July 3, 2025 • 40 mins
If you’ve ever felt stressed by not knowing what to expect, or feel scattered when you are doing something new, this strategy to prep, practice, then perform could change everything!
New situations can feel overwhelming when you have ADHD.
In this episode, Renee sharse how doing a simple “dress rehearsal” or dry run the day before—like driving the route, walking into the building, or trying on your outfit to see how it looks.
Preloading the brain can ease the anxiety that can come with ADHD and helps your brain stay calm.
Leave a 5 STAR REVIEW —it helps more women with ADHD find tools that work for our brains.
Send me a DM or email if you've thought of a dress rehearsal that can work for you
—I’d love to cheer you on!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen the host of this podcast, and I'm excited to
be here. I'm really excited to be here.
When I used to just record on audio, I could try it once
or twice just to make sure the sound was okay.
And it usually went just fine with video.
I've said that many times already. This morning I had some weird
(00:51):
buzzing, but here I am. Here I am. The little last time
to do this. And checking my hair. I didn't really check the lighting,
but oh, well. So I'm going to talk to you today about
why it's important to prep, practice, rehearse what
you're going to do before you need to do it, especially
(01:11):
if it's something where there's some kind of pressure on you
to perform. So if you think of your life as a
performance, maybe you are a performer.
I don't know if I am, but maybe you are a performer.
But if you just need to host a
party or cook a certain dinner or make
(01:33):
a cheesecake that you've never made before, doing it before
and making sure you can do it can be really helpful.
I have a friend who loves to cook. And when my oldest daughter
got married, I love cheesecake and I don't really like regular
cake. And my daughter didn't really at the time either.
And so she decided to have cheesecake.
(01:54):
I thought, how cool is that? And so to save money, we
bought a bunch of Costco cheesecakes.
And I don't know if you know this, but you can buy them unscored.
So when you buy them in the store, they have the little slice
marks in them so you can slice them easier.
And when, if you want, you can order them without
(02:14):
that so they look prettier. I'm moving things right now, sorry,
because I'm just looking at the lighting.
I'm so distracted. I'm so sorry. But yeah, I'm just setting up
another light. It doesn't really make a difference.
Why do I do this? Okay, back to my story.
So, yeah, so we ordered some plain cheesecakes and then
we could decorate them with fruit or flowers or I don't know
what we did, actually. It was probably fruit.
(02:36):
It was probably fruit, like berries and things like that, and
teared them up on little things but for serving.
So that was for the bulk of the cheesecakes, to have them
be a little bit cheaper. But for the specialty cheesecakes, my
friend said, oh, I love to make new desserts and stuff.
So I looked up some recipes. And one was kind of like
(02:57):
a Snicker bar, but you didn't use Snicker bars.
But it was one that would have the caramel and the
chocolate and some nuts. Another one was more of a chocolate
mint. So I think maybe it was chocolate peanut butter or
something. So I found these recipes and I said, do
you think you could make one of each of these?
So we had some really nice ones for a few people to
(03:17):
try if they wanted something a little more fancy.
Or they could have the standard cheesecake with berries.
And she said, sure. And I thought, well, since she can cook,
she's probably just going to make them.
But she told me, I practiced making them.
I made each recipe and they're really good.
So yeah, I can make it. And I thought that's really cool that
you took the time to make one on your own.
(03:40):
And I paid her for it and everything.
But that you did that to make sure that
they turned out well for an event such as a wedding
reception. Because honestly, I think it's one of my
nervous things that I do a lot of times it.
Well, okay, I think it's more impulsive.
So they're, you know, with ADHD you can have the impulsive hyperactive
(04:04):
type, the inattentive type, and you could have either of
those or both. I have both. I do see an impulsiveness
in
trying to decide well, and that's. And then the decision making
problems, trying to decide what to cook or serve for
a dinner. Sometimes it's like, yeah, we're going to have chili
and cornbread. But then the impulsive part of me
(04:27):
will say, well, make the chili that you always make, that vegan
chili, that's your friend's recipe that you love.
But I had chicken chili once and it was really
good. I think I'll just look up a recipe and try it.
And I never try it until the day of.
I don't do a trial run. This is my flaw with
cooking. One of the many. And I also don't taste
(04:50):
it. You know how you always see on TV shows and stuff,
they like Gwyneth Paltrow or something.
She loves to cook with her dad. I don't know if her dad's still
live, but I used to hear things like that.
And she'd do a little show or a little video with it and they'd
sip it in the kitchen and taste it. For some reason I.
I can't get myself to do it. I just wait until the moment and
then see what everybody else thinks or maybe just start you
(05:13):
know, adding salt myself as I taste it, like I'm in a restaurant,
I can taste the sweet potato fries and think I
need more salt. For some reason as I'm cooking, I can't sense
that I can't slow down enough to do that.
But when I'm seated, I can do that. And I say to people and then
I run around, oh, here's more salt if you want it.
Or you might want some of this on it, you know, so anyway, that's
just my thing. That is not a prepping, previewing, preloading
(05:40):
is what the psychiatrists call it behavior.
That is just wing it. That is just wing it.
You know, I can just wing it. Do you ever think that was something?
I actually, I think that was a lot of things, is when I
get. Get up there, I'll know what to do.
And. And for some of us, that works.
For some of us, we wouldn't even do it unless we did it that
(06:00):
way. Because all the patience that it takes
or the mindset that it takes to do that prep work
or previewing work, for some reason, we can't
get ourselves to slow down and do that, but we can get ourselves
to actually do it in the moment. Maybe it's the energy of people
are coming over now, I need to do it.
(06:21):
I'm just going to try this. And you know, the impulse part, but
there's a lot of wisdom in doing it that way.
And I guess for me, with the cooking part, I
haven't decided that it really matters yet to change my behavior.
Because when you decide that something is important, it matters,
then you might change your behavior.
(06:42):
And sometimes we learn from our mistakes.
If you have a doctor's appointment in a new
building, you've never been there before, you've never been to
that part of town at that time of day before, and
you have an idea in your mind of I can get
(07:02):
there at this time. You may not even plan it out beyond
that. You might just guess and there's a good chance you
can be late. A little more prepping might be okay.
That you know in your mind, so you're normal.
Just think it through in your mind. You know, that might take
me about 20, 25 minutes. If you were really responsible, you'd
(07:23):
also add on five minutes for getting in the car, finding
a parking spot. Maybe you need to add 10 for that, getting in
the car in your own house. Because what if you get in the car
and you've forgotten your phone? You need to allow for that.
And then you get to the Parking lot.
What if there's no parking and you need to drive around in circles
or something? So you need to add on 10 minutes
(07:44):
for that. So that's a little more prepping, but even more so
instead of just using GPS on the way out the door,
you get in your car and you're trying to use the GPS and the
WI fi is not as good because you're not in your house anymore
and the cellular is not quite as good.
Raise your hand if that's ever happened to you before.
If you've learned from your mistakes that that didn't work very
(08:06):
well, then the next time you find the address,
put it in your maps, in your phone the night before or,
or a half hour before, whatever you have it there.
You can even push start before you leave because sometimes for
some reason it doesn't save. There are ways to save the address.
I know in Apple Maps, I haven't figured that out as much
(08:26):
in Google Maps, but I use both of them.
But if you do that before you even walk out
of the house, then once, once you're in the car, it's already
push go. It's in the system. Even if your cellular is
a little laggy, it'll pick up. It'll pick up, but you'll
know how long it takes to get there.
And you can give yourself that 10 minute buffer zone to get in
the car, in the building, or might even, you might even
(08:48):
need more, depending on the parking situation.
Because where we live now, one of the doctor's
offices I go to has the big parking garage.
It's in a major hospital teaching hospital structure.
So it's more involved than just parking in a parking lot
and walking in, it's going into the parking garage and all that.
