Ep 81: Surfing ADHD Urges: Conquering Impulses with Kimberly Severson

In this transformative episode of our ADHD management series, I'm joined by special guest Kimberly Severson to explore why urges feel so unbearable with ADHD and practical strategies to finally gain control over those intense impulses. If you've ever felt like a "cat in a bag" when trying to resist an urge, this episode offers hope and tangible solutions.

📌 Key Topics:

• Why urges feel so overwhelming when you have ADHD
• How to use the "urge surfing" technique to ride out impulses instead of giving in
• The connection between ADHD, your prefrontal cortex, and impulse control
• Creating small challenges to gradually build your resilience to urges
• How to effectively use distraction as a strategic tool
• The powerful question to ask yourself when facing strong urges

🗣️ Featured Quote: "The only way out is through. You have to feel it in order for it to get easier. What negative consequences am I inviting into my life by answering this urge?"

💡 Strategy Breakdown:

• Recognize that an urge is just a feeling in your body and a collection of thoughts
• Observe urges like waves that rise, peak, and eventually recede
• Notice the space between urges where you feel neutral or okay
• Create small challenges like sitting with an urge for just 5 minutes
• Ask yourself what unwanted consequences you're accepting when you give in
• Use strategic distraction to reset your mindset during intense urges

🔑 Key Takeaway: With practice, urges that once felt unbearable become manageable and eventually may barely register. Freedom from overwhelming impulses is possible when you have the right tools.

Choose one urge you frequently struggle with and try the "urge surfing" technique this week. Share your experience in the comments.

About Kimberly Severson: Kim is an anti-diet weight loss coach and host of the "Weight Loss Doesn't Have to Suck" podcast. She helps clients achieve sustainable results without restriction or deprivation through body connection, emotional resilience, and sustainable habit change. Her approach helped her lose 40 pounds and keep it off easily.

Connect with Kim: 

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weight-loss-doesnt-have-to-suck/id1668175283 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyseversoncoaching/ 

Website: https://www.kimberlyseversoncoaching.com/ 

Email: kimberlyseversoncoaching@gmail.com

Connect with Me: Learn more about private coaching: https://learntothrivewithadhd.com/services/

Free Resources: https://learntothrivewithadhd.com/freeresources/ 

Website: https://www.learntothrivewithadhd.com/ 

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/learntothrivewithadhd 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/learntothrivewithadhd/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/learntothrivewithadhd/

#adhdurges #adhd #adhdimpulses #urgemanagement #adhdsupport #adhdstrategies #adhdcommunity #executivefunction #impulsivity #adhdcoaching

Click here for full show notes.

CLICK HERE for more resources. We're on this journey together!

Transcript

All right. Welcome back, guys. Today I have a guest, and Kim will introduce herself in just a moment, But I have to tell you a little story.

I follow Kim's podcast. We work together in a peer coaching group. And before that, you were my coach several times for self coaching scholars, and that was awesome. I always loved when I saw her face pop up and we got to like, solve some some problem I was having that day. And so that was so fun and so valuable.

So Kim's been my coach before, before this coach forward group that we're a part of. And I was listening to Kim's podcast and she was talking about urges, and it made me think of you guys in my audience and my clients and how I'm always talking about urges. It seems like we're all dealing with some sort of urge, whether it's to scroll in your phone or to watch Netflix or to eat food.

You don't really need to eat or some people are dealing with like alcohol, especially those of us with ADHD. There can be tendencies towards addictions. And so I thought urges would be an excellent topic to cover entirely on its own. And my mind went to, okay, I need to read, listen to the way Kim presented this. So that I can like get some inspiration on my episode.

And then I was like, Stop it. Like just I'm sorry. I shot her an email real quick and I'm like, I loved your office, so can you do it? Instead of me reinventing and reinventing the wheel. So thank you so much for being here. I thought, surely with all that you've got going on with your yoga teaching certification you've got happening and and everything, that I wouldn't be able to get you for like a month.

But here you are. Here I am. Yeah. Amazing miracle. All right, so can you introduce yourself to everybody? I want them to know all the things you're doing. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. mande. This is so fun that we get to connect here. My name is Kim SEVERSON. I call myself the anti diet weight loss coach.

I do teach weight loss to my clients, but in a very non diety non restrictive way I teach weight loss through connection to your body. So your body tells you when to start a meal, when to stop a meal, so you'll never need another diet again. And we also talk about embracing all food foods, dropping food rolls, ending emotional eating, compulsive overeating as we'll get into today.

