Facilitating ADHD With Mindfulness Based Inner RePatterning™
Mindfulness and tapping works wonders together!
The complexity of ADHD/ADD
ADHD is a very complex issue and it is only recently that it was discovered that adults also have this handicap.
ADHD is classified as a handicap – but often depression, anxiety or OCD also is a part of the picture. This is called co-morbidity – having several simultaneous diagnoses. Very often people get sick with stress or depression – but the real cause ADHD is less obvious. May adults are getting this diagnose because their kids get diagnosed when having problems in school. There is a up to 60 % genetic factor.
What people think it is
Most people say that when they think of ADHD they visualize a noisy lazy kid disturbing the other kids in school.
If you have some deeper knowledge of ADHD or know some in you family it can also be the very quiet kid sitting in the back of the class and not participating – the kid that always forgets things or blurts out whatever enters the mind constantly.
Kids and adults with this disability talk a lot and usually are loud and seem to lack understanding of simple social rules. This often leads to these kids being bullied or being the bully themselves or not wanting to go to school and temper tantrums – self mutilations or and excessive problems with self medication.
The future may well be full of drugs, speed, crime, low self esteem and casual impulsive sex.
A more accepting viewpoint
The American psychiatrist Ed Hallowell describes this mind as a Ferrari with bicycle brakes! Hallowell knows this because he also has ADHD himself . Most likely this is the case for Virgin Air’s founder Richard Branson and the co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs. Read this great article on Steve Jobs and ADHD.
Scientist are actually saying that some of the same “out of the box thinking” that these very brilliant minds do is similar to what goes on in an ADHD brain – the ability to hyperfocus, impulsivity and a very fast perception, not on everything but on what interests you here and now! You can argue that this is a problem in school and in a workplace if it isn’t recognized for what it is – pure creative thinking and energy!
It looks as if the brains of highly creative people have a smaller amount of dopamine receptors and so have people with ADHD – this missing filter actually makes it easier to think outside the box (in a way the box is a little bit defective and that helps creativity for many).
I am not trying to discard the problems this gives people with ADHD and their surroundings – I just think it is quite evident that ADHD also can be seen as a positive gift given the right set of circumstances.
For example ADHD kids who get praised, loved and encouraged do give society a lot of creative thinking, lots of fun and lots and honesty – they do not fake what they like or dislike – they do not play the game of dishonesty.
So why use Mindfulness Based Inner RePatterning™?
Mindfulness Based Inner RePatterning™is a blend of EFT, NLP, Hearthmath, and Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. It is also a very unique tool because it works perfectly with ADHD and anger issues.
I am a trained practitioner and I am also trained in cognitive anger management, psychology, Focusing and EFT.
Talking methods don’t work well with ADHD – the client forgets or gets distracted all the time!
This is quite a good business for a talk therapist – sessions that go on for years and years and still no or little progress! (sorry couldn’t help my self).
What is going on in the brain?
People with ADHD have difficulty learning from their experiences in a “normal” way, and this has to do with structures in the brain that make the information sorting slower and creates a sort of “traffic jam” in the mind. This is also called having a small working memory.
The “kid” in the brain.
It is like a kid having to do adult labor – it is not very efficient – and this “kid” is constantly finding excuses and wants to play, not work – because he is a kid – has a kids mind.
An adult with ADHD / ADD has to navigate in life with a kid’s emotional type brain in an adult body. Because of this adult body people don’t quite understand why the behavior is less mature. This creates lots of conflicts!
Some people with ADHD /ADD use strategies like making excessive rigid rules and drive everyone crazy or maybe the opposite – play the game at work and do drugs or gambling at home etc.
The diversion trap
People with ADHD often get diverted – the areas of the brain that lack are not used as much and some of the thought processing has to go other ways.
So instead of using the frontal lobe brake system, the cingular cortex and the brains visual centre gets involved in tasks they are not designed for.
When the emotions kidnap our thinking
This makes life very emotional and distorts things easily. So a typical ADHD brain experiences the world through emotion rather than through a more neutral and thinking.
This makes the ADHD brain prone to stress – because sorting out what is emotional and what is not uses energy. When there is a lack of energy in our brain automatic unconscious behavior rules!
A person with ADHD can have an emotional outburst and minor crisis because of the task of brushing her teeth or getting out of bed. A more normal person can suppress these feelings and just do it – no big deal.
I usually use the picture of someone standing on a water hose – the pressure builds and suddenly the hose can explode. Lifting your foot would help the water getting through – the only thing is you have to learn to “lift your foot”.
Releasing the blocks of anger and shame without pain
Inner Repatterning releases this blockage and removes “the foot” that we unconsciously have placed on the water hose, so that you can “water your garden” with ease.
It also takes care of the clutter, shame and anger associated to ADHD.
This is a stand alone approach that works without having to repeat or go in to the emotional frenzy – the Inner RePatterning Practitioner guides you to a state of mind and breathing, that makes it easier to let go and make it easier for the client afterwards sort out the world without judging it.
Some examples
I have experienced a woman with a 50 year problematic relationship with her domineering mother – go from; “She hates me and I hate her” and end our session with “She really loves me and I love her too”!
The following week-end they finally bonded and this major shift has changed the perspective totally in both their lives. They can quarrel – but love has come to stay!
Another woman with a severe ADHD managed to regain control of her anger and deal with a very difficult situation that was tearing her apart.
She had never experienced that she could be truly impersonal before.
And the truth is that most of life is impersonal.
I work with ADHD young adults and when we do thymus tapping – they notice that the “chatter” in their heads subsides – for some this is a quite new experience. That they can regulate their thought stream this way and enter a zone of letting go more easily.
This gets their attention!
The great news!
You will be surprised how simple techniques can change deep rooted mess and recycle it – make You a more balanced and caring person.
For many of the ADHD clients I work with, small “miracles” and cognitive shifts happen – suddenly Meditation becomes possible, suddenly getting out of bed becomes a task and not “family at war”.
This technique works great on Skype too.
Love
Chris Nunan
Inner RePatterning FacilitatorDenmark
tcnunan@gmail.com
