How to Stop the ADHD Crash Cycle and Start Regulating with Jenna Free

Does it ever feel like you're constantly running on empty, rushing, crashing, and starting the whole cycle over again?

On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs welcomes back therapist and author Jenna Free to talk about her book, The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, and what it actually means to heal your nervous system instead of just managing it. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.

By the end, you'll understand why so many ADHD coping strategies keep you stuck, and what a different approach to regulation could make possible for your everyday life.

Jenna explains how many ADHDers live in chronic fight-or-flight, caught in frantic crash cycles that quietly make executive functioning and symptoms worse over time. Her approach isn't about more homework, better organization systems, or forcing your way through, it's about retraining your nervous system toward genuine balance. They dig into why rushing, rigid cleanliness, hustle culture, and constant news and social media scrolling can all function as attempts to soothe dysregulation rather than actually resolve it..

The good news? Regulation isn't about becoming a different person or achieving a perfect life. It's about building enough internal stability that you can stay okay — no matter what the messy middle throws at you.

Grab Jenna's book, The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4w7Z14d

This episode is for anyone with ADHD who is exhausted by the cycle of hacking and crashing and is ready to try something that goes a little deeper.

Jenna Free is a therapist, ADHD specialist, and the author of The Simple Guide to ADHD Regulation, a practical, structured approach to retraining the nervous system for people who are tired of hacks and ready for something that actually sticks. Diagnosed with ADHD herself at 32, Jenna brings both lived experience and deep clinical expertise to her work helping ADHDers move out of chronic fight-or-flight and into a life that feels more balanced, more spacious, and a lot less frantic. 

instagram: @adhdwithjennafree

website: ADHDwithJennafree.com

1:25 — From coping and hacking to actually healing 

3:16 — The eureka moment behind her method 

9:35 — The "messy middle" 

15:34 — Control, perfectionism, and how they show up as dysregulation in disguise 

19:05 — The power of doing one thing at a time for an ADHD nervous system 

22:46 — What it actually means to be dysregulated 

25:09 — How Jenna's method differs 

29:35 — ADHD dysregulation vs. trauma dysregulation 

34:40 — How regulation creates space for ambition instead of replacing it 

39:11 — News, doomscrolling, and the beliefs quietly driving the habit 

44:22 — Choosing presence as a daily practice — what that looks like in real life 