(09:09):
So you're figuring that out. And this shouldn't be stressing
you out, it should be making you more calm because you
are going to know what to do, you are going to be empowered,
your brain is going to be more relaxed because you're going to
know what to do. So that's part of the prepping, it's part of
the preloading the brain. It's helping your brain make those
(09:32):
connections. I guess it is so that the next day you're
not as scattered, if you have the scattered part of adhd, the
executive dysfunction where you can just have too
many things coming in and you can't put them into the right
place to, to know what to do. And then, you know,
you arrive all frazzled in the doctor's office and they ask you
(09:54):
for Your phone number, date of birth or something, and you're
just like, I can't, I don't even know what you're saying right
now. Like, I can't make sense of these things.
So, okay, that's that. So that's a better situation, right?
Even better. If you've learned this about gps, map apps
and stuff, is you can night before, look
(10:15):
at what time you're going to need to get there or leave.
So if you have your doctor's appointment at nine o'clock and
you think, I should probably get there at 10 till, if you have
any kind of social anxiety or just impatience, you might
think, I don't want to get there early, I don't want to get there
early. Have you ever done that? I think that sometimes I like
(10:38):
being around people. The social part doesn't bother me.
I think the I need to maximize my time as much
as I can throughout my life gets to me to where
I think I don't want to waste time sitting there if I don't have
to. They're going to make me wait anyway.
So I'll get five more things done at home and then leave.
Instead of plan to get there early, plan to get there early
(10:59):
if you want to be on time. If you haven't seen my podcast episode
about arriving on time, planning to get there early is key.
Now to how to do the time thing,
you everything, at least for me, for my brain, works better on
a computer than it does on a phone. Sometimes apps have better
(11:20):
functioning, but maybe it's my age, but looking
at a little screen is like someone just taken my brain and
they've made it smaller. It's harder to process what's going
on there. But having it on a bigger screen, I
can see my possibilities. And you know, it's just a laptop, but
I can see the possibilities better. And I know for Google
(11:43):
Maps on the computer and on, on the phone,
I did it the other night on the phone because I put my computer
away. I've been plugging my computer in in the other room.
Long story. But you can say, are you
going to do it to arrive now or to leave now, or do you
(12:03):
want to do it at a different time? So then you go in and put
the date and you put the next day and then you put what time?
Either you want to leave or you think you can leave.
What would happen if I left at 8 o'?
Clock? You put that in. It'll tell you, based on the usual traffic
for that time, what time you could get there or you could
say, I need to get there by 10. You put that in and
(12:24):
it will tell you what time you need to leave by.
And then you add that 5, 10, even 15 minutes if you want.
Because the thing is, is now we have our phones to entertain
us. We really do. If you get there early and you think, I know
how to walk in that building, I'm here, I'm going to answer a
few texts first. You can do that. It's better if
you do it inside. Get a little WI fi in the waiting room.
(12:46):
Because there are so many fun things with adhd.
It's also time blindness. You might answer a text, you
might be somebody like me who is thorough
in the text answer, and then finds a picture to accompany it,
and then goes to find that picture and see something else and
decides to share another picture with somebody else.
(13:06):
So if you start doing all those things, if you give a mouse a
cookie things,
you might not make it there, even though you planned so well
to get there. So that's some more prepping, but I'm going
to give you the grand finale, the grand performance, pre
performance, the dress rehearsal. So if you think of being
in a play, a musical. I was in musicals in
(13:30):
high school. Never was a lead. I can't act for the life of
me, but I can have fun in the background singing and dancing.
And
we rehearsed a lot. We knew what to do, we learned
our dances, we learned to go, you know, like we're
scared or whatever, when to come in.
And then we had dress rehearsals. So we would get an idea,
(13:52):
and probably even more so for the director to get an idea
of how is this all coming together. I've worked out these
little pieces, but how is it all coming together?
And that gives everybody involved an idea, a much better
idea of how to do it. And. And the fact that you're
getting dressed and putting on makeup, how long does it take
(14:12):
to do that? Do we have enough people there to do it?
Do we have the costumes right and all that.
And if you're like me and you didn't discover you
had ADHD until adulthood, until a few
years ago this year, five years ago, 10 years, and you've
experienced a lot of life before that, you might look back
(14:35):
continually. I just realized this yesterday, continually, and
see, oh, I didn't realize I did that.
That was something I set up because I knew we had a much
better chance of having this go smoothly if we did
this. I came up with this idea because I knew how
my brain worked, didn't know why? Didn't know it was adhd,
(14:58):
but I knew how my brain worked and, and I knew if
I did this, we had a much better chance of things
going smoothly, of smoothly of life going better, of arriving
on time or having things work out. Because if you're
going somewhere new, doing something new, and especially if there
are other people involved or you need to bring a lot of things
(15:20):
with you, that dress rehearsal is important.
So the pieces that I put together. Well, let's start with
this. Okay, I'm teaching hot yoga now.
And I say I'm teaching, but first class is in
an hour and 12 minutes. So I've been teaching yoga
for over 20 years, been teaching as a certified yoga
(15:44):
teacher for over 11 years. But. But I started
teaching just because I wanted to share yoga with people.
Just so crazy. Because it wasn't like I was even interested before.
It's just once I did yoga and just thought, oh, wow, this
is amazing that I just started asking friends, you wanna come
over? You wanna do yoga? I can, I can teach yoga to this women's
(16:04):
group or at this camp for girls or whatever.
Yeah. I became the yoga teacher that didn't have an
ounce of training that was just sharing what I love.
And at my first training, that was what I was told, share what
you know, share what you love. And you know, I share
things that don't make sense in my body, that might in somebody
else's too. But sharing what you know is important instead of
(16:26):
trying to share what you don't know.
I've tried that. But anyway, so the hot yoga studio, this gym
that I work at, has multiple locations and they decided to
build new construction at their main location.
They built a hot yoga studio. Never taught hot yoga before.
I've attended hot yoga classes. Was never my favorite.
But I'm giggling because the impulse of I don't want to miss
(16:49):
out on anything exciting and new, part of me just
thought, well, I don't want to be busier.
I want to spend time with my podcast.
I want to do more for the women with adhd, but I also
love meeting people and I love being in on the new fun
thing. So I agreed to teach two yoga classes back to
back. And they're not the hottest of hot.
They're not the Bikram style. That is not my favorite.
(17:11):
They're 95 degrees, 1 class, 99, 95, 80 to
85. So the Vinyasa flow and the yin.
The yin is going into a pose, holding it.
It can be anywhere from 90 seconds, five, six minutes.
Will probably be more in the two minute range.
But it depends on the pose really. You know, when you're impulsive,
(17:31):
you decide as you go, right? You see how you feel.
But back to this so new hot yoga studio.
I went to the open house a week ago, saw where it was, got
to walk around. That made me feel more comfortable to have
a better idea of what it will be like when I teach.
Once I heard the construction was more, more, you know,
(17:53):
closer to getting done and there weren't as many yellow tape
spots outside and you could peek through the window.
I did that too because I wanted an idea.
My brain needed to be prepared. I was peeking through the
windows. Then all of some construction guys were saying, just
come in, just come in. I got to walk around, I took pictures.
I imagine the that helps my brain for today.
(18:17):
Going to the open house last week helped my brain for today.
And then I started thinking, you know, you don't even know how
you can do in a 45 minute class at 80 to
85 degrees or 90 to 95 degrees to you.
And I thought, no, it's been a long time.
I mean I've taken classes like that but as a teacher, you know,
(18:38):
or in that room. So I looked at and somewhat
impulsively decided I'm going to go to a Saturday class.
I'm going to find one that's like the same amount of time as
my yin class and go get there early so I can
not be frazzled when I get there. Have time to set
up, kind of see what it's like for the teacher to have time to
set up. Got there about the same time she did and just
(19:00):
kind of made my way through the line.
They were making people wait outside and I said I can help you
if you want a setup. So I got to go in and kind of
get the feel for that. I've also learned how to use the Bluetooth
sound bar and how to do the lights so that when I
come in I'm not scattered. I'm not saying oh
no, I have to set up lights, there's an alarm, sorry, I've done
(19:21):
that before and I'm not going to edit it out.
