Why You'll Never Change Who You Are

Are you ready to consider that you alone can never change who you are?  In today’s episode, Lacy challenges the idea that change is possible by our own effort, emphasizing the importance of empathy and reframing our mindset around faith and reliance on God. Throughout the episode, Lacy encourages ADHD and all listeners to focus on Christ's finished work and the transformation of the heart to become more like Him. So get ready to challenge your perceptions and gain a new perspective on change and faith in this thought-provoking episode.

Links & Resources:
Why You Shouldn't Make New Years Resolutions as an ADHDer

Transcript

[0:00] Hey guys, and welcome back to An ADD Woman Podcast.
I'm Lacy, your host, and this is part one of why you'll never change who you are.
Welcome to An ADD Woman Podcast. I'm your host, Lacy Estelle.
This is the podcast where we talk about all things to do with ADHD from a Christian woman's perspective.
I'm so glad you're here and I can't wait for you to realize all the amazing things that God is doing in your life.

[0:36] Why you'll never change who you are as an ADHD person.
And I want to talk about this because I think that there's a misconception and I feel like maybe I've made this point several times before and I apologize if you feel like maybe I'm repeating myself.
Maybe sometimes I can be be really good about going back and re-listening to my podcast episodes.
I can be great at it, and other times I totally forget.
And so if I am sort of repeating things that I've talked about in the past, well, evidently this is important.
So I'm just going to keep going.
So first of all, as somebody who has had ADHD my whole life, even before I had ADHD, there was this part of me that that was learning to recognize objective truth.

[1:31] And by objective truth, I mean that truth in essence, and as it is, okay, the definition of truth means that it is, it's singular.
And by that, I mean that it can't be subjective.
And I know there are lots of people out there that like to say that that's not the case, that truth can be subjective, that you need to live your truth and that your truth is might be different than other people's truth and I think what they're trying to say is that living true to who you believe yourself to be but not necessarily truth as it truly is my point is there are some truths and there are some lies and I think there's more lies than there are truths to certain statements that as an ADHD woman, we have hardwired into our own brain.

[2:33] For instance, we tend to think in very black and white ideologies.
And by that, I mean, we assume that because one thing is true, that then therefore the opposite must also be true, which is actually called a logical fallacy.

[2:50] And it's just simply not the case. When one thing is true, it doesn't automatically mean that the opposite of that is true.
For instance, I am thirsty. thirsty.
Most people would think that maybe the opposite of thirsty is not thirsty, or they might also think that it could be hungry.
Just because I say I'm thirsty doesn't mean that I'm not also hungry, but it also doesn't mean that I'm hungry and thirsty at the same time always, and it also doesn't mean that once I quench my thirst that I will automatically be hungry.

[3:27] Now, I know that that probably all sounded very confusing, but just stay with me.
I think as ADHD women, we think of things like we're either organized or we're not, or we're thriving or we're not, or we're good or we're not good, we're smart or we're not smart.
And none of these are true. true and here's why because of the fact that there is some subjectivity to each of these statements i might say i'm a good reader and maybe that by me saying i'm a good reader you might deduce that, because i'm a good reader maybe i'm not good at math well that's not necessarily true i can be a good reader and be good at math but what if by saying i'm a good reader you automatically assume that that means that I, you know, read 300 words per minute all the time.
But what if I actually am only reading 150 words per minute?
Does that mean that I'm not a good reader?

[4:33] Or does it simply mean that I'm a slow reader compared to others?

[4:37] So how do we define good? And how do we define bad?
The Bible says that there is no good in us.
That the only good in us is Jesus, is the Holy Spirit working through us.
That if it was up to us, we would never choose God.
We would never choose our Savior. We would never go after the life that we have gone after.
It's because God chose us before the beginning of time to become his people.
Now, if we think about things along those lines, well, then as much as that can seem sort of mind boggling, right?
Like, what do you mean I would never choose God? It feels like us, doesn't it?
It feels like us saying, oh, I just want Jesus, right?
And I think maybe when we get on the other side of heaven, maybe in our celestial bodies or whatever, maybe there is a part of us that did or does. I don't know.
What I am saying, though, is if that statement is true, then you can take all the weight of good, bad, sort of off of yourself.
Now, one thing my pastor said in a recent sermon, he said, there are two things that are true.
Grace is freely given, which means that we are forgiven indefinitely.

