Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome to ADHD Mums. Today we have another cracker episode. I say that every week.

We have Jess Burgess, one of my most favourite people. She came to my wedding recently because I’ve known Jess since 2019. So I will give you a bit of the bio and then I’ll give you my own personal bio on Jess later.

But Jess Burgess is a psychologist, hypnotherapist and EMDR therapist with a diverse background with working from high performers to supporting veterans. She’s also worked in juvenile justice, NDIS. She’s focused on women’s health and spirituality and through this Jess has cultivated a deep understanding of the human experience across all different areas.

Jess is passionate about helping people embrace every facet of themselves. Her holistic approach is rooted in empowering individuals to foster healthy relationships with their minds. She uses evidence-based techniques with a keen focus on self-connection. She guides her clients towards lasting positive change.

Jess facilitates mindfulness programs and workshops. She’s also the CEO of My Peaceful Mind and she offers easily accessible short programs designed to build self-connection, love and safety.

So welcome Jess.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Thank you Jane, thanks so much. It’s amazing to be here. I loved your wedding by the way. You were stunning.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh the wedding. So Jess’s husband or was kind of boyfriend back when I met her four years ago was the photographer and he worked with my boys that were completely less compliant than I expected for the photos.

And Joel was like quite positive about it at the time but I’ve been petrified to see the photos thinking I just need one, like just one frameable at this point. He did an incredible job because they were not really doing anything that they were told.

 

Jessica Burgess:

They were just enjoying the day weren’t they? Very playful, vibrant, creative.

 

Jane McFadden:

You know what in the episode notes I might put Joel’s website because I’ll put up some of the photos actually. He did an incredible job and he didn’t have much to work with so good on him.

But Jess and I met in 2019 when I created my psychology company. Jess was the first psychologist that I hired. The only one who was crazy enough to come on board for such a like wild idea at the time.

And when I first met her I was breastfeeding Billy and she would come over and I’d be like half breastfeeding. We’d have this random piece of ripped paper on the wall with some texters that didn’t really work and herself and another person would kind of take turns holding the baby and I’d be like spouting off all this stuff because I didn’t realize my brain was so hyperactive.

That was why I was having trouble on maternity leave and there was a lot of people saying you know you should be with your babies and I was like but I’m so amped up all the time.

And Jess did mention to me a few times that I almost had like an ADHD brain which I was like I don’t know what that is and I’ll glaze over the top of and continue to move forward.

So Jess has been there for a ride so I’m very excited to have you and you’ve seen all of my glory over the last kind of four years. And it’s been an incredible ride.

Jessica Burgess:

I’ve always just been in admiration for your brain. My husband knows, Jane’s brain, she’s brilliant. She’s brilliant.

 

Jane McFadden:

Oh my god and you know there was a period there where I thought I was gonna have a breakdown and then Jess would come surfing with me and I would go out like in like full storms whatever because it was my only like me time and I’d get to leave the house.

And Jess doesn’t have any kids yet and she would be like I don’t know about the tides and the weather and like making good choices right and I’d be like I don’t give a f**k Jess I’m going and she’d be like there for the ride. She’d be like I don’t know about this. It’s fine let’s go in.

Although you broke your nose but that wasn’t with me.

 

Jessica Burgess:

No definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone. I think every person with an ADHD diagnosis should have a risk averse friend to create the balance and the middle ground.

It’s great you pushed me out of my comfort zone. I’ve been surfing for three years. I’d never take on these conditions.

 

Jane McFadden:

We can do it. Let’s go out back.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yes it was a great way for me to connect in with my anxiety.

But you’re also consistent in your approach like you are still surfing right like I went hard every day completely injuring myself right for what a year and then I’ve completely given up right and then you are still consistently surfing and I have like already peaked burnt died.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yes and I’m still playing it safe.

 

Jessica Burgess:

My intention changed to just have a fun time.

 

Jane McFadden:

Okay so today the topic that I’ve asked Jess to come on and do is anxiety. So Jess we were having a bit of a laugh before because I was saying to Jess can you make sure we give specific examples and then we had a bit of a laugh because I said I didn’t know I had anxiety until I actually heard other people give examples.

So someone would come onto the podcast and go I’m a highly anxious person. And I’d be like oh and what’s that like thinking I don’t have anxiety I don’t know what that would feel like. And then they would list to me things that I feel every day like fast beating heart when things don’t go right, worrying into the future, catastrophizing situations, having to ask many many people the same questions to get like confirmation that I’m doing the right thing, always feeling like the world would end.

Like I talk about you know the walking dead is coming because sometimes I feel like the world is ending.

So Jess specializes in anxiety and I’ve done hypnotherapy with Jess before. She’s in Bodrum on the Sunshine Coast. She does incredible hypnotherapy around anxiety before she’s got a beautiful kind of meditation voice as well.

So I’ve brought Jess in because this is kind of her area that I feel like she’s really good at. So I suppose one of the first questions to start off if we start from beginning how would you think Jess that ADHD and anxiety plays out?

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah absolutely. It can seem quite intertwined but anxiety is secondary to the ADHD.

