Wondering about the experiences with #minfulness and #meditation for other folks with #ADHD, particularly "inattentive type" (or what we used to just call #ADD) and particularly if you experience hyperfocus.
I had a very adverse experience with a therapist obsessed with mindfulness apps who wouldn't listen or engage with my bad responses to them, and as I've tried to reconstitute my own practices, I'm wondering if hyperfocus tendencies alter what methods one should use. 🧵
So yeah, the point isn't that this particular practice was Christian in origin or whatever, although that helped in making it more integrative with my other religious practices, but the point here is that the practice calls on identifying a "sacred word" to focus on.
I've noticed when this works for me, it's not because I'm "gently returning to the word." Because I can sit for an hour and hold onto that one thought like a boss and then I'm irritable, useless, and unpleasant the rest of the day
Instead, rather than the "return" that's the current Thing in mindfulness, I've used the "sacred word" alternately as a tether or a lens for thoughts.
I allow myself to think, because stopping myself from thinking just becomes a fun game that my hyperfocus wants to play endlessly and again, that's not helpful. It's that the thoughts can't go cantering off into the sunset. They have to play in sight of the focal word.
Today I was working on my generalized non-specific holiday angst with the word, "gift." A lot of my spiraling thoughts today are about gifts (guess why haha) and my contemplative time basically let a lot of those thoughts wander free, while just remembering that "gift" comes with a lot of sacred context in addition to consumerist excess and family strife. And I felt a whole lot better afterwards.
Partially because my hyperfocus stayed asleep the whole time.
Anyway, I will yet again issue the standard disclaimer that yes, there are both beautiful ancient traditions around what we now call mindfulness, there's the outstanding works of people like Ticht Nacht Hahn that's helping millions of people, and those (to me) accursed apps may be relieving the suffering of a lot of people.
As long as we can allow for grounding and particularity, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about any of it.
@jtskywalker Yeah, sorry, put it in a post outside the thread.
Content warning: meditation, centering praryer, Christianity
Michael Bacon
Aldin The Mage
Mati
Alissa Zorn