I know you can hear it probably and that's telling me to get
ready to leave. But anyway, back to this.
So the dress rehearsal, I'm closer to address rehearsal, right.
Because I've driven there, I've seen how long
it takes to get there. And by actually attending a class that
(19:44):
gave me an idea of how I need to replenish
myself while I'M there because I say I've done hot yoga
before. Three times. First two times, they were probably more
like hour, hour and a half classes. First two times.
The only way I know how to describe it is I feel like I
was hit by a truck. I loved it. While I did it, I thought,
(20:06):
oh, this is so amazing. I'm so invigorated.
This is great. Oh, this is challenging.
You feel so empowered. Walked out the door, feeling on this
high, which a lot of people, that is their experience and that's
what they continue to feel. Not my body.
About an hour later, felt like I was hit by a truck.
Even though I don't really know what that feels like.
My head hurt so bad. And I thought, oh, take a
(20:28):
shower, relax, take a bath. None of that helped.
Tried eating, tried, you know, I had my water, everything.
Nothing helped. Went to bed that night, you know, just this horrible
headache, feeling so awful. Almost nauseated.
And woke up the next morning, felt better.
Second time I did hot yoga. Wasn't as long of
(20:50):
a class, probably. I brought my water, drank water throughout
the class, had plenty, plenty, plenty of.
Didn't step out like other people did, probably should have.
And then I ran some errands afterwards, felt, oh, I'm fine, get
home. Same exact feeling from a couple years
ago. And I only went to that second class because a friend
(21:10):
of mine was teaching it. And I thought, oh, that'd be fun to
go to class, but. And I thought, okay, what is this?
What's going on? It wasn't like I was going to go to hot yoga
all the time, but what is going on? Doesn't happen for everyone,
but it was happening for me. So did a little googling.
Early signs of heat exhaustion. Happens to some people with
hot yoga. What do you do electrolytes eat right after?
(21:33):
Eat something substantial, protein. Don't just drink water.
Have electrolytes too. You're not. You're losing more than just
water and sweat, all these kinds of things.
So, third time. Why did I do a third time?
He says, on a trip. A friend said, a cousin, actually, would
you take this with me? She'd been taking hot yoga and it was
a thing where you had to do it every day for 30 days.
(21:53):
So I went with her, but I had more information.
And I ate right afterwards, immediately after, had electrolytes,
felt completely fine. So I thought, you really should test this
in yourself now, because I'm probably, I would say, at
least 10 years older than the last time I did hot yoga.
And I know I'm supposed To be sharing what I know and you know,
(22:15):
hot yoga. But I'm sharing the yoga I know in a hotter
room. So I went to both classes that were
like my classes and the first one I brought my cork
mat because cork is. I've got a lot of cork stuff
in here, but if I lift this up, everything will fall.
But cork is. Gets super grippy when
(22:35):
it's wet, even just slightly, like when you're almost starting
to sweat, it becomes super grippy. And I bought a cork
mat years ago, which is another long story.
And I found if I went to a regular yoga class where it
wasn't, you weren't quite warmed up yet.
I actually took a paper towel from the bathroom, got water on
it and put wet spots where my hands were so my hands wouldn't
(22:56):
slip in. Down dog. Because it's not sticky on its own.
But once I got warmed up, it was just all perfect.
But it's super heavy. It's kind of a pain to bring anywhere
and I liked using it. But most places I've done yoga isn't that
warm. So I haven't used it in years.
But I thought bring it to this yen class because you will
probably need it. Well, we never got that, that sweaty and,
(23:21):
and it was super heavy to carry in from the parking lot.
And I'm all about comfort, so I thought I'm.
So that was my first thing I'm, I'm learning as I go.
I'm there. I can handle the heat. I drank my drink during.
I really prepped. I made a protein smoothie with
all kinds of stuff in it for after drink that.
And I didn't feel sick, headache at all afterwards.
(23:44):
So that was the first stress rehearsal.
Right. I thought that I'd learned you actually don't need that
cork super heavy mat. Just bring a regular mat and a towel.
That's what everybody else had. But I'm very sensitive to discomfort.
So if that had been an issue, I would have lugged it around.
I wouldn't have, you know, just thought everybody else is using
that. I have to do what feels right for me.
But then I thought really, you should try the 45
(24:06):
minute flow class because that's what you're going to teach.
It's going to be more, more sweaty, it's going to
be hotter in temperature and you're going to do things that
you might need that grip. But I thought, no, I'll be fine with
the towel. I have the yoga towel with a little grippy spine.
Took that class. Also brought the veggie smoothie.
So my prep, my preparation for this has been
(24:29):
exhaustive. But I want to go in today,
which I need to leave in a few minutes.
I want to go in as prepared as I can be.
Because I know when I teach a class, when I
do something where I am, you know, performing, not really performing,
but I, you know, if you think of it as a stage, I am the
one up there talking. I am the one that needs to do this.
(24:52):
But if I have a lot of things distracting my brain, like
the music's not quite right or I don't like the lights, how
do you work that out? All those scattered things that I can't
quite wrap my head around or my hands are slipping, I
am not going to be able to be present and be able to
(25:13):
do what I need to do. And you can adopt this or adopt
this to anything that you do in your life with your
children, with your family. Something that you need to
do. If you ever feel really scattered and you
think that was kind of a mess. I couldn't even be
in my right mindset. All of these things.
(25:35):
Even though it might feel exhaustive, it's actually kind of fun
because if you like to hyper focus when you're.
When you don't have to do it, when you're not on stage yet, the
pressure's not there. So it's kind of fun to go through the motions.
And when I went to that second class that was 10 degrees hotter,
that was sweatier. I was completely missing my cork mat.
(25:56):
I was starting to slip toward the end on my towel, and
I thought, this is a grippy, kind of expensive, nice towel.
The manduka towel, it's not working for me.
I moved it away and thought, maybe my mat's okay.
It's not super sweaty. Maybe we're fine.
Nope. Any kind of little slip for me makes it so
I'm not as happy as I'm doing yoga. And for me, it's all
about relaxing, being happy when I'm in the class, or it's
(26:19):
not letting those things distract me as I'm teaching.
So I learned as I went, I also learned how long does
it take me to get there? What are the parking possibilities?
I might have to go out farther away when I get there,
while I need to go to the bathroom. All of these things because
I did dress rehearsals. Hopefully I have a more
(26:40):
successful experience today. In fact, I should probably.
The lighting will be different. I should probably stop this and
come back and let you know. Let you know.
I'll probably be Exhausted. But I do have all my drinks and everything
prepared. I'm lugging in like a million weight,
you know, pounds of stuff on both sides.
But back to just relating it to you a little
(27:00):
bit. So if you have children, if you have doctor's
appointments, if you have things that are new experiences that
you need to arrive for in some sort of
calmness, all I can think of, lack of pandemonium, because
sometimes that's how you feel. The connection I made yesterday
(27:22):
as I was thinking, I'm so glad that I've gone through
these trial runs, that I didn't just wing it today,
that I've given myself so much information that I can do
better today. I'm so glad I did that.
I remembered that when my kids were little, I decided
that. And I did it before my oldest daughter was in kindergarten.
(27:44):
So I have six kids. I decided that. And maybe it's part
of the curiosity, I don't know if you're extra curious that before
her first day of kindergarten, I wanted to go see where her
room was, walk around. They used to have the kindergartners at
the middle school in this different part of campus with its own
little playground. And so I took her up there so
(28:05):
she was comfortable with it. We saw where the playground was,
we walked around. Things weren't as lopped up as they are now.
And we kind of got a trial run. We got to see what
it was like. And from there I started thinking, you know,
what the day before school starts? You know, I don't
really know with my kids, my babies and stuff.
I mean, I had like. When my fifth child, my
(28:29):
second youngest was born, she was born two
weeks after school, started at a brand new school.
