February 15, 2024 • 37 mins
Does religious Practice need to look different neurodivergents?
In this groundbreaking episode, Coach Bruce Alexander embarks on a deeply personal journey, exploring the intersection of neurodiversity and faith. Titled "My Neurodivergent Struggle with God," Bruce delves into the complexities of maintaining religious practice as an adult diagnosed with ADHD and autism.
He shares his lifelong battle with self-doubt, the challenge of reconciling impulsive and consistent aspects of faith, and how neurodivergent individuals can redefine their spiritual path.
**Key Takeaways:**
- **Neurodiversity and Faith**: Understanding how ADHD and autism impact religious practice and belief.
- **Personal Growth**: Embracing self-awareness and authenticity in one's spiritual journey.
- **Adapting Religious Practice**: Tailoring spiritual habits to accommodate neurodivergent needs.
**Resources:**
- **Free Assessment Tool**:
- Visit ADHD burnout/aimless life assessment quiz for personalized guidance on navigating neurodiversity and control.
- **Support Groups**:
- Engage with communities that focus on neurodiversity and spirituality.
**Learn More About Coach Bruce:**
Bruce Alexander is not only the voice behind Authentic On Air but also a dedicated ADHD life coach. His mission is to guide individuals through their struggles with neurodiversity, offering tools and strategies for embracing their authentic selves and leading a life filled with passion and purpose.
00:00 Introduction to Season 2
03:13 My Neurodivergent Struggle with God
04:12 Religious Practice for Neurodivergent People
08:07 The Impact of ADHD and Autism on Religious Practice
16:00 Setting a Different Standard for Neurodivergent People
23:30 The Importance of a Foundation and Personal Goals
25:06 Does Religious Practice Need to Look Different for Neurodivergence?
30:44 Redefining Success and Making Choices
37:24 Taking Action and Saying Yes to Growth
38:07 Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Let's talk about it today on Authentic OnAir, season two, episode one, My
Neurodivergent Struggle with God.
Welcome back to Authentic On Air.
This is season two and it's gonna lookdifferent.
For my followers out there who've beenlistening for a while, bear with me.
It's gonna take me a minute to find mybearings, but I think you're gonna enjoy
(00:23):
the new and improved Authentic On Air.
This season is gonna be all about the...
the new tagline is where neurodiversityand authenticity meet.
I spent a season exploring the broad,broad world of authenticity and what it's
like to show up as yourself.
And now I want to narrow in as a ADHD andautistic adult male parent.
(00:47):
I think that it is really interesting todig deeper into that intersection between
authenticity and neurodiversity.
And I think there's a lot of growth to behad there.
And I think there's a lot of explorationto be done.
So I'm really excited for this newdirection.
Today, I decided to just dive right intothe deep end and get really deep to start
off.
I want to set a really raw bar that isgoing to show that in this show, we are
(01:12):
going to be getting absolutely the realestof real.
And it's going to start with me.
I've never really held back on this showand been afraid to share, but I don't feel
like I've given as much as I could to toreally help those out there who might be
struggling.
was showing up as their selves.
And I think that this first topic thatwe're going on to, my neurodiversion
(01:36):
struggle with God is one that might reallyring true with a lot of people.
So that being said, welcome to season two.
If you have ADHD like I do, if you haveautism, like I've recently figured out I
do as well, you may have often askedyourself if you are worthy of God's love.
I struggled with this for...
(01:58):
I don't my entire life basically, becausemy brain is a liar.
It likes to tell me how terrible I am, howmuch and often I will fail, and how
undeserving I am of anything good for mylife.
It doesn't as much now that I've done alot of work in kind of understanding how
(02:19):
my brain works, but back whenever Iinitially started my religious
interactions, I felt a lot of that.
I think it's really interesting becausereligion asks for the ultimate impulsivity
followed by ultimate consistency.
You were asked to step out on faith andbelieve in something that you can't see
(02:42):
and you can't prove.
That's an impulsive decision, right?
And then you're asked to show up andperform as a Christian.
I'm going to speak mostly from theChristian perspective because that's what
I've explored and that's what I am.
So.
But as a Christian, you were asked to.
(03:02):
perform consistent acts to be a prayerfulperson to, I don't know, control your
emotions and treat people as you want tobe treated and do lots of things that kind
of sounds to me like being a neurotypical.
So the question I decided to ask is, doesreligious practice need to look different
for neurodivergence?
(03:23):
So we're going to start with a story.
As we'll call this from here on out, storytime.
I really dug into,
my life as a Christian, as a teenager,back somewhere around late 1990s, early
2000s.
(03:44):
And what I found myself is that I think Ihyper -focused on religion.
I didn't know I was ADHD.
Autism wasn't even something that was onmy radar.
I really had no idea about these things,but I went so deep.
into what it meant to be a Christian thatI was all in.
(04:07):
And that sounds like a good thing.
But whenever you're ADHD and you hyper-focus and you don't know that that's
something you're doing, it can get reallyout of hand.
So as I was immersing myself in thisculture, I was also a prisoner to the
rules that I was learning about with ASD.
(04:27):
I had no idea about this, but I...
read these rules and these the dogma ofChristianity and I thought that there was
no margin for error.
If I was not exact and performing acrossthe board the way that the Bible states
(04:49):
that you are supposed to perform I feltcrushing defeat.
I would in the negative dialogue that Inow know exists in
the ADHD brain whenever it goes uncheckedwould just go crazy talking.
I don't know, just telling me that I'm afailure.
(05:11):
I'm a monster.
I don't deserve God's love.
I am not worthy.
And I would go to church on Sundays and Iwould float between being moved by the
message because you know, it's a goodmessage.
I went to a missionary Baptist church andthe
pastor was moving.
(05:31):
At the same time, I'm having rampantsexual thoughts and objectifying every
woman on two legs, even in the wheelchairsbecause I was, you know, 14 to 16 years
old and everything that moved brought outsexuality in me, which is something that
is, I now know, tends to be a thing withADHD men.
(05:52):
Then on top of that, I felt deep, deepshame and guilt and that
autistic strict adherence to rules as I'mobjectifying the women I was just
destroying myself internally for beingsuch a pervert and That fear that I had
that shame to share that with anybody mademe feel like I was absolutely alone in
(06:13):
this world and that it was not okay tohave sexual thoughts ever because that's
not what that's not what you did you Youwere if you were a good little Christian
boy
your mind stay focused on God and tryingto do good acts and trying to be a better
person, not on trying to have sex witheverything that moves, even though you
don't even actually have sex, but I justhad these, it was another hyper fixation
(06:37):
and one that I didn't have anybody to talkto about.
So, you know what they say about things inthe dark, that's where mold grows.
That's where, you know, all the bad thingshappen and multiply.