[6:07] But that we are also responsible. Now, in that case, that is, both of those statements are true.
We are responsible for our behavior, but we are also covered.
Like, our sin is forgiven. No sin is too great that he cannot forgive, but we also have to be responsible.

[6:29] And that can be confusing when we think about it, because for a long time, I lived as a a lukewarm Christian.
And I think, I think that there's probably a lot of people like me who lived as lukewarm Christians.
And then as time has gone on, especially in recent years with everything happening in our country, we've had to re-examine what we actually believe or what we actually claim to not believe.

[6:59] As lukewarm Christians, it's very easy to say, oh yeah well you know Jesus died for my sins that's great it's kind of like when you have a parent that co-signed the loan for you and then you lose your job and they're like oh well you know I co-signed this for you I knew that this might happen so I'm just going to go ahead and and I'm going to pay your loan for you until you get a new job right and part of you goes oh man oh man, that's great. Thank you. Takes the pressure off, right?
And it's supposed to be helpful, but sometimes it can actually be enabling, right?
Where all of a sudden you're thinking to yourself, oh, cool.
Well, I'm going to wait till like the perfect job comes along, right?
I'm going to wait till like the best opportunity comes along.
Meanwhile, your mom or your dad or maybe both your parents are just working out this money for you each And you're thinking to yourself, well, you know, that was on them, you know, they co-signed.
If they hadn't co-signed, well, you know.

[8:05] But really, if you think about your behavior in the aspect of what is respectable to your parents, you might think twice about not being in a hurry to pursue a job.
Do you get what I'm saying? Because from the outside looking in now, you're thinking to yourself, oh, well, cool. They've got me. They've got me covered.
I don't have to. I can relax. I can wait for the perfect job to come along.
But your behavior actually kind of looks like, even though they did you this favor, that you don't, you're not really respecting them for doing that favor.
Like, you don't recognize the gravity of what they're doing, and you're not giving love in return.
Turn and as lukewarm christians we fall into that trap right we can fall into that trap of, oh well god took care of it so i don't have to worry about it i can do whatever i want right he already paid for it so i don't i don't worry about paying for it but that gives proof that you're not really walking in the faith you're not really walking in a way that is is striving for Christ.
You're not really recognizing what he's done in the complete and finished works on the cross.
And you're also not recognizing who gave you the ability to wake up this morning and take a breath.

[9:31] So the Bible also talks about, Jesus talks about specifically about how anybody who would come after him has to deny themselves and take up their cross, which basically means that when he died we died we died with him and he raised us so coming back to where i was really going with this episode is because we tend to think in black and white terms, we can really as adhd women or adhd or neurodivergent woman who has maybe you you feel like you have something ADHD but maybe you feel like it's mostly anxiety but ultimately what this all comes down to is we have this misperception of what either success looks like what good is what bad is what healthy is what you know we are constantly waiting for arrival we we tell We tell ourselves so many things.
We say, oh, well, this year, you know, like if we go back to the last episode where I said you should not set New Year's resolutions for yourself.
And I gave reasons for that. But we do things like we say, oh, this year, this is going to be the year I'm going to get healthy.
Okay, but how do you, how are you defining healthy? How are you defining that?

[11:01] Is it a number on your scale? Because if it's a number on your scale, I'm going to tell you right now, you've got the wrong mindset.
And you might be thinking to yourself, but why, Lacey? Why wouldn't I want to lose weight?
If that is what is important to me, or if that's what will make me healthy, but will it make you healthy?
There are numerous ways to lose weight. You could lose weight in an extremely unhealthy way. Would that be healthy?
No, it wouldn't. Because the prize is not the prize.
The problem that we have as ADHD women, and it might not even just be ADHD women, it might be lots of women.
I think I find this with lots of women and then I start telling myself, oh, maybe they have ADHD or maybe it's just a woman thing.
I don't know. Well, we tend to think of ourselves constantly in where we're going and what we're doing next and what's got to get accomplished next and check the box, check the box, check the box.
Oh, I'll be a good mom when my kid gets good grades or I'll be a good mom when my kid wins the football trophy or I'll be a good wife when me and my husband get to 12 years and he's never cheated on me.
Or I'll be a good wife when, and really, if you go back to any of the statements I just said, they have nothing to do with us.
They are constantly looking at the outside.