So I had four other kids. The youngest at the time that wasn't
the baby was in kindergarten. And thankfully I'd been doing this
tradition that the day before school, we had kind of a
day before school celebration. We set out clothes that we were
(28:50):
gonna wear. They didn't need to be our brand new clothes for
school, but we set out the clothes the night before.
That's also a prep thing. If you do that, you know, you
set out your clothes, you set out your water bottle, your things,
you're doing that so it's not as hard the next day.
So we set those things out the next morning.
We said, okay, we're going to get up this time because this was
the anticipation. We didn't have Google Maps to let us know.
(29:12):
In my mind, we need to eat breakfast by this time.
We need to have Your lunches packed.
We need to do all that. Get in the car, drive to the school,
not quite as crowded the day before.
You know, take a. Park the car and walk the kids in.
But we walked and we found each teacher's classroom.
And this is where your classroom is.
This is where your teacher is. A lot of times the teacher is
already in there setting up for the next day.
(29:35):
My child would get to meet their new teacher, see where the playground
is. Maybe we play a little bit, go back home next day, first
day of school. Not all that fear or anxiousness or.
I mean, yeah, I was always excited the first day of school, but
knowing how it would be was helpful.
And what was so funny is when we went to that new school, when
(29:57):
my youngest daughter was born, you know, it was.
So here I am, fully pregnant. Go in with these four kids.
We do this the day before school starts.
And it was a Monday, so school started on Tuesday.
And we didn't know any of those teachers, and it was a small
school, so they all saw us walking around, you know, like, oh,
here's your classroom. And a few of them came out and
said, oh, I'm so sorry. School doesn't start till tomorrow.
(30:19):
Like, you came a day early. I'm so sorry.
You got all your kids up and dressed and everything.
And I said, actually, we know we're just doing this
because we want to make sure tomorrow goes well.
But that was a survival skill that I developed in
my brain. Maybe you've done things like that, too.
If you see little things that you've done, pat yourself on the
back for a job well done. And if you ever
(30:42):
have a new experience and you think, I should see what that's
like, I should drive there today. And you think, no, I don't
need to. I can just do it tomorrow. Go with your first thought
on that. Help yourself out. Help yourself out.
But I really do need to go. I'm going to just pause this, come
back and let you know how it went.
Bye. Hello again. This is a podcast.
First my podcast. I get to make the
(31:06):
rules, right? Doesn't Taylor Swift have a song like that?
Anyway, she doesn't say that. But I'm back, and I have to
tell you, with all the things that could
happen in a new situation, I really felt the benefits
of being there before doing the trial run.
(31:27):
Even just knowing where I'm driving is so important.
Knowing what a parking lot is like. And one of the
reasons is with adhd, processing a lot of
information at the time can be overwhelming.
Trying to make decisions. If you, if your brain gets maxed out,
then
(31:48):
it's harder to do what you need to do.
And if you can think of anything in
your life that doesn't go very smoothly, new situations, whether
it's something you need to do at home, other people will see
it and
you need to be prepared for it.
(32:10):
Spending as much time as you can in the prep time, even though
it might seem
not as necessary. It's kind of a nice thing because
whenever you do that trial run, whenever you do the
dress rehearsal or whatever, no one's there watching.
Your brain can sort through it. There's no time limit.
(32:33):
There might be, you might have to go somewhere later, but it's
not the same. It's not the same. It's not the same pressure.
So practicing before you perform, practicing, doing something,
doing a trial run through it reduces stress that you could
get. It helps you with new situations, it puts your
mind at ease, and it gives you a much better chance of success.
(32:57):
So I'm just going to give you a few reasons why it can
be helpful related to adhd. One is that we
do, maybe not everyone. I know symptoms can be
different for everyone, but many of us struggle with time
blindness, not really being able to see how long something
takes, or as we're going through the actual motions of
(33:22):
going the next day, we don't realize, like just deciding to
change your earrings last minute can make you 10 minutes
late. So some of those things, if you think you might want to
change your earrings, set that out the night before, put
on some earrings that you can sleep in and have that not be one
of the things, not one of the steps that you have to do.
And yeah, your brain has to sort out
(33:46):
all of these unknown things. I mentioned in another podcast about
how just going into a restaurant that you order at
the counter, you've never been there before, you look up above
and you can't make sense of the menu and you're
with somebody and they're saying, what do you want to get?
Or the person in front of you or whatever.
And it's a lot to process. So even that seeing online
(34:10):
what the menu is can be helpful. It's not always the same
in person, sometimes things are different, but it does give you
an advantage. So anything that you can do to give
yourself vantage will help, will help.
It gives you a better sense of the timing that it needs.
It helps you have less mental stuff going on.
(34:32):
Mental, mental clutter, all the thoughts or whatever.
It helps you keep your eye on what you
need to Do. Because if you're thinking, oh, wait, I need this,
oh, wait, I would need that. You might forget something.
And even today I had. I have a backup iPhone
for music in case the other one's not working and which it
(34:54):
hasn't been for a while now. It is again, but I had to charge
up the backup iPhone because I used it yesterday and forgot to
charge it last night. And so this morning I thought, okay, charge
it, but it's not right by the door as I
leave. So I made a post it note with my Sharpie because
that's my method. If I can see it in a Sharpie, just single post
(35:15):
it note that said bring backup phone.
Had it there with everything else on the table as I'm about
to leave, then I don't have to have that on my
mind because chances are it won't be there.
But it's just gonna help you.
It. It will help you not be stressed in these situations.
It'll help you make the decisions that you do have to make
(35:39):
easier because you don't have so many other things going on.
And. And you can definitely come in with more confidence to whatever
situation that you have to go through.
And if you get grouchy, you'll have a better chance
of not being grouchy. Yeah. The whole thing that I
mentioned about, you know, you get to the doctor's office, you
(35:59):
didn't know where to park, you don't know which part of the building
to walk in, the whole thing, where's the room
once you get into the building, all those things.
I've had it that when I get up to the counter to the person
talking to me, them just asking me my date of birth
is confusing. It's confusing. And I try to
(36:20):
be kind. I think I am, but I'm sure I sound kind
of irritated because I want to say, do you realize I
can't just do this? I just had to deal with the imperfect situation
you guys have out there with marking.
What you're asking of me is not simple and, well, partially.
She was doing that while she was having me fill out a piece of
paper. And I'm thinking, I can't do this and do that at the
(36:43):
same time. Yeah, we have to defend our.
Our abilities and non. Non abilities.
So anyway, yeah, preloading. I don't know why they call
it preloading. I actually didn't look that up.
But it's a strategy to help you help make
those pathways in your brain, help you have a calmer experience.
(37:07):
And if you thought of anything that you can do in your
life, even if it's just something small, when you have a little
downtime, when you have a little bit of energy, does that happen?
I would imagine so. Take time to prepare for
the next day or something that's a week away or whatever it is.
Because I find if I go on a trip, if I've been there
(37:27):
before, if I know the roads, so much easier if I'm
trying to figure it out as I go and other people are depending
on me and they're not happy that I have no
idea what's going on. Not that they should put that pressure
on me, but you know what I mean. I feel the pressure.
I feel the pressure. So, yeah, give yourself every advantage
you can. Thank you so much for being here
(37:49):
on my podcast, inspiring women with adhd.
My idea is not so much that I'm inspiring you,
hopefully I am that I'm inspiring you, that you can do
the things you need to do in life and that life can go a little
better, but that you're inspiring to me.
Just knowing that I'm not the only one and knowing that we are
(38:12):
fantastic people, we really are. Is helpful to me
in my life. But thank you so much for being here.
I will be back. I don't really have any.
Make sure you do this. I need to take a shower.
I am. Oh, the hot yoga was really fun.
So sweaty. The first class, that was the 95 degree class.
(38:33):
I pushed it. I pushed it. I made it a very physical
yoga practice. And I thought that's what we're
here for, right? Second class, 70, 75 degrees.
So relaxing, so calming. And now I just feel like,
what am I going to do? Because I have a two more classes.
They're not hot, but I need to have the energy for them.
(38:54):
So I'm going to go reset but so much.
I will be back. Bye.