So if you can just imagine it’s got two separate hands in front of you. ADHD is focused primarily with the attention focus and concentration challenges and because there’s a different level of dopamine wiring in the brain we really struggle with kind of seeing the bigger picture and you can hyper focus with dopamine to specific areas and things. So your attention is quite trained and centralized with certain things that you really want to focus on and then you get rewarded for those things over time.

And then you also again have the impulse control, there’s challenges with time perception, there’s not the same sense of consequence when it comes to time as well.

So with ADHD you know you have the intention of filling your time productively but unless there’s a set deadline you can get really lost in the ins and outs and you have strategies and plans about how to make things happen but unfortunately those strategies and plans aren’t suited for the things that you have the intention of resolving and getting done within that time frame.

And so the main thing with ADHD is working memory. So you have a great memory for future and past events but your ability to work that working memory…

 

Jessica Burgess:

So you have a great memory for future and past events but your ability to work that working memory—so say for example someone tells you their name in about three seconds you’re like oh what was your name again, or someone’s like here’s my phone number remember some of the digits, you’re like oh I’m lucky to walk away maybe five or six.

But you know if someone’s like what happened to you maybe five years ago your brain is beautiful and it will take you straight back to that event or you can create very detailed images about the future case scenarios. So your memory as a whole—amazing—it’s just the working memory component that’s challenging.

Anxiety on the other hand is characterized by that worry and that fear and it’s brain and body response. So your mind is usually focusing on like you were saying the worst case scenarios, focusing on the thoughts about what’s going to happen to me, and it’s in that preparation survival mode: if I plan ahead, if I think ahead enough then I can keep myself safe.

And then you have the accompanying physiological response with the racing heart, the sweating palms, the restlessness, agitation. So there are some really clear distinctions between the ADHD and the anxiety. Again ADHD doesn’t cause anxiety but it’s a precipitating factor.

And what can happen is if throughout your life you struggle with your attention focus and also emotional regulation, there’s often a connection with I can’t regulate my emotions because of the dopamine relationship that’s going on for me and the neural pathway that’s being activated. That then creates challenges which then creates the anxiety for you.

So the beliefs that can form can be: life is overwhelming for me and I can’t predict what’s going to happen—and that triggers the anxiety. Or you have those beliefs around like society has its expectations and that starts from the schooling system: I need to be a certain way in order to be okay, to be enough, to succeed etc. And if I don’t, I’m failing or I’m rejected or I’m not good enough.

And then you learn to activate that survival response as a way to get you through it right? And that’s how anxiety—then we have to—we start thinking okay how can I plan ahead and we start thinking those negative thoughts as a way to keep ourselves safe.

If I have a plan but I don’t know how to handle this, then I’m going to be okay, then I might be able to manage what’s going on for me. But unfortunately then that can make the ADHD worse, it then magnifies it, because you’re going to be tunneling and focusing in on those negative thoughts as a way to keep you safe. So your attention and focus is spread out, you’re focusing on the wrong thing, and then that’s in some ways how it can form from childhood and then be perpetuated.

 

Jane McFadden:

I’m always wowed by you Jess, I’m like wow there is so much in that. Like even just all that you know expectations, like a lot of girls are undetected at school and they’re just told to try harder, you know? And then you’ve got that all that anxiety driven and then they possibly have it all together or they look like they do so then the teacher doesn’t see that actually there was a lot going on before that.

And you’re the same as a mum, not having that working memory working—which is what you were talking about—not remembering you know shopping or the blue day, the green day, all the things you have to remember. And then having kids in the car so you know you forget to do petrol.

That’s all kind of fun and games when you don’t have kids but when you’ve got you know a toddler or a newborn and your kids are crying and you’ve got to be somewhere, actually calling the RACV or whatever it is that you use to then come and fill up your car with petrol, you start to feel like—I don’t want to use the word idiot—but you start to feel like an idiot. Like I am, who runs out of petrol, who does that?

But there’s so much going on in your mind it becomes kind of like easy to do. So that’s really interesting and then of course that would then play out with misdiagnosis.

So what would happen then—and I know that you’re not a psychiatrist obviously and you know I don’t want you to speculate about medication, but yet I’m going to—but so then if you have somebody who then goes to the GP and says oh I’m experiencing symptoms of anxiety, often they can be misdiagnosed with anxiety, given anxiety medication. But then I would imagine that probably wouldn’t work because you’re not treating the ADHD.

 

Jessica Burgess:

It could help with some of the physiological response in the body because that will show similar but different, and it can help with some of the worries. But the attention, focus, the impulsivity—it can improve it but it won’t get rid of it, it won’t eliminate it, because that’s actually the neural circuits that have been wired a certain way to respond to your environment over time.

 

Jane McFadden:

Okay then if we think okay I’ve got three children with ADHD, we’re starting to see symptoms of anxiety now in my daughter who’s nearly eight. Where does it begin—the anxiety? Because a lot of women they will say their main issue that they have is anxiety.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah well we can be predisposed to anxiety and there’s the genetic component and then the environmental. So—and same with ADHD right—if a family member or a sibling has a diagnosis of anxiety or ADHD, we’re then predisposed to have that activated.

