Speaker 1: 0:00

And then when our kids go off, all of a sudden we don't have to do all of that and our brain doesn't know what to do then, because it's wait, where's my routine, where are all of the tasks I used to have to do, and it gets a little scrambled, we just climb there.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Welcome to this Empty Nest Life. Join Jay Ramsden as he leads you on a transformative journey through the uncharted seas of midlife and empty nesting. If you're ready to embark on this new adventure and redefine your future, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the Empty Nest Coach, Jay Ramsden.

Speaker 3: 0:37

Hey there, my Empty Nest friends. Have you ever wondered what the heck is going on here in midlife with your brain and your body? Maybe you feel like you're struggling with brain fog brought on by hormone changes. Or perhaps you're wondering was I just trying to multitask because of the kids or am I really ADHD? You might even be struggling to find clarity and direction in your life now that the kids are grown and flown. Well, today we're diving into those topics with Corey Whiteland, who helps people with ADHD live efficiently, calmly, connected and balanced. Corey, welcome to this Emptiness Life.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Thank you, I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3: 1:19

Yeah, I'm so excited that you're here. My son is diagnosed with ADD. My wife did her PhD thesis in executive function. I'm pretty sure that I am undiagnosed ADD myself and I think there's so many connections in people's lives around this particular topic. But for me, what I want to get into with you today is how does midlife maybe unmask some of those things that we struggle with? And before you even get there, maybe we just start with what the heck is executive function?

Speaker 1: 1:44

Yeah, I think that having that basic understanding is important. So executive functioning skills are the skills that actually live in the prefrontal cortex of our brain.

Speaker 1: 1:54

So that's the part that goes right above our eyebrows to our midbrain, and the basic thing that I usually say is they are what makes us human. So it's organization, motivation, emotional regulation, time management. So they're the set of skills that keep us on time, keep us motivated to do the things that maybe we don't really want to do, help us hold a job or study for school. And also the big one is that emotional regulation. So when things go awry or we're not feeling so great, we're usually able to keep a lid on it. So executive functioning skills are essential to be a functioning member of kind of any community or any society.

Speaker 3: 2:42

Okay, which is different from just to help people understand what people may hear as a lizard brain or the animal brain, which is everything that happens subconsciously to just keep us moving through the day.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Exactly, okay, exactly, yep. And the other thing to know is that our prefrontal cortex is not actually fully developed till our late twenties, and so when we think of our adult children who are leaving the nest and we're like, why can't they which is in my case why don't they know how to send a letter, why are they calling me to ask me where to send a letter? Or why can't they just do the things that we think they should do? A lot of times times their brain is still under construction, so they're still figuring out how to do these things.

Speaker 1: 3:27

And then if you have ADHD, that part of your brain really isn't ever fully constructed, and so we have to build a set of systems and tools externally that kind of helps scaffold it up for us.

Speaker 3: 3:39

I love that kind of framing. It's like parents if your kids are pissing you off before they go off to college, it's with good reason. They're not fully functioning in their brain just yet. It's not fully formed. There's some things still coming. That's why it's so much fun when they come back to us when they're 25 or 26.

Speaker 1: 3:55

You're like oh, you're an adult now, Okay, great.

Speaker 3: 3:57

Awesome, exactly, okay. Now I see. Perfect. It wasn't college that did it, or your first job. It's just how our brains get formed. Yeah, exactly. So then, for people who are perhaps struggling with the example I gave in the preview is some people think, oh, I was just multitasking and trying to do all these things and turning left and right because I have kids, but it could be something different, so how would I know?

Speaker 1: 4:24

Yes, I hear a lot like I think everyone is a little ADHD. And here's the thing Everyone does struggle with attention every once in a while or focus every once in a while or time management or emotional regulation, but in true executive dysfunction it really impacts your life, right?

Speaker 1: 4:42

You miss appointments more often than not. You're always waiting to the last minute to get something done and relying on that urgency to motivate you. You have really big reactions to things that maybe other people are just pissed off a little bit about, and so if you are feeling like, wow, this is really impacting my life it's most likely feeling like wow, this is really impacting my life it's most likely you know something's going on. And I think back to what you said about when we have kids in the home.

