Play Therapy for ADHD Adults: What Disney Gets Right

Hello. Hello. This is Danielle.

And Coach Bida.

So we're talking about play therapy today and we're all about the play here. And I of course am playing with thinking putty right now and have been all day. So what is play therapy? And it's not what you think of when you hear traditional play therapy. So Bida, explain what Yeah, so people have it—

like, a lot of us neurodivergent people have a huge problem when we're trying to unmask, right? We've been super conditioned to fit inside this little box. And I was a teacher for a really long time, and kids don't normally have that problem. It's like, it's something that's taught, right? All these little impulsive tendencies, they lose their joy, they stop trying things that they want to try. They don't think they're perfect. Like all those things are conditioned responses. So when I got my late diagnosis and I was really trying to get to know myself and figure myself out, it's like, what did I like to do? Because I was a chronic people pleaser and a masker. So I would do whatever the situation called for. And so the way for me to reconnect to myself and figure myself out was I started playing. What did I like to do when I was eight years old? What were things that gave me tremendous amounts of joy? I bought a bubble machine. I bought a gigantic hula hoop. I just started being silly, you know, because little kids haven't been told to rein that in and enough, you know. So they're they're still super open to experiences, especially. Especially if you— people are like, oh, I would never be a teacher. And it's like, teach elementary school kids art. Elementary school kids love to make a mess. They love to make art. Their hearts are so open to it. And that, for me, that was like the big turning point for play therapy. It just made so much sense. I've seen OTs do it. I've seen PTs do it, all different stuff for kids in a therapy setting. I'm like, but why can't adults do this when we're trying to reconnect with ourselves? And I mean, yeah, you hear heal your inner child, but I just really got to know myself through play therapy, and it was just a lot of fun.

So one of the amazing things is that you have to understand that you have to find what makes you happy, not what other people makes— make— what other people think you should be doing.

Yeah.

So as an adult, you don't have to always be professional and quiet and just reading books, watching movies, or these things that we have this perception That are allowed— you were only allowed to do as adults to have fun. Drinking, watching sports, drinking aren't the only things out there. And any crafter will tell you there's way more to life than drinking, watching sports, watching movies, you know, things like that.

Okay, so one of my favorite cartoons— and yes, I watch cartoons, that I watch them every night before I go to bed, like this is my thing— So I love Bluey, and lots of people do, but I liked her before it was cool. I'm just putting that out there. There is an episode called Stump Fest, and her dad and his friends are in the backyard and they're playing music and they're going to rip up these stumps. And Bluey and her sisters— or her sister and her cousin— like, they have decided that they're going to keep one of the stumps and make it a nail salon. And so there's some You know, hijinks ensue. But at the end of the episode, the mom tells— Chili tells Bluey, she goes, I— Bluey goes, you shouldn't interrupt people when they're playing. And the mom goes, yeah, that's why I stopped you. And Bluey goes, they weren't playing. She goes, yeah, they were. Look at them. And so you look at the dads out there and they're playing, they're horsing around with each other. So it doesn't have to be these little kid things. That's just what appeals to me. People that knew me as a child will tell you that I've been a 100-year-old woman since the time I could walk. So for me, reconnecting with a part of myself that is super underdeveloped is pretty cathartic. But it can be anything that brings you joy. I see massive amounts of people spending ridiculous amounts of money on reissued GI Joes, you know, because it's part of their childhood and it makes them happy. People play video games, people watch movies. Like, but the thing about it is, is being a kid is about being open-minded and joyful. And I be a manic pixie dream girl, that's kind of the trope of quirky girl that can do childlike things and everybody kind of is okay with that. Being a teacher, you can be weird and quirky and nobody says anything. You're a teacher, you're around kids all day, it's acceptable. But there is a place That everybody can go, that being a kid is super acceptable. And I have seen people from 100 to 1 just let it all out. And that is pretty much anywhere Disney.

So Disney World is definitely one of those things that people just— it's OK to do the thing. It's OK to be who you are. It's OK to do all of the things. It's fine to allow yourself to have fun there. So I went back, and hyperfocus is putting it mildly right now. So I knew, and I've looked this up before and just did some quick research of the science behind how Disney does everything. Did you know there's things— there is Disney science? And I thought, oh, yeah, that's cute. And I'll look into that a little more. And then I really started to look at, did you know that there are PhD master's theses written on how Disney World operates And all of the science behind Disney World. I do that. And I've read—

And I'm going to give you some viewing pleasure for later. There are also several documentaries about this, Danielle.