And I always think of it with DNA as like a key and a lock and sometimes environmental factors come in and it unlocks it. And then we start learning things from our environment that just make us more susceptible to it.

And those environmental cues can be a challenge at school, it can be external stress, it can be trauma, it can even just be the way that you know we communicate unconsciously that our little ones start absorbing and mirroring back and reflecting back to us. Because most of the learning for kids happens between the ages of zero to seven.

And this isn’t to put any guilt or shame or anything like that onto the parent at all, it’s just there is an environmental factor as well that’s triggered with the genetic underlying there too.

 

 

 

 

Jane McFadden:

I have talked a couple of times about the stress on an ADHD mum because they may be diagnosed when their kids are diagnosed right like at four, five, six, seven. And then they’ve often got more than one child.

And then they’re kind of hit with that pressure of early intervention and the environment and how you know that’s so important. And it’s such a snowball effect onto the mum who’s often just you know trying to do their best. And then there’s a lot that goes along with that.

Then of course you add in all the therapies that you should be doing at that point for early intervention, then it’s like you know no offense to the psychologists but you know sometimes they’ll say you know you need to go and process this but you know for an ADHD mum you’re like when am I going to process that? I can’t even have a shower you know like I’m constantly interrupted and there’s not a lot of time and space.

And then of course you’ve got ADHD children potentially as well who also can’t stop talking, so there can be a lack of time or it can happen all at once for the ADHD mum I think.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah absolutely and it can feel like quite a storm to navigate and it’s a storm that can—you maybe see that there’s no calm water, or calm comes because that’s three seconds intervals during the day and then you’re back into the next storm.

But there is an eye of the storm and we’ll talk about later about different ways to start connecting into calm even in the midst of chaos, right? Because it does need to be made a focus and I know it feels like it’s impossible but accepting with what we can change, what we can’t change.

So even in the chaos asking yourself the question okay what else is possible? Is there a family member that I can outsource to? What do I have to actually do to even carve out five minutes for myself and make that a priority? Because if you’re empty and if you’re to that point of burnout it’s going to be really hard for you to fill your own bucket.

So what I see so many times with beautiful mums is that they just pour out so much to everyone else around them. And I do actually see this a lot of my ADHD clients. I think over time we learn to give and give and give again as a way to stay afloat—or it’s even a survival response right? If I’m pouring out then I’m a good person, I’m safe.

There’s an element of like the people pleasing going on as well and there’s this struggle with boundaries: like what is a boundary for me? How do I actually put that in and take care of myself? So the invitation there is to ask yourself okay what else is possible, what can I actually do even if it’s just like a one minute breathing calming exercise. Make it minimal but those little one minutes or 30 second intervals do build up.

And essentially you want to—like you know you have the stove cooking and the water’s boiling—you want to turn the back that pressure down. There might be simmering but it’s not overflowing and some days it might feel like it’s close, but putting miniature micro things in place can make a big difference as well.

And the other thing to add is that although it’s challenging getting a diagnosis for yourself and then having the kids as well, it’s a beautiful opportunity for all of you to talk about mental health and have those conversations and talk about ADHD and put strategies in as a family and start normalizing it.

You know, you know what you’re feeling? Mom feels like this. So how can we support mom and how can we support you as well? And of course age dependent sometimes they’ll get it, sometimes they’re blind, but planting those seeds makes a huge difference over time if you keep having the conversations about it.

You know they’re little sponges and they’ll be watching you and just opening the door for them can start normalizing emotions and high energy and what you can do if you’re like: mom has so much energy right now she can’t sit still, let’s go for a run together.

Starting to have those conversations and do the actions—that’s what they’re going to start seeing and that’s going to help them regulate themselves as well.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah Jess, whenever I talk to you I’m like oh Jess. I mean we’ve been working on boundaries, you and I, for like four years. I think you made a great point because it feels impossible initially. It feels completely impossible when someone says you know, sit down and take a breath. It feels impossible.

However if you can start really slow I think that you know there’s so much benefit. And I think you know you and I have done a lot of work together, you’ve helped me a lot with boundaries and taking a breath. However the diagnosis of ADHD has made it easier for me to understand why that’s been so difficult.

Because otherwise you’re just like why can I not do this simple thing, you know? Like why can I not do that? That seems really simple, yet I haven’t been able to do it. But I think there’s so much value in starting somewhere.

And you know we don’t want to use ADHD as an excuse to never never slow down because I think we then often show our children how not to do self-care. Because I didn’t learn self-care off my parents because they didn’t do any. They just worked and worked and worked, and that’s how it was, you didn’t sit down.

And if we sat down we were supposed to be doing work around the yard, you know my dad would be at us, you know that that’s not good enough. So I often think about even if we don’t want to self-care, I try—it’s difficult—to do something especially around my daughter because I don’t want her to see that I don’t ever do self-care.

So I try and make it about her which makes it easy to implement rather than I need this, I’m not quite there yet, but I can kind of self-care around my kids because I feel like I’m doing it to show an example.