[12:25] Constantly looking at our children or our spouse or, you know, if you want to think in terms it's not people, our house or our job or our bank account or our waistline.
And Jesus did not come so that we could constantly be pushing ourselves to be more, to do more.
To he said that he came and he finished this work right now.
He finished it 2,000 plus years ago.

[13:05] And so if we have received our eternal inheritance, that's actually sealed by him.
He's the one that protects that inheritance.
There's nothing that we need to do or say or nothing that we can do or say that we would lose that but when it comes to the language that we speak to ourself and the way that we do things and the perception we have of what good or bad or success looks like we muddy the waters and we don't actually pay attention to the big picture of what God is doing.
We can be so closed-minded and so tunnel-visioned on our problem that we don't actually see two really important things.
One, what our problem is teaching us and what God is doing and showing to other people through how we handle that problem.
So let's say for instance, if you are listening to this podcast, I would think you assume you have ADHD.

[14:16] And you're probably listening to my podcast hoping that I'm going to tell you how to have your life all together, or how to stay organized, or how to stay on top of it.
And I'll be honest with you, if that is what you came to my podcast for, I am not the right podcast for you.
Because two reasons.
I do not have my life all together. I don't.
If you listen to my podcast and you think, oh, I can't wait to be like Lacey when she's got it all figured out.
I do not have it all figured out. My kids are still late for school sometimes.
I still forget things that I shouldn't forget. I spent a half hour before I finally sat down to record this podcast looking for something that That was not necessary, but I really wanted to find it.
And I got like, you know, tunnel vision trying to find it.
And I just swore that it would make recording this podcast easier. And it doesn't.
But I wanted it. So I kept looking for it for 20 minutes. I wasted so much time.
I do not have it all together.

[15:17] And maybe you're asking yourself, up, I don't want to listen to her anymore then. Clearly, she's not where I want to be. But I want to tell you a secret.
Having it all together is overrated. Because if you have it all together, you've learned to rely on yourself.
You've learned to think that you're the one in control.
You've learned that you don't need Jesus. And man, let me tell you, let me tell you, girl, we need Jesus. us.

[15:48] We need him every single day, every moment, every breath we take, we need him.
So the problem that you think you have, that maybe you've come to listening to my podcast, hoping I'll help you solve it, I got news for you.
That problem is there because God's using it to mold you.
And maybe that problem is that you're never on time, or maybe you're never on time and you kick yourself yourself, every time that you're not on time.
And you have been not on time your whole life. So can I just tell you that if anybody should recognize that this is just part of who you are, that maybe you're hardwired and maybe this is just a weakness that God is saying to you, I'm not going to fix this right now.
And you can pray for it and you can pray and ask, and he might be silent about it because he's not wanting you to be on time if you're not going to give him the glory for helping you bridge that.
Does that make sense? Or he doesn't want you to be on time if he thinks that by you being on time, you're going to assume that you all of a sudden just made yourself that way.
He made you. He made you exactly as you are, how you are, how you think, how you tick, your temperament, your DNA, the color of your hair, the color of your eyes, the last breath you took. He made you.