And I also host a podcast called Weight Loss Doesn't Have to suck where I cover all of that in detail. I love that title. When I first heard your title of your podcast, I was like, That is magic. How did you come up with that? Because weight loss sucked my whole life until I found the approach that I teach now.

Yeah, you know, it's actually interesting. I was doing a webinar, just some random webinar, and I was like, I want this really compelling title because I want my people to know when they find me there is a way to lose weight that isn't all about cutting food out of your life, cutting the foods you love out of your life, and spending all day in an app, tracking calories and feeling starving in between meals all the time and having to, like, essentially turn your life over to weight loss, which is so many of the diets out there.

That sucks for sure. I did that my whole life and I kind of thought it before I found these methods that I teach now that like, okay, it was either that or just give up, right? And I want to try to communicate to people that there is this happy medium between those two awful poles where you get to lose weight that in a way that feels.

I always say like self care instead of punishment. Yeah, you're actually like building up your connection to your body, your healing, your relationship with food. You're getting a lot of this emotional stuff worked out, so it's not even a problem anymore. So weight loss doesn't have to suck. Really encompass all of that. Yeah, that's great. And you guys are hearing a lot about food here, but what we're going to learn in what Kim's going to teach us is an urges and urges and urge.

And the example of food is going to resonate with a lot of people. But whatever it is that you're having that urge and I think the title of your hour okay, I have it right here. Why Urges Feel Unbearable. I loved that title because that is so true. Like when we're like deep in something, I don't know what I don't want to call it an addiction necessarily, because that's not always the case.

But when we're deep in just answering that urge, yeah, it does feel unbearable not to answer the urge, and that's why I thought this episode was so important. So I'm going to let you take over at this point and just teach the people and I will jump in if I have any questions or want to, like, clarify things for the audience.

Awesome. So why don't we start with what an urge is, which you I think Segway. It's so beautifully into you because a lot of people don't really know. You know, I hear people my clients, of course, will say something like, well, I'm just a sugar addict. Or, you know, I can imagine for all of the ADHD people that you coach, it's like, well, I'm a compulsive shopper or yeah, I make bad decisions or whatever it is.

You know, people take on these mantles, but that's not helpful and it's really disempowering and it's not true because all of this behavior can be changed with practice. And I'm sure we'll get into that today. But basically an urge and if you're having tons of urges, if you're having really unbearable urges, just know that there's nothing wrong with you.

You're not uniquely broken. We all have them. An urge is really just a feeling in the body. It's the sense of urgent desire for something. And I also teach it as like a feeling in the body sensations accompanying that feeling, but also a lot of repetitive thoughts, cognitive thoughts like I need to get the thing. This thing is the only thing that matters.

We, you know, nothing else matters. I'll start tomorrow. I'll be better tomorrow. Like all of those thoughts. So an urge is really just that experience of really wanting something, wanting something, maybe pretty urgently, having a lot of repetitive thoughts about it. And yeah, when you're not aware of like what's happening to it and how or what's happening to you and how changeable it is, that can feel really difficult.

Yeah, Yeah. And as you're, as you're saying, that's what I'm thinking of is one of the executive function skills in ADHD that can be low is impulse control. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. You have an impulse, you have an urge, and you answer it immediately without thinking. And what coaching really does for you. And what it did for me is to help you to slow down that whole process because you start to become aware of your thoughts, which create the urges, which create the urgency, right?

And then once you become aware of them, you can slow everything down and you can make a decision about what you're going to do next. You talked about the prefrontal cortex, and I'm not going to get you like out of order with what you're talking about, but I know that's coming. And for those of you that don't know, the prefrontal cortex with ADHD is exactly where we're having the problem.

And you can strengthen these things up and Cam's going to teach us some things. I loved some of the tools that you talked about. I'm going to, like, tease them a little bit. You mentioned like the urge surfing, which I think is going to be very interesting to people. And another thing that you mentioned was just small challenges, and I'm sure there was more, but those were the ones that I really grabbed a hold of as far as like implementing for myself, implementing for some of my clients.

Yeah. So that's great. And I think everything you just mentioned is such valuable information because we think that I talk a lot about the lower brain, which is sort of the like antithesis of the prefrontal cortex or I don't even like to say it that way because I hate to set it up like there's a battle between these two sides of your brain.