That's what happened with me is these deepdark thoughts got.
more and more out of control for years,for many years.
Even after I left church, I still had thisperverted idea of what sexuality was
(07:04):
supposed to be.
And my ADHD liar mind just increased theseverity as those internal conversations
were just telling me that I was adisgusting freak, I was a pervert, God
hates me for being sick and perverse.
And...
And if I ever tell anyone how gross I am,I'll be kicked out of the church and I'll
(07:25):
have no friends and I'll never be marriedor have anybody with me.
So I kept it a secret and I would brutallypunish myself because I knew that it was
wrong to think these ways.
I now know that it's, it's harder for meto control what I think about than some.
(07:48):
It's not impossible.
but I thought it was normal for everybodyto be able to just turn off bad thoughts
and that I was, there was something wrongwith me.
On top of this, I'm, I know that it'swrong to engage in sex acts with my
girlfriend because I wasn't married.
I wasn't having actual sex when I wasgetting really close.
(08:09):
I knew it was wrong to objectify everywoman who came into my view, but executive
dysfunction is often characterized by thetendency to know what needs to be done and
to do sometimes.
literally anything else.
And that's what I was doing.
But I had no frame of reference to dealwith that.
So I thought I was just fucked up.
I had a scientific or psychological orboth resistance to a spiritual desire.
(08:36):
I wanted, I wanted to give myself to God.
I wanted him to accept me, but my mindknew that there were parts of it.
that it just wasn't going to do withoutbeing able to understand what was blocking
me.
And I, once again, they don't talk aboutthat in the Missionary Baptist Church.
(08:57):
There's no conversations about how youcontrol your rampant sexual thoughts as an
ADHD boy.
There's nothing about that.
They tell you that you need to fire andbrimstone, you're going to hell.
If you don't...
straighten up, toe the line and live alife for Jesus, you're done.
(09:22):
There's nothing that you can do.
And I felt that I felt every bit of that.
I was freaked out.
Being diagnosed years later, you know, atleast five years after this process didn't
really solve anything because they stillweren't teaching how to manage faith and
ADHD in my all black missionary Baptistchurch.
(09:45):
I still can't say for certain whether ornot they would tell me that it's a demon
that I need to exercise out Demon get outand get out of this man.
You were possessed by they wouldn't sayADHD.
They'd say by these negative thoughts andThat's what I had to deal with that's
(10:05):
that's all I had.
That's all I was equipped with and It itmade it very dark and hard for me.
I
So I blamed God.
I was fucked from the start.
I...
I rejected God in full when I went tocollege and I got a little learning on me.
(10:26):
I thought I was too smart at this point tobelieve in something that I couldn't
prove.
Little did I understand that being smartdoesn't preclude faith.
And that's something I struggled with foralmost 20 years after that.
It's a battle that I'm realizing now wasnever me with God.
(10:52):
It was never a war on church.
It was a war on myself.
I told myself I wasn't worthy.
I told myself I wasn't good enough to begiven God's love.
I told myself all these stories that toldme I couldn't be a good enough Christian.
And...
I believed them because they were comingfrom my brain, but I also assigned them to
(11:16):
the outside world because your ADHD brainloves to lie to you.
So I, I was talking to my wife about thistoday.
I assigned all these monstrous acts to thechurch.
I told, you know, for a long time, I wasvery bitter against religion because they
(11:37):
made me feel so guilty about.
how I felt in my mind and realizing nowthat there was definitely some fire and
brimstone thrown around, but I nevershared what was going on inside of me with
anybody.
So how could they persecute me?
How could they make me feel like a monsterwhenever they did nothing but share the
(11:59):
word of God with me?
How did I get from sitting in a sermon,listening to the pastor,
to being persecuted by the church andsaying that I will never do this again.
It's simple.
I believe the lies that my brain told meand I had no foundation or standard to
(12:23):
fall back on.
I had no, I had no compass of moralityafter to move forward with.
And I had no foundation before and for along time after to fall back on and having
a foundation of solid.
(12:43):
factual evidence as to what's important tome has made all the difference in being
able to.
Sometimes step out.
I mean to step out on faith for sure toallow myself to get familiar with God
again to allow myself to be loved by Godand to practice faithfulness, it's wild
(13:06):
because The church hasn't changed like I'mnot a big churchgoer But the Bible hasn't
changed religion hasn't changed, but Ihave this brand new view on it because I
understand
something about my brain now, that the warthat I thought was waged between me and
the church was always waged in my mind.
(13:29):
And the hate that I, that brewed in me forChristianity was actually hate for myself
because I was the one putting thesestories on me.
pretty hard to deal with.
But as I've...
(13:49):
It was, I mean, there was also thatstandard of perfection that ADHD kind of
guaranteed that I would fail withoutunderstanding what was wrong with me.
You know, you're supposed to show up withconsistency, constancy and normalcy.
And none of those things are kind of inthe ADHD playbook.
They are learnable.
(14:10):
They are skills that you were able toacquire if you were, you know, self -aware
and cognizant of the problem and you havethe will.
to make action on it, I think I've gottenmuch better at constancy, at much better
consistency, much better at normalcy, andshowing up in a consistent way in my
(14:31):
religious practice.
But I had none of those things back then,and I just thought I was broken.
So earlier I asked, does religiouspractice need to look different for
neurodivergence?
I would say yes.
I would say yes.
And this is something that I talked aboutearlier this week on my live stream is
(14:51):
that I think that the neurotypicalstandard needs to be thrown completely out
the window whenever it comes to ADHD andautistic people.
But that doesn't mean that all standardsneed to be thrown out the window.
You have to adopt a standard for yourself.
figure out what is actually reasonable,what is actually feasible for you and
(15:14):
start taking action on it and stop makingexcuses that you can't do any of it.
And I know that the ADHD mindset of all ornothing is it's really, really, I don't
know, it's really attractive to us.
Like either I'm all in on this or I donone of this.
(15:34):
And that's helpful sometimes whenever youare.
trying to, I don't know, add a new skillor cut out some like a bad habit.
But it's really hard to maintain wheneverit comes to living a sustainable life.
I find that you have to take time out ofyour day to make goals that are based off
(15:55):
of reason, logic, and what's important toyou versus how you feel in the moment or
how you think you'll feel or what youthink you can do or the stories you tell
yourself.
At some point,
You have to abandon all the stories youtell yourself and start to give yourself a
chance to write a whole new book.
(16:17):
I can't do this.
I can't do this.
I'm not built like that.
My brain won't let me do this.
All those are stories that you toldyourself.
They're self -limiting beliefs that youhave accepted for who knows how long.
I am a living example of this.
I had all these things that I just knew Icouldn't do.
My brain wasn't designed that way.
(16:39):
Well, no, it wasn't designed that way.