[17:15] So if you think for even five seconds that he does not understand how difficult it is to wrestle with a brain that fights against all the things that seem natural to everybody else.
Here's the other misconception that I'm going to tell you on this podcast.
The things that are difficult for us as adhd people and we see everybody else doing them very easily that is a lie that we live in and it's only because the things that come not naturally to us okay things like maybe reading is is one of the things that doesn't come naturally to you that's why you listen to podcasts you want to learn things so you listen because reading would take take you a lot longer or you know your eyes don't always follow the lines on the page and so when you see other people sitting down reading and you think to yourself I just wish I could do that, I can tell you right now that the people that can sit and just read they really wish that they could understand their spouse's emotions or they really wish that they didn't fly off the handle, every time that their child has a meltdown and maybe that's your strength but is it something that we plaster on magazines.
No, it's not. And it's not something that you can see on Instagram.

[18:37] And it's not something that you can convey as Americans.
And I don't know about all the other parts of the world because I know I have listeners all over the world. And P.S.
Tiny tangent. I love hearing from you guys. Like I love it.
I just found an email buried in one of my email inboxes that I didn't even realize I had.
And it was an email, just somebody just reaching out saying, hey, I listened and I love your podcast.
Thank you. you and you guys that gives me like you want to talk about chasing the dopamine I love that I love hearing from you I wouldn't even care if you send me a message and you tell me you hate my podcast I will still be like thank you I love hearing from you you listened and and to me that's like the most important thing because if you listen to hopefully any of my episodes you hear the one one underlying thing in all of them, and that's Jesus.
So anyways, recentering.

[19:33] When it comes to things that we can't see, we can get so caught up as Americans or, I don't know, wherever you are in your world, but of wanting to have this image of what we imagine looks good or at least doesn't look bad or maybe it looks successful and and maybe in our heads that's you know that's a size six waist or maybe that's a a husband that doesn't drink or maybe that is a house that is organized and clean when people come over but just because our problems are things that seem more visible than others, I can tell you right now, I would take the problems I have of struggling with being timely or struggling with keeping things organized or struggling with.

[20:40] Prioritizing tedious, boring tasks. I will take having those tendencies and those struggles over not being aware of my own selfishness or over not being aware of when something is bothering my teenager or over not recognizing the way that I speak can build or tear down the people around me.

[21:13] If there's one thing that I know most ADHD people are really, really good at, it's empathy.
And why? Because we have been misunderstood probably most of our lives.
We are trying and peddling and rowing and all of the metaphors that you can think of as far as when it comes to running and working so hard under the surface.
We are doing so much under the surface and visibly, no, outwardly, people don't see it.
They don't see how hard we're working internally, mentally.
And that becomes difficult for us because it's when those types of things happen that we start to say, I just wish that I could just be like other people where things like that are easy to me.
But things that are easy to them might be difficult for us.
But things that are easy for us, naturally feeling other people's feelings, naturally having compassion for the people that we care about, those are not easy things to other people, not even slightly.
And you might be telling yourself, or you might be thinking, okay, that's all well and good, Lacey, but.

[22:21] I still would really like to get out of this rut that I'm in.
I would still like some practical advice.
Well, here's the thing. The practical advice that I have for you is to reframe your mindset.
The gap that you are looking to fill, the gap that you are asking me for practical advice for, this switch that you listen to my podcast thinking that I would be able to turn on for you that would all of a sudden take you from being a person with an ADHD temperament who is.

[22:54] Disorganized and not timely and spacey and daydreamy and has a million entrepreneurial ideas.
If you're asking me or if you're listening to this podcast thinking that I'm going to help you shut that off and turn on the switch that allows for you to just pursue one of those ideas or to keep your house clean, I'm just going to tell you right now that's not what this is.
I don't believe, and I happily will happily be wrong, I don't believe that working so hard to have the practical tips and strategies and focusing all of your attention on your weaknesses and hoping to change them, that is not where your focus needs to be. It's not.
Your focus Focus needs to be on Christ and on Christ's finished work.
And when you keep your eyes focused on him and what he's done and what he's capable of and the compassion he's shown and the mercy he pours out on us in his grace, in his love, in his power, and you'll sit in that and you come and you pray and you remind yourself that you're not just praying for whatever.
You're praying in the throne room of the King of Kings.