The lower brain is just there. It's kind of childlike. It's only interested in instant gratification and, you know, doing the doing with easy, right, Right. We in the school where we were taught that we were always taught that. They always talked about the fact that the lower brain wants to help you seek pleasure, avoid pain and do what's easy and energy efficient.

Right. And all of those are like, get the food by the purse, keep scrolling, whatever it is. Yeah. So your lower brain is going to tell you like, yeah, this, this thing is really important, right? This thing that you're having the urge around is really important. But when we start to build up and strengthen that prefrontal cortex, the are wise mind enters the chat, we can say, right, the want the part of us that's like, no, remember what you want most.

Remember 5 minutes from now, you're really going to regret making this impulsive decision. So even just awareness of the fact that that is happening, just like you said, it helps you slow down, helps you put a little space. I say this to my clients all the time. It helps you put a little space in between getting triggered and feeling the urge and reacting to the urge.

Yeah, and I want to bring something in. And you tell me if this is relating the way it is in my mind. But I client and I had a conversation about this, but we're talking about, you know, getting an urgent taking action, but I wonder about getting an urge and staying comfortable which might just be not taking an action.

I think a lot of people deal with that. What do you have to say about like staying in comfort and that being a problem sometimes? Right. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up, because I think that's another part of the slowing down process, because I always have my clients separate out like the drama in their head, the mental chatter about the urge from the actual experienced physical experience of the urge.

Because in our brains with our thoughts, that's where, as I said, all the drama is your lower brain is going to be like, This feels awful. These urges are relentless. I can't stay on this. We have to make this go away, that whole deal. But if you actually slow down and you're like, Let me just feel this. And yeah, sometimes, as you're saying, it is uncomfortable.

Sometimes we surprise ourselves when it's not nearly as uncomfortable as we would think it would be. But when we can build the skill of like slowing down, going into our body, maybe being with that discomfort, whatever level it is, I have my clients braid it 1 to 10 how uncomfortable I feel in my body right now. But when you can just kind of drop in, slow down, be with it, you're not resisting it, you're not fighting it, you're not at battle with it.

And it becomes a lot easier to process to do the urge survey, which maybe this is a good time to talk about that. But the whole process of wedding, these are just kind of come and go. Feels easier when you do that. Yeah, I think that would be a great time to bring up the urge surfing because it is such a simple concept and I love that it has kind of a, a nice fun name.

It sounds like a fun activity, right? Easy to not like suffering while you're just there and we're just going to surf that, right? Yeah. Yeah. So can you explain that one? Yeah. So if you start to observe yourself and you start to observe your urges, you'll notice that just like a wave in the ocean, an urge kind of follows the same pattern where it comes on.

And maybe it's subtle at first, and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then there's a point where it crescendos, essentially, and then it often eventually recedes. Yeah. And all urges follow that pattern where they're like little and minor, and then they reach a peak and then they eventually recede. And so even knowing that even having that awareness is powerful because sometimes our lower brain creates the narrative of like, this is going to last forever.

This is going to feel painful for the rest of my life. And we know intellectually that's not true. But in the moment we just want the urge to go away because we have this story about how painful it is, and that's when you want to shut it down by eating the food again, buying the purse, doing the easy thing, that instant gratification thing.

But if you have that knowledge that just like a wave, it's going to come on, it's going to peak and it will eventually recede. This will eventually pass again. That helps you be in the moment and not freak out so much. Yeah. So in the urge surfing method that I teach my clients and I actually have a meditation about this on my podcast, we just kind of watch this process happen again.

So much of this is observing yourself rather than like being all caught up in the experience and being all caught up in how I'm putting this in quotes. Heart, it feels are awful. It feels we're just like, we're just going to watch this happen. Let's just surf this urge. So let's notice as it comes on and it's pretty subtle.

We can also notice I'm dramatically with curiosity how it's getting maybe a little bit more intense. How does that feel in your body now? Maybe it's more intense. How does that feel? But again, we're not like hooked by it. We're not swept away by it. We're just watching this happen. We're like, okay, let's get curious about when it's going to recede.

Because the cool thing about when it starts to peak is it's just about to recede. That's how the waves work. Yeah. So if you can just watch it and surf that urge, then you get the joy of watching it kind of recede, watching it soften. And then we get to celebrate. Right. Because on the other side of the urge, you're always like, I did it.

I totally survived that. That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And this is where we get the, like, gratitude part of. I'm so glad I went through that experience. Yeah, it might have been painful. Urges are not always the easiest thing to deal with, but on the other side of them, I talk about this with my clients all the time.