47:56 — Kids, screens, and the underrated value of boredom 

54:07 — No shame, just curiosity — how to wrap it all together

Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start

The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain

You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

Transcript

From Coping to Healing

Eureka and No Rush

The Messy Middle

Control and Perfectionism

One Thing at a Time

What Dysregulated Means

How the ADHD Regulation Method Differs

ADHD vs Trauma

Present Moment Regulation

Regulation Fuels Ambition

Enjoying the Messy Middle

News Doomscrolling Beliefs

Dopamine and Control Loops

Choosing Presence Daily

Kids Screens and Boredom

No Shame Just Curiosity

Audio Only - All Participants 0:39

Welcome back to the show. I am so excited to reintroduce you to Jenna Free. I had her on the podcast a couple years ago and thought I knew everything about regulation when I had her on, and yeah, I didn't, and I know so much more now, but I am so excited to pick your brain. Jenna, you've released a book. You have a whole regulation method, you teach classes, you've got courses like. It's amazing to see what you've been able to do for the A DHD community, and I know you've had such a huge impact on my own life. I'm gonna try to be cool today and not, geek out too much. But welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. we're gonna celebrate the release of your book, but can you, tell us a little bit about you. Absolutely. So I am a therapist for A DHD and I have a DHD, I was diagnosed at 32 while I was just wrapping up my education to become a therapist. So I was really like what I honed in on when I graduated, took some extra courses to learn about A DHD and in those. Learnings. The gist I got was like, we don't know what to do with neurodivergent people, so let's just give'em some things to cope. Float, keep afloat. Just as long as they're not drowning, what else can we do? It just the brain is what it is. So the struggle is gonna happen. All you can do is make it a little bit better. And so that's the approach I took when I started with clients. I was given the tools and the strategies. I'm sure nothing that those wonderful people hadn't heard before, it would come back to the next session going, oh, I didn't do it. Of course, because if people are overwhelmed and you're giving them homework, that's a recipe for just feeling even worse. And then after many hundreds of hours of working with clients, seeing. Oh, we're actually all in fight or flight, myself included. And we can see that in this frantic crash cycle. And if we could smooth that out and find more balance and not be exerting all our energy and then crashing and going round and round, we would be having a lot better of an experience. And it slowly grew from there and grew over time with seeing what was working for people and what wasn't. And now I have a very specific and. A structured approach to getting out, fight or flight. And it really helps a DH years with their symptoms. So it's been an exciting journey. Cool. And I've taken your course and I can attest Yes, it absolutely helps. I'm curious. When was your Eureka moment? And how long ago was that? It's probably been about three years since I had that first inkling of I think there's more deep healing we could do here. Because that approach was, you hear a lot about hacks, A DHD hacks. So my new slogan is let's stop hacking and start healing. There's gotta be deeper work we can do. Because my own experience of that level of struggle, there was just a part of me where I was like, I don't, I think I have more capacity than this. This doesn't feel. I feel something's off and there's something I can do to make this better. And so I've been doing this myself for three years, and it's a lifelong journey. We're never gonna be perfectly regulated. There's no finish line, but it does get better and better, and easier. I love the way, in your book, you talk about going at it at a pace that, oh, first of all, finish the chapter and then sit with that and really start to understand what that looks like. Because very often, in fight or flight, we're like, give me everything. A must know everything, and then we need to change things right away. When you first started navigating this, when do you feel like you found your first aha moment in your own life The first thing that motivated me to do like deeper work instead of just the calendars and the tools, was more of a like realization that I wasn't enjoying life, and I found that super depressing. I was in a energy of just get everything over with. I'm so overwhelmed that I just wanna get the day done so I can go lay down. And I didn't wanna exist that way. I had young children. I knew I was wishing time away. I found that very depressing. And so that was really the core I wanted to work on. Not necessarily be more productive, get more done, which is a beautiful part of regulation. It will have you more productive and getting more done. But the part for me was I'm unwilling to live in this way where this is not fun and I'm not present. And it's a really. Tough place to be. So that's what really got me started, motivated me to get going. So I think it's a little bit different than with a DHD. We're usually just looking at like, how can I function better? How can I get my executive functioning in order with tools and timers? That was less of my concern at the beginning. But obviously if your executive functioning iss going up, your quality of life is gonna be a lot better as well. I think. I don't quite, I don't know if I got quite your answer of your question, but. No, I think that's good enough. That's good enough. And that's it. That's actually so much of what you've taught. I think the one thing that resonated with me when I first spoke to you, because you were like, it's not about going to yoga. And I'm like, yeah, but I do a lot of yoga but what really resonated with me was the whole idea that you're not actually in a rush. You don't have to rush everywhere. And I started to notice that in every aspect of my life, and even now, like sometimes that will come up and my kids will ask me now'cause I've trained them, they know. They're like, are we actually in a rush? And it'll bring me back to this present moment of holy crap, we're not. And so it's just, it's so neat to see. I'm just reflecting back on all of these things I remember you saying. And going from there, do you ever find yourself being in a rush or noticing that now? Yeah, definitely. Obviously it's less and less. I would say like the way this work works is. It's not much happens at the very beginning. You might have a couple ahas that make a big difference. Oh my gosh, now I notice I'm rushing and I'm slowing down more. But as you keep going, it really does retrain your system to just stay there. So I would say I'm at a pretty nice pace. My sound effect is do, do, do, do, do. So I'm do, do, do do. Most of the time I can still be triggered. If you wanna say into oh, I'm late. So I might have a little bit of pep in my step and I'm like, okay it's, you're gonna get there when you're gonna get there. Let's not get our nervous system all revved up just'cause I might be one minute late to the doctors it's gonna be okay. So I'll check in with myself when I'm falling for my own thoughts. But I would say I function from a regulated state as my baseline, where my baseline, used to be like fight or flight, wake up in a panic. Always rushed, overwhelmed. So that, that big baseline change has been such a difference. When I first became a coach, I wanted to help people with organization and I wanted to help people put things in places, right? And like Pinterest, perfect pantries all this. And through working with people, I found that. Oh, people weren't seeking necessarily perfect spaces. They were just looking for something that was gonna finally relieve them from all of the overwhelm that