Speaker 1: 5:11

What we know is that a brain that is in executive dysfunction and that could be ADHD it's a side note executive dysfunction can come from ADHD, obviously, or neurodiversity. It also can come from trauma. Trauma can ignite an executive dysfunction response lack of sleep and high stress. So all four of those can elicit executive dysfunction.

Speaker 1: 5:38

But what we know is that something to hyper-focus on or hyper-fixate on helps those executive functioning skills become a little army, like the Avengers uniting together. So when we have kids in the home and they have so many things going on and you're having to manage them and you're having to keep on schedule and you're having to get up to make breakfast and get them to water polo practice that actually can help them stay online and then when that goes away, all of a sudden you don't have that anchor, that foundation for those skills anymore. And so I see a lot of folks that whose kids have left or they've built their life as we do around our kids and then when they're gone, as we do around our kids, and then when they're gone they don't have any kind of anchor to hold on to those skills and all of a sudden they feel like they're totally lost.

Speaker 3: 6:31

Got it Okay. So, folks, if you're listening, listen. It's not your fault, right? If your kids lose that anchor, and it's not your fault that you were the anchor, you just didn't know Exactly. So what I heard you say is that parents often act as the executive functioning part of the brain for our kids. Do you have your lunch? Do you have your backpack? Is the lunch in there? Is this book, is that homework done? Asking all the questions that a fully formed brain would ask as we're going through whatever. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:01

And then when our kids go off, all of a sudden we don't have to do all of that and our brain doesn't know what to do then Because, wait, where's my routine, where are all of the tasks I used to have to do? And it gets a little scrambled. And if you are an executive dysfunction, especially if you're someone with ADHD, you don't naturally come back into regulation because our brains don't do that. We don't regulate our dopamine, which is our motivation, chemical. We don't regulate our cortisol, which is our stress, chemical. So unless we put in a set of tools or systems to bring us back to that regulation, bring us back to the middle we're we just clowned her.

Speaker 3: 7:45

Oh okay. So now my brain is saying all right, the kids are getting ready to go to college. Not only are our emotions heightened because of that transition, but also we aren't learning how to regulate our dopamine or cortisol, and we're just like it's not just one thing, it's multitudes of things coming together all at the same time with that transition.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:08

And all right, let's dive into that. How does one regulate dopamine and cortisol? Is that possible to do? What does that look like? Is that step one? Is it step three? Walk us through that based on your experience.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Yes. So the first thing that we have to do is we have to build awareness, and so if we don't know what we're thinking when we're thinking or what we're feeling when we're feeling, then we don't know what we're thinking when we're thinking or what we're feeling when we're feeling. Then we can't make any changes. So the first thing that I have folks do is literally just keep a journal for a week or so. How long did things take you? Did you think that it was only going to take you 10 minutes to get ready for work? But it actually takes you 45? Did you think that that project was going to take you five minutes for work and you spent three days on it? Now you're behind on everything else. Then, also, what's motivating you? Are you waiting to the last minute and you're staying up really late to get everything done? Do you have to have someone next to you or do you have to have someone kind of helping you along to get something done? So, keeping track of how long things are taking you, what's motivating you to do them and what are the tasks that you are absolutely avoiding, because we know that those are probably really uninteresting and then motivating to you. Okay, so once we have that baseline then we can start to first the time management piece. When we're in an executive dysfunction, time goes out the window. We're totally time blind. And so once we start to see how long things actually take, then we can start building our days around reality and not this like perception, and that helps. That helps a lot. And then the second is building motivation. So brains are motivated four ways urgency, challenge, novelty and interest.

Speaker 1: 9:57

So if you are noticing that you are just relying on urgency, what happens then is we are running on cortisol, right. So if we're, we get it done. I've heard so many clients say, well, yeah, when I late till the 11th hour, I get it done and it's always good. Then I always talk about the cost, right. So when we do that, we just flood our bodies with cortisol. We literally put ourselves in fight or flight and our nervous system just goes into overdrive. And then what happens is we are exhausted, we're overwhelmed and then that leads to burnout.