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah absolutely. And even with anxiety I do find as well with ADHD there’s this natural draw for a lot of people to nature or to, you know, they benefit, they love movement, it feels amazing for the body. And so incorporating those exercises with movement with your kids, it’s going to be your best friend essentially.

And then again having those conversations you know: when you’re running around we do this and then we might have some downtime. What this does it can help you ground.

Okay, a lot of the issues are with focusing, hyper focusing environment, and so one of the skills we want to build is expanding that focus to our external environment. And you know there’s that grounding principle of using your five senses to bring yourself into the present moment: what can I see, feel, taste, touch etc.

And it’s almost like you’re taking a step back and seeing through your eyes and it’s like asking yourself the question: what am I missing in this moment, what am I not seeing here? And really what are the colors that I’m missing, what are the textures, flavors etc.

And so getting your kids to start to do the bigger picture with you—you start to learn how to expand your focus out and shift your attention. And that’s a mindfulness skill that can then be applied to other areas of your life. But that’s one that you can play and have fun with them all the time.

Because they’ll probably, you know if they’ve got the ADHD diagnosis, they’ll be focusing on if it’s sport the ball or whatever activity they’re doing. So using questions to build their awareness and looking outside of that: okay what else are we having in this moment that we might have missed before?

But I remember the first time I did an exercise and I just realized I had missed so much of life. My head has been somewhere else for so long, but here I am, I’m seeing the way the light—like I did a shower, the light’s reflecting in the shower, I can see the way you know when I was eating food all the different flavors and tastes.

And this whole experience and life opened up to me in such a new way. And then that’s a skill that I feel really supported me with memory, focus and concentration, and the impulse control. I started—you start to build the neural pathway with that mind-body connection.

But the main thing is you train your brain out from that central focus so you see the bigger picture, which is essentially the present moment.

Jane McFadden:

Oh I love it. This is totally slightly off subject but I can so see how you’ve connected with Joel, your husband, you know because he’s such a nature lover, in the moment. Like I can just so—I can so see how you guys ended up dating with that.

And I’ve been talking about Joel on the Sunshine Coast, if anyone’s interested he’s a great surf teacher and I was talking to him about teaching my kids to surf because I think he’s such a great like mentor for boys. He’s got so much joy and he legitimately loves nature.

I actually tried to hire him to look after my boys once. He’s like he’s a little bit overwhelmed I think. I was like you could have this, I don’t have any child experience. I was like you’ll be fine, you’re basically a big kid.

I think you’ve both taught me a lot about nature as therapy and getting out and you know feeling the beach. And you live in this beautiful place in Badrum you know with the trees and I think there’s so much value in being out amongst nature.

And obviously the dopamine hit of the mobile phone is a real problem for everybody including and mainly ADHD people. So turning that off can be a real problem.

I’m going to ask you an ad hoc question, this is just a burning one in my brain Jess. A lot of us ADHD mummers have issues with the working memory which we’ve discussed.

I have my phone with me a lot and my husband will always ask what are you doing on your phone now? I don’t scroll a lot, I don’t think, I think I scroll probably—I mean everyone thinks they scroll not much, they probably do—but I don’t believe I do.

I’m quite purposeful in some ways in that I’d have to write down things. So I have things in my mind like for example blue day, oh I don’t have any airpods, oh I’ve got to get petrol. Like there’s so many thoughts in my brain all the time and I can’t remember them.

So I have my phone with me and I have a to-do list and a notes section that I have to brain dump. But then I’m also having my phone, I’m opening up the outlet to the phone and then I’m just checking my email, checking things. And I do take my phone even to the beach because I often have lots of thoughts in there and I know I can’t remember them.

So then I go over and over and over them. What would be some ways to be in nature but then also you’ve got all these thoughts that just are like jumping in all the time?

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah so old school, I used to carry around a small little journal notepad with me just for those specific times, right? Because you still want to honor the fact that your mind, your brilliant mind, is trying to get your attention for a reason.

And often you get some of the greatest revelations in nature because you’ve quietened down and it can be an intentional time of introspection and reflection. So giving yourself permission to write.

But the thing with phones in our attentional window is that it really narrows down. If you think about even when you hold a phone, you’re really hyper focusing on that little device in front of you. And it’s also giving your mind a lot of attention and the brain loves that visual motion and experience.

But it can actually induce ADHD or exacerbate it even more, especially in our youngins. Beautiful Andrew Huberman does a podcast on ADHD on YouTube and he was saying that less than 60 minutes a day for kids is ideal and two hours for us as adults on the phone or it can lead to attentional deficits.

And we’re seeing more and more of that ADHD attentional deficit—now whether it’s through diagnosis—but we’ve also had an introduction to phones you know 2010, 2011 where it’s really evolved exponentially and so much of our time now is spent on it. And it’s actually just making things for us.

So having that combination of always thinking: how can I expand my attention, widen my attention, widen my view so I can still write things down but then how can I bring myself back to taking more of my external environment?

And you can do that using those five senses that you have. Having an anchor point so you can be in nature grounding yourself: noticing the water, noticing the trees, how many details in my leaves can I see.