It's so rare to say like, I'm so glad I ate that entire bag of chips for I'm so glad I bought that thing I didn't need. Right? We're always like, I'm so grateful to myself that I did that work. So once the urge recedes after that surfing process, you get to feel the pleasure of that, Right? The pride of that, Does that make sense of the whole process?

Absolutely. Absolutely. My thought is, though, just thinking of some things that I have challenges around, urges with that tends to come back again and then you just repeat the process. Yeah. So the urges come back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe that's just early days. Yeah, I mean, they do. And I think there's a couple of things I want to say about this.

One, sometimes they can come back. Not always. And I think it's always great because I don't know. Does that resonate with you, That lower brain narrative of like, this feels terrible. I have to make this end as quickly as possible. Absolutely. You know, I imagine I have cats and I imagine like when they get stuck in something and they're scared and trying to get like they're scratching, they're going crazy trying to get out of that situation as fast as possible.

And that's what like the really strong urges feel like to me. Yeah. And and I'm just thinking I'm thinking of one particular area that I'm experiencing this right now, and that's definitely what it feels like. And I'm kind of questioning as you're giving me the tools, although I know this works in so many other areas, it's a logically I know, but I'm going kind of emotionally right now.

Yeah. With Okay. And then we got through it and then a few minutes later this comes back, especially in the beginning stages of trying this. Yeah, I love that analogy. I'm totally going to steal it, if you don't mind that It makes sense, right? You feel so trapped, you feel like you're back's against a wall, like you're freaking out.

It is exactly like a cat getting stuck in something. But one thing I try to get my clients to notice to kind of soften that narrative. This is terrible. This is terrible. Like notice the space in between those urges where you feel neutral or you feel good. Like let's start to on purpose, bring our attention there because your lower brain wants to fall into that.

Like this is just a blanket statement. Awful. So like, let's notice the space between when it's maybe not so bad. Let's notice that lead up to the urge crescendo where it's really not as painful as we might think it would be. Let's start to notice the times where we're okay. Yeah. So we're not falling into that like black and white statement of all urges feel awful.

Yeah. And I can imagine that that time in between would be such a teacher as to like, okay, look you do get the relief even without answering the urge. Yes, exactly. But I don't want to discount because I know sometimes when we've done this urge work over time, I tell my clients this is like a way to infuse some hope into the situation of like this does get so much easier to deal with.

But don't get me wrong, I remember the beginning when I was first starting this work. It is hard, so I don't want to discount that. But I think noticing the space in between the urges and how okay you feel then can be really helpful. And then when it does feel hard, a lot of these urge surfing exercises and similar exercises, they're about grounding in the moment when it does feel hard, not gaslighting yourself out of the fact that it is feeling challenging physically right now and mentally and emotionally, but being like, Hey, look, I'm surviving it.

Yeah, because you can quiet the urge by eating the food. You can quiet the urge by buying the thing, whatever it is you're working on. But you can also quiet the urge on by just being there with yourself, feeling your way through the challenging parts, knowing, as I said, when this is at its most challenging, it's just about to recede.

Yeah, you said something that you can survive it. Yeah. You said something really interesting there that like reminds me of some famous quote that's that's leaving me right now. But it's about the answer is going through it. Do you know what I'm talking about? I can't. Yeah. And I'll butcher it, too. And you know, you hear a million different versions of that same thing, like the only way out is through.

And that's maybe not the most pleasant exercise like of Yeah, you got to feel it in order for it to get easier. Or you have to kind of go through the part where it feels hard. But if you can build up the willingness to try, we're not going to do this perfectly every time. But I like to ask myself when I do this work of like, am I willing to be with this for 5 minutes?

Why or why not? Such an interesting question, right? And that's one of those questions that can kind of get you out of the swirl of the urge or like the cat in the bag freak out and be like, okay, well, why would I be willing to sit with this? Or why wouldn't I be willing to sit with this?

Yeah, and there are ways to kind of soften even that process. You know, I'm not sure there's a version of this with shopping. There may be with scrolling. There certainly is with food, where I tell my clients, again, it doesn't have to be black and white all or nothing. We're not just, you know, allowing every single urge with a 100% success rate.

We're humans. We're not going to do this perfectly. So sometimes we do get to say like, okay, I'm going to have a small bowl of Eminem's and then I'm going to check in with myself and see how I feel. Yeah, or maybe if you're not if you're working on your screen time, it's like, okay, I'm going to Doomscrolling for 5 minutes, but then I'm going to stop and I'm going to check in with myself.