I butter my toast spread on some grape
jelly I don't need to fast But
(39:15):
I'm a chef and a good one My grandma
can't hear me we hear that breakfast is done
getting col
so I run
open windows broken shadow
(39:40):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Time for a
(40:06):
rewind like run out of time to sing
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.
I'm Renee Allen the host of this podcast, and I'm excited to
be here. I'm really excited to be here.
When I used to just record on audio, I could try it once
or twice just to make sure the sound was okay.
And it usually went just fine with video.
I've said that many times already. This morning I had some weird
(00:51):
buzzing, but here I am. Here I am. The little last time
to do this. And checking my hair. I didn't really check the lighting,
but oh, well. So I'm going to talk to you today about
why it's important to prep, practice, rehearse what
you're going to do before you need to do it, especially
(01:11):
if it's something where there's some kind of pressure on you
to perform. So if you think of your life as a
performance, maybe you are a performer.
I don't know if I am, but maybe you are a performer.
But if you just need to host a
party or cook a certain dinner or make
(01:33):
a cheesecake that you've never made before, doing it before
and making sure you can do it can be really helpful.
I have a friend who loves to cook. And when my oldest daughter
got married, I love cheesecake and I don't really like regular
cake. And my daughter didn't really at the time either.
And so she decided to have cheesecake.
(01:54):
I thought, how cool is that? And so to save money, we
bought a bunch of Costco cheesecakes.
And I don't know if you know this, but you can buy them unscored.
So when you buy them in the store, they have the little slice
marks in them so you can slice them easier.
And when, if you want, you can order them without
(02:14):
that so they look prettier. I'm moving things right now, sorry,
because I'm just looking at the lighting.
I'm so distracted. I'm so sorry. But yeah, I'm just setting up
another light. It doesn't really make a difference.
Why do I do this? Okay, back to my story.
So, yeah, so we ordered some plain cheesecakes and then
we could decorate them with fruit or flowers or I don't know
what we did, actually. It was probably fruit.
(02:36):
It was probably fruit, like berries and things like that, and
teared them up on little things but for serving.
So that was for the bulk of the cheesecakes, to have them
be a little bit cheaper. But for the specialty cheesecakes, my
friend said, oh, I love to make new desserts and stuff.
So I looked up some recipes. And one was kind of like
(02:57):
a Snicker bar, but you didn't use Snicker bars.
But it was one that would have the caramel and the
chocolate and some nuts. Another one was more of a chocolate
mint. So I think maybe it was chocolate peanut butter or
something. So I found these recipes and I said, do
you think you could make one of each of these?
So we had some really nice ones for a few people to
(03:17):
try if they wanted something a little more fancy.
Or they could have the standard cheesecake with berries.
And she said, sure. And I thought, well, since she can cook,
she's probably just going to make them.
But she told me, I practiced making them.
I made each recipe and they're really good.
So yeah, I can make it. And I thought that's really cool that
you took the time to make one on your own.
(03:40):
And I paid her for it and everything.
But that you did that to make sure that
they turned out well for an event such as a wedding
reception. Because honestly, I think it's one of my
nervous things that I do a lot of times it.
Well, okay, I think it's more impulsive.
So they're, you know, with ADHD you can have the impulsive hyperactive
(04:04):
type, the inattentive type, and you could have either of
those or both. I have both. I do see an impulsiveness
in
trying to decide well, and that's. And then the decision making
problems, trying to decide what to cook or serve for
a dinner. Sometimes it's like, yeah, we're going to have chili
and cornbread. But then the impulsive part of me
(04:27):
will say, well, make the chili that you always make, that vegan
chili, that's your friend's recipe that you love.
But I had chicken chili once and it was really
good. I think I'll just look up a recipe and try it.
And I never try it until the day of.
I don't do a trial run. This is my flaw with
cooking. One of the many. And I also don't taste
(04:50):
it. You know how you always see on TV shows and stuff,
they like Gwyneth Paltrow or something.
She loves to cook with her dad. I don't know if her dad's still
live, but I used to hear things like that.
And she'd do a little show or a little video with it and they'd
sip it in the kitchen and taste it. For some reason I.
I can't get myself to do it. I just wait until the moment and
then see what everybody else thinks or maybe just start you
(05:13):
know, adding salt myself as I taste it, like I'm in a restaurant,
I can taste the sweet potato fries and think I
need more salt. For some reason as I'm cooking, I can't sense
that I can't slow down enough to do that.
But when I'm seated, I can do that. And I say to people and then
I run around, oh, here's more salt if you want it.
Or you might want some of this on it, you know, so anyway, that's
just my thing. That is not a prepping, previewing, preloading
(05:40):
is what the psychiatrists call it behavior.
That is just wing it. That is just wing it.
You know, I can just wing it. Do you ever think that was something?
I actually, I think that was a lot of things, is when I
get. Get up there, I'll know what to do.
And. And for some of us, that works.
For some of us, we wouldn't even do it unless we did it that
(06:00):
way. Because all the patience that it takes
or the mindset that it takes to do that prep work
or previewing work, for some reason, we can't
get ourselves to slow down and do that, but we can get ourselves
to actually do it in the moment. Maybe it's the energy of people
are coming over now, I need to do it.
(06:21):
I'm just going to try this. And you know, the impulse part, but
there's a lot of wisdom in doing it that way.
And I guess for me, with the cooking part, I
haven't decided that it really matters yet to change my behavior.
Because when you decide that something is important, it matters,
then you might change your behavior.
(06:42):
And sometimes we learn from our mistakes.
If you have a doctor's appointment in a new
building, you've never been there before, you've never been to
that part of town at that time of day before, and
you have an idea in your mind of I can get
(07:02):
there at this time. You may not even plan it out beyond
that. You might just guess and there's a good chance you
can be late. A little more prepping might be okay.
That you know in your mind, so you're normal.
Just think it through in your mind. You know, that might take
me about 20, 25 minutes. If you were really responsible, you'd
(07:23):
also add on five minutes for getting in the car, finding
a parking spot. Maybe you need to add 10 for that, getting in
the car in your own house. Because what if you get in the car
and you've forgotten your phone? You need to allow for that.
And then you get to the Parking lot.
What if there's no parking and you need to drive around in circles
or something? So you need to add on 10 minutes
(07:44):
for that. So that's a little more prepping, but even more so
instead of just using GPS on the way out the door,
you get in your car and you're trying to use the GPS and the
WI fi is not as good because you're not in your house anymore
and the cellular is not quite as good.
Raise your hand if that's ever happened to you before.
If you've learned from your mistakes that that didn't work very
(08:06):
well, then the next time you find the address,
put it in your maps, in your phone the night before or,
or a half hour before, whatever you have it there.
You can even push start before you leave because sometimes for
some reason it doesn't save. There are ways to save the address.
I know in Apple Maps, I haven't figured that out as much
(08:26):
in Google Maps, but I use both of them.
But if you do that before you even walk out
of the house, then once, once you're in the car, it's already
push go. It's in the system. Even if your cellular is
a little laggy, it'll pick up. It'll pick up, but you'll
know how long it takes to get there.
And you can give yourself that 10 minute buffer zone to get in
the car, in the building, or might even, you might even
(08:48):
need more, depending on the parking situation.
Because where we live now, one of the doctor's
offices I go to has the big parking garage.
It's in a major hospital teaching hospital structure.
So it's more involved than just parking in a parking lot
and walking in, it's going into the parking garage and all that.
(09:09):
So you're figuring that out. And this shouldn't be stressing
you out, it should be making you more calm because you
are going to know what to do, you are going to be empowered,
your brain is going to be more relaxed because you're going to
know what to do. So that's part of the prepping, it's part of
the preloading the brain. It's helping your brain make those
(09:32):
connections. I guess it is so that the next day you're
not as scattered, if you have the scattered part of adhd, the
executive dysfunction where you can just have too
many things coming in and you can't put them into the right
place to, to know what to do. And then, you know,
you arrive all frazzled in the doctor's office and they ask you
(09:54):
for Your phone number, date of birth or something, and you're
just like, I can't, I don't even know what you're saying right
now. Like, I can't make sense of these things.