Giving your mind those tensions and focus practice. Because intentional practice, right? It’s not going to come easy straight away, it’s a muscle that we build. Then also giving yourself permission to write things down as well. So it’s having those boundaries around it if you can.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and I think those like kids messenger apps—and I know Jess you don’t have kids yet—that they can be a real problem. One thing that I’ve done I just wanted to quickly put it out there because I thought it was like mind blown, was my kids have an iPad but I don’t let them on the iPad very often.

But every now and again the school will ask you to do Mathletics or Readings or whatever. There’s an app, and I’ll put it in the episode notes, it’s called OurPact—O-U-R-P-A-C-T—and it allows you to put all the educational apps on the iPad all the time. So they can pick it up and do maths whenever they feel like it.

But I have the control to unlock their games and Netflix and everything. So then they can have their iPad—I let my kids have the iPad whenever they want but all they do is Reading Eggs and Mathletics. And let me tell you it’s 15 minutes max, they’re done.

But Kids Messenger and all that stuff is all hidden until I unlock it, which generally if I’m honest is when my husband works at night and I like need an iPad to try and you know get them to do what I’m asking or you know I’m there by myself I’m like oh my god.

You can kind of use it as a big carrot. But yeah the iPad can be a real problem. But then you know there’s also really good Lego apps for kids where they can take pictures of Lego and then it shows them what to build, so I allow that access all the time.

But I know what you mean, the dopamine hit on the phone and the iPad, it is a problem for me and my kids as well. So I did find that app really useful. But anyway, sorry we’re off topic, let’s keep moving.

I wanted to know the big question that everyone wants to know is: there’s all this TikTok, there’s all these videos on ADHD and then sometimes mums are going—or mums, people—are going to the GP, they’re going oh you’ve just seen all of these symptoms online, you’re just seeing yourself in them, do you really have ADHD, it’s just like a bandwagon that everyone’s getting on.

Why do you think there’s so many adult women particularly getting diagnosed?

Jessica Burgess:

Yes, it was interesting. At university there was a great deal of hesitancy around ADHD diagnosis and it’s only really been more prominent that I’ve seen in recent times.

I think women can—I think you touched on the previous episode—we’re really good at masking but also the ADHD presents differently with us than others. So we tend to, I mean some of us have hyperactivity, but it tends to be more internal. So we’ll be those ones that are daydreaming or struggling with inattention and it’ll come up more as challenges with our emotional regulation.

But we’re the ones that are usually off with the fairies, right? Like thinking about something else and not actually putting attention and concentration to what’s happening around us. And this could be because we don’t feel like we have the capacity to navigate that physical world.

From my experience a lot of clients that I help have actually—very sensitive to people, energy, and the empathy radar is quite strong. So they’re picking up things within themselves and others and so they can come into the world really in tune and not know actually how to protect their emotions, protect their energy, and have those boundaries in place.

And so it can be a very protective response to kind of dissociate almost and switch off as well. And then it can be undiagnosed as a child too. So because we kind of fall to the background, or we can play the role of the good girl, or it comes out in different ways, it doesn’t actually get acknowledged in the way that it should.

Does that answer your question?

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah and then I suppose we all grow up and then you know, I suppose the awareness comes in and well, you know, kids add so much pressure and then you know you can get diagnosed late. However late diagnosis is better than no diagnosis at all like you’ve said previously.

It is a superpower though. So because the way the brain is structured it actually means that you can really have a focus on your giftings. And rather than splitting your energy and attending elsewhere it can really support you to excel in the area of your choice.

It just means you have a lot more decisions to do things that don’t apply, which would be challenging in the schooling system where they try and get you to adapt and learn everywhere. So I would say for parents that are having kids in that environment, normalizing that you don’t have to be good at everything. Do what you can with this and really honouring the strengths that they do have and the giftings that they have as well.

And saying that you’re going to do phenomenal in this area, so how can you water and feed this, the strength that you have. And you’re not a failure because of the areas, it just means that your mind doesn’t take them in as much or your mind doesn’t see them as important and that’s why it’s happening for you, but that’s okay.

A lot of people try and I guess mold the kids to fit the system and then that’s how we develop these core beliefs around failing and not being enough.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I’ll try not to get onto the school system because I don’t think it’s particularly, you know, built for neurodiverse people. But a lot of people are messaging around therapy.

So they’ll say: I’m an ADHD mom, I’m feeling a lot of anxiety or depression, I feel like I’m failing, I’m whatever whatever whatever, I don’t know where to go. What would be some good therapy types that would be something that we could look for?

 

Jessica Burgess:

So it is good to get a diagnosis or an assessment at least so you know what’s going on for you and then you can determine if it is anxiety or ADHD. So clinicians that work with people on the NDIS are usually quite versed in that space and they can really help. They’ll be able to see some of the symptoms and take you through that process quite quickly.

So going to the GP and getting that mental health care plan can get that process going for you.

The main thing is with therapists I want to encourage you—so I’ve had a lot of people that have gone to one, oh they’re not for me, or they didn’t understand me, or you don’t feel heard. They’re like apples, oranges and pears. Sometimes you do have to have a couple of experiments before finding the right one and the right fit for you. So honour yourself, honour your intuition. Intuition is also a superpower of ADHD, right?