And I mean to see if it feels quite so urgent, which I think as I'm getting into this now, it's kind of a variation of that other tool that you brought up, which is like giving yourself these small little challenges. Yes. And I could hear you segueing into that quite nicely there for a few times. But yeah, talk about the small challenges that you mentioned.

Yeah. So again, this process is not easy. This is hard work sometimes, especially in the beginning. I think it's good news that it will eventually get easier the more you keep coming back to it. But sometimes it can feel overwhelming. You know, a lot of my clients are like, I am used to eating all night every night, and you're telling me I'm just going to have to allow urges all night, every day and sad and yeah, that feels terrible.

So sometimes we want to baby step our way into that, knowing that every time we do this work, we get stronger, our lower brain gets quieter so we know we're moving toward the eventual goal of feeling much stronger and feeling much more in control of our urges. But let's baby step our way there because we will get there.

And so sometimes I like to give my clients the challenge of like, okay, can I just sit with this discomfort of this urge for 5 minutes? Yeah. I don't have to worry about the rest of the night. Let's not even look at that yet. Let's just stay really present and grounded in this moment. Let's get granular. Am I willing to sit with this discomfort for 5 minutes, knowing that anything could happen in those 5 minutes?

Yeah. One option is those 5 minutes can feel terrible the whole time. Or maybe the urge will completely go away in those 5 minutes. I don't know. So can I just sit with it for this small amount of time and see what happens? Yeah. And I may be going off in a different direction here because I don't remember this being something that you mentioned.

But when I have clients set with things, for example, I have a lot of clients like myself that have a really hard time sitting still and when they do like and it really becomes a problem because then they never rest, okay? And so when I have them kind of sit still and sit with themselves like stuff comes up, do you think that that would happen during these like challenge times, that it would come up like maybe what what we're avoiding or what we're trying to replace?

Maybe. Yeah, I guess avoiding would be the word. Yeah. And when you say stuff comes up for your clients, is it like emotional stuff? Yeah. Like, well, I had one client realize as she was sitting with herself that when she was little, she never was allowed to sit. If she was sitting, she was going to get given something to do.

Yeah. So that was just kind of like an underlying thing that that was going on. But we kind of have reasons for all these things that we're doing. Totally. You know, that is such a good point because I don't know about your clients, but a lot of mine fall into like, something is wrong with me, I'm broke and other people don't struggle the way I deal with these things.

But I love that you just said these behaviors are here for a reason. We may want them to move on. We may not want to keep them forever. But there's always a reason that we fell into these habits or these tendencies or these behaviors. And sometimes, as you say, when you're willing to sit with yourself and feel whatever is going to come up, stuff does bubble to the surface.

Memories or emotional responses or maybe triggers. And I always tell my clients, like, we can stop at any time. I don't want to get someone so triggered that they're deeply, deeply uncomfortable. We can stop at any time. But like what came up for your clients? Sometimes that's so valuable to have that awareness of. Like why does this feel so uncomfortable to me?

it's because of something that happened in childhood. Now I get to decide what I want to do with that now. Yeah. And now that I know I can decide that you know, perhaps I don't recall exactly what happened in that situation. I believe it was this, but, you know, deciding like, I just forgot. I'm the adult now, right?

Nobody's coming behind me and telling me, get to work because I'm resting. And so that awareness alone can be can be a lot. So there was something else I thought of. I really liked how you talked about kind of the end result that, you know, we're taking we're answering the urge now, and we've talked about these tools that are so helpful.

So I feel like we're kind of going backwards, so bear with me. But answering the urge to like a bad results in the end. Can you speak to this? Spoke to it so much more eloquently than I am. Yeah. So I think I know what you're saying, but correct me if I'm taking it in a different direction, but it's like we are kind of we have tunnel vision when we're in the middle of an urge.

Again, as I said, we kind of tend to fall into this narrative that this is terrible. This mental chatter is so uncomfortable, this urges so uncomfortable. I have to make it stop. And we do. Right. So I'll use the example of eating. Maybe we go ahead and eat the bag of chips or we go ahead and eat the ice cream.

And sure, we've accomplished stopping the urge, so we're out of that discomfort. But I think what we have to remind ourselves of is we're creating so much additional discomfort when we do. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, Yeah. So because that's the thing we don't jump ahead to like, well, how am I going to feel 5 minutes from now, 10 minutes from now, 20 minutes from now, when I step on the scale on Friday, when I look at my bank account statement, right.