So, okay, that's that. So that's a better situation, right?
Even better. If you've learned this about gps, map apps
and stuff, is you can night before, look
(10:15):
at what time you're going to need to get there or leave.
So if you have your doctor's appointment at nine o'clock and
you think, I should probably get there at 10 till, if you have
any kind of social anxiety or just impatience, you might
think, I don't want to get there early, I don't want to get there
early. Have you ever done that? I think that sometimes I like
(10:38):
being around people. The social part doesn't bother me.
I think the I need to maximize my time as much
as I can throughout my life gets to me to where
I think I don't want to waste time sitting there if I don't have
to. They're going to make me wait anyway.
So I'll get five more things done at home and then leave.
Instead of plan to get there early, plan to get there early
(10:59):
if you want to be on time. If you haven't seen my podcast episode
about arriving on time, planning to get there early is key.
Now to how to do the time thing,
you everything, at least for me, for my brain, works better on
a computer than it does on a phone. Sometimes apps have better
(11:20):
functioning, but maybe it's my age, but looking
at a little screen is like someone just taken my brain and
they've made it smaller. It's harder to process what's going
on there. But having it on a bigger screen, I
can see my possibilities. And you know, it's just a laptop, but
I can see the possibilities better. And I know for Google
(11:43):
Maps on the computer and on, on the phone,
I did it the other night on the phone because I put my computer
away. I've been plugging my computer in in the other room.
Long story. But you can say, are you
going to do it to arrive now or to leave now, or do you
(12:03):
want to do it at a different time? So then you go in and put
the date and you put the next day and then you put what time?
Either you want to leave or you think you can leave.
What would happen if I left at 8 o'?
Clock? You put that in. It'll tell you, based on the usual traffic
for that time, what time you could get there or you could
say, I need to get there by 10. You put that in and
(12:24):
it will tell you what time you need to leave by.
And then you add that 5, 10, even 15 minutes if you want.
Because the thing is, is now we have our phones to entertain
us. We really do. If you get there early and you think, I know
how to walk in that building, I'm here, I'm going to answer a
few texts first. You can do that. It's better if
you do it inside. Get a little WI fi in the waiting room.
(12:46):
Because there are so many fun things with adhd.
It's also time blindness. You might answer a text, you
might be somebody like me who is thorough
in the text answer, and then finds a picture to accompany it,
and then goes to find that picture and see something else and
decides to share another picture with somebody else.
(13:06):
So if you start doing all those things, if you give a mouse a
cookie things,
you might not make it there, even though you planned so well
to get there. So that's some more prepping, but I'm going
to give you the grand finale, the grand performance, pre
performance, the dress rehearsal. So if you think of being
in a play, a musical. I was in musicals in
(13:30):
high school. Never was a lead. I can't act for the life of
me, but I can have fun in the background singing and dancing.
And
we rehearsed a lot. We knew what to do, we learned
our dances, we learned to go, you know, like we're
scared or whatever, when to come in.
And then we had dress rehearsals. So we would get an idea,
(13:52):
and probably even more so for the director to get an idea
of how is this all coming together. I've worked out these
little pieces, but how is it all coming together?
And that gives everybody involved an idea, a much better
idea of how to do it. And. And the fact that you're
getting dressed and putting on makeup, how long does it take
(14:12):
to do that? Do we have enough people there to do it?
Do we have the costumes right and all that.
And if you're like me and you didn't discover you
had ADHD until adulthood, until a few
years ago this year, five years ago, 10 years, and you've
experienced a lot of life before that, you might look back
(14:35):
continually. I just realized this yesterday, continually, and
see, oh, I didn't realize I did that.
That was something I set up because I knew we had a much
better chance of having this go smoothly if we did
this. I came up with this idea because I knew how
my brain worked, didn't know why? Didn't know it was adhd,
(14:58):
but I knew how my brain worked and, and I knew if
I did this, we had a much better chance of things
going smoothly, of smoothly of life going better, of arriving
on time or having things work out. Because if you're
going somewhere new, doing something new, and especially if there
are other people involved or you need to bring a lot of things
(15:20):
with you, that dress rehearsal is important.
So the pieces that I put together. Well, let's start with
this. Okay, I'm teaching hot yoga now.
And I say I'm teaching, but first class is in
an hour and 12 minutes. So I've been teaching yoga
for over 20 years, been teaching as a certified yoga
(15:44):
teacher for over 11 years. But. But I started
teaching just because I wanted to share yoga with people.
Just so crazy. Because it wasn't like I was even interested before.
It's just once I did yoga and just thought, oh, wow, this
is amazing that I just started asking friends, you wanna come
over? You wanna do yoga? I can, I can teach yoga to this women's
(16:04):
group or at this camp for girls or whatever.
Yeah. I became the yoga teacher that didn't have an
ounce of training that was just sharing what I love.
And at my first training, that was what I was told, share what
you know, share what you love. And you know, I share
things that don't make sense in my body, that might in somebody
else's too. But sharing what you know is important instead of
(16:26):
trying to share what you don't know.
I've tried that. But anyway, so the hot yoga studio, this gym
that I work at, has multiple locations and they decided to
build new construction at their main location.
They built a hot yoga studio. Never taught hot yoga before.
I've attended hot yoga classes. Was never my favorite.
But I'm giggling because the impulse of I don't want to miss
(16:49):
out on anything exciting and new, part of me just
thought, well, I don't want to be busier.
I want to spend time with my podcast.
I want to do more for the women with adhd, but I also
love meeting people and I love being in on the new fun
thing. So I agreed to teach two yoga classes back to
back. And they're not the hottest of hot.
They're not the Bikram style. That is not my favorite.
(17:11):
They're 95 degrees, 1 class, 99, 95, 80 to
85. So the Vinyasa flow and the yin.
The yin is going into a pose, holding it.
It can be anywhere from 90 seconds, five, six minutes.
Will probably be more in the two minute range.
But it depends on the pose really. You know, when you're impulsive,
(17:31):
you decide as you go, right? You see how you feel.
But back to this so new hot yoga studio.
I went to the open house a week ago, saw where it was, got
to walk around. That made me feel more comfortable to have
a better idea of what it will be like when I teach.
Once I heard the construction was more, more, you know,
(17:53):
closer to getting done and there weren't as many yellow tape
spots outside and you could peek through the window.
I did that too because I wanted an idea.
My brain needed to be prepared. I was peeking through the
windows. Then all of some construction guys were saying, just
come in, just come in. I got to walk around, I took pictures.
I imagine the that helps my brain for today.
(18:17):
Going to the open house last week helped my brain for today.
And then I started thinking, you know, you don't even know how
you can do in a 45 minute class at 80 to
85 degrees or 90 to 95 degrees to you.
And I thought, no, it's been a long time.
I mean I've taken classes like that but as a teacher, you know,
(18:38):
or in that room. So I looked at and somewhat
impulsively decided I'm going to go to a Saturday class.
I'm going to find one that's like the same amount of time as
my yin class and go get there early so I can
not be frazzled when I get there. Have time to set
up, kind of see what it's like for the teacher to have time to
set up. Got there about the same time she did and just
(19:00):
kind of made my way through the line.
They were making people wait outside and I said I can help you
if you want a setup. So I got to go in and kind of
get the feel for that. I've also learned how to use the Bluetooth
sound bar and how to do the lights so that when I
come in I'm not scattered. I'm not saying oh
no, I have to set up lights, there's an alarm, sorry, I've done
(19:21):
that before and I'm not going to edit it out.
I know you can hear it probably and that's telling me to get
ready to leave. But anyway, back to this.
So the dress rehearsal, I'm closer to address rehearsal, right.
Because I've driven there, I've seen how long
it takes to get there. And by actually attending a class that
(19:44):
gave me an idea of how I need to replenish
myself while I'M there because I say I've done hot yoga
before. Three times. First two times, they were probably more
like hour, hour and a half classes. First two times.