If something isn’t sitting right, don’t give up, go on to the next. But there are quite a few different therapies that can be wonderful for you.

I just want to start this section by saying that we have this ability for our brain to alter its neural networks and this is called neuroplasticity. And the brain can essentially rewire itself.

Now you know this feels really hard again when you’re in the middle of the storm, the last thing you want to do is bother with rewiring your brain. So pulling it right back to mindfulness and meditation are two great skills that you can use and therapists will teach you.

But applying it to what you’ve already got going on—you don’t want to really add anything else to your schedule. So again just thinking how can I build my attentional window and the therapist can start taking you through that.

And then the second one is using the meditation, so it’s seeing it as a structured focused task. So part of it is accepting that this is an area that I really need to work on and build—which is memory, attention and concentration. So behaviourally, what do I do to start building that? I have to set myself some goals.

And the research is showing, in that Andrew Huberman podcast, he was saying 17 minutes of structured exercise with meditation—he doesn’t call it meditation but really focusing your attention—can be enough to start helping to build those connections for you.

So this can be done even before you’re just off to sleep at night. Doesn’t have to be something we add unnecessarily into the day. But giving yourself a bit of an assignment: okay, when I go out today all the chaos might be going on but what can be my anchor point and where can I start from then?

So there are therapies like the mindfulness, meditation, but there’s also the cognitive behavioral therapy which is that changing your thinking. And I do really find if you do have ADHD, a psychologist that can really sit and work through this with you is fantastic. Because you’re going to have that appointment and you know what’s going to happen.

It’s almost like you can compartmentalize it: okay, I can do that stuff with her when I see her. And then even if I don’t do it outside of that, at least I know what’s happening, at least I’m going to start getting an understanding of what’s going on for me, and we can create some strategies for my where I am in life together.

The other one that’s really helpful is doing those organizational strategies.

 

Jessica Burgess:

…so as you were saying Jane, like you need a situation that you’re unique in with being a mom and it’s super busy. You’ve got to be flexible and it’s going to—the organizational skills are going to look different to every mom in their situation that they are in.

What have you found that’s worked? Because that’s a key area that I’ll help with as well, but I’d love to hear what you found for that.

 

 

Jane McFadden:

Well it was interesting, I interviewed two friends the other day—so this will actually, their episode will come out before yours—so it’s called Do You Have ADHD or Is This Mom Life. And I interviewed two friends and one of them had ADHD, one of them doesn’t.

Okay, it was obvious. And I was interviewing them and we were talking about the morning routine or the evening routine and doing examples of what were different and what was the same. What we found was that unmedicated me 100% identified with the ADHD up.

So for example one of them was like okay, I write down the shopping list and I go to the shops and I buy it. And the non-medicated ADHD friend was like there’s no way I could even do that. She was chaotic all the time, reactive, putting out fires, no way she could even think about getting ahead because she’s like so far behind all the time.

Whereas I think when I’ve started Vyvanse I’ve gotten to a point where I can start to put those things in place. So I can go okay, this is the shopping list, I am going to write down every time and I will show my husband and this is what we are now doing. Instead of writing some notes on my phone, not being able to find them, having 3000, not knowing, and then just buying random stuff every single day.

So I think being medicated—I know that’s not for everybody and I think it’s similar to what you were saying with therapy, you’ve got to keep trying sometimes to get the right medication or get the right psychiatrist or pediatrician for your child—but I think getting medicated has helped me get ahead.

And if I may not be on medication forever but I think for this season of my life where I am at with the kids, it has helped me get on top of things. So for example a big breakthrough which sounds super simple for a neurotypical person, I think, is the Seesaw app.

It comes in, I open it, I then walk to the visual calendar and I write it down. And then I will actually write down a note in my phone ‘buy blue t-shirt’ instead of it not knowing that the Seesaw is even—I’m in such a rush I don’t even notice that the Seesaw is there, or I don’t remember the login, I don’t know the password, I’m so far behind.

So having systems was—always felt too difficult. I couldn’t even know where to begin. I would need to have someone come into my home and say this is your visual calendar, this is what you will do every day. And they’d have to come in, get me doing one thing, and then the next week show me another thing, the next week show me another thing. It felt overwhelming.

So I think probably medicating for me, I don’t think I would have been able to do that otherwise unless I literally had a mum-type figure come in to my home and hold my hand whilst I did it.

So I use GCal and the G to-do list. My bestie recently said to me for my birthday I should ask my hubby for an Apple Watch. I said to her I don’t want to have my phone on my watch, that does not seem like a good idea.

She reckons it is because you have your phone with you and you can talk to it like hey Siri—sorry if I’ve just taken everyone’s Siri’s off—you know, write down tomatoes on the shopping list. And then you don’t actually open up your phone every time. Or set reminder for.

So I think probably medication and then setting up better systems has been the best thing for me so far. And then again as well medication has allowed me to see the chaos. So not booking holidays that don’t make any sense or for 10 days at really intense places or moving house constantly, which is what I love to do.

So I think probably not creating the chaos is probably one, and then setting up systems would be the other. But yeah I think everyone’s looking for the organizational app that will change their life, but I’m not sure if I found it yet.