We don't think about that future version of us. But if we can start to, sometimes that can really help us get through the tougher moments in the urges. So I like to have my clients do that exercise of like, Well, what am I accepting when I shut down this urge by eating or by shopping or by doing the thing I'm trying not to do, what negative consequences of my inviting into my life and accepting and living with.

And oftentimes with food, it's like, Well, now I'm really stuffed in a sack. Now I feel physically very uncomfortable. I'm mad at myself, I'm regretful. I wish I hadn't done that. None of my clothes in my closet fit. You're really mad that I'm pushing myself farther away from my goal rather than moving toward it, I feel even more disempowered around urges.

Yeah. So many things, right? Yeah. And that's so important for my audience because there can be a tendency to not see that future event. When you have ADHD, you're living in the now, it's the now and the not now. And so that I think of my husband because he just has this kind of like natural future vision for, you know, why he's working out or why he's doing anything that he's doing.

Whereas I don't tend to have that. I have to have lots of reminders. And so but I love what you said there. You were asking yourself a question like, Can you say that question again? What future am I accepting? It was something. Yeah, I'll try to remember how I said it, but it's like, But negative consequences. What unwanted consequences?

Because we're really only thinking about like how great it's going to feel to eat the food, how great it's going to feel to not have the mental chatter anymore. But we can start to ask ourselves what unwanted negative consequences am I inviting into my life? And accepting just living with like, all of this discomfort that we live in when we do the thing that our lower brain wants in the moment, when we do the instant gratification thing that we are imperfect?

Yeah, that's perfect. I love having that question because it, you know, I would say it's it's almost like not having glasses where you can see far. That's kind of what a lot of us with ADHD, like we don't have our glasses on where we can see far. And that question kind of puts the glasses on and it forces you to go, okay, what am I accepting?

What consequences? And I accept it. And so I just really wanted to put an exclamation point on that one. Yeah, it can be so helpful because again, we're only thinking about the thing we want in the moment and to start building that skill to say like, what? Wait, what do I want for my life overall, or what do I want for my life most rather than just what I want right now?

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Well, what haven't we covered yet? That Well, I think another thing that might be interesting to your audience is the idea of like playing around with some of the stuff. You know, we talk about urge surfing in that language, being kind of playful. I like to say, okay, let's just accept we're not going to get this perfectly right away.

It will get easier and easier the more we do it. So let's just play around with these different methods. There's so many you know, we covered a couple today, like the urge surfing, like giving yourself these kind of mini micro challenges, like thinking ahead to the future and what you want most in your life. There's also, I think, good old fashioned distraction is sometimes useful, right?

Of like, let me make sure I'm acknowledging this and feeling it. But at the same time, I don't just have to sit here and feel uncomfortable. I can go take a walk, I can take a bath, I can get engaged in work while I'm allowing this urge to kind of roll through me and move on. So just playing around with these different tools and different methods to see what's going to be right for you today and what works for you overall.

I think having that willingness to be curious to try some of these different methods, that can be really helpful too. Yeah, I love that we're talking about tools because I just I tell clients like we're building a toolbox of tools because as anyone with ADHD that is listening or watching this right now will attest to something will work for a little while.

Yeah, and then it won't work anymore. I have a client that was just saying, well, my sound machine when I went to sleep was working for a little while and now it's not working. And I'm like, time, time for something new and then you can shuffle back around to that. But the same with these tools the urge surfing, the small challenges, the distraction.

I love that you mention that because sometimes, especially when I'm I'm like, You're not hungry. You don't you don't need to be in the fridge going for a walk. It's such a reset. A reset. I know a whole new mindspace when I get back. So that that is a really nice distraction. But yeah, I, I'm not sure where I was going with that, actually.

Yeah. No, it's okay. There's it brought up something for me because I say to my clients all the time, like the way a carpenter wouldn't show up to a project with, like, just a hammer. Right? Right. Like, that's a really useful tool, that hammer. But you also need nails. You also need saws. You also need I mean that I'm saying carpenters use.

Yeah. CARPENTER But we have all these tools and we have to ask ourselves, like, what's the right tool for this particular job? Because I know some days I feel so energetic and I'm like, I cannot allow this urge. I feel so strong. Let's serve this urge, let's let it pass right by. But other times, usually when I'm exhausted or drained or stressed out, that feels like a big ask.