So there is a bit of a barrier to entry.
There might be somewhat of an obstacle.
It might be harder for me to achieve thatskill, but it's not impossible.
I'm not going to say that nothing'simpossible, but most things are achievable
to some degree.
If you decide it's important to you andyou try to make some progress to it on a
(17:04):
consistent basis, what consistent lookslike to you as a neurodivergent is going
to be very different as to what it lookslike to a neurotypical person and who
gives a shit like.
What's important to you is important toyou and that's important enough.
We have to stop trying to measureourselves up to the neurotypical norm or
(17:28):
the status quo or whatever the norms ofour society are and do better because it's
what we want.
Move towards something it's because it'swhat we want to move towards.
And going back to
Having a foundation, it's so importantthat this is a foundation based on what's
(17:52):
important to you at your core.
This often doesn't work for people.
ADHD people really believe that they'renot able to do these things because they
don't fucking want to.
It's something that they've been told thatthey need to do and they don't have any
basis for framing that in a way that says,this is something that I want to do to...
(18:15):
provide X, Y, or Z for me.
It has to be tied to something that'sactually freaking important to you.
Because that's what it takes for movementfor us.
That's what it takes to overcome that hugestarting obstacle, to overcome that
executive dysfunction gap.
It takes care.
(18:40):
And if you don't care at your core, then,
you are likely going to abandon whatevergoal it is because you don't, it was never
for you.
It was for somebody else or it was becauseyou thought it was somebody else wanted,
or because you thought it would make X, Y,or Z happened that was a secondary
confluence of what, what you were doing.
(19:00):
That's not going to work.
So for me, I made a conscious decisionthat I wanted to understand my
relationship with God better.
That was,
something I made outside of how I felt atthe time.
And I knew that it was something that wasimportant to me.
And here, I want to get closer to God.
(19:22):
It's important for me to have that for myfamily, for my kids.
I want them to see a father who is open tothe relationship with the higher power.
And that wasn't going to happen for mejust like half -assing it and just
thinking of what I want to do.
I had to take action.
I had to make a decision.
I had to stop saying maybe and I had tosay, yes, this is what I'm going to do.
(19:46):
I had to start praying out loud.
I had to, and all of these things, mybrain is telling me, dude, you're stupid.
Why are you doing that?
He's not listening.
They God, whomever God is not listening toyou.
He doesn't care about you.
And that was my, that's that internaldialogue that we have as neurodivergence.
(20:07):
That is not, that's not how it is forneurotypical people.
They are not constantly pushing againstthe naysayer in their own head.
That's something unique to you and it'ssomething that is not going to defeat you
if you don't let it.
But if you have self -awareness and youare able to accept and embrace who you are
(20:29):
and how your brain works, then from thereyou can build on top of that.
I don't try to quiet my brain all thetime.
I accept that it's there and I try to useit as a tool.
Sometimes doubt is good.
A healthy skepticism is often helpful.
It's often something that encourages meand motivates me to have that, you know,
(20:52):
that naysayer saying you can't do it andsaying, ah, yes, I can.
I've done this, this, this, and this thatyou told me I couldn't do.
That's just more fuel for the fire.
This is, I'm gonna just dump that in myfurnace and go harder.
That didn't happen overnight.
It's not like I'm gonna give you these.
keys to success and you're tomorrow you'regoing to wake up and be a completely
(21:13):
different person who can accomplish anytask that comes before them.
And that's that's part of it as well.
Being able to accept that you are fallibleand that you have flaws and that there are
going to be times that you mess up, butit's okay.
Even in this life trying to walk closer toGod, I'm going to make mistakes.
(21:34):
I'm going to say the Lord's name in vainbecause I was like, I must, I have the
mouth of a sailor.
I'm working on that and it's okay becausemy heart is in the right place.
I know that I want to get closer to Godand I know that I'm going to keep
improving.
I'm not going to let setbacks like thatand then my liar brain dump on me to the
point where I believe that I can't do it.
(21:54):
I'll never succeed.
It has to look different forneurodivergent people for there to be
success.
Your measure of success has to becompletely different than what the neuro
-typical one is.
But if you have the...
The Bible is your guide.
You have a support group of people whobelieve in loving you or a person who
(22:14):
believes in loving you or just yourselfbelieving in yourself.
It's a start.
It's hard by yourself, but it's possible.
I I don't...
Anything's hard by yourself.
I don't want to say that you're going toset out on this mission on your own and
you're going to find peace immediately.
(22:35):
None of it happens immediately.
I think that as neurodivergence, we oftenwant results so stupid fast that we give
up on so many things before it even has achance to take.
I strongly encourage you to whatever yourdream, whatever your goals are, whatever
your dreams are, whatever you've beenputting off that is important to your, to
(22:59):
you at your core, because you can't tryharder, try longer, make.
smaller goals and take smaller steps butkeep moving.
Keep going.
So the new question to me becomes, isn'tit better to look different than like the
(23:20):
abject failure or the total success ofbeing religious and to modify and make
adjustments in your practice so you canmake room for your success?
Because if the goal is to get closer toGod, the goal is to have a relationship.
It has to start somewhere, right?
(23:41):
And if you start the relationshipsomewhere and you continue to grow that
relationship, aren't you getting closer toGod?
Aren't you winning?
Isn't every step a win?
As I move closer to God's embrace, I feelthe winning.
I don't know.
(24:01):
I mean, this is going to be a touchysubject.
I'm sure people are going to talk shit andsay that, you know, it's a scam.
You don't really feel anything.
I feel it.
I feel him moving in my heart.
I feel him ordering my steps.
I feel him calling me closer and giving memy next moves because I've stopped
(24:22):
listening to the little voice back heretelling me that I'm not good enough and
things are opening up for my life that
have never opened up for me before becauseI'm trusting in God and I'm showing faith.
The show isn't gonna be all about God allthe time, but today I thought it was
important.
Because this is what's on my heart, it'swhat I'm going through.
And that's what I wanna talk about onseason two.
(24:42):
I wanna get much deeper into the raw andthe real.
And right now, it is raw and it is real,and I'm digging through some deep hurt,
pain, and trauma that I thought was causedby the church.
Sorry for the false blame, God, because itwas me.
(25:02):
I'm the problem.
It's me.
So.
Yeah, a couple last points to wrap up onthis is I've come to accept that across
the board neurodiversity is just, it'sjust not a valid reason to accept failure.
Like I'm neurodiverse, so I failed.
I have to disagree.
(25:23):
You only fail when you quit.
You don't quit because you'reneurodiverse.
You quit because you, you were weak.
You're, you're unaware of the problem ofyour, of your capacity, of your
capability.
You quit because it's hard.
You quit because your goals are wrong.
Your goals are fucked up.