they were feeling. Was fascinating to me when I started taking your regulation course and I had some aha moments with looking back on my own clients and I joke with one of my clients today'cause we were thinking about one of the first decluttering sessions we had together. She walked away from the screen. We were on Zoom and she wanted to fight me. She, and she came back. She talked about it, right? She's like, I don't know why I have so much anger toward you right now. And it was so fascinating to be able to connect the work that you do to this work too, and to see how this isn't just about getting control over your life. It's about recognizing your own patterns and understanding. What it looks like. It's really neat. And one thing that you've helped me with too is being in no rush. In my business like when I first started, I thought that I had to be like, get all these followers on Instagram. I thought that I needed to have this program and that program and this, and then. I'm like, oh, I'm just building a foundation and I'm just who I am and I can only help so many people, and I get to take my time and truly absorb the information I'm in. I get to enjoy this. And that was a gift that you've given me, which has been really neat. But I also notice one of the season that we're talking about right now is the messy middle, and. There is a lot of mess in making this change because you have this version of you that is this is the only way I know how to be productive. And then you're seeking this version of you that has more peace. And based on your experience, you've worked with so many people now, what does the messy middle look like when adopting the regulation method? It's all middle, right? So I think we think it's oh, there's the before and the after and the middle, but it's really just. There's full dysregulation, or you're working towards being more regulated. Those are the two options. So if you are fully dysregulated, you're letting it take you out to sea, if you will. Like when you get frantic and when you're rushing, and when you have that anxiety and panic, you just go, yes, it's a panic. We gotta go, go, go. Come on. Like, we We let it take us out or we work on it. And when you choose to work on it, you kinda head towards regulation and you just keep walking down that path for the rest of your life. You're never going to get to an after oh, I'm regulated, check done, wipe my hands of this, off I go. So I think what's so cool about the messy middle is that's life. I almost wanna say like birth, death, and there's the messy middle. That's what life is. And what regulation work does is allow you to be at peace with the process. And I think that's what you were saying about your organizing is like a lot of people probably seek organizing'cause it's a way to externally regulate your nervous system. Oh, the perfect environment, ugh. Calms me down. Yeah. Temporarily, it'll soothe it for a little bit, but that when we soothe dysregulation, we fuel dysregulation.'cause now that person might equate, an organized space with it has to be perfect like this or I'm not. Okay. And that does not allow for the messy middle of life, which, I think those organizational tools and knowledge is so important because I need to have ideas of like how to keep these things in order. And this day and age, we have so much going on, but I also need to be okay with it when it's not imperfect order or when, I haven't been keeping up with it. So what I love about internal regulation work is it makes us so strong because. I'm okay when my house is clean. I'm okay when my house is dirty. I'm okay. When my business is thriving, I'm stressed, but okay, if things aren't going as planned, I'm okay. When you know, the unexpected happens, I'm okay when it's like I'm at peace and can function and I don't rely on an external situation or environment to be Okay. So for anyone who is thinking like, oh, if I could just. Get a promotion, everything would be okay If I could just, move, it would be okay it's almost always internal work. And then you still do those things, then get your house organized, then move, then get that promotion. But it's never going to fix that dysregulation that, only regulation work can do. Yes, and I've noticed in my own I've done it right. I got to the point where I'm all just decluttered. I had this home in Colorado that like everything was, had its space and there were labels and things like that, and it was awesome. It was really nice. And we are now living in a place that we're renting. Sometimes I lose things, but for the most part, when it gets messy, I feel confident. That I can put it back together again and it doesn't weigh on me as much. I'm not going through oh, I can finally relax when I do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's oh, I just get to live my life. That's okay because I have kids and this is just what it is right now. That's, but I didn't truly realize that. You said some really cool things in there. I'm like Oh, that's what I'm doing. And that's so cool to see that exciting. So exciting Especially with young kids, I'm really at peace with we're very lucky to have a cleaning lady come once a month, so it's like everything's pristine.'cause you know we're tidying before she comes, so it gives us an excuse to tidy. She's cleaned, vacuumed, and wiped things down. It's ah, it's so nice. It'll be nice for that day. The next day. The toys are gonna be back everywhere. It's like just being at peace with that. It's. Okay. Life can happen. You roll with the punches and you have a good time and enjoy the experience all along the way. Whereas when we're dysregulated, we're gonna seek the external stuff to make us, okay. So we're gonna be so rigid and like being mad when the kids have toys on the floor.'cause you think you can't be okay with toys on the floor or. One of my little examples I always use is we have a big window in the front of our house, and especially my kids were a bit younger, they'd always have their little grubby fingerprints on there looking out like, what's going on? And I would always be like, don't push the windows. Thinking like I'm gonna train them not to touch the windows, and that's gonna help me have a cleaner home. So I have less to do. Man, was I nagging? And nagging such a drain. It was dysregulating to me. They are just kids. They're not even thinking about it. And so when I realized, oh, that's me trying to regulate by having them not cause me any more work,'cause I'm already, dysregulated and that just makes me more annoyed. And when I just got to peace with what's the point of this house? To have a fun family life and raise my kids and be here with them. Is it to have a show home? No. So I really allowed my brain to just let it go, Jenna, like you can just windex it quickly here and there if you really want it clean, but who cares what matters more? And once that clicked and even that first realization is now I go that's annoying, but I can leave it be and be at peace with it. And that's just like a conscious choice I made to care more about them than the windows. And that's just a really little example of what regulation work can do is it just has a more peace with life gonna be lifeing. Do you find that many women, especially with A DHD, seek regulation through control? Yeah, definitely. There's someone on TikTok who like, I don't follow, but she comes up on my feed once in a while and her cleaning stuff is like so rigid. It feels very like. Probably unhealthy to me, but she gets so much praise. Oh my God, I wish I was like you, I'm like, guys, I don't think this is healthy. I think this is I'm not okay unless everything's perfect. The degree of every day wrapping up the H House and all of this stuff, but we don't realize that. We don't realize, oh, that's probably a little bit, could be a little bit toxic when it's so rigid. But we think. When things are in order, that's always good. When