So let me go into my toolbox and get a different tool of maybe I can practice allowing this for 5 minutes, or maybe this is a day I'm going to say, we're going to put the Eminem's in a bowl. We're just going to scroll on our phone for 5 minutes, right? Because we have different energy and it gets to be fluid and flexible and that's fine.

And that's why we give you so many different tools. So you can ask yourself, what? What am I? What am I up for today? What do I need today? Well, and you already covered this, but I want to reiterate it. This is not about perfection. Yes. Especially with my ADHD professionals and entrepreneurs. Like so many of them like myself, I call myself a recovery and perfectionist, but are perfectionists.

And we tend to think either I'm doing it or I messed up. Right? And that is not the case with these urges. I know I changed my diet. Gosh, I keep saying 13 years ago, and I think I've been saying that for the past three or four years. It's been a long time that I completely change my diet because my family tends to let go towards type two diabetes and things like that.

And I was insulin resistance and having issues and I changed my diet. And I just remember and that's where I can attest to like you can change your relationship with these urges. Yeah. And because when I first changed my diet, you know, no, no sugar, no flour, no grains. And so cookies sounded really great or bread sounded really great.

And some days I would do well, and some days I would eat the bread and I'd kind of like reset and start over. And so I would answer the urge sometimes, and sometimes I wouldn't answer the urge. And enough times of like answering, not answering, answering, not not answering more answering, not answering more, answering to the point that, you know, my husband goes and gets cookies every Saturday and I don't care.

I don't there's no urgency around cookies whatsoever anymore. And so I just say that to let people know like there is freedom at some point, that freedom you feel like a superhero at the end of the SS you get so strong and it's not that you don't have urges like you're saying sometimes. I mean, for the most part you don't really care about the cookies, but I'm sure you still have urges here and there.

You just get so practiced at this that you're like, Yeah, but I don't care. Yeah, you know, it doesn't feel like that big of a deal. I remember my first coach saying that to me. I'm like, Yeah, I've heard it all the time. I just I don't I'm not fazed by them anymore. And I was like, Wow. And I couldn't even imagine getting to that place.

But now that I'm here, I'm like, that's what she was talking about. Yeah. And I think we we all if we're, if we're doing the work, we all tend to get there in some area of our life and you can stack that. You can go, okay, here's the evidence, right? That that can happen in this area.

And if it can happen in this area, it can happen in this other area 100%. That's actually something I invite my clients to do is like, notice where you're already doing this work of having an urge and not just immediately reacting to it. Instead reminding yourself why it's important to do the long term beneficial thing. I say this all the time, like I never want to cook my kids dinner.

I never want to drive them to school. Those are urges. I have urges to not cook them dinner, not drive them to school. But in the moment I'm like, okay, we're not doing that right. We're like, Here's why it's important to cook them dinner. Here's the long term benefits of driving them to school. It's the same thing. It just feels easier because it's more compelling right in the moment.

You're like, Yeah, of course I have to get to school, so no big deal. But that's another thing that clients can do or listeners viewers can do is like, Let me notice what I'm already doing this work where I'm already really good at allowing urges or talking myself out of reacting to urges. Immediately me start to build up that evidence that this is possible.

Right? Right. I was working with a client on Sunday and we were talking about food urges and she's a very healthy person. And so the example I gave to her was, well, I mean, there's standards, right? If we were talking about drugs and alcohol, this wouldn't even be a conversation. Right. And she's like, well, maybe alcohol sometimes. But that that's evidence, right.

That she, you know, has an urge for that sometimes and maybe has it sometimes. But it's not it's not a big deal. We're not discussing that, you know, on the couch watching TV every night. Like so there is some area that you do have control and tap into that and like, notice that. And for some people it's just like, well, that's my standard.

Well, that may be your standard, but you are exerting control in that area. Yes, 100%. And you can expand your capacity to allow urges. But I think celebrating where you are, celebrating how good you already are at this work in so many different ways is a great starting point to be like, okay, well, what's the next layer? What am I willing to work on now?

And you know, how can I baby step my way toward the person I want to be? Yeah. And I like how you talked about urges to not do things. I know when I was first trying to learn to follow my calendar, I kept coming back to self coaching scholars at the time and I was like, This is not working.

And they were kind of like, It's not working. Or we would kind of go into like, Why I am choosing not to follow the calendar, which was what happening at the time. I had the urge not to follow it or not to look at it or to do something else instead of what was on the calendar. And I was answering that urge instead of just, you know, like you were saying, driving kids to school, right?