(25:43):
If your goals don't match what's in yourheart, then you are going to fail a large
majority of the time.
And whenever you do succeed in thosegoals, you're gonna wish you hadn't
because they don't actually do anythingfor you and they actually make you feel
worse when you achieve a goal that isn'taligned with yourself.
So do the work.
(26:04):
Do some research into who you are and whatyou want.
Figure it out.
I don't know.
I'm gonna continue my practice movingforward with grace because I would much
rather make allowances for myself, havegrace for myself than be a fucking quitter
anymore.
It's just, it's not okay with me.
(26:26):
I can't be that kind of father.
I can't be that kind of husband anymore.
It's empty.
It's how I ended up in a life that I wasso disengaged in that I was barely even
alive because I was so...
I was so in love with maybe.
(26:46):
I didn't commit to anything because I letmy feelings make the decisions.
Like, well, I might be in the mood forthat.
I might try to work out.
I might try to pray.
How you feel can't be the decision makeron all things.
(27:06):
What's important to you at your core hasto drive you to want to achieve more.
Despite how you feel at times because ifyou are having the worst day ever are you
in your let's try in Let's talk about thislike if if my ADHD mind is telling me how
(27:28):
unworthy I am and I am letting thosefeelings of Excuse me just the depression
and despair Make my decisions.
I'm gonna pull away from God My goal is toget closer
So when those feelings of depression anddespair start to take over, I pray.
(27:49):
Because I know what is important to me isto grow closer to God.
This, my brain is telling me somethingthat is going to pull me away from God.
It is a fact that these two things cannotexist together.
I have to choose one.
I have to make a choice.
That's not something that's beyond ADHD orASD people.
You can make choices.
(28:11):
choose to do the thing that is going tohelp move you a little closer to your
goal.
Or if nothing else, not to not move youfarther away from your goal.
Make the right choice.
Be committed.
Say yes.
Or I mean, if it's something that'spulling away, say no.
Choose it.
(28:33):
Anyways, the bar I hold myself to willnever again look the same as a
neurotypical bar.
And I believe that God will accept thatbecause I am made in his image after all.
I don't think he made me this way onaccident.
I think he made me this way so I couldtalk to you and I could say, it's okay to
have a different bar.
(28:53):
It's okay to set a different standard.
It's okay to get there how you need to getthere.
Just show up, choose.
to do more and keep moving forward.
Keep getting closer to God if that's yourgoal.
Keep taking action to get the things thatyou want.
I don't know what my time is 30 minutes 30minutes for a podcast is a little short
(29:15):
for me.
I usually like to go about three hours I'mnot gonna be doing that anymore.
I'm gonna try to keep the show between 30minutes in an hour and 15 minutes and I
Think that that's gonna be good I thinkthat season 2 is gonna it's gonna take off
and people are really gonna enjoy thecontent and how we're doing things now
(29:37):
What I want to finish with is if you aregoing through this stuff and you're
wondering if if you could use the help ofa life coach, that's what I do.
I was supposed to say at the beginning,I'm an ADHD life coach and I have found
that that is what I'm called to do.
(29:58):
That is what God is moving me to do andwhat I'm supposed to have a legacy of
impact in with my life.
And I like, I don't, I love it.
I absolutely love it.
I love the process.
I love the people.
I love seeing the transformation ofsomebody who thinks all the same things I
(30:21):
just talked about that they can't, theynever, they will never be able to, they
don't have the capacity.
They've told themselves all the storiesthat we talked about and they believe them
with everything except for enough to reachout and ask for help.
to see them break out of that shell of theprison of impossibility, that prison of
(30:43):
not acceptance, not acceptance, I'm okaywith that.
And to see who they are becoming on theother side is so, like it's addictive.
I absolutely love it.
And I encourage you to go toauthenticidentitymanagement .com forward
slash assessment to see how I might beable to help you.
(31:03):
Take the quiz, see if there is,
a service or resource that I can offer youthat makes sense.
There's free resources, there's paidresources, there's consultations, there's
all kinds of things that this quiz willtell you will be, it'll tell you exactly
what your next step should be.
If you are an ADHD parent who isstruggling to engage with passion and
(31:28):
purpose in your life, it'll give you yourexact next steps.
I want you to understand that it does nothave to hurt this much.
It does not have to feel so hard everyday.
And I just, all I want to do is helppeople get through that pain that they've
been feeling for so long because ADHDfeels like it owns their whole life.
(31:51):
It can, it owned mine.
And I was a total victim to every ADHDconsequence.
I f -
Felt like I had zero control of my life.
Life just fucking happened to me.
And it just, like I was, everything waseverybody else's fault.
Everything happened to me.
Like I said earlier, it was God who oustedme and told me that I wasn't good enough.
(32:17):
None of that is true.
I am the one who was in my own way theentire time.
And you are too.
As soon as you can accept that, that'swhere the path forward is.
You have to be able to accept that you arethe problem, but it's fixable.
You deserve better.
Your family deserves better.
(32:39):
The lowered capacity for conversation,interaction, and engagement because you're
so full of overwhelm because of your ADHDsymptom is not good enough.
It's not.
Being married to that person is awful.
(33:00):
Being that person, I can tell you, I lookback and I'm so embarrassed of who I was.
I'm so embarrassed at how little weight Icarried in my household, at how little
responsibility I took for myrelationships, for my responsibilities,
for my job, for my growth, my education.
I didn't take any responsibility foranything.
(33:21):
I allowed myself to be swept along fromplace to place by emotion, fear, doubt,
regret, like whatever.
And then I end up in something and I getsucked into the next thing and that's
like, here I go.
It doesn't have to be that way, but youhave to make one tiny decision and say yes
(33:41):
to something.
It doesn't have to be me, but you have tosay, if you're, if you are in the place I
was, you can say yes to a book.
You can say yes to a YouTube video.
You can say yes to something that'sstarting to take control of what your
future looks like.
And I'm offering you a chance to say yesto an assessment, a free assessment tool
(34:04):
that is going to help you then say yes toanother tool that is going to help you
then say yes to start improving your life.
I can tell you it will make a differencefor you if you are an ADHD parent 100%.
I guarantee it.
Money back guarantee.
If it's a free resource, well, sorry, nomoney for you.
If you were to ever engage in a coachingrelationship with me and you feel like
(34:27):
you, you are not able to engage in yourlife with more passion, more purpose after
any of our sessions, I will refund yourmoney.
I am this serious about it and I have seenthe results work that well that I know I
can help make a difference in people'slives.
You just have, you have to say yes.
(34:49):
You have to stop living in the land ofmaybe, and you have to learn yes or no.
Say yes to growth.
Say yes to possibility.
Say yes to a new life.
Or say no to the depression.
No to the lack of control.