Jessica Burgess:

Sounds like you’re on your way though, sounds like you’ve definitely adapted and learned quite a few different—yeah. And it’s a process right? That comes to that expectation versus reality, and it’s like continually evolving, growing. Wherever you are it’s okay and you just keep doing the best that you can with what you have. But you will keep moving forward and what will come of it.

And touching a bit on anxiety as well because I know a lot of the anxiety is tied down to the organizational side of things and feeling really overwhelmed. But there are things that therapists can do as well to support you with managing your anxiety.

So with a lot of the anxiety it is where you’re focusing your attention in your mind and the thoughts that you’re really you know allowing to build and snowball. And it can feel overwhelming, it can feel out of control.

But when it comes to anxiety, a really beautiful metaphor is that you’re living in a house, sometimes you have an alarm system, right? And with the alarm system what is it there for? It’s to let you know if there’s a threat, to stop a burglar breaking in.

And so sometimes with an alarm system there are false alarms, where the alarm will just go off for no reason. That’s a trigger in itself for a lot of people. But it will just go off and straight away you’re ready for action but there’s no real threat.

Now with an alarm system how do we turn it off? We have a pin. So the pin for a lot of us is the breathing or the breath work, or it could be the journaling, or it could be scheduling in some time. It can be those incremental things.

But for you it’s figuring out okay, what are my actual anxiety triggers, what are the fears that are driving this response for me, what are the beliefs. And that’s what the therapist comes in—that is creating this. Is the belief that I can’t cope and it is too much for me?

I always think of, you know, roller coaster example. You can have two people on a roller coaster and one person’s excited and the other person’s terrified. The only difference is the meaning they’ve attributed to that experience.

And so when it comes to ADHD a lot of it can be also stemming from trauma. The underlying beliefs can be that I can’t cope with what’s going on for me, it is too overwhelming. And if you’re having that as a CD track playing in the back of your mind on repeat, you’re going to start releasing those hormones and releasing those chemicals which is going to actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And you’re going to start feeling overwhelmed and then that’s going to exacerbate the ADHD as well.

So when you start to know your cycles, when you start to know okay what are the beliefs, what’s the CD player playing secretly in the background in the unconscious, you start talking about it with the therapist, you can then expose them, come up with some more helpful beliefs and then have a way to navigate forward in a way that’s going to help put in a healthy pin that’s right for your situation and your circumstance.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah I think that’s great. Every time you talk I’m like go off into my own mind because I’m like a bit wild. So one thing I wanted to ask you was how do you get out of the cycle?

Because you’ve said this to me before, I remember talking to you a few years ago in regards to something specific which we won’t mention, and I said to you about it and then you were saying to me the roller coaster can be addictive.

I mean you said some really incredible things to me that I actually look back on years later I’m like I wish I had have thought about that more deeply. But I think sometimes you’re not ready for what you don’t want to hear.

I remember you talked to me about the roller coaster and you were saying it’s hard to get off and there’s that cycle of anxiety. And I have been noticing that even with medication I almost don’t have any other positive strategies, so I go back to the negative ones. And even though I’m more relaxed right and I’m more calm in my body, I’m thinking I actually could be living differently but I don’t know how to do that quite yet.

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah absolutely right, you’re in a reintegration phase. Once the medication switches, your brain’s only really got a plan A or a path A. There hasn’t been a path B that’s actually been identified. And until there’s a path B it will always default to the path A because it’s safe, it’s familiar and what it knows.

And the unfamiliar is connected with pain, and change is connected with I’m in threat, I’m in danger. And so you make a really wonderful point that you know you’ve seen the world one way and all of a sudden you’ve had the medication: okay well what does this mean for me now in this situation?

So with 90% of how we live our life—and that’s 95% unconscious—by having these conversations and actually sitting with those key moments and if you can write them down or just pause to check in: okay what am I thinking in this moment, what’s actually being created? And then we want a future plan by: okay what is actually a plan B or a plan C that I could do?

Now the brilliant thing with ADHD is—and a lot of them are very visual—so you can think of the future and straight away the mind’s like here is a mind movie of what’s going to happen. Especially with anxiety the mind could be very vivid.

So learning to visualize the plan B is a game changer. Because the mind can’t tell the difference between what’s real or imagined. So even if you just spent five minutes end of the day reflecting on that one, just choose that one thing that you’re noticing that isn’t serving you, and you were to write out this is what I’m doing, this is a cycle in itself.

Some people like to mind-map—I’ll draw like the issue in the center and I circle it, and then I’ll write out all my thoughts and there’s actually 50 attached to that one, right? The network that exists. And then I’ll write down a new thought that I want to create in my mind map and then I’ll create all these new connections and I’ll identify what’s one thing that I can practice this week that’s going to support me there.

It’ll also pair it with a really good feeling—so excitement for change—and an image because my mind is very visual. And so by then closing your eyes and picturing yourself in that situation you’re going to face the next day with the pre-identified outcome, you’re then priming your mind to create that.

