Can ADHD entrepreneurs use transcendental meditation?

Hey new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Hey new listener, thanks so much for checking us out and there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please, please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. In this episode, we're going to take some much needed time out and we're going to think more about your body and your mind. Squirrel, it's time for me to introduce you to your energetic care kit, Squirrel. By the end of this episode, you'll be fitter both physically and mentally. Hi, I'm Katie McManus and this is business strategy for Weenie ADHDpreneurs Squirrel. So entrepreneurs with ADHD know very well that there are two main areas where things go completely off the rails. So things tend to go off the rails when we shift gears from one thing to another. Or when we we failed at the gear shift and went on a side tangent or got sucked into hyper focus on something that really doesn't matter in our day and three hours later we resurface and think, oh my God, I've just completely screwed today up. Like today's gone. Might as well like burn my life down and disappear into the wilderness because I just can't function in my life anymore. Neither one is helpful. So it's not helpful to not be able to effectively shift from one year to the next. Okay, so shifting from like answering emails to going into client meetings, right? If you spend too much time answering emails and then get sucked into like a YouTube video watching thing, you may miss the meeting. That's not good. Likewise, the punishing yourself bit that you do after you accidentally spend too long on something or get distracted, that is also not helpful. So in today's episode, I really want to talk about what is your energetic care kit that you can employ whenever you need to switch gears or to reset yourself when you have had a completely ADHD moment, hour, day, whatever, and need to like, return to factory settings. So I'm going to be covering a couple things in this episode. First and foremost, I want to talk about spiritual practices. And I'm saying spiritual practices because I want whatever that means for you to come up in your mind. If that calls to your religion that you believe in, and it empowers you and it makes you feel grounded, then let it mean that. If it means meditation and mindfulness and doing something that helps you Zen in and be better grounded, then let it mean that. If you have witchy tendencies and it means doing some casting or some incantations, then please let it be that. Because remember, the only wrong way to do something is to do it in a way that doesn't work for you. So full permission here to incorporate whatever your spiritual practice is into your day to day. Because here's what a spiritual practice does. It often grounds you into the here and now. It often helps you get super flipping clear on what it is that you want for yourself, your future, your family, your community. And it also operates like a tiny ritual every day that helps you start being work. So I'll share what I actually do. I do this practice. It's a meditation that I developed with my intuitive coach who works with spirit guides and things like that, just to give you some insight as to how I run my business. So I do this meditation where I imagine like my heart is just full of colors. And for me, I associate different colors with different relationships. So my relationships with my clients and my potential clients are very blue and green and a combination of that. So I imagine like my heart space is just full of blues and greens. And I imagine that as I'm focusing on that life force in my chest, that it's being sparked in the chests of those people in the world who need my help, who would benefit from talking to me, who are starting a business and don't know what they're doing, who could just use some help and are open to getting the help. I then, you know, just ask the question, you know, what do you need to hear from me today? What's the message you need to hear? What are you struggling with? What do you want? And that's honestly where a lot of my content comes from, is whatever answer comes up. And who knows if this is my intuition or spirit guides or God or massive consciousness in the universe, but whatever it is, it helps me get settled into my day. It helps me shift from Katie, the dog mom, who just had an uncomfortable amount of coffee and took her dog to the dog park where the dog yapped at everyone and, you know, hasn't brushed her hair yet, into here I am. I'm here to be of service and I'm here to work with my clients, and I'm here to do some Good work in the world. This practice also only takes about, like, three to five minutes, you know, depending on how frazzled I am when I sit down. And it's funny, me sharing this because I have this voice in my head that's telling me, like, don't tell people this. This is so weird. Like, people are gonna think you're a freak. They're not gonna wanna talk to you. And I just wanna tell on myself here because we've never been shown a model where our spirituality can be brought into doing our work, right? We've never been shown a model where, like, religion is allowed in the workplace. There was a coworker I had way back when, when I was in college, when I was working at a resort on Cape Cod. And he was Muslim. And, you know, Muslims have to pray five times a day. And so part of his day. And, you know, they were very accommodating at this resort. They set aside an office where he could go and do this really quick. And I always thought about that and thought, oh, my God, it would be so nice to have a reason to just check out for a moment. Go and spend some time with your higher power. Get grounded. Remind yourself of why you're here and what you're up to. And I think that's such a beautiful practice and full permission as you're designing your own business, as you have this freedom and flexibility to do whatever the you want in your day to create these moments for yourself as part of your routine. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month. It's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus. Now, there are two sides to this. There's incorporating spirituality to help you get set up for the best, most successful day. And then there's also incorporating spirituality to help forgive yourself when things go off the rails. So that's my practice for when I get set up in my day and I'm setting my my intentions for what I want to accomplish. Some days don't go to plan. Some days I say, yes, I'm going to write the 15 emails that I need to do for this launch. I'm going to get that done today. And then 6pm rolls around and I haven't even started it, right? And at that point what happens is I'm in dopamine deficit over it, right? And because I already feel like I'm way behind on it, even if I start it, even if I start getting it done, even if I complete all 15 emails, I'm not going to get the same amount of dopamine because I'm already late with it. I said I was going to get it done by 4pm and it's past 4pm now. I have already failed. We all know that we do this to ourselves. We rob ourselves of the life giving force that is the dopamine in our brains, right? We punish ourselves. We make up all these wackadoodle rules and set ourselves up for failure in these small ways. Now you can absolutely bring in your spirituality, whatever it looks like to grant yourself some forgiveness in these moments. You know, one of the things that I love doing, I actually keep sage in my apartment. And I don't really sage my apartment. I sage myself. I sage myself of all the judgment that I have over myself for not doing things to the timeline that I had set for myself. Whatever you choose to do here, however you choose to empower it to work for you, the only thing that matters is that it helps you reset back to factory settings. The only thing that matters here is that once you do that little ritual, whatever it is, it helps you get back to the point where you get the full dose of dopamine from doing the thing. So I don't care if you have put off filming seven TikToks over the last three weeks, okay? And it's already way behind and you're failing and all this stuff, whatever ritual you need to do to reset yourself so that it's a new task, you get to forgive yourself for not having done it up until now. But. But you get to go and do it right now and you'll get the full credit and all the dopamine that comes with it. That's the exact thing you need to do right now. Maybe not right now. Like, you should continue listening to this podcast and then after this podcast, you need to go and do that. Don't leave the podcast. The next thing I want to talk about is mindfulness and meditation. And I'm gonna pause you here. As an ADHD person, I know the idea of meditation completely freaks us out because when we hear meditation what our brains immediately go to is that you're not allowed to think anything. It's the absence of thought. And for someone with ADHD, when you have 17,000 thoughts going a million miles a minute in your head at all times, that is just impossible. Okay, we're not talking about that. And by the way, that actually doesn't happen in meditation. In meditation, you actually have all the thoughts. Thoughts come up all the time. And the only thing that you don't do is you don't dance with them. Okay, so you remember. Oh yeah, I wrote a note on a post it and I left it in the bathroom on the mirror and it's behind the other post it and da, da, da, da. Like, I have to go do that. Let that go. Oh, that's right. Like the dog chewed that shoe. I need to replace those shoes. Yeah. And I need also to get some bread. Like, can I get bread and shoes at the same place? Let that go. So literally, you sitting just with your thoughts and letting whatever thought comes up just pass you by. Like, almost like you're people watching at the park, you know? So imagine you go to a park in springtime and it's a gorgeous day and everyone's there and you're sitting on a bench and you're just kind of people watching. Now the ADHD way of doing this, where you jump up and you deal with each idea would be the same as like you jumping up and trying to have a conversation with every single person who walks by, by the way. That would be so uncomfortable for them. Please don't do that. Like, I could just imagine like a police officer coming on by and be like, sorry, ma', am, like, there have been some reports of you harassing people. Can you please just like sit on this bench and not talk to everyone, please? Thank you. Okay, so. So that's not meditation. Meditation is you sitting and just kind of watching the thoughts walk by and not engaging with them, not saying hi, just observing. I really seem to be thinking about my shopping list today. Wow. I really seem to be thinking about that embarrassing thing I said 20 years ago. That still bothers me. That can be meditation too. And you're not trying to be a champ here. There's no winning in meditation. Like, there's no, like, meditation gold medal. Okay, five minutes. Five minutes of you sitting with your eyes closed, just focusing on your breathing, letting thoughts pass you by. That counts. You downloading an app that helps you meditate, that does guided meditations. That also counts. This is one of the most game changing things I've added to my repertoire to help me be more effective as an ADHD human. This helped me through college, this helped me through numerous jobs, and it helps me in my business today. And I want to remind you, the only wrong way to do something is to do it in a way that doesn't work for you. So find your own way and I'll share. You know, I learned Transcendental meditation in college. I got trained by a transcendental meditation teacher. That has been super effective for me, but it's also not for everyone. But what you can do here is just try different things and see what works for you. There's also this kind of fun mindfulness meditation that you can do. And if you take a mindfulness meditation class, there's one exercise they have you do that has to do with like, you're given two raisins, and so the first raisin you, you actually take like 10 minutes to each. Two raisins. It's insane, but you spend all this time, like looking at the raisin and noticing the color