Oh, I've watched all the documentaries, way, way beyond that. And all of the— yeah, all the things Disney puts out. Like, I love the Imagineering channel on Disney+. Like, I watch all this stuff. I always have. I found it fascinating. But now— I'm looking at it as from a clinical standpoint, as an ADHD coach and as a therapy person. And I say therapy person because those of you that don't know, I have the degree, but I am not licensed, nor do I want to be. And I don't want to finish all of the, finish my internship piece of it. So that's not happening.

From a behavior management standpoint.

From a behavior management.

I, I love it. That, that's, so that's my hyperfocus and, and so Danielle and I have combined hyperfocuses on this.

Diving into the sounds at Disney World and how sound is manipulated at Disney World. So I am the wife of a sound engineer and the mom of an audiophile and also musician myself. So I've done sound for years for live bands and for conferences and stuff like that. And obviously, in school and all of those things, I have a I— my major in high school was music. Like, music is my thing. So music is one piece of it. Sound, not music. Sound is another piece of it. Ambient sound, sorry. Then you have smells. Then you have visuals. Did you know the garbage cans are— I mean, we all know that the garbage cans are all painted for each area of the park. But did you know that there's science behind why the garbage cans are painted some of the ways they're painted?

I did. I also knew that, um, there's different smells piped into different sections of the park.

Mm-hmm.

I knew that, like what you talked about, there's different sounds for different sections of the park. And if you ever want to see like just master level crowd management, master level de-escalation techniques, Just people watch at Disney. Like a huge— like 100 people will show up for Pirates of the Caribbean, and within 5 minutes they've got those poles set up, they've done everything, they've got people in an orderly line, and nobody has gotten irate. And every now and then you'll see like one irate.

You'll see a Karen every once in a while.

And, and— but I just watch like how the Disney crew has been trained to, to handle this. It's like So I wish that more corporations did that part. And I know, like, there are— everybody has problems. And we aren't talking about that. We're talking about the environment that is created at a Disney park and how that really, really allows you to use play therapy and connect with yourself.

And the characters that walk around, they walk around in certain patterns for a certain reason. We all know that a Disney character, when hugged by a child, never breaks the contact until the child steps away. They never are the ones to break the hug because that is a sensory need. There are so many things. So it's a sensory input thing from every possible sense. And I really started diving into that. And I'm like, well, how do we adapt that to daily life? Now, I have figured out ways—

Yeah.

Just naturally had to adapt that to my life. And I've been doing that a long time. You guys have heard me talk about that before. That's part of why we are doing our— and I, I was playing with ChatGPT today and trying to rename our trip because it's not a retreat. It is totally not a retreat. It is— I have decided to call it a Neurodopamine Venture Quest. Venture Quest. Because it is. We're going to teach you how to use your brain. And how to use the neurology of your brain. We're going to teach you how to use sensory overwhelm, sensory overload. We're going to teach you how to flip that switch. We're going to teach you how to use all of those things that you can learn from being in Disney World, and I'm going to teach you all of that, and use them to help you live a better life with ADHD and create— find where your superpowers are with ADHD. We talked this morning about ADHD superpowers. Neurodivergent superpowers, and we all have our superpowers. That does not mean that ADHD, ASD, whatever your neurodivergency is, is a superpower overall. We all have our failings with it. We all have the superpowers with it. And I want to help you create superpowers and capitalize on the superpowers so that you can staff the executive dysfunction issues that you have. Oh, and staffing them doesn't mean necessarily hiring somebody, just so you know. That could be learning how to use the AI for the thing that you need to use. It could be Learning how to organize something in your home to deal with your executive dysfunction, whatever that is. That looks different for every single one of us because if you met one neurodivergent person, you've met just one because we all do things differently and our brains work differently. So using all of these experiences, teaching you how to meditate, we actually have an art teacher who is going to come in and teach us— what is it called?

Called Zentangle. He is a neurodivergent person himself. He has ADHD. He went to this super huge, super cool training, and it is meditative doodling. And you can look up Zentangle. There's lots of different knockoffs, but it was invented by a calligrapher. And calligraphy— she said that she would get in the zone where she was doing calligraphy, and she would— the world around her would just fade away. Like, her husband would have to call her name multiple times. Like, she was in the zone. So they're teaching people how to find their zen. And this art teacher uses it with all his classes. He's taught it at churches. He's taught it at conferences. And even if you're like, oh, I'm not an artist, like you can totally do this.