No to the emotional outburst and theembarrassing behavior.
(35:10):
Say no to the late all the time.
Say no to the not, nobody being able todepend on you.
Say no to the.
relationships that have fallen apart, sayno to the depression, say no to the brain
who tells you that you're worthless, sayno.
Stop saying maybe.
You have to stop saying maybe and takeaction.
(35:33):
That's it.
Take the assessment, go to authenticidentity management, forward slash
assessment, take the assessment and startyourself on a road to acceptance.
You don't have to live like this anymore.
That is it for today's episode.
Sorry if I got a little intense therebecause this is some real stuff to me.
(35:53):
Like it matters.
It matters.
And you matter.
Thank you so much for listening toAuthentic One Air with Bruce Alexander.
This has been episode one of season two,my struggle against God as a
neurodivergent.
(36:14):
I'll be back next week with anotherepisode.
Be yourself, love yourself, and have agreat week.
Peace.
Go take the assessment.
Let's talk about it today on Authentic OnAir, season two, episode one, My
Neurodivergent Struggle with God.
Welcome back to Authentic On Air.
This is season two and it's gonna lookdifferent.
For my followers out there who've beenlistening for a while, bear with me.
It's gonna take me a minute to find mybearings, but I think you're gonna enjoy
(00:23):
the new and improved Authentic On Air.
This season is gonna be all about the...
the new tagline is where neurodiversityand authenticity meet.
I spent a season exploring the broad,broad world of authenticity and what it's
like to show up as yourself.
And now I want to narrow in as a ADHD andautistic adult male parent.
(00:47):
I think that it is really interesting todig deeper into that intersection between
authenticity and neurodiversity.
And I think there's a lot of growth to behad there.
And I think there's a lot of explorationto be done.
So I'm really excited for this newdirection.
Today, I decided to just dive right intothe deep end and get really deep to start
off.
I want to set a really raw bar that isgoing to show that in this show, we are
(01:12):
going to be getting absolutely the realestof real.
And it's going to start with me.
I've never really held back on this showand been afraid to share, but I don't feel
like I've given as much as I could to toreally help those out there who might be
struggling.
was showing up as their selves.
And I think that this first topic thatwe're going on to, my neurodiversion
(01:36):
struggle with God is one that might reallyring true with a lot of people.
So that being said, welcome to season two.
If you have ADHD like I do, if you haveautism, like I've recently figured out I
do as well, you may have often askedyourself if you are worthy of God's love.
I struggled with this for...
(01:58):
I don't my entire life basically, becausemy brain is a liar.
It likes to tell me how terrible I am, howmuch and often I will fail, and how
undeserving I am of anything good for mylife.
It doesn't as much now that I've done alot of work in kind of understanding how
(02:19):
my brain works, but back whenever Iinitially started my religious
interactions, I felt a lot of that.
I think it's really interesting becausereligion asks for the ultimate impulsivity
followed by ultimate consistency.
You were asked to step out on faith andbelieve in something that you can't see
(02:42):
and you can't prove.
That's an impulsive decision, right?
And then you're asked to show up andperform as a Christian.
I'm going to speak mostly from theChristian perspective because that's what
I've explored and that's what I am.
So.
But as a Christian, you were asked to.
(03:02):
perform consistent acts to be a prayerfulperson to, I don't know, control your
emotions and treat people as you want tobe treated and do lots of things that kind
of sounds to me like being a neurotypical.
So the question I decided to ask is, doesreligious practice need to look different
for neurodivergence?
(03:23):
So we're going to start with a story.
As we'll call this from here on out, storytime.
I really dug into,
my life as a Christian, as a teenager,back somewhere around late 1990s, early
2000s.
(03:44):
And what I found myself is that I think Ihyper -focused on religion.
I didn't know I was ADHD.
Autism wasn't even something that was onmy radar.
I really had no idea about these things,but I went so deep.
into what it meant to be a Christian thatI was all in.
(04:07):
And that sounds like a good thing.
But whenever you're ADHD and you hyper-focus and you don't know that that's
something you're doing, it can get reallyout of hand.
So as I was immersing myself in thisculture, I was also a prisoner to the
rules that I was learning about with ASD.
(04:27):
I had no idea about this, but I...
read these rules and these the dogma ofChristianity and I thought that there was
no margin for error.
If I was not exact and performing acrossthe board the way that the Bible states
(04:49):
that you are supposed to perform I feltcrushing defeat.
I would in the negative dialogue that Inow know exists in
the ADHD brain whenever it goes uncheckedwould just go crazy talking.
I don't know, just telling me that I'm afailure.
(05:11):
I'm a monster.
I don't deserve God's love.
I am not worthy.
And I would go to church on Sundays and Iwould float between being moved by the
message because you know, it's a goodmessage.
I went to a missionary Baptist church andthe
pastor was moving.
(05:31):
At the same time, I'm having rampantsexual thoughts and objectifying every
woman on two legs, even in the wheelchairsbecause I was, you know, 14 to 16 years
old and everything that moved brought outsexuality in me, which is something that
is, I now know, tends to be a thing withADHD men.
(05:52):
Then on top of that, I felt deep, deepshame and guilt and that
autistic strict adherence to rules as I'mobjectifying the women I was just
destroying myself internally for beingsuch a pervert and That fear that I had
that shame to share that with anybody mademe feel like I was absolutely alone in
(06:13):
this world and that it was not okay tohave sexual thoughts ever because that's
not what that's not what you did you Youwere if you were a good little Christian
boy
your mind stay focused on God and tryingto do good acts and trying to be a better
person, not on trying to have sex witheverything that moves, even though you
don't even actually have sex, but I justhad these, it was another hyper fixation
(06:37):
and one that I didn't have anybody to talkto about.
So, you know what they say about things inthe dark, that's where mold grows.
That's where, you know, all the bad thingshappen and multiply.
That's what happened with me is these deepdark thoughts got.
more and more out of control for years,for many years.
Even after I left church, I still had thisperverted idea of what sexuality was
(07:04):
supposed to be.
And my ADHD liar mind just increased theseverity as those internal conversations
were just telling me that I was adisgusting freak, I was a pervert, God
hates me for being sick and perverse.
And...
And if I ever tell anyone how gross I am,I'll be kicked out of the church and I'll
(07:25):
have no friends and I'll never be marriedor have anybody with me.
So I kept it a secret and I would brutallypunish myself because I knew that it was
wrong to think these ways.
I now know that it's, it's harder for meto control what I think about than some.
(07:48):
It's not impossible.
but I thought it was normal for everybodyto be able to just turn off bad thoughts
and that I was, there was something wrongwith me.
On top of this, I'm, I know that it'swrong to engage in sex acts with my
girlfriend because I wasn't married.
I wasn't having actual sex when I wasgetting really close.
