so much stronger. [00:16:42] I know there's this one, like, leg press machine that I was doing, like, no weight on it because it's heavy in and of itself. [00:16:48] And today I had 70 pounds on it and it's like, oh, my gosh, that's really cool. [00:16:54] But when you're dysregulated, we get Way too ahead of ourselves. [00:16:58] We are not present. [00:17:00] We're not here for it.
Jenna Free [00:17:01 - 00:17:24]: [00:17:01] We want to get it over with. [00:17:02] We want to get to the finish line. [00:17:03] We want to get done. [00:17:05] And that's an exhausting and dysregulating way to live. [00:17:08] It's going to give you so many more ADHD symptoms like paralysis, overwhelm, perfectionism, you know, all of those things. [00:17:14] And it's. [00:17:15] It's a rough go. [00:17:16] So the main shifts of getting out of survival mode that have changed things for me are being able to be more present and do things one small step at a time.
The Concrete Benefits of Regulation
Jenna Free [00:17:24 - 00:18:04]: [00:17:24] I give a nice big example there. [00:17:25] But I think it's important to start conceptualizing what does that actually look like when life plays out. [00:17:30] When I'm more regulated, it's reduced my overwhelm because I've been able to be more present. [00:17:35] I'm only ever here with one thing at a time because that's all that exists, right? [00:17:39] So it's that regulation helps so much with that. [00:17:43] Less exhausted. [00:17:44] Because being in survival mode is exhausting in and of itself, even if you're not doing anything. [00:17:48] So even if you're laying around all day, even if you're scrolling all day, even if you're, you know, at work, dragging your feet all day, not really accomplishing anything, you're going to be exhausted. [00:17:58] Because being in survival mode takes so much energy, mental energy, physical energy, all of it.Jenna Free [00:18:04 - 00:18:33]: [00:18:04] It's exhausting. [00:18:05] So I have much more energy to execute and do things instead of energy being wasted existing in this state and I'm happier and enjoying life instead of thinking, you know, okay, once I finish my degree, then I'll be happy. [00:18:21] Once my kids are older, then I'll be happy. [00:18:23] Even before I get. [00:18:23] Once I have kids, I'll be happy. [00:18:25] Well, that was like the hardest time ever. [00:18:27] But we always, like, are dangling this carrot like, oh, I'll just get through this phase of life. [00:18:31] I'll just get through this phase of life.
The Trap of Waiting for Happiness
Jenna Free [00:18:33 - 00:19:07]: [00:18:33] I'll just get through this phase of life, then I'll be happy. [00:18:36] I really want you to think, has that ever come? [00:18:39] Oh, yes. [00:18:40] I went over that threshold of, you know, graduating or getting that job I wanted or earning X amount of dollars or, you know, having so much success as an entrepreneur. [00:18:50] Did everything go check? [00:18:51] Yes, everything's in place and I'm feeling good and present and happy now. [00:18:55] I can almost promise you it hasn't because the external won't do that. [00:18:59] The external won't do that. [00:19:00] It's gotta be an internal change of Regulation. [00:19:04] So if you're thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm seeing how I'm in a rush.Jenna Free [00:19:07 - 00:19:38]: [00:19:07] I see how I'm not present. [00:19:09] I see how, you know, I'm perceiving the whole day and I'm in overwhelm all the time, which is going to overwhelm to paralysis. [00:19:16] Pipeline is like, when you are overwhelmed, you are going to slip into paralysis because that's the body's coping mechanism of like, oh, my God, this is scary. [00:19:22] This is dangerous. [00:19:24] Freeze like a deer in the headlights, right? [00:19:26] So paralysis for me has been eradicated. [00:19:30] Never say never. [00:19:30] But in the two years I've been doing this work, I have not felt paralysis. [00:19:36] Of course, I've chosen to rest.
Jenna Free [00:19:38 - 00:20:12]: [00:19:38] I've had lazy days, I've been overwhelmed at times, but I do not feel that I've tipped over into that very hard to describe paralysis. [00:19:47] But you know it because you felt it. [00:19:49] So a lot can change here. [00:19:51] But the point being, you can have all that too. [00:19:55] I am not special. [00:19:56] I am not different. [00:19:58] My ADHD brain isn't, you know, any different than yours. [00:20:02] And if you connect with my work, you know, we're very similar because my work comes from my own experience and, you know, I always post things and people are like, oh, my God, you explain this exactly how I feel.
Predictability and Power of Regulation
Jenna Free [00:20:12 - 00:20:52]: [00:20:12] Because you are me and I am you in a beautiful way. [00:20:15] The ADHD brain, especially the dysregulated ADHD brain, is very, very predictable. [00:20:20] It does very predictable things. [00:20:22] But what's so cool is it's very predictably shifted with this regulation work. [00:20:29] So if you're ready to get started, grab that guide. [00:20:32] If you haven't yet, if you have grabbed the guide, you've watched the video or read the document and you haven't executed it, revisit it. [00:20:42] Easy to be. [00:20:43] You know, I've talked about this before, and if this is your first time listening, we can get stuck in information hoarding, right? [00:20:51] Learning, learning, learning, learning, learning.
From Learning to Execution: Shift into Practice
Jenna Free [00:20:53 - 00:21:26]: [00:20:53] The only change, especially regulation wise, will come from doing and executing. [00:20:59] And sometimes that just means thinking in a different way. [00:21:02] But we have to actually think in a different way. [00:21:03] You can't just read the document and expect to be regulated. [00:21:06] So that being said, the guide is very simple. [00:21:11] And sometimes that can be a reason why people discount it. [00:21:13] You know, I even had someone recently comment on one of my posts and said, yeah, I downloaded your guy and it didn't give me many ideas to regulate. [00:21:21] I said, well, did you do the ones that it said? [00:21:22] She's like, no, okay, you don't need ideas, you need execution.Jenna Free [00:21:26 - 00:21:51]: [00:21:26] You need me to tell you, do this, do this, do this. [00:21:30] I don't need to give you a hundred ways to regulate. [00:21:32] That's just more overwhelm. [00:21:33] That's just more all or nothing thinking. [00:21:35] You're going to try to do it all and you're going to doing nothing. [00:21:37] It's just more information and we're not actually changing anything. [00:21:41] So grab the guide if you have not in the show notes, if you have revisit it. [00:21:46] Unless you are actively identifying dysregulation and interrupting it on a daily basis.
The First Step: Building Regulation
Jenna Free [00:21:52 - 00:22:30]: [00:21:52] Let's go back to the drawing board. [00:21:53] Let's get that first step of this process primed. [00:21:57] Some people come into my groups of like, oh, I've been doing the nervous system piece, so I feel a little bit ahead, right? [00:22:02] There's still lots more kinds of regulation and ways of regulation once you come into the program. [00:22:08] But the guide is a great, great start that's giving you step one, right? [00:22:14] And again, when you're dysregulated, it might be like, this step is stupid. [00:22:18] It's not worthwhile. [00:22:18] I want to go to step 10. [00:22:21] We always must start with step one and be present in that step. [00:22:24] So grab the guide if you have any questions, DM me, send me an email, comment on the podcast, whatever you like.