ADHD Flow 4-3-2-1: When Feelings Feel Final
One minute. No links. Just a reset.
4 Calming Breaths
The box breathing meditation you can do anytime and anywhere. Take 16 seconds right now to reconnect with your body and mind:
I. Inhale (four seconds)
II. Hold (four seconds)
III. Exhale (four seconds)
IV. Hold (four seconds)
Repeat as desired
3 Ideas From Me
I.
Some feelings don’t just feel strong.
They feel final.
A bad moment can make it seem like everything is falling apart.
A hard conversation can feel like proof.
A stressful hour can feel like the whole day is ruined.
And good feelings can do their own version of this too.
Sometimes a good moment feels so good that you stop enjoying it and start worrying about losing it.
Hard feelings can feel final.
Good feelings can feel fragile.
Neither one is the whole story.
II.
For many people with ADHD, feelings hit hard and fast.
The feeling takes up the whole screen.
A small setback can feel enormous.
A good moment can feel too precious to relax into.
It is not that you are dramatic.
It is that strong emotion can crowd out perspective.
III.
You do not need to argue with the feeling to get some distance from it.
You do not need to pretend it is small.
And you do not need to criticise yourself for having it.
Sometimes it helps to quietly remember:
This too shall pass.
Not as a slogan.
Not as a way to dismiss what is real.
Just as a reminder that this moment is not the whole future.
A feeling can be valid without being permanent.
2 Quotes From Others
I.
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Source: Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours (1905)
II.
“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”
Source: William Blake, Eternity (1807)
1 Question For You
What feeling are you treating like the whole story right now?
See you next week (I promise - you are now my accountability partners).
ADHD Flow 4-3-2-1: Inspired by James Clear. Built for the neurodivergent community.
If someone is acting like they are giving up on life -are they really or is it a cry for attention and there is still something there that wants to be picked up. That’s my uneasy feeling. I’m putting my mom in a very nice assisted living place and 3 days before entry -she’s literally fighting any help. That’s what the feeling is.