Meditation isn’t for me.  I have ADHD. It even rhymes.  It must be true.  

Yep, that was my attitude to meditation since my diagnosis.  And prior to it, other than a few botched attempts at some random crystal healing club I did at college for a few weeks, I didn't have much experience at all.

But this pesky word ‘mindfulness’ kept cropping up in all the stuff I liked.  In the books I read, from the public figures I respected and followed.  Every now and then I’d give it a go.  I’d really try to let my thoughts pass by like clouds.  Really, really tried.  But each time it was no good.  I can't do it.  I have ADHD - this is not for me.

The only time I ever entered what I would consider to be a meditative state would be at the very end of an intense yoga class, lying in savasana, milliseconds before the class finished.  For the first few minutes I would be lying in savasana, willing it to finish, thinking about what I needed to do after class, wondering if I could reach my jumper and put it on without disturbing anyone else.  Trying to remember what socks I was wearing… you know, kind of jumping right into those clouds spinning around in them and then diving out of them and into the next one.  And then just before we were told to wiggle our toes and fingers I would think, no don’t end yet.  I don’t want to move.  Thats as close as I got.

The game changer for me was a daily affirmation challenge.  The affirmations were all parenting related and lasted between 3-5 minutes.  They were essentially micro parenting related meditations.  They were brilliant.  Through these I learnt all about the need to feel my feelings.  That past hurts, feelings that we suppress, will continue to bubble up to be heard until they are.  I realised that to heal myself, I had to go deep.  And meditation was going to be part of that journey.

I committed to 3 months of these affirmations.  I did it sitting in the car outside school before pick up as it was the only time I could squeeze it into my day.  By this point I had truly bought into the power of this work…. But there was a big problem.  I felt worse after them.  It was as if I had opened a doorway into the hurt and left it a crack open.  And those feelings were seeping out and making me feel worse.  I was more dysregulated than ever.  I was angry that it wasn't working.

I started googling ‘can meditation make you feel worse?’ ‘Can people with ADHD meditate?’ ‘Is meditation bad for some people?’  Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't get much from these inane searches and being more inclined to do first, think later, I just kept going.  I repeated the 3 months of affirmations and then just started to randomly pick ones that felt relevant.  

I gradually became more confident in it and started to enjoy them more.  And slowly but surely started to feel a bit better afterwards.  Once I felt better I let the practice slip and lo and behold, my dysregulated moments increased.  So I’d restart. About a year in, I started trialling different meditation apps and found a favourite which has lots of different teachers, and types of meditations.  You can filter them by time.  I usually go for under 5 minutes or under 10 if I’m feeling particularly brave.  Occasionally I’ll do a longer meditation but tend to find my mind wandering with anything over 6 minutes.  I have no doubt as I practise this will improve. 

Extraordinarily I have now got to a stage where meditation has truly become a non-negotiable part of my day.  I will always squeeze it in somehow.  Recently I was even doing one in the queue for airport security as I had a particularly full travel day.  

Meditation isn’t easy for people with ADHD.  It’s particularly difficult to start but, as with many really hard things, the harder they are, the better the rewards.  Meditation has rewired my brain.  My brain has learnt how to quickly go into a state of calm.  It learnt first what it feels like to quieten the mind and feel calm, and then it got better and better at getting there.  This pattern of neurons in my brain that now fire together on a daily basis have now wired together.  So when I use a mantra, when I take a deep breath and close my eyes in a difficult moment, I get to a regulated state so much faster.  

So for those of you thinking

Meditation isn't for meI have ADHD 

I’m suggesting a reframe

Meditation is the key

To regulating with ADHD :)