The only way I know how to describe it is I feel like I
was hit by a truck. I loved it. While I did it, I thought,
(20:06):
oh, this is so amazing. I'm so invigorated.
This is great. Oh, this is challenging.
You feel so empowered. Walked out the door, feeling on this
high, which a lot of people, that is their experience and that's
what they continue to feel. Not my body.
About an hour later, felt like I was hit by a truck.
Even though I don't really know what that feels like.
My head hurt so bad. And I thought, oh, take a
(20:28):
shower, relax, take a bath. None of that helped.
Tried eating, tried, you know, I had my water, everything.
Nothing helped. Went to bed that night, you know, just this horrible
headache, feeling so awful. Almost nauseated.
And woke up the next morning, felt better.
Second time I did hot yoga. Wasn't as long of
(20:50):
a class, probably. I brought my water, drank water throughout
the class, had plenty, plenty, plenty of.
Didn't step out like other people did, probably should have.
And then I ran some errands afterwards, felt, oh, I'm fine, get
home. Same exact feeling from a couple years
ago. And I only went to that second class because a friend
(21:10):
of mine was teaching it. And I thought, oh, that'd be fun to
go to class, but. And I thought, okay, what is this?
What's going on? It wasn't like I was going to go to hot yoga
all the time, but what is going on? Doesn't happen for everyone,
but it was happening for me. So did a little googling.
Early signs of heat exhaustion. Happens to some people with
hot yoga. What do you do electrolytes eat right after?
(21:33):
Eat something substantial, protein. Don't just drink water.
Have electrolytes too. You're not. You're losing more than just
water and sweat, all these kinds of things.
So, third time. Why did I do a third time?
He says, on a trip. A friend said, a cousin, actually, would
you take this with me? She'd been taking hot yoga and it was
a thing where you had to do it every day for 30 days.
(21:53):
So I went with her, but I had more information.
And I ate right afterwards, immediately after, had electrolytes,
felt completely fine. So I thought, you really should test this
in yourself now, because I'm probably, I would say, at
least 10 years older than the last time I did hot yoga.
And I know I'm supposed To be sharing what I know and you know,
(22:15):
hot yoga. But I'm sharing the yoga I know in a hotter
room. So I went to both classes that were
like my classes and the first one I brought my cork
mat because cork is. I've got a lot of cork stuff
in here, but if I lift this up, everything will fall.
But cork is. Gets super grippy when
(22:35):
it's wet, even just slightly, like when you're almost starting
to sweat, it becomes super grippy. And I bought a cork
mat years ago, which is another long story.
And I found if I went to a regular yoga class where it
wasn't, you weren't quite warmed up yet.
I actually took a paper towel from the bathroom, got water on
it and put wet spots where my hands were so my hands wouldn't
(22:56):
slip in. Down dog. Because it's not sticky on its own.
But once I got warmed up, it was just all perfect.
But it's super heavy. It's kind of a pain to bring anywhere
and I liked using it. But most places I've done yoga isn't that
warm. So I haven't used it in years.
But I thought bring it to this yen class because you will
probably need it. Well, we never got that, that sweaty and,
(23:21):
and it was super heavy to carry in from the parking lot.
And I'm all about comfort, so I thought I'm.
So that was my first thing I'm, I'm learning as I go.
I'm there. I can handle the heat. I drank my drink during.
I really prepped. I made a protein smoothie with
all kinds of stuff in it for after drink that.
And I didn't feel sick, headache at all afterwards.
(23:44):
So that was the first stress rehearsal.
Right. I thought that I'd learned you actually don't need that
cork super heavy mat. Just bring a regular mat and a towel.
That's what everybody else had. But I'm very sensitive to discomfort.
So if that had been an issue, I would have lugged it around.
I wouldn't have, you know, just thought everybody else is using
that. I have to do what feels right for me.
But then I thought really, you should try the 45
(24:06):
minute flow class because that's what you're going to teach.
It's going to be more, more sweaty, it's going to
be hotter in temperature and you're going to do things that
you might need that grip. But I thought, no, I'll be fine with
the towel. I have the yoga towel with a little grippy spine.
Took that class. Also brought the veggie smoothie.
So my prep, my preparation for this has been
(24:29):
exhaustive. But I want to go in today,
which I need to leave in a few minutes.
I want to go in as prepared as I can be.
Because I know when I teach a class, when I
do something where I am, you know, performing, not really performing,
but I, you know, if you think of it as a stage, I am the
one up there talking. I am the one that needs to do this.
(24:52):
But if I have a lot of things distracting my brain, like
the music's not quite right or I don't like the lights, how
do you work that out? All those scattered things that I can't
quite wrap my head around or my hands are slipping, I
am not going to be able to be present and be able to
(25:13):
do what I need to do. And you can adopt this or adopt
this to anything that you do in your life with your
children, with your family. Something that you need to
do. If you ever feel really scattered and you
think that was kind of a mess. I couldn't even be
in my right mindset. All of these things.
(25:35):
Even though it might feel exhaustive, it's actually kind of fun
because if you like to hyper focus when you're.
When you don't have to do it, when you're not on stage yet, the
pressure's not there. So it's kind of fun to go through the motions.
And when I went to that second class that was 10 degrees hotter,
that was sweatier. I was completely missing my cork mat.
(25:56):
I was starting to slip toward the end on my towel, and
I thought, this is a grippy, kind of expensive, nice towel.
The manduka towel, it's not working for me.
I moved it away and thought, maybe my mat's okay.
It's not super sweaty. Maybe we're fine.
Nope. Any kind of little slip for me makes it so
I'm not as happy as I'm doing yoga. And for me, it's all
about relaxing, being happy when I'm in the class, or it's
(26:19):
not letting those things distract me as I'm teaching.
So I learned as I went, I also learned how long does
it take me to get there? What are the parking possibilities?
I might have to go out farther away when I get there,
while I need to go to the bathroom. All of these things because
I did dress rehearsals. Hopefully I have a more
(26:40):
successful experience today. In fact, I should probably.
The lighting will be different. I should probably stop this and
come back and let you know. Let you know.
I'll probably be Exhausted. But I do have all my drinks and everything
prepared. I'm lugging in like a million weight,
you know, pounds of stuff on both sides.
But back to just relating it to you a little
(27:00):
bit. So if you have children, if you have doctor's
appointments, if you have things that are new experiences that
you need to arrive for in some sort of
calmness, all I can think of, lack of pandemonium, because
sometimes that's how you feel. The connection I made yesterday
(27:22):
as I was thinking, I'm so glad that I've gone through
these trial runs, that I didn't just wing it today,
that I've given myself so much information that I can do
better today. I'm so glad I did that.
I remembered that when my kids were little, I decided
that. And I did it before my oldest daughter was in kindergarten.
(27:44):
So I have six kids. I decided that. And maybe it's part
of the curiosity, I don't know if you're extra curious that before
her first day of kindergarten, I wanted to go see where her
room was, walk around. They used to have the kindergartners at
the middle school in this different part of campus with its own
little playground. And so I took her up there so
(28:05):
she was comfortable with it. We saw where the playground was,
we walked around. Things weren't as lopped up as they are now.
And we kind of got a trial run. We got to see what
it was like. And from there I started thinking, you know,
what the day before school starts? You know, I don't
really know with my kids, my babies and stuff.
I mean, I had like. When my fifth child, my
(28:29):
second youngest was born, she was born two
weeks after school, started at a brand new school.
So I had four other kids. The youngest at the time that wasn't
the baby was in kindergarten. And thankfully I'd been doing this
tradition that the day before school, we had kind of a
day before school celebration. We set out clothes that we were
(28:50):
gonna wear. They didn't need to be our brand new clothes for
school, but we set out the clothes the night before.
That's also a prep thing. If you do that, you know, you
set out your clothes, you set out your water bottle, your things,
you're doing that so it's not as hard the next day.
So we set those things out the next morning.