[24:20] I want you to just sit for a second and just close your eyes and just imagine being in the same room as like a celebrity that you think is just amazing or a politician that's at the very top, just being in the same room as them, just shaking their hand.
What would you think? Like you would be enamored, right? You'd be starstruck.
And we have that. we have that with the very top because of what christ did we can sit down in the throne room and we can come to him and we can say help me you made me this way show me what you want me to do with it lead me give me focus give me focus on what you would have me do because i can tell you right now if you were in the same room as one of those stars famous people celebrities politicians petitions, whatever, the idea of speaking to you would just feel overwhelming.
You would think to yourself, what in the world could I possibly say?
But God asks us. He says, come to me.
Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
He says he's the bread of life. If you want to get healthy, go to the bread of life. He says he's the living water.
If you want to do Do anything. Do anything.
You need water. So go to the source.
This is not an easy thing to actually do. It's not. Applying this whole mentality.

[25:48] It takes practice and it takes doing it day in and day out and day in and day out.
And that's why it's so important for you to shed that black and white mindset because the race is not a finish line.
Your goals will come and they will go. And I guarantee you, once you hit one, they will change.
You'll say, oh, I just want to get $10,000 in my savings account.
Great. That's awesome. You're going to get $10,000 in your account.
And if you have not figured out what it is that the Lord wants you to figure out, you're going to sit there and you're going to go, oh, I only have $10,000 in my account. I got to get to $25,000.

[26:24] I got to get to $25,000. And you will run that race and you will run yourself ragged.
And the whole time you will be sitting there and you're not even going to realize that the inheritance that God gave you, the eternal inheritance that he gave you, that is worth more than you can possibly fathom.
It's just sitting over there waiting for you.
You're You're running past it. You're running for money. You're running for health.
You're running for whatever it is that you think you have to have to achieve or to be the person that you want to always be.
And I can tell you God made you the way that you are because that's who he wants you to be.
And he wants to fill in all of the gaps for you, all of your shortcomings.
He wants to do that for you by you asking him to fill in those gaps where he would fill them and where he would mold you. you.
Fixing yourself is not allowing Christ to mold you. It's not the same thing.
You're going to define your own problem, and you're going to say that it's this thing, and Christ is going to come along and say, no, it's not that.
It's this. And 100% of the time, the difference is that the problem you see in the solution that God wants to give you, in the gap he wants to fill, in the the space and the strength he wants to build in you is usually not the thing that you think is weak.

[27:46] Example time, because we need an example, right? Because you're thinking to yourself, what do you mean?
Like, I like to say the problem is not the problem. The problem is how you think about the problem. And I think that's from a movie, but I honestly can't remember which one.
You think that the problem is your health and that you need to lose weight.
And God God says, problem is not your health. The problem is that you're not relying on me to feel good about yourself.
Because if you relied on me to feel good about yourself, you would recognize that I dwell within you and that would motivate you to want to take care of yourself because you want to convey to people that because Christ dwells within you, you want to take care of your body so that you can continue to praise him throughout your earthly life for eternity because he's the one that bestowed your good health on you and he's the one that equipped you to run that extra mile to get up early to eat a salad instead of a cheese pizza.

[28:45] All of those things sound small, but that is where he wants to be in your heart.
So do you get it? Do you get what I'm saying?
Because it's important. You are never going to change who you are.

[28:58] Christ is going to change your heart.
And he's going to mold you into who he wants you to become.
And the Bible says he wants you to become more like him. He is perfect.
What more could you want?
What more could you want? So I think that I need to continue a little bit more with this subject matter specifically, because what I really want us to get into is how do we actually do that?
What is it? Now, if you're going to laugh at me, right, because now I'm going to go back to the practicality aspect, but what can we practically do physically helps us to change this mindset. set. And I want to talk about that in part two.
So can't wait to see you then. I will talk to you guys really soon.
God bless and have a wonderful, wonderful week. Bye-bye. Thank you so much for listening.
What would really help me more than anything, if you feel inclined, is please leave me a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that's Spotify, Podbean, Apple Podcasts, all the like.
It really helps for the show to show up for other people that maybe they need to hear it. Thanks again for being here. I appreciate you so much.

[30:17] Music.