and like feeling it and all the stuff and then you taste it and it's a whole long, drawn out process. But it's amazing how much calmer you get if you can find the raisin exercise. We'll try to find a link and share it in the show notes. Raisin exercise for mindfulness meditation is an experience I feel like everyone with ADHD should have. Unless, of course, you don't like raisins, then don't do it. The next topic I want to talk about in your energetic care kit is one that often goes completely overlooked. And it's the most basic thing in the world. People rest. You need to rest. You, you need to be sleeping eight to nine hours a night. None of this I'm gonna sleep when I'm dead bull. If you wait to sleep till when you're dead, you're probably going to die sooner. Let's not do that. Let's live longer. By the way, you know, something that I read the other day is that people with ADHD, on average, live 12 and a half years less than a neurotypical person. And there are many factors that go into this, but we're more likely to be obese. We're more likely to have, like, I think, high blood pressure, heart problems because of a whole bunch of factors. But I guarantee you in here is that we don't sleep enough. And when you don't sleep enough, your hormones can't regulate themselves. And when your hormones can't regulate themselves, Properly. You have a really hard time knowing when you're full. You tend to overeat. You also tend to like, not pay attention while you're doing stuff. You get into auto mode. And I don't know about you, but I definitely can call back to a couple times, more than a couple, where I've been sitting in front of the TV with a bag of chips at my side and all of a sudden the bag is empty and I don't remember eating them all. Let's live longer, okay? Let's take care of ourselves, let's give ourselves the rest so that our bodies can function. And finally, let's talk about exercise. You know, in this podcast we're talking about how you can function best as an ADHDpreneur. We're in our heads so much. We're using our brains, we're doing a lot of thinking, we're offering services like, yes, we are thinking beings and we do have to keep our brains in line. But guess what? We have a whole other meat sack attached to that brain. Exercise is so important for your body. Again, exercise helps you sleep better, it helps you focus better. It also helps you be sexy, which never hurts your confidence. Go out and move your body's people and you don't have to do it perfectly. I know so many of us with adhd, we are all or nothing people. Okay? So like New Year's resolutions really flip us out because we're like, I'm going to work out every single day. I'm going to do heavy weightlifting and then I'm going to go for a three mile run and then I'm going to do an ice bath. And guess what? That's not realistic for most of our schedules, right? You set yourself up for failure the moment you set that into motion. Okay, so if like day one of you setting this all or nothing fitness goal, you fail, go for a five minute walk and let that count. Give yourself the dopamine hit of counting that as movement, counting that as an exercise. You wanna stand in your kitchen and do some jumping jacks, that counts. It doesn't not count because you're not wearing workout clothes or sneakers. One of the things that I found really works well for me is when I am exercising and I am, you know, using some kind of exercise tracking app that helps me give myself credit for what I did. So like when I'm in a running phase, like I really like using runkeeper because it shows me like what I've done. The only thing that annoys me is sometimes I forget to turn it off. And then it shows up, like, three hours later that it took me 40 minutes to run a mile. And it's like, no, that's not how long that took me. I stopped moving, like, two and a half hours ago, and you've just ruined my time. You know, whatever works for you. Whatever will help you get an extra kick out of that dopamine hit. My mom is so funny. So a few years ago, I got a peloton and I told her about it, and she was really jealous, and so I bought her one. Squirrel. Squirrel. Start sweating, baby. You should look like a hot mess by the end of this. Welcome to peloton meditation. Yo. Embrace your confidence, embrace your love. Embrace being you. Because that's beautiful, baby. Stay tall, staying proud. Come on, Peloton. Squirrel. And when she started using it, I get a phone call from her, and she'd be like, katie, I'm so morally superior today. I'm like, really? Like, what did you do, mom? And I'm thinking, you know, she, like, gave to a charity. Maybe she volunteered her time. She fed the homeless. She's like, no, I worked out. I'm so morally superior to everyone else. Like, I worked out today. And I love her because it's so true. You do feel morally superior when you do something that's good for your body. And let's just own it. Let's just own it. Because when you do something that's good for your body and then you go and brag about it, it gives you that extra dopamine hit. Like, she doesn't even realize that she's hacking her own ADHD here. How cool is that? And so if you have worked out today already, guess what? You're morally superior. Go you. If you want me to walk you through a specially designed guided meditation for ADHDpreneurs, click the link in the show notes that will take you to weenicast.com members. Not only will you get access to the meditation, but but members can enjoy a free coaching call with me once a month. Access to other ADHD entrepreneurs in the community, 10% off of all future programs with me, and other exclusive bonus podcast content. And I know, like, three people who hate it when I call bodies meat suits. And I can't wait to get a text message from them later telling me, I hate that you said that term because they won't even use it in a text message to me. They'll just be completely creeped out and be like, ah. They'll shake their fist at me. And, you know, in Virtual Land. Fabulous. Fabulous. Fabulous. Fabulous. Fabulous. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me and exclusive, exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.