things are just right, that's always good. When things are clean, that's always good. A lot of the things we pursue, even success. Even if you see people online, they're like hustling hustling, and they have so much and they're hustling. Hustling. It's oh, you're so successful A lot of that's I'm trying to fill a void and I don't feel okay, so I'm going to, pursue as a way to regulate, or I'm gonna, c can, can, as a way to regulate that can result in success or the look of success, but it can be very empty, very unhealthy, very rigid and leave you. Kind of going screw this, I'm moving to the farm. Especially like business wise, I've seen like coaches online who are like, oh, I built this huge thing and actually quit and literally moved to a farm because I wasn't doing it out of like passion and gung-ho energy, just being like, oh, I'm good and I want this thing. I was doing this and pursuing this to be okay. So whether it be organizing, cleaning. Success money. If we are doing those things to try to regulate, it's probably gonna turn pretty sour. I use this example a lot on the podcast and how I made a list one time of all the things I was doing in my home and then all of the things my husband was responsible for in the home. And then he was like, okay, I'll take over the laundry. And I was like. I don't know that I could let you do that. It was like, oh, I'm asking for help, and now he's offering to help. But I'm like, I don't know that I can actually do that. And I did. And we worked through it. And that was like this adjustment that I had to do by letting go of being in control of something that I genuinely needed help with and being okay with the fact that he was gonna do it differently. Than I would ever do and that would also be okay. Yes. And not to say that men are not typically or that. We're gonna give everyone a break, but Yeah. Publicly, we know we could see a lot of med not doing their share, but I think a lot of it is if we're dysregulated, we want all the control, we want things done in exact specific way. And if our partner's not gonna do it just the way we want, it's wrong or it's incompetent, or it's, and again, I'm not saying that's every situation, but it might be some right where we're actually unwilling to relinquish. Control, not because we're control freaks, not'cause of any conscious choice, but because my nervous system feels unsafe and this is the way I'm gonna try to soothe it externally. So I think that can be, people can just reflect Ooh, is that part of maybe the mismatch in the household? Yeah. I mentioned earlier how in the book you're like, take it one chapter at a time. But one thing you also speak to is taking it one like aspect of dysregulation and noticing at a time. And so can you speak to why it's important to just start to focus on one area versus. Whew. When you open that can of worms, like sometimes there's a lot of worms everywhere Totally. Yes. And that's with anything in life is like a regulated approach versus a dysregulated approach. So even to regulation work itself. So a dysregulated approach is gonna be, let me learn everything now. Let me change everything overnight. I need huge, I need fast. If it's gonna take time, I don't have time for this. Let's overhaul everything tomorrow. We all know that doesn't last. It doesn't work. And so a more regulated approach is really sitting with the discomfort of like slow and steady wins the race saying for a reason, I can only do one thing at a time. There's no rush. Even in self-improvement or even your business, for example, and mine too. I do think that's why I've had success in this version of entrepreneurship than the seven years prior when I was dysregulated, because I was not trying to get somewhere with it. I was just present. Even in the month I was in, for example, of okay, I'm starting from zero because I had had quite a big, business before coaching, intuitive eating. And I just totally dropped all that and started from scratch as a therapist and I was like, okay, step one, start a new Instagram account from zero, do a couple posts, put my psychology today listing up, get one client. And I had been coaching for seven years, so it was very humbling, but it was really nice to just be like, you should be present where I am. No rush. One thing at a time. I had 10,000 ideas from day one, like all of us H ADHDers do, but I accepted like there's no point in doing anything else until I get the ball rolling a little bit. And I did after a few months, I was pretty full with individual clients, so I was like, I'm gonna start my first group. And was so cute. It's looking back, it's it's so quaint. I was doing, introduction calls are free, like consult calls with people if they wanted to work with me. And so if someone wasn't sure they wanted to work with me one-on-one, I said I'm gonna start a group. So if you wanna put down a deposit of$30, and then once I get five people, I'll let you know when we're gonna start. That's how I started. It is like I was really in no. Rush. I did it slowly, and then a year and a half later you look up and it's this is bigger than my business ever was before, because I was just really present. I let it take its time. I was doing one thing at a time, so I didn't get overwhelmed. I didn't get ahead of myself. I didn't, and that's really what regulation is about. I only say that to give an illustration to like, that's how we wanna do regulation work. That's how we wanna do, pursue fitness. That's how you wanna pursue, even like organizing your home. It's like there's no rush. One thing at a time, I'll do what I can do. It's gonna build over time. Inevitably I don't need to force it. And I think that's what regulation's all about is like you feel secure enough to just be here in the stage you're at and take those next steps.'cause what else option is there and you just do that. Calmly, continuously, and you'll always get to where you wanna go. But when we do ev anything in a dysregulated approach, we're like stumbling over our feet trying to do 10 things at once, and we drop the ball because we're doing too much. Then we're overwhelmed. Then we get into freeze and we do nothing. Then we go, Ugh. I can't do it to the degree I want to, so I'm not gonna do it at all. It's such a mess. So it really is how we do the regulation work or how we do anything in a regulated way is gonna make such a difference. I just realized as you were talking, I'm like, people don't know what dysregulated means. So can you share with us what that means? Totally. So when our nervous system is dysregulated, it is off balance. People will say safety or your nervous system doesn't feel safe, which is true. Your nervous system is interpreting stress as in imminent life-threatening danger as if we were in the forest getting chased by a bear when most of our stress. Not for everybody, but for probably most people listening is gonna be, mental stress, anxiety. It's not truly threatening. And so when the nervous system computes it that way, it's really gonna set off alarms and make things happen in the body that is so unuseful. It's gonna decrease our executive functioning, increase our A DHD symptoms. And even for non A DH ADHDers, it's gonna make our brain function worse. It's gonna make everything harder, it's gonna make our existence take more energy. So you're gonna have less energy for achievement in doing things. But it also, we wanna see it as like an imbalance. So when your temperature's dysregulated, when you have a fever, you're boiling hot. Then you're freezing cold, and then you're sweating everywhere, and then you're shivering and need a blanket. That's what a dysregulated nervous system is like. It's like it hasn't found its comfortable spot, and that usually will look like we're frantic, we're anxious, we're intense. We're running around like chicken with our head cut off or we're frozen. That's just more an extreme version. We've tipped over