So, so we've got him that's going to be there. I'm going to teach you how to meditation rock style, rock star style, because I totally do not meditate like anybody else. And we had ADHD Asian Girl at our summit and she taught some cool ways to do it. And it's a little bit how she does it, but then totally not, because I'm ADHD. I'm a musician. I have so much energy when I'm feeling good and my autoimmune issues aren't bothering me. My energy level is off the charts, and I had to figure out how to calm myself and my brain down so I could focus on life, which is not doing just one thing at a time. But I'm going to teach you how to meditation rock star style. And, uh, and I have taught this to other musicians and There are musicians that still use this today, Joey Badmassa being one of them. And he's a famous— he does concerts all over the country. And he's so freaking ADHD. And understanding how to create mindset, how to decrease your overwhelm, all of these things. And we want to teach you is to decrease your overwhelm. Play therapy. We're going to teach you some play therapy things in Disney World. And yes, we're combining it with Disney World. But yes, this trip may seem like ridiculous and expensive to some in our neurodivergent community because expenses are a problem almost all of us have with spending and impulsivity. But we've also created payment plans and things for you. I think I remember if it's Klarna, Afterpay, well, one of those is offering as low as $84 a month to be able to afford this trip. So we're breaking up the payments by 12 weeks right now for you to be able to do it. And we're trying to create a way for you to go afford this in the best way possible. And why are we talking about this on the podcast? So those that are listening on the podcast, you can't see us. Everybody go to your YouTube channel. Maybe we'll have our engineer put this on our cover. We are both in crazy headbands right now. It's almost St. Patty's Day, so I've got St. Patty's Day stuff all over me. And Vida has heaps with tutus on, uh, on a headband. And it's cracking me up. I, I do too. So we are all about creating more fun in our lives to help us with our executive dysfunction skills. So it's not just about being fun and being quirky and being weird and all of those things. It's to help us with our executive dysfunction.

Right.

This is why we do this. And we're talking about our Disney World trip because that is the happiest place on earth. And I say that, but I went at Christmas time. So as a neurodivergent person, never go at Christmas time. Just don't do it. The crowds are insane and it was horrible and very few people were happy that were there. But you can make those places, those kinds of situations really happy. And when we first started talking about this a week ago, I was like, if you're an introvert, this is not your trip. No, if you're an introvert, come learn to adapt outside of your comfort zone.

Right.

Because we're doing all of this and there will be training. There's all kinds of special gifts that go with this and all kinds of things that we're doing. But our travel agency is also a fully neurodivergent travel agency. It's run, owned, and designed. Everything that we're going to be doing is designed by an agency that gets us because they're just like us, just like Us, we get you because we are just like you. It's so important for our community to do things together and build your network. And you can't build your network on Zoom as well.

But here, okay, we're gonna give you network opportunities and we're going to teach you some things, but this is the ultimate, ultimate game day practice, right? You work with neurodivergent coaches, you work with your ADHD coach, And you learn all of these coping skills, right? And we send you out into the world and you practice them, and then you come back to us and we're like, okay, how did it work? How did it not work? But at these kinds of summits, retreats, like adventures, all of these things, this is a way for you to actively put these things into practice. And then we can debrief and we can talk about them. You're going to see us use coping skills. You are going to see us probably fail at least once, but how do we bounce back? How are we resilient? How do we model behavior? I think that one, we need more places where neurodivergent people can gather and we can collaborate and we can help each other and give each other permission to be awesome, sparkly little person that we are. And that's one of the reasons to have it at a place like Disney, because Disney gives you permission to be joyful. It gives you permission to do things, ride rides. I see old people on the teacups just living it up. There's nostalgia. There's all different kinds of things. But the thing about having this adventure at Disney is because it is a place that's supposed to be— it's marketed to be the happiest place on Earth. It's marketed to be— Very inclusive, and the whole environment is built to give you permission to have fun. So we want to capitalize on that environment and to take you guys and to show you, like, if you are struggling to have fun as a neurodivergent person, if you are struggling to connect with yourself, well, I can teach you that.

You're struggling to recognize what your sensory overwhelm issues are, because we all have sensory overwhelm issues. We all have things, and they're— and again, everybody's different. We can help you figure out what they are and learn how to overcome those sensory issues. Are you gonna be able to overcome them in every situation? No. But if we give you active tools— and there's a difference between learning how to use a tool and actively using a tool.

Right.

And we're gonna be teaching you active tools to overcome your overwhelm, whatever your sense of overwhelm is. We're going to be giving you active opportunities to connect with ADHD people, hopefully some more coaches that will, will be joining with us. We, we at least have 3 that are going to be there. Um, there, there's a lot of support for you while we're there. If you're just really struggling and you need to talk, all you're gonna have to do is text us and we're— you'll be able to track where us as coaches are. All you'll have to do is text us and we will meet you where you are and help you in that situation. Right. Or you could just follow us around all day and have fun because we're the fun in Disney World. There will be training sessions that are separate and all of these things. But we're going to give you the spaces to learn and to grow and to really find out how to create better spaces for yourself once you're back to normal life.