(08:09):
I knew it was wrong to objectify everywoman who came into my view, but executive
dysfunction is often characterized by thetendency to know what needs to be done and
to do sometimes.
literally anything else.
And that's what I was doing.
But I had no frame of reference to dealwith that.
So I thought I was just fucked up.
I had a scientific or psychological orboth resistance to a spiritual desire.
(08:36):
I wanted, I wanted to give myself to God.
I wanted him to accept me, but my mindknew that there were parts of it.
that it just wasn't going to do withoutbeing able to understand what was blocking
me.
And I, once again, they don't talk aboutthat in the Missionary Baptist Church.
(08:57):
There's no conversations about how youcontrol your rampant sexual thoughts as an
ADHD boy.
There's nothing about that.
They tell you that you need to fire andbrimstone, you're going to hell.
If you don't...
straighten up, toe the line and live alife for Jesus, you're done.
(09:22):
There's nothing that you can do.
And I felt that I felt every bit of that.
I was freaked out.
Being diagnosed years later, you know, atleast five years after this process didn't
really solve anything because they stillweren't teaching how to manage faith and
ADHD in my all black missionary Baptistchurch.
(09:45):
I still can't say for certain whether ornot they would tell me that it's a demon
that I need to exercise out Demon get outand get out of this man.
You were possessed by they wouldn't sayADHD.
They'd say by these negative thoughts andThat's what I had to deal with that's
(10:05):
that's all I had.
That's all I was equipped with and It itmade it very dark and hard for me.
I
So I blamed God.
I was fucked from the start.
I...
I rejected God in full when I went tocollege and I got a little learning on me.
(10:26):
I thought I was too smart at this point tobelieve in something that I couldn't
prove.
Little did I understand that being smartdoesn't preclude faith.
And that's something I struggled with foralmost 20 years after that.
It's a battle that I'm realizing now wasnever me with God.
(10:52):
It was never a war on church.
It was a war on myself.
I told myself I wasn't worthy.
I told myself I wasn't good enough to begiven God's love.
I told myself all these stories that toldme I couldn't be a good enough Christian.
And...
I believed them because they were comingfrom my brain, but I also assigned them to
(11:16):
the outside world because your ADHD brainloves to lie to you.
So I, I was talking to my wife about thistoday.
I assigned all these monstrous acts to thechurch.
I told, you know, for a long time, I wasvery bitter against religion because they
(11:37):
made me feel so guilty about.
how I felt in my mind and realizing nowthat there was definitely some fire and
brimstone thrown around, but I nevershared what was going on inside of me with
anybody.
So how could they persecute me?
How could they make me feel like a monsterwhenever they did nothing but share the
(11:59):
word of God with me?
How did I get from sitting in a sermon,listening to the pastor,
to being persecuted by the church andsaying that I will never do this again.
It's simple.
I believe the lies that my brain told meand I had no foundation or standard to
(12:23):
fall back on.
I had no, I had no compass of moralityafter to move forward with.
And I had no foundation before and for along time after to fall back on and having
a foundation of solid.
(12:43):
factual evidence as to what's important tome has made all the difference in being
able to.
Sometimes step out.
I mean to step out on faith for sure toallow myself to get familiar with God
again to allow myself to be loved by Godand to practice faithfulness, it's wild
(13:06):
because The church hasn't changed like I'mnot a big churchgoer But the Bible hasn't
changed religion hasn't changed, but Ihave this brand new view on it because I
understand
something about my brain now, that the warthat I thought was waged between me and
the church was always waged in my mind.
(13:29):
And the hate that I, that brewed in me forChristianity was actually hate for myself
because I was the one putting thesestories on me.
pretty hard to deal with.
But as I've...
(13:49):
It was, I mean, there was also thatstandard of perfection that ADHD kind of
guaranteed that I would fail withoutunderstanding what was wrong with me.
You know, you're supposed to show up withconsistency, constancy and normalcy.
And none of those things are kind of inthe ADHD playbook.
They are learnable.
(14:10):
They are skills that you were able toacquire if you were, you know, self -aware
and cognizant of the problem and you havethe will.
to make action on it, I think I've gottenmuch better at constancy, at much better
consistency, much better at normalcy, andshowing up in a consistent way in my
(14:31):
religious practice.
But I had none of those things back then,and I just thought I was broken.
So earlier I asked, does religiouspractice need to look different for
neurodivergence?
I would say yes.
I would say yes.
And this is something that I talked aboutearlier this week on my live stream is
(14:51):
that I think that the neurotypicalstandard needs to be thrown completely out
the window whenever it comes to ADHD andautistic people.
But that doesn't mean that all standardsneed to be thrown out the window.
You have to adopt a standard for yourself.
figure out what is actually reasonable,what is actually feasible for you and
(15:14):
start taking action on it and stop makingexcuses that you can't do any of it.
And I know that the ADHD mindset of all ornothing is it's really, really, I don't
know, it's really attractive to us.
Like either I'm all in on this or I donone of this.
(15:34):
And that's helpful sometimes whenever youare.
trying to, I don't know, add a new skillor cut out some like a bad habit.
But it's really hard to maintain wheneverit comes to living a sustainable life.
I find that you have to take time out ofyour day to make goals that are based off
(15:55):
of reason, logic, and what's important toyou versus how you feel in the moment or
how you think you'll feel or what youthink you can do or the stories you tell
yourself.
At some point,
You have to abandon all the stories youtell yourself and start to give yourself a
chance to write a whole new book.
(16:17):
I can't do this.
I can't do this.
I'm not built like that.
My brain won't let me do this.
All those are stories that you toldyourself.
They're self -limiting beliefs that youhave accepted for who knows how long.
I am a living example of this.
I had all these things that I just knew Icouldn't do.
My brain wasn't designed that way.
(16:39):
Well, no, it wasn't designed that way.
So there is a bit of a barrier to entry.
There might be somewhat of an obstacle.
It might be harder for me to achieve thatskill, but it's not impossible.
I'm not going to say that nothing'simpossible, but most things are achievable
to some degree.
If you decide it's important to you andyou try to make some progress to it on a
(17:04):
consistent basis, what consistent lookslike to you as a neurodivergent is going
to be very different as to what it lookslike to a neurotypical person and who
gives a shit like.
What's important to you is important toyou and that's important enough.
We have to stop trying to measureourselves up to the neurotypical norm or
(17:28):
the status quo or whatever the norms ofour society are and do better because it's
what we want.
Move towards something it's because it'swhat we want to move towards.
And going back to
Having a foundation, it's so importantthat this is a foundation based on what's
(17:52):
important to you at your core.
This often doesn't work for people.
ADHD people really believe that they'renot able to do these things because they
don't fucking want to.