Yeah. And that's huge. This is why I love coaching, right? Because it's so helpful to be like, okay, said, I wanted to do this thing. I really liked my reasons, but I noticed that I didn't. Let's take a look at that, right? Because the tendency is just to sweep it under the rug or to berate ourselves, but never to really be like, But why didn't I do this thing?

Because there's so much power in that, you know? So if I told myself I wasn't going to eat the chips, but then I ended up eating the chips, okay, what do I think was going on for me? What was the food doing for me? Just like we were saying before. And that gives you information to work with.

So then you can say, How can I set things up differently for myself? How can I give myself the food if the food was giving you comfort or stress relief or whatever it is, how can I give that to myself in another, more productive way? Yeah, that's again how we start to with awareness and curiosity about what's going on for us.

Yeah, we start to move the needle forward. That's beautiful that you went there because that is what we discovered with that client, that it was comfort. Yeah, that's exactly where we went. Okay, how can we have that comfort in another way? And of course there's when you're in it, there's kind of a resistance to creating a list of like other ways that we can have that comfort because you're like, this is a go to in this feels good right now.

And so I just checked with her yesterday because she asked me to and I'm like, Do you have your list started? And the answer was, not yet. Okay. So for those of you listening, like, that's normal. Like, that's completely normal. That is what I expected with this client. That is what I would expect if I were having that kind of challenge in my life.

There would be that resistance to like, how else can I solve this problem? Because this way of solving it has been so habitual, has been so easy. Totally. Yeah. Even just knowing that, of course, like we're in these patterns with our go to I don't want to call them vices, right. But our go to behaviors that maybe give us comfort or give us stress relief or whatever it is.

So yes, it's going to be a little challenging to try something new. There's going to be some resistance. We often just want to do what's easy and automatic. But all of these tools that we talked about today, the more you use them, not expecting perfectionism, but just returning consistently to this work, they do eventually help and then you shift into totally new patterns.

Yeah, and back to that question that you said, like what consequences am I signing up for, even if the consequence is only because I know sometimes you can feel like you're getting away with something, You know, like I'll go back to that calendar example. I didn't follow the calendar today, but, you know, nothing bad really happened. Sure. Yeah.

And so we can feel like we're getting away with these behaviors. But even if it's just the way you feel about yourself after that, of course we can choose not to beat ourselves up and that kind of thing. But there is a tendency when you're breaking promises to yourself to damage that relationship with yourself, and that's a consequence.

Yeah. And even I mean, there's a reason that you put those things on your calendar in the first place, I imagine because you liked your reasons for wanting to do those things and you wanted to get those things. Terrible is happening. You're not doing the things that you decided with your prefrontal cortex you wanted to do.

So the more we're willing to work at it and look at these behaviors, the more we get to live this intentional life, this life we're creating on purpose, rather than just pin balling around reacting to urges. And if I'm being completely honest, what would happen? And so another consequence would be, okay, I didn't do that thing on Tuesday.

I didn't do it on Wednesday. Now Thursday and Friday are a little bit fuller. Okay, Now, am I working into the weekend because I didn't do these things that I intended to do? There were consequences. I was just trying to pretend that there wasn't. So I think that's true for like any like you said, I don't want to call it vices, but I like behavior.

Any behavior that that we just would rather not do, I think is is the way to put it. So. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, this has been a great conversation. Thank you. You you handled this beautifully. I'm so glad I didn't try to reinvent the wheel and do this myself, loving me. But it's been a great conversation. I want people to know where they can find you.

Yeah. So the best place to go to really get a sense of me and my work and my style and my approach would be my podcast again, it's called Weight Loss Doesn't have to Suck. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. It's on all major podcast players. I am on Instagram here and there.

Their Instagram handle is Kimberly Sievers and coaching. So I am, you know, talking about urges. I'm always working on my urges to not promote things, right? But I am there as much as they can be. And then my website is www.kimberlyseversoncoaching.com You can find out more about my work or book, a consultation with me there.

And I will say, like listening to your podcast, I am a podcast listener and even if a weight loss is not on your radar, even if that's not something you're even thinking about, the concepts that you're teaching, there covers so many things like plug in whatever you're working on and the mind management that you're teaching people and the tools that you're bringing up really like help in all areas of life.

Yeah, it's all the same stuff, right? Like I am teaching my clients these tools for weight loss, but I'm still using them to work on all of the goals and challenges that remain in our human lives. Right? I'm still using them in my own world every day, so. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you, mande.