into freeze, like a deer in the headlights. It's a lot of frantic energy, and then we crash. Now I have no energy. I can't even think of what to eat, nevermind, make anything. And then maybe the next day at work you're running around like crazy, so stressed. And so it's that swing from one side to the other. And so to get regulated means to find that balance place. Yes. To get your nervous system where it's feeling safe because you are assuming you are. But it's also to find that balance of which is, I already shared my sound effective do. It's that's the balance place. We're not stuck and stagnant. We're not, dismantling from life to get regulated, but we're also not frantic and rushing. We're finding that middle ground. And that balanced place is actually where we thrive. A DH ADHDers think we thrive in chaos. We don't or in crisis, we thrive in balance, but we just haven't accessed that. So we don't know how good it can get. Yeah, it's really good too. It's so good and I really appreciate this work so much. It's something I hear, I talk a lot about A DHD and now regulation and then of course what that work looks like. but there's a lot of people out there doing regulation work that looks a little bit different and it's more about like somatic practice or, tapping or 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is something that I used to do a lot of. And so how is. The A DHD regulation method different than, all of the other regulation methods out there. Yes, totally. Yes. Some of my work is hard to communicate'cause when I say regulation, a lot of people will have preconceived ideas of what that means, and it's gonna be very like, and I'm not counting other approaches. Those approaches work well for some people, but they do not work well for me. I am not a very emotional person. I'm pretty logical. I'm pretty like I wanna do things that make an impact and that makes sense, like biologically and logically. Even as a therapist, I've never been, my my supervising therapist when I was an intern was like. You're not very like reassuring, like I'm not like the cozy sweet oh, I understand your feelings. That's just not me. But I am going to point out like really cool things and the way when you, the way you said that, it sounds like you believe this. So it's like I'm more of a logical like puzzle person than I am an emotional person. So even in how I do regulation work, I find it much more logical. It's gonna be a lot more comfortable for people who aren't into yoga and meditation and like tapping and yeah, the somatic stuff where you see like people touching their heads. I'm not that person and you're not gonna get that from me again, not that that's wrong, but I just don't think it suits everybody. So my approach is gonna be very much more Hey, when I'm running and I'm rushing. Logically that's signaling to the nervous system. I'm getting chased by a bear. If I keep signaling to my nervous system that I'm getting chased by a bear, it's never gonna calm down. So I need to interrupt that physical state. Oh, by walking, I need to slow down. If I'm always in a rush, nothing will ever change. So it's like we're still doing somatic work'cause we're changing how you are in your body. But we're doing it in a way that I think just connects for some people in a way that. The traditional yoga, meditation, somatic work might not or may both might help somebody. And then a big part of my regulation work is thoughts and beliefs. So it is a little bit. More logical, it gets a little bit more mental, but that's a rich place in there. Our thoughts and beliefs have created tendencies and behaviors and how we do things. And it stems from a nervous system that feels unsafe. So if our ways we think in the belief systems that we have established. Are rooted in like I'm in danger, I need to defend Myself's going very hard to get regulated.'cause the most common A DHD beliefs I find that are dysregulating is I'm behind. I need to catch up. There's not enough time in the day. I have to finish my to-do list until I can rest. All of that sort of thing. If we keep believing that. There's no way you're gonna slow down. There's no way you're gonna get regulated. You go to yoga as much as you damn well, please. But if you leave yoga and go, I behind and need ketchup, and then run around all day like a chicken with your head cut off it, it's the yoga is like just a nice little bit of exercise, but it's not truly touching that deep work that needs to be done to get out of fight or flight. But it does not have to be in a. This is not the right word, but it's like a woo way. It could be super grounded, super logical. And so I do find, I get, some men in my groups as well who are really like, connecting to this work and just different personalities that might not be as into the, somatic approach that's more I don't know what the right words would be, but it's a different, it's a different vibe for sure. I think it's really simple too, because it could be that some people incorporate those somatic practices into Oh yeah. What you already do. But that's for their practice specifically. Totally. But you start out simple and you keep it simple, which is really nice. So there's always something easy to come back to. Instead of thinking about the 80 million tools that are available to you, and in the moment you're like, fuck, I don't know what tool to use right now. I'm gonna go crash and burn. Totally. Which can often happen. Now there's a lot of, without being a therapist or someone who does this work, I have noticed, and I have seen a lot of people talk about trauma having very similar symptoms to A DHD. And I was speaking to a friend of mine who does a lot of trauma work and she does regulation and trauma work. So what is the difference between A DHD in regulation and trauma regulation? I think regulations, regulation. My approach works for ADHD is just, and the only reason I specifically use it for ADHDers is'cause I have a HD and use this on myself'cause I was dysregulated and it reduced my symptoms and I went, whoa, nobody's talking about that as much. We're talking about coping with symptoms. Like I have not been in a DHD paralysis for two years. Where I used to be stuck on the couch for weeks, like I was like functional freeze definition was like my face, and I was like just dragging myself through life and I have not experienced paralysis in two years. That's a thing that I don't think is talked about. And so I do think there are some symptoms of A DHD that are dysregulation, which of course if you're dysregulated. Trauma, whether it be capital T, whether it be lowercase T, whether it be, my theory is for each years in particular, we weren't just born in fight or flight, but if you're different and you live in a world that's not designed for you, you are gonna have these. Like for me, it was just almost like little pokes like, don't quite fit in there. Ooh, got in trouble for that. Ooh, didn't do that quite right. Forgot this thing. But if you're poked enough throughout your life, your nervous system is gonna go, ugh. I'm in danger. I need to be on alert 24 7 on the defense to keep myself safe. That could come from a big trauma in your life that really impacted you, or that can just come from the poke, poke, poke of being different. And so for me, I never identified with the capital T trauma, but that person's dysregulation is not gonna be much different from someone who's neurodivergent living in a neurotypical world that has their nervous system triggered to that state. However, if you have something specific. You feel is needs to be dealt with. We need to do that as well in a therapeutic setting. But the regulation work, that I teach is not processing your trauma. It is getting your nervous system out of fight or flight now because you're no longer in danger, but maybe you were. And that does need to be processed. So it's, I'm not discounting that. But this approach