Experienced Professional Certified Coach (PCC). I specialize in personal leadership – the key to becoming all of who you are meant to be. I partner with you to increase your personal agency and strategic decision-making.
Ellen is a high-performer, but she doesn’t always see herself that way.
On a good day, she knows in her bones that she can be the professional she wants to be.
On a bad day, she identifies with every ADHD symptom she dislikes. It’s as if she IS the symptom. She’ll say, ‘‘It leaked through.” The mask dropped and the ADHD showed.
The twin behaviours of adult ADHD – distractibility and reactivity – undermine her best efforts. When they threaten to show up, she wants with all her might to cover them up. They’re the opposite of how she wants to show herself to the world. She’ll say, “I don’t ever want to experience that again!”
Hiding these symptoms has literally been the fight of her life.
When Ellen talks about her struggle, you can hear the pain in her voice. There’s an intensity, a repudiation of behaviours she doesn’t respect or approve of.
Over the years, this fight has solidified into a self-concept that says her wins were only in spite of herself, not because of herself – her talents, innate intelligence and drive.
Have you been in a fight with your own ADHD symptoms?
Have you been trying to hide them?
Ellen’s life-long default pattern was to take action – any action – to cover up what was going on inside of her. This ‘faux productivity’ was exhausting her. Even worse, it was blocking her from seeing how chaotic and unproductive she actually was.
Today, as she wrestled with this pattern of ‘againstness’, she asked me, “