So I know for a busy mom I’m like oh it’s so much, I don’t even have the time. But if you can, you know five minutes before you’re just off at night—that right before you go to bed, you’re in that theta state so you’re extra suggestible—just sitting there writing out that one thing: this is what I want to work on, didn’t help me, this is my new thought or my new belief, the opposite, visualizing it as you drift off to sleep.

The best time to do it because your brain is extra spongy so you can really make the most of that time. And you’re going to fall off to sleep anyway.

Jane McFadden:

I think it’s a great point, especially when you talked about the notepad. You know like, especially if I’m going to the beach, if I’m going for a ride on the bike with my kids, I always have my phone for those thoughts that come in, that feel important and I know they’ll be gone.

But I’m thinking if I had a notepad instead of a phone I possibly would be able to write down those thoughts that you’ve just been talking about because I would be there and you’re right, there’d be nothing else to do because my brain’s hyperactive.

So I think there might be something that we can implement because then at least you’ve got the thought ready, so when you’re thinking off to sleep you’re not then journaling, you’re then just thinking of the thought that you already thought of.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah, and with anxiety usually right before you go to sleep that’s when it all lights to the surface because you repressed it, you pushed it down. It’s like a beach ball that you held under the water but it’s still there, you know, waiting to pop up again.

And usually right before bed it’s like years of 15 million things that you were thinking you were doing that day and this is all the worst-case scenarios. So being proactive, writing down, honouring them, acknowledging the wisdom—there’s so much wisdom in those fears.

Then asking yourself: okay what can I practically do? Ending your night on the idea that you want to create or the new behaviour you want to take and doing the visualization practice puts you back in an empowered position. And you’re also rewiring your brain to actually think things through, right?

So a lot of anxiety is when we disconnect with ourselves and the emotion keeps building and building and building. It’s like that kid in the classroom that’s like ‘look at me’ and we’re like silent, and then the kid kind of breaks a chair at 9pm at night and maybe it starts screaming.

So we want to turn that pressure down again. And you can give yourself something helpful that’s going to, you know, be empowering to focus on as you drift off to sleep. But you’re going to wake up the next morning and be more inclined to think about it as well.

 

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, look we all know we’re not supposed to scroll before bed, you know, and we think it’s relaxing but it’s not. I’ve been through periods where I’ve used to, I’d like read novels—I love to read—or do a bit of journaling and it is a hundred percent, I mean everyone has done it I think and then gone this is so much better for me.

I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t know why I thought I was missing out. There’s nothing to look at. I don’t care about these people, no offense, but you know what I mean because you’re just scrolling, you’re just like I’m not even missing anything, these people aren’t even my friends.

So I might have to set myself a challenge and I might put it on Insta: mindfulness challenge, and see if we can all do some positive imagery before sleep instead of being on our phones.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Beautiful. If you go on my website I will be releasing like a 10-minute method that will pretty much focus on self-connection and this practice, because I think the disconnection of self is one of the biggest issues of our time.

We’re constantly afraid of our minds and our body, and the goal is to really make you feel safe enough to start building that connection again and know that you can actually meet your mind and have compassion for it and not judge yourself for it. And it’s safe to do so.

So that will also be coming up as well to be aligned. The other thing I want to add is with a lot of anxiety and ADHD there can be that trauma. So doing, you know, EMDR therapy can actually help with some of the symptoms of ADHD when there is a trauma group going on. And a lot of it is trauma-based, so that’s also worth looking into.

 

Jane McFadden:

Beautiful, well we can put those in the episode notes, we’ll put your website if anyone wants to, you know, connect with you or have a look at any of those things.

Is there anything that we’ve missed on anxiety? I know we could talk, I mean we could be here for eight hours on anxiety, we can always get you back. Is there anything that I’ve not asked or that you know you want to share before we get going?

 

Jessica Burgess:

Just the last few things would be the role of diet and exercise in symptom management. So again if you’re a busy mom, movement’s going to be your best friend and that can be easily paired with your mindfulness or meditative practice as well.

So whether you’re doing yoga, aerobic exercise, going for a walk—you know your kids generally love the exercise—it’s an invitation for you as well. And the sedentary lifestyle does not help.

And diet as well. There’s a lot of research to show you that sugar and caffeine—and caffeine is a tricky one because it can help with the dopamine regulation—but sugar and allergies as well can actually exacerbate your ADHD symptoms. So it’s worth considering the food that you’re eating and that role with your symptom management as well.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah, it’s a great point. I think we’ve all seen the difference between kids that eat chicken nuggets—I mean my kids have done that, they had chicken nuggets for like two years—and then you know we sorted them out. My husband took charge of the diet, as I said he’s really good with food, and it really has made a big difference to behaviour and mood.

So then you know, if you reflect on that yourself about what you’re putting into your own body and how that would be affecting you, often I don’t notice but I notice in my kids. So you know it’s definitely a huge factor, I think that’s a great point.

 

Jessica Burgess:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

 

Jane McFadden

Beautiful. I think that’s all from me. Well we will finish up. Thank you so much Jess for your time, you have been so great, and anxiety I think is such a specialty of yours. It’s been so great to have you, thank you for your time.

 

Jessica Burgess:

No worries, thanks for having me Jane.