would absolutely work for anyone. A DHD, neurotypical, trauma not. Whatever reason you're in fight or flight to get out of it is absolutely gonna help. That's really helpful. I, what I've noticed, I've worked with people one of the questions I ask before I start to work with someone is if they've worked with a therapist before, because oftentimes I find that impacts their belief system and whether or not they could possibly change.'cause those beliefs are at the core of the actions that we take. In life. And I think that's so interesting and I love that you highlighted if it is that capital T trauma, yeah. Work it out. And that is one of the key things that you do go and seek a specialist for. And is it true that I'm hearing you say that if you're finding that you resonate with so much of this, whether it's trauma or a DHD or both, because that makes a lot of sense if this is working. And you're finding relief from it, is there a reason to go out and seek more? I need something else because I need to know what it is before I find what works, but this works and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, totally. That's where I say this is like much more logical work. Like I'm not processing history with anybody. Yeah. we're present. Like in the now, why are you rushing today? Because there's no need to be, so let's process and let's change how we're functioning in the present moments. That's the only thing we have ever any control over. And you might also wanna see someone to work on your history to think about the past and process that. But that's not what this work does. This work just like I said, it's more logical. It's like it's straight to the problem where if I'm rushing around all day long. Nothing's gonna change. So I have to work on slowing down now today. And I know some, once in a while I'll get a little comment on social media. It's that could trigger people. If you are in a state where like walking instead of running is triggering, or you like, I do think there's something you need to work on, you need to go get support to process that. So I'm not saying there's not additional work. You shouldn't do, but everyone can benefit from regulation work. And I do think a lot of dysregulation in our society has been normalized thinking, oh, that's just modern life. Ha. We have to be in this chronically frantic state. We don't, you can absolutely achieve everything you wanna achieve. You can participate in our society, you can participate in your job. People always say if capitalism doesn't didn't exist, I'd be regulated. You're fine. You can function in the world we live in a regulated state. And the new angle I'm starting to realize is like regulation is the most ambitious thing you could do. It's not about detaching, resting, oh, I'm gonna go lay down. It is about, oh, let's get all my energy out of this state I'm in. That's just draining. I don't need to be in fight or flight. It's so useless'cause I'm safe, but it's taking say 50% of my energy. Let's preserve, let's take that energy back so I can go do some shit. That's what I've really found is I am like going after the ideas I have, I'm executing on the ambition I've always had. I've always thought oh, I've, I'm meant to do a lot. I wanna do a lot, but I was just stuck in my dysregulation, so it was never moving forward. And I'm much more successful, have so much more going on, but I'm less overwhelmed, so it's not out of. Like a need and like we talked about, of this like toxic cleanliness or toxic fitness, or toxic ambition where, oh, I'm actually going after it to soothe this hole in me, to soothe this emptiness in me. I'm just going after it'cause it's fun and I have energy and I am passionate. And so I think that's something that people need to know because I think that the biggest turnoff of regulation work is thinking it's for people who are okay with a small life. Okay. With I've just gotta back off and relax and that's gonna make my world all better. No, it's not at all what this work is about. No, it's not at all. And like I find the more I back off. And I like allow myself to do through life the further ahead I get. And it is so cool. I never thought that I could write a book, for example, and now I know I can and it's just not something I'm doing right now. Exactly. Like I feel like now I can truly do anything and everything. I just can't do it all right now, of course. And that feels empowering. Aww. Because like I get to just choose what's next. I used to try to find the perfect solution for kids. Schoolwork. And I know we all try to like, oh, let's make a book out of it. Let's take a picture and we'll send it in. And then like it becomes this other thing on our to-do list. And when we moved to this new house, I didn't have the drawers that I did back in Colorado and I was like, screw it. Let's just put it all up on the wall. And so now I've got 10 turkeys on this wall and over here we've got watercoloring that we did. We took an art class at a local museum. But I've found that I've found ways to be present with my kids in ways that I never thought possible before. It's just really interesting. And so like I'm not Instagraming this, but I also could'cause it doesn't matter because this is just my life right now and this is. The journey that I'm on. And so you called out a lot of beautiful things in that the messy middle literally is life. It's like you, you level up and you're like, oh, I've done this. And now you're like, what's out there next? Like now you like get to this point where you're like, oh my gosh, there's so many cool things I could do. What's next? Yeah. when you're regulated, it's like the pursuit is the thing you're enjoying. Like I really. Have gotten good at like having goals and instead of being like afraid of if I don't have that, I'm gonna be miserable and horrible and life's horrible until I reach it. And it's more like, Ooh, that sounds like a challenge. Let's go. And of course I get anxious along the way when things are happening or not going right, and that's fine. I do my work to get back grounded again. But it's like fun. It's fun to pursue stuff and you're not in this energy. And I know that's like a number one A DHD energy of like, how do I just get this over with? And I only feel relief and not accomplishment because we're dysregulated and I'm just trying, like I'm so overwhelmed and so intense and just focused on the oh, when I get that done, then everything will be okay. Then I can relax. And we just feel relief, but then we collapse and it's not fun and we haven't enjoyed any of the journey versus when you're regulated. You can go after big, lofty things and just have fun along the way. And it's always has ups and downs, but that's all life is the pursuit and the process and being in that messy middle and having a good time in there. That's really cool. I'm curious what your perception is. we all know what's going on in the world right now, right? There's a lot of stuff happening in the world. And so how does dysregulation affect someone who say, is on social media all the time? Scrolling and like constantly being impacted that way? Yeah, absolutely. Even be in being informed, right? Being, I don't think being completely unaware of what's going on in the world is the answer either, but. Being informed and then thinking, oh, I have to be dysregulated'cause there's hard things going on in the world. Therefore if I'm regulated and happy and calm and present, I'm a bad person. I really think there is some beliefs like that because that belief of this dysregulation is justified. It's one of those beliefs I work on with people.'cause they'll be like, yeah, but the world, like what does that have to do with you sitting in your house right now? Like it is not physically impacting you. There's no need for you to be in fight or flight because even if it's down the street, something is happening.'cause us being a fight or flight, all