It's something that they've been told thatthey need to do and they don't have any
basis for framing that in a way that says,this is something that I want to do to...
(18:15):
provide X, Y, or Z for me.
It has to be tied to something that'sactually freaking important to you.
Because that's what it takes for movementfor us.
That's what it takes to overcome that hugestarting obstacle, to overcome that
executive dysfunction gap.
It takes care.
(18:40):
And if you don't care at your core, then,
you are likely going to abandon whatevergoal it is because you don't, it was never
for you.
It was for somebody else or it was becauseyou thought it was somebody else wanted,
or because you thought it would make X, Y,or Z happened that was a secondary
confluence of what, what you were doing.
(19:00):
That's not going to work.
So for me, I made a conscious decisionthat I wanted to understand my
relationship with God better.
That was,
something I made outside of how I felt atthe time.
And I knew that it was something that wasimportant to me.
And here, I want to get closer to God.
(19:22):
It's important for me to have that for myfamily, for my kids.
I want them to see a father who is open tothe relationship with the higher power.
And that wasn't going to happen for mejust like half -assing it and just
thinking of what I want to do.
I had to take action.
I had to make a decision.
I had to stop saying maybe and I had tosay, yes, this is what I'm going to do.
(19:46):
I had to start praying out loud.
I had to, and all of these things, mybrain is telling me, dude, you're stupid.
Why are you doing that?
He's not listening.
They God, whomever God is not listening toyou.
He doesn't care about you.
And that was my, that's that internaldialogue that we have as neurodivergence.
(20:07):
That is not, that's not how it is forneurotypical people.
They are not constantly pushing againstthe naysayer in their own head.
That's something unique to you and it'ssomething that is not going to defeat you
if you don't let it.
But if you have self -awareness and youare able to accept and embrace who you are
(20:29):
and how your brain works, then from thereyou can build on top of that.
I don't try to quiet my brain all thetime.
I accept that it's there and I try to useit as a tool.
Sometimes doubt is good.
A healthy skepticism is often helpful.
It's often something that encourages meand motivates me to have that, you know,
(20:52):
that naysayer saying you can't do it andsaying, ah, yes, I can.
I've done this, this, this, and this thatyou told me I couldn't do.
That's just more fuel for the fire.
This is, I'm gonna just dump that in myfurnace and go harder.
That didn't happen overnight.
It's not like I'm gonna give you these.
keys to success and you're tomorrow you'regoing to wake up and be a completely
(21:13):
different person who can accomplish anytask that comes before them.
And that's that's part of it as well.
Being able to accept that you are fallibleand that you have flaws and that there are
going to be times that you mess up, butit's okay.
Even in this life trying to walk closer toGod, I'm going to make mistakes.
(21:34):
I'm going to say the Lord's name in vainbecause I was like, I must, I have the
mouth of a sailor.
I'm working on that and it's okay becausemy heart is in the right place.
I know that I want to get closer to Godand I know that I'm going to keep
improving.
I'm not going to let setbacks like thatand then my liar brain dump on me to the
point where I believe that I can't do it.
(21:54):
I'll never succeed.
It has to look different forneurodivergent people for there to be
success.
Your measure of success has to becompletely different than what the neuro
-typical one is.
But if you have the...
The Bible is your guide.
You have a support group of people whobelieve in loving you or a person who
(22:14):
believes in loving you or just yourselfbelieving in yourself.
It's a start.
It's hard by yourself, but it's possible.
I I don't...
Anything's hard by yourself.
I don't want to say that you're going toset out on this mission on your own and
you're going to find peace immediately.
(22:35):
None of it happens immediately.
I think that as neurodivergence, we oftenwant results so stupid fast that we give
up on so many things before it even has achance to take.
I strongly encourage you to whatever yourdream, whatever your goals are, whatever
your dreams are, whatever you've beenputting off that is important to your, to
(22:59):
you at your core, because you can't tryharder, try longer, make.
smaller goals and take smaller steps butkeep moving.
Keep going.
So the new question to me becomes, isn'tit better to look different than like the
(23:20):
abject failure or the total success ofbeing religious and to modify and make
adjustments in your practice so you canmake room for your success?
Because if the goal is to get closer toGod, the goal is to have a relationship.
It has to start somewhere, right?
(23:41):
And if you start the relationshipsomewhere and you continue to grow that
relationship, aren't you getting closer toGod?
Aren't you winning?
Isn't every step a win?
As I move closer to God's embrace, I feelthe winning.
I don't know.
(24:01):
I mean, this is going to be a touchysubject.
I'm sure people are going to talk shit andsay that, you know, it's a scam.
You don't really feel anything.
I feel it.
I feel him moving in my heart.
I feel him ordering my steps.
I feel him calling me closer and giving memy next moves because I've stopped
(24:22):
listening to the little voice back heretelling me that I'm not good enough and
things are opening up for my life that
have never opened up for me before becauseI'm trusting in God and I'm showing faith.
The show isn't gonna be all about God allthe time, but today I thought it was
important.
Because this is what's on my heart, it'swhat I'm going through.
And that's what I wanna talk about onseason two.
(24:42):
I wanna get much deeper into the raw andthe real.
And right now, it is raw and it is real,and I'm digging through some deep hurt,
pain, and trauma that I thought was causedby the church.
Sorry for the false blame, God, because itwas me.
(25:02):
I'm the problem.
It's me.
So.
Yeah, a couple last points to wrap up onthis is I've come to accept that across
the board neurodiversity is just, it'sjust not a valid reason to accept failure.
Like I'm neurodiverse, so I failed.
I have to disagree.
(25:23):
You only fail when you quit.
You don't quit because you'reneurodiverse.
You quit because you, you were weak.
You're, you're unaware of the problem ofyour, of your capacity, of your
capability.
You quit because it's hard.
You quit because your goals are wrong.
Your goals are fucked up.
(25:43):
If your goals don't match what's in yourheart, then you are going to fail a large
majority of the time.
And whenever you do succeed in thosegoals, you're gonna wish you hadn't
because they don't actually do anythingfor you and they actually make you feel
worse when you achieve a goal that isn'taligned with yourself.
So do the work.
(26:04):
Do some research into who you are and whatyou want.
Figure it out.
I don't know.
I'm gonna continue my practice movingforward with grace because I would much
rather make allowances for myself, havegrace for myself than be a fucking quitter
anymore.
It's just, it's not okay with me.
(26:26):
I can't be that kind of father.
I can't be that kind of husband anymore.
It's empty.
It's how I ended up in a life that I wasso disengaged in that I was barely even
alive because I was so...
I was so in love with maybe.
(26:46):
I didn't commit to anything because I letmy feelings make the decisions.
Like, well, I might be in the mood forthat.
I might try to work out.
I might try to pray.