We said, okay, we're going to get up this time because this was
the anticipation. We didn't have Google Maps to let us know.
(29:12):
In my mind, we need to eat breakfast by this time.
We need to have Your lunches packed.
We need to do all that. Get in the car, drive to the school,
not quite as crowded the day before.
You know, take a. Park the car and walk the kids in.
But we walked and we found each teacher's classroom.
And this is where your classroom is.
This is where your teacher is. A lot of times the teacher is
already in there setting up for the next day.
(29:35):
My child would get to meet their new teacher, see where the playground
is. Maybe we play a little bit, go back home next day, first
day of school. Not all that fear or anxiousness or.
I mean, yeah, I was always excited the first day of school, but
knowing how it would be was helpful.
And what was so funny is when we went to that new school, when
(29:57):
my youngest daughter was born, you know, it was.
So here I am, fully pregnant. Go in with these four kids.
We do this the day before school starts.
And it was a Monday, so school started on Tuesday.
And we didn't know any of those teachers, and it was a small
school, so they all saw us walking around, you know, like, oh,
here's your classroom. And a few of them came out and
said, oh, I'm so sorry. School doesn't start till tomorrow.
(30:19):
Like, you came a day early. I'm so sorry.
You got all your kids up and dressed and everything.
And I said, actually, we know we're just doing this
because we want to make sure tomorrow goes well.
But that was a survival skill that I developed in
my brain. Maybe you've done things like that, too.
If you see little things that you've done, pat yourself on the
back for a job well done. And if you ever
(30:42):
have a new experience and you think, I should see what that's
like, I should drive there today. And you think, no, I don't
need to. I can just do it tomorrow. Go with your first thought
on that. Help yourself out. Help yourself out.
But I really do need to go. I'm going to just pause this, come
back and let you know how it went.
Bye. Hello again. This is a podcast.
First my podcast. I get to make the
(31:06):
rules, right? Doesn't Taylor Swift have a song like that?
Anyway, she doesn't say that. But I'm back, and I have to
tell you, with all the things that could
happen in a new situation, I really felt the benefits
of being there before doing the trial run.
(31:27):
Even just knowing where I'm driving is so important.
Knowing what a parking lot is like. And one of the
reasons is with adhd, processing a lot of
information at the time can be overwhelming.
Trying to make decisions. If you, if your brain gets maxed out,
then
(31:48):
it's harder to do what you need to do.
And if you can think of anything in
your life that doesn't go very smoothly, new situations, whether
it's something you need to do at home, other people will see
it and
you need to be prepared for it.
(32:10):
Spending as much time as you can in the prep time, even though
it might seem
not as necessary. It's kind of a nice thing because
whenever you do that trial run, whenever you do the
dress rehearsal or whatever, no one's there watching.
Your brain can sort through it. There's no time limit.
(32:33):
There might be, you might have to go somewhere later, but it's
not the same. It's not the same. It's not the same pressure.
So practicing before you perform, practicing, doing something,
doing a trial run through it reduces stress that you could
get. It helps you with new situations, it puts your
mind at ease, and it gives you a much better chance of success.
(32:57):
So I'm just going to give you a few reasons why it can
be helpful related to adhd. One is that we
do, maybe not everyone. I know symptoms can be
different for everyone, but many of us struggle with time
blindness, not really being able to see how long something
takes, or as we're going through the actual motions of
(33:22):
going the next day, we don't realize, like just deciding to
change your earrings last minute can make you 10 minutes
late. So some of those things, if you think you might want to
change your earrings, set that out the night before, put
on some earrings that you can sleep in and have that not be one
of the things, not one of the steps that you have to do.
And yeah, your brain has to sort out
(33:46):
all of these unknown things. I mentioned in another podcast about
how just going into a restaurant that you order at
the counter, you've never been there before, you look up above
and you can't make sense of the menu and you're
with somebody and they're saying, what do you want to get?
Or the person in front of you or whatever.
And it's a lot to process. So even that seeing online
(34:10):
what the menu is can be helpful. It's not always the same
in person, sometimes things are different, but it does give you
an advantage. So anything that you can do to give
yourself vantage will help, will help.
It gives you a better sense of the timing that it needs.
It helps you have less mental stuff going on.
(34:32):
Mental, mental clutter, all the thoughts or whatever.
It helps you keep your eye on what you
need to Do. Because if you're thinking, oh, wait, I need this,
oh, wait, I would need that. You might forget something.
And even today I had. I have a backup iPhone
for music in case the other one's not working and which it
(34:54):
hasn't been for a while now. It is again, but I had to charge
up the backup iPhone because I used it yesterday and forgot to
charge it last night. And so this morning I thought, okay, charge
it, but it's not right by the door as I
leave. So I made a post it note with my Sharpie because
that's my method. If I can see it in a Sharpie, just single post
(35:15):
it note that said bring backup phone.
Had it there with everything else on the table as I'm about
to leave, then I don't have to have that on my
mind because chances are it won't be there.
But it's just gonna help you.
It. It will help you not be stressed in these situations.
It'll help you make the decisions that you do have to make
(35:39):
easier because you don't have so many other things going on.
And. And you can definitely come in with more confidence to whatever
situation that you have to go through.
And if you get grouchy, you'll have a better chance
of not being grouchy. Yeah. The whole thing that I
mentioned about, you know, you get to the doctor's office, you
(35:59):
didn't know where to park, you don't know which part of the building
to walk in, the whole thing, where's the room
once you get into the building, all those things.
I've had it that when I get up to the counter to the person
talking to me, them just asking me my date of birth
is confusing. It's confusing. And I try to
(36:20):
be kind. I think I am, but I'm sure I sound kind
of irritated because I want to say, do you realize I
can't just do this? I just had to deal with the imperfect situation
you guys have out there with marking.
What you're asking of me is not simple and, well, partially.
She was doing that while she was having me fill out a piece of
paper. And I'm thinking, I can't do this and do that at the
(36:43):
same time. Yeah, we have to defend our.
Our abilities and non. Non abilities.
So anyway, yeah, preloading. I don't know why they call
it preloading. I actually didn't look that up.
But it's a strategy to help you help make
those pathways in your brain, help you have a calmer experience.
(37:07):
And if you thought of anything that you can do in your
life, even if it's just something small, when you have a little
downtime, when you have a little bit of energy, does that happen?
I would imagine so. Take time to prepare for
the next day or something that's a week away or whatever it is.
Because I find if I go on a trip, if I've been there
(37:27):
before, if I know the roads, so much easier if I'm
trying to figure it out as I go and other people are depending
on me and they're not happy that I have no
idea what's going on. Not that they should put that pressure
on me, but you know what I mean. I feel the pressure.
I feel the pressure. So, yeah, give yourself every advantage
you can. Thank you so much for being here
(37:49):
on my podcast, inspiring women with adhd.
My idea is not so much that I'm inspiring you,
hopefully I am that I'm inspiring you, that you can do
the things you need to do in life and that life can go a little
better, but that you're inspiring to me.
Just knowing that I'm not the only one and knowing that we are
(38:12):
fantastic people, we really are. Is helpful to me
in my life. But thank you so much for being here.
I will be back. I don't really have any.
Make sure you do this. I need to take a shower.
I am. Oh, the hot yoga was really fun.
So sweaty. The first class, that was the 95 degree class.
(38:33):
I pushed it. I pushed it. I made it a very physical
yoga practice. And I thought that's what we're
here for, right? Second class, 70, 75 degrees.
So relaxing, so calming. And now I just feel like,
what am I going to do? Because I have a two more classes.
They're not hot, but I need to have the energy for them.
(38:54):
So I'm going to go reset but so much.
I will be back. Bye.
I butter my toast spread on some grape
jelly I don't need to fast But
(39:15):
I'm a chef and a good one My grandma
can't hear me we hear that breakfast is done
getting col
so I run
open windows broken shadow
(39:40):
Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow
Time for a
(40:06):
rewind like run out of time to sing
melodies and harmonies I'm cut short
the silence of sound has yet been found but
not by me.
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