that does is put us in freeze, take all our energy and take us outta the game. It's if you really care, don't you wanna do something about it? Don't you wanna go to a rally? Don't you wanna raise money? Don't you wanna. If I truly care, I wanna be as regulated as possible so I can use that energy to execute. And I have done that. I've hosted extra workshops where, 50% of the proceeds go to different causes when things are going on in the world. But it's like me being in a panic and being in freeze about it doesn't make me a better person. So this is where the beliefs really come in, is like it's when I have these groups, especially when it was during one of the election periods and everyone's yeah, but the world, I'm like, okay, but what is that gonna do? What is you panicking in your house going to do for the situation? So I'm gonna change anything and then you'll be out of commission and can't do something if there is something you can do. I found that I went through a period like that. I'm sure so many listeners can say yeah, but this is, it's really difficult to get out of because it does feel like, oh my gosh, I can't look away. It's like that dopamine oh my gosh, I'm getting it all and I can't miss something. Can you talk to, like, how does dopamine play into dysregulation? Yeah, I don't even really talk about dopamine when I do this work, so I think it just overcomplicates things and is not really necessary. But of course it's there, it's in the equation, but we don't really have control over it. But if we think of it more as regulation or the things I do to soothe my dysregulation, like if I'm feeling. Dysregulated about the state of the world.'cause I know some, the gist of like things are not going well or how I agree they should go. Then seeking the information is like that control thing again. Oh, that's soothing my concern. At least I'm knowing what's happening. But then you go down a rabbit hole and of course it's like you can't, a lot of the stuff you can't do anything about anyways. So now you are just in a panic. Nothing has changed. So it's not necessarily helpful all the time, but that seeking information and never stopping, right? There's a difference between keeping up to date and being obsessive. And so when you're obsessively consuming. Whether it be just social media as a whole or news is, oh, what is this soothing? There's something in me that's uncomfortable, that doesn't feel safe, and this is soothing, that yes, there might be dopamine involved, but I find that a more helpful way to see it.'cause then it's oh, okay, I wanna get regulated then. So I don't feel like I need to be in control by knowing everything. It's like I'm at peace just being here, doing what I can in the present moment I'm in. Of course I'm gonna help in ways I wanna help if I feel so called to. But once we get dopamine into the conversation, then I think people have that that stereotypical idea that A DHD or seek dopamine. It's just how we are. You just gotta do it. even some A DHD coaches, I'm like, I love you all and you're all really trying to help. But I think sometimes we're fueling the dysregulation. There was someone who was like doing a little giveaway and they're like, oh, I'm gonna give this away to give you a dopamine hit. I'm like, guys, that is not the move. We do not want a d ADHD to be seeking the quick hits of dopamine. That is just exacerbating your dysregulation. When we are more regulated. So say we're slowing down. We're not like going, ah, I need all the information all the time. I'm more calm, I'm more present. You are gonna find, you're more satisfied by what you know, what most people would call healthier dopamine. So like getting things done, accomplishing, working on long-term goals, feeling good about myself, spending time with my family. All of this stuff that does provide dopamine, but it provides it more of an on-ramp. It's a gentle on ramp instead of the spike. If we are going after the spikes of dopamine, that is fueling our dysregulation. So we just really wanna look at, am I putting myself in a stereotypical box of yeah, I gotta give myself a treat after this to give myself a dopamine hit. If we are relying on that, we're just gonna be in this cycle. I love how you said that because we've trained ourselves to be used to the way that we've acted our whole lives. And like to get out of that it is actually uncomfortable. Even the good stuff. Yeah. Like when my business started to do better and like I have a wait list for clients right now and I'm like so honored and. When that initially happened, I was like, this is uncomfortable and this is exactly what I've been working towards. And holy smokes, this feels yucky initially. But even a more relatable thing I noticed that I wanted to be more present with my kids and pausing long enough to do that. When my brain was like constantly in all of these other places, felt so uncomfortable and it came back to that belief that I had to get like all of these other things done before I could actually be present with my kids. So one of the things I come back to and the beliefs that I hold now is I choose presence over escape because I tend to, go to my phone or I go somewhere else because I feel like I need to soothe this part of me that's so uncomfortable through these other avenues. Yes. So last night I was laying with my daughter and I saw. I had the cat at the top of the stairs and both the dogs were sitting there and my husband's lounging on the the cushion in the corner and the girls are falling asleep. And I was like, this moment's really cool. Like it's neat to just be here and to recognize being here. Of course I have to say it's okay to let these other things go still. I'm practicing that. Yes. But because I've been practicing it, I see these glimmers of presence and just being here now, which is really cool. Yeah. It's so awesome. And exactly what you're saying is right, People think the work is me teaching the tools. That's not the work. The work is like, okay, now I'm doing it It's really uncomfortable. How do I get through this That's the work. in order to retrain my system is gonna involve a little bit of uncomfortable pivoting. And accepting that and being like, that's safe. It's safe to be uncomfortable. And I'm always working on it. Like we went to Disney World with my kids a few months ago and. We really had an attitude, and not even totally on purpose, but on purpose of we're just gonna wait in the lines and be together. We were playing like little games with our hands, like rock, paper, scissors, just talking like no one had phones out. Everyone around us was on their phones, kids were on the iPads, like watching stuff on the phones. And the four of us are just like existing. And the lines are of course interesting. There's lots of like decor and like you're in the ride almost while you're in the line. We're just looking at stuff. It'd be like two hours with six and 7-year-old boys. Like it wasn't super easy, but I was like, oh my God, this is so good for our brains. it felt so good and it almost gave me dopamine to be like doing a good thing for ourselves and training our systems to just be present, waiting in lines. It felt very nineties like, and everyone always says oh, I'm so nostalgic of the nineties. It's regulate your nervous system and it feels very similar'cause you're not addicted to your phone. You're not in such a rush. But that's uncomfortable. Yeah, of course. be here and be uncomfortable. It's okay. Like this is the investment in retraining my system. I. I would love to get your take on like kids and, because I'm sure you've been practicing this with your own kids for a while, but the other night my daughters, every once in a while they'll watch Bluey to go to sleep, and that's a thing we do and it's fun. We did it during testing week. We're like, yep, we're just, this is gonna be our wind down. And then it was over and we had to be a little