How you feel can't be the decision makeron all things.
(27:06):
What's important to you at your core hasto drive you to want to achieve more.
Despite how you feel at times because ifyou are having the worst day ever are you
in your let's try in Let's talk about thislike if if my ADHD mind is telling me how
(27:28):
unworthy I am and I am letting thosefeelings of Excuse me just the depression
and despair Make my decisions.
I'm gonna pull away from God My goal is toget closer
So when those feelings of depression anddespair start to take over, I pray.
(27:49):
Because I know what is important to me isto grow closer to God.
This, my brain is telling me somethingthat is going to pull me away from God.
It is a fact that these two things cannotexist together.
I have to choose one.
I have to make a choice.
That's not something that's beyond ADHD orASD people.
You can make choices.
(28:11):
choose to do the thing that is going tohelp move you a little closer to your
goal.
Or if nothing else, not to not move youfarther away from your goal.
Make the right choice.
Be committed.
Say yes.
Or I mean, if it's something that'spulling away, say no.
Choose it.
(28:33):
Anyways, the bar I hold myself to willnever again look the same as a
neurotypical bar.
And I believe that God will accept thatbecause I am made in his image after all.
I don't think he made me this way onaccident.
I think he made me this way so I couldtalk to you and I could say, it's okay to
have a different bar.
(28:53):
It's okay to set a different standard.
It's okay to get there how you need to getthere.
Just show up, choose.
to do more and keep moving forward.
Keep getting closer to God if that's yourgoal.
Keep taking action to get the things thatyou want.
I don't know what my time is 30 minutes 30minutes for a podcast is a little short
(29:15):
for me.
I usually like to go about three hours I'mnot gonna be doing that anymore.
I'm gonna try to keep the show between 30minutes in an hour and 15 minutes and I
Think that that's gonna be good I thinkthat season 2 is gonna it's gonna take off
and people are really gonna enjoy thecontent and how we're doing things now
(29:37):
What I want to finish with is if you aregoing through this stuff and you're
wondering if if you could use the help ofa life coach, that's what I do.
I was supposed to say at the beginning,I'm an ADHD life coach and I have found
that that is what I'm called to do.
(29:58):
That is what God is moving me to do andwhat I'm supposed to have a legacy of
impact in with my life.
And I like, I don't, I love it.
I absolutely love it.
I love the process.
I love the people.
I love seeing the transformation ofsomebody who thinks all the same things I
(30:21):
just talked about that they can't, theynever, they will never be able to, they
don't have the capacity.
They've told themselves all the storiesthat we talked about and they believe them
with everything except for enough to reachout and ask for help.
to see them break out of that shell of theprison of impossibility, that prison of
(30:43):
not acceptance, not acceptance, I'm okaywith that.
And to see who they are becoming on theother side is so, like it's addictive.
I absolutely love it.
And I encourage you to go toauthenticidentitymanagement .com forward
slash assessment to see how I might beable to help you.
(31:03):
Take the quiz, see if there is,
a service or resource that I can offer youthat makes sense.
There's free resources, there's paidresources, there's consultations, there's
all kinds of things that this quiz willtell you will be, it'll tell you exactly
what your next step should be.
If you are an ADHD parent who isstruggling to engage with passion and
(31:28):
purpose in your life, it'll give you yourexact next steps.
I want you to understand that it does nothave to hurt this much.
It does not have to feel so hard everyday.
And I just, all I want to do is helppeople get through that pain that they've
been feeling for so long because ADHDfeels like it owns their whole life.
(31:51):
It can, it owned mine.
And I was a total victim to every ADHDconsequence.
I f -
Felt like I had zero control of my life.
Life just fucking happened to me.
And it just, like I was, everything waseverybody else's fault.
Everything happened to me.
Like I said earlier, it was God who oustedme and told me that I wasn't good enough.
(32:17):
None of that is true.
I am the one who was in my own way theentire time.
And you are too.
As soon as you can accept that, that'swhere the path forward is.
You have to be able to accept that you arethe problem, but it's fixable.
You deserve better.
Your family deserves better.
(32:39):
The lowered capacity for conversation,interaction, and engagement because you're
so full of overwhelm because of your ADHDsymptom is not good enough.
It's not.
Being married to that person is awful.
(33:00):
Being that person, I can tell you, I lookback and I'm so embarrassed of who I was.
I'm so embarrassed at how little weight Icarried in my household, at how little
responsibility I took for myrelationships, for my responsibilities,
for my job, for my growth, my education.
I didn't take any responsibility foranything.
(33:21):
I allowed myself to be swept along fromplace to place by emotion, fear, doubt,
regret, like whatever.
And then I end up in something and I getsucked into the next thing and that's
like, here I go.
It doesn't have to be that way, but youhave to make one tiny decision and say yes
(33:41):
to something.
It doesn't have to be me, but you have tosay, if you're, if you are in the place I
was, you can say yes to a book.
You can say yes to a YouTube video.
You can say yes to something that'sstarting to take control of what your
future looks like.
And I'm offering you a chance to say yesto an assessment, a free assessment tool
(34:04):
that is going to help you then say yes toanother tool that is going to help you
then say yes to start improving your life.
I can tell you it will make a differencefor you if you are an ADHD parent 100%.
I guarantee it.
Money back guarantee.
If it's a free resource, well, sorry, nomoney for you.
If you were to ever engage in a coachingrelationship with me and you feel like
(34:27):
you, you are not able to engage in yourlife with more passion, more purpose after
any of our sessions, I will refund yourmoney.
I am this serious about it and I have seenthe results work that well that I know I
can help make a difference in people'slives.
You just have, you have to say yes.
(34:49):
You have to stop living in the land ofmaybe, and you have to learn yes or no.
Say yes to growth.
Say yes to possibility.
Say yes to a new life.
Or say no to the depression.
No to the lack of control.
No to the emotional outburst and theembarrassing behavior.
(35:10):
Say no to the late all the time.
Say no to the not, nobody being able todepend on you.
Say no to the.
relationships that have fallen apart, sayno to the depression, say no to the brain
who tells you that you're worthless, sayno.
Stop saying maybe.
You have to stop saying maybe and takeaction.
(35:33):
That's it.
Take the assessment, go to authenticidentity management, forward slash
assessment, take the assessment and startyourself on a road to acceptance.
You don't have to live like this anymore.
That is it for today's episode.
Sorry if I got a little intense therebecause this is some real stuff to me.
(35:53):
Like it matters.
It matters.
And you matter.
Thank you so much for listening toAuthentic One Air with Bruce Alexander.
This has been episode one of season two,my struggle against God as a
neurodivergent.
(36:14):
I'll be back next week with anotherepisode.
Be yourself, love yourself, and have agreat week.
Peace.
Go take the assessment.
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