Right.

And to create not fun, Fun is important, but create ways to get out of overwhelm because it is important. That is one of the— we're so smart, but we have a hard time taking obtainable action for ourselves. And that's what we're going to teach you is how to create obtainable action steps that you can use every single day.

Well, and the thing that we haven't talked about is we're also going to teach you how to recover, right? If you go to the park and you spend 2 hours there, all day there, whatever, we are going to teach you how to recover from that. Because I mean, in my own personal experience, the neurodivergent crowd is not really good at recovery time.

Not absolutely not.

We wanna make sure that you go and learn these skills, learn to recover, learn all these things. You have fun, and then you go home and you can put these things immediately to practice in your life.

So we are, this whole entire trip, it is literally to show you how to live a better version, upgrade your ADHD, and learn how to live ND out loud. Be neurodivergent, be yourself, be the best version of yourself, at least most of the time. Again, not every day is perfect. And this is why I talk about good, better, best days. Some days I'm a better version of myself than others, and that's perfectly acceptable and okay. And Understanding how to take care of myself, how to take care of those in my home, because we all have people in our home or furballs, whatever, that need that recovery time. It is possible to overcome all of those things. So we've got all kinds of training that's going to be going on. And then we have Disney World. It is a 4-day trip. So you get 4 days in a resort hotel. Then you get 3 days of Park Hopper passes to park hop between the parks. We may be getting a gift of an extra day here. I'm waiting to hear news on that. You're going to be getting MagicBands, the MagicBand Pluses, because they are the most neurodivergent-friendly way to visit the parks and do anything at all in the parks. They make everything easy. You're also going to get one quick service meal, one sit-down dining meal, and one snack a day, as well as the refillable mug that you can refill in your resort. And all of that is included. All of those things are included, a bunch of other special gifts and all of the coaching. And it— the trip is valued at our actual costs, not some bloated anything. The trip is valued at over $6,000 and we've got it set at $2,800. Again, you can break down payments through PayPal and Afterpay and Klarna, and there's a lot of options. And we have the 12-week option ourselves. Our 12-week option is not the same. Like, you can get it cheaper through PayPal, Klarna, all of the other places. Because obviously, I cannot— I am not the Bank of Danielle. I cannot fund your trip beforehand. So I wish I could, but I can't. So we have things broken down in as many ways and to make things as friendly as possible. Our travel planner is actually giving us sensory overwhelm spaces and all kinds of maps and support materials for you on the trip. So we're providing you with all kinds of things. It is— families are fully allowed. Spouses are allowed. Your spouses can attend all of the training with us if you would like them to. Male, female, does not matter. This trip is for everyone. We are completely inclusive and friendly with this trip. We don't care where you are, what you are, how you present. You are more than welcome with us. We want you to find the space where you are 100%, 100% accepted because we have struggled to find those our whole lives. And Disney World is not going to know what hit them. No.

But that's OK. I'm a big fan of create— of making companies write protocols specifically for me.

They are going to have to write protocol after we're there. And we hope to make this something we do every year, whether it's Disney World or maybe we'll pick Universal Studios. And I'll geek out on all of the hyperfocus for there next year. We want to do trips like this to help you, one, find your community. Finding your community, an in-person face-to-face community, is so important.

So important.

I cannot tell you the relationships I built by meeting somebody face to face are way more life-changing for me than anything I've done in Zoom and online and things like that. While that is amazing, and it's amazing to have that resource, in-person things are so much more supportive and friendly for us. And we're there to support every single thing. Whatever it is that you need, we are there to support it. That's why we're Doing this, and we hope that you join us. Even if you don't join us, I hope that you join us for some of the other things that we do because we teach all of these skills in every single training that we do. Heck, go to our Facebook group and you can find a lot of these for free over there at NDL Loud. Let us know how we can support you. That's why we're here. We do a lot of free things, not just big trips like this, and our packages start at $19.99 a month. So we're not just Talking about big high ticket, we're not these high ticket coaches. So we are here to support you in the way that you need to be supported. I hope that you learn that play is necessary for your life. It's necessary.

And here's the other thing, and this is my ex-teacher thing about this. You will learn a lesson if you are playing while you're doing it faster than anything else. If your kid is struggling to learn their times tables, you turn it into a game, a song, something, and they're going to learn it because our minds take in play differently. We don't shut it out. We're not afraid to mess up because we're playing.

We can allow ourselves that space. And it's absolutely amazing when you do allow yourself that. And I'm learning that more and more. I've learned that so much over the last 6 months and learning how to implement that every day, even more and more. So I hope you join us. Have an amazing day, everyone, and follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, all over the places. We're everywhere.