uncomfortable and come back from that And that could be just really dysregulating when my kids are starting to get used to it. And then, they're now dysregulated and they're like, I don't like this. This is not the way I wanna go to sleep. And I had the conversation. My 8-year-old gets, she's almost nine. I was like, I'm not training you to use TV as a way to keep you comfortable. Cool. And it's so cool and it's fun every once in a while, but this isn't how we're gonna get to sleep every night. And yeah. It doesn't feel as good. And so then of course she has a DHD too, so she's you know what, mom? I don't wanna watch any TV for the next week. And she's got this whole plan. She forgets about it the next day, but yeah. Cute. Yeah. Girl, it's so good. What does this look like with kids on the boredom? Once you realize, once you really get to understand the nervous system is like you understand everyone and everything so much better. Like when the, the kid is having trouble at the dinner table, so we do the iPad. It's like that's soothing their dysregulation and them being more regulated to soothing my dysregulation. And we're all here just soothing dysregulation instead of retraining our system to be safe, being bored, to be safe, reading a book. And so with my kids, I'm willing to sit in the discomfort of them being pissed off'cause we're not watching TV or whatever it is.'cause I'm like. I'm not here to like say there's a right or wrong way for anyone to do anything, so this is judgment free, but we do only TV on the weekends. I try to do only movies, like the longest form content possible. We banned YouTube. I don't know what it is, but my parents accidentally, I told them no YouTube, but they forgot. And so the other day when I went, they were there and I went to pick them up. My one kid's crying. I'm like, did you guys watch YouTube? My mom's oh, sorry. I'm like, yeah, that's it's too fast paced. It's too short form. It's too blah, blah, blah. It just regulates'em, so then you turn it off. They've been all hyped up. It just like confronts that nervous system. So I really try to train them like movies only on the weekends. They have never been on an iPad in their lives. And again, I'm not judging, but it's ooh. It really helps understand the nervous system.'cause even if you're someone who wants to get rid of the iPad, so you've done that. I've sued, I've soothed, I've sued with it. You just have to understand there's gonna be some discomfort, but your child will learn to be without it. And that's. An investment in your time and your energy. So I know we're not always gonna be capable of that in every situation, and that's just being human. But if like sometimes you wanna challenge it and go, okay, they're gonna be dysregulated and that's gonna dysregulate me, but we're safe, we're okay. Let's see if we can spend an afternoon. Just being bored and see what happens. Let's retrain that system instead of just making everyone soothed by using these things. So if we can challenge it at all, even in tiny ways, I think it's really worth it. And I have seen the payoff of that. Like my parents had take my boys out for breakfast. They went out for pancakes. The other. Morning and my dad reported back. She's the waitress was like, wow, it's nice to see kids read again because my boys had their little books. My one can't even read, but he's just like looking at something or drawing. It's just once they're used to it, it really is very peaceful. But it's that transition of if you've been used to screens, you've used, been used to things that soothe your dysregulation. It's a very uncomfortable transition, but is well, worth it for yourself or for your kids. You just wanna remember, okay the transition's gonna be a real hill to climb, but there's relief on the other side. We're gonna retrain our systems to not need all this stuff because it is awesome going places with them. Knowing I, if I forget all activities, if there's nothing I need to bring, like we're all okay just in our physical bodies. Does that mean there's never tantrums or it's never behavior problems? No, of course not. They're still kids and they're boys and perhaps neurodivergent. But it is very freeing to not be relying on any external things to soothe. Ourselves. Parents are just as bad. We say, oh, iPad kids. Okay. We are the iPad kids with our phones, like we are way worse than kids a lot of the time. Yeah. And so it's like retraining our system to not need that stuff is really uncomfortable and so worth it. I love that. I will say we do use the iPad sometimes and like I tell them,'cause I know the transition is gonna be difficult, I always ask them like, what does done look like? And I allow them to tell me. Cool. Having an idea in the back of my head how much I want. Them to be watching, and most of the time they'll give me the answer like five minutes and I'm like, cool, who's gonna keep track of that? Because, so cool. Really, we're training kids for the future, right? We're training them to know how to handle themselves in this technology age that we live in. So Cool. All right. I'm mindful of the time. It's so fun to chat with you and I'm so excited to have had you on, and thank you so much for your time and your expertise. Where can people find you? Absolutely. You can find me@jennifer.com. The book, the Simple Guide to A DHD regulation is available wherever books are sold. And I'm on social media at ADHD with Jennifer. Amazing and big plug to your A DHD groups. It's just a really cool, it's eight weeks, right? Yeah. Of walking through what it looks like and you're practicing and you're hearing people in their own journeys and it's so relatable along the way to doing the work. And yeah. Thanks so much for what you do. Any last minute thoughts or. I don't know. A perfect sentence to answer everyone's dreams of their perfect life. Totally. I know people are gonna be feeling shame and like me about that conversation'cause it sounds judgmental or they don't like that they're using screens. So then the me saying I don't use screens sounds like dysregulating. So the key, the first step of regulation is get rid of all guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are just signs of dysregulation. That is your system trying to motivate you through negative motivators. Oh, if I feel bad enough, I'll do the right thing. It doesn't work. It's not effective, it's not inevitable. So it's if you are like, so even when I brought up like the iPad stuff, if you're like, wow, we use iPads. Freaking 10 hours a day. I really don't care. I truly have no judgment about that. So I want you to drop the judgment about it, but you can pick up a mindset of curiosity and go, is that how I want us to be? And this, I'm not saying that sarcastically, genuinely asking yourself is that how I want it to be? Because if not, oh, what could we do? Let's be curious about it. And if you are okay with it, it's your, it's your life. You get to do whatever you want and there's no judgment. And so when we drop the judgment, especially self-judgment, drop the guilt, drop the shame, and pick up the curiosity. That's where we can really do some awesome regulation works. It's just like purely what's working for me? What's not working for me? Oh, isn't that interesting? Let me try this. And that's how you get going down the road. So I just wanted to bring that up'cause I know that conversation at the end there with screens is definitely gonna lit. Yeah. Trigger some nervous systems. I'm sure. Thanks for sharing that. We use the term we're collecting data, let's collect data on our lives. Totally. That paints a picture and it gives us this analysis we have of what's happening. And then we get to decide if the data looks different next month And yeah it's really cool. Thanks for saying that. I appreciate it. Thank you for being on the show, Jenna. I'm so honored to have you. Aw, thanks for having me. Thank you everybody.