Speaker 1: 10:33

So we can't just rely on urgency all the time, but if that is your big motivator, you can create artificial urgencies so you can break down the task and say, okay, I'm going to have this done before I watch Love Island tonight. I'm not going to let myself watch Love Island until I have this done, and it's on at 8 pm, right. And so we can create these artificial urgencies that give us a little bit of that cortisol, but not that complete flood. We can also create challenges.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Brains that are in executive dysfunction love a game, so we can gamify things, we can create interest. So I am a huge proponent of dopamine pairing. So having something that's really interesting to you at the same time as something that isn't and it can be anything from your favorite coffee, right, go to your favorite coffee shop, get your favorite coffee and do the hard thing to watching a really silly show while you're doing dishes I can't do dishes without having a ridiculous reality show on Like I, just my body won't do it, and so creating those dopamine pairs can be really helpful for that high interest.

Speaker 3: 11:49

Okay, dopamine pairs cortisol. I don't know about you. I see stuff maybe because of the work I do and the type of client I work with cortisol shows up in my Instagram feed 1000 different times and ways. You might have high cortisol if blah, blah, blah, yes, yeah. So when I think about that, combined with everything else that we've been talking to, is I like the idea of the pieces like the smaller pieces right To give you the hit of the urgency without it being like, oh, I've got to get this whole project done. It's just the one component.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:22

So tell me more about the novelty and the interest piece. You said urgency and challenge. Tell me about the other piece, those seem a little bit more, I don't know accessible, and not interest piece. You said urgency and challenge. Tell me about the other piece. Those seems a little bit more, I don't know, accessible and not so hard. The novelty piece and the interest piece, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Yeah, so the interest piece is definitely that dopamine pairing can really help with that.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Also, I do not believe that if you are an executive dysfunction and you are struggling to get tasks done, I do not believe in doing the hardest thing first.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Your brain will fight you at every turn and then you might not get anything done. So what I always suggest is looking at your to-do list and finding the thing that is most interesting to you, the thing that's going to you're actually going to get it done. You like it, and doing that first, and what that actually does is it helps us raise our dopamine levels. So then our brain is more primed to do the harder things, and so I suggest doing the hardest thing third, so you have the most interesting and then something that's in the middle. So if you think of it as stair steps, you have the least interesting here at the bottom, the most interesting at the top. So I suggest doing that and then going to one that's in the middle, and then usually momentum leads to motivation, right, and so if we can activate and get some momentum, then we can do that harder thing. So that's another way that interest can really help us, support us.

Speaker 3: 13:51

I love that. No more eating the frog, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Eating the frog works for a lot of people, but I have found that it does not necessarily work for ADHDers. We don't like the frog and we will do everything we can to not eat the frog, and then that actually builds a lot of shame and a lot of guilt and then we feel really bad about ourselves. But it's not that we can't eat the frog, we just can't eat it as the appetizer.

Speaker 3: 14:18

As the appetizer, it's the main meal. Yeah, you're gonna make me cry here, cause I'm like, oh crap, man, I'm ADD, cause the eat the frog thing never works for me either. It's just too much like oh, and the shame and the guilt kicks in. So I totally feel that 100% and it is like, oh, what's more interesting to me? I never thought about it that way. Right, it was just like, oh, this task is more interesting than this task. But now that I am so focused on, let me do the three things I have to do today. I like that pace. The interesting thing, maybe the one in between, and then the frog, if you will.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Yeah, and then I always suggest after the frog you have a reward. Adhd brains love reward. So you give yourself, you do something fun after, or you go and get some ice cream or call a friend or something that will feel really good to you and one that feels really good. Everyone likes to do something fun and that actually helps to create those neurological connections in our brain where our brain says oh okay, you're going to feed me some good stuff if I do this hard thing for you. So it actually over time makes that hard thing a little bit easier.

Speaker 3: 15:27

I love that. It's so revealing, I think, for folks who may be listening to this and be like oh, this is how I parented it. The whole time I was doing all these other things, running around struggling with X, y and Z, but I never got to that big task of cleaning out the closet or cleaning out the garage or redoing the kid's closet, whatever it may be right, those things that we put off. That just seems so enormous and overbearing to us. It's because maybe there's some executive function stuff going on.

Speaker 1: 15:56

For sure, and with those that's. Those are prime examples of dopamine pairing you. You get a friend to come and do it with you and you promise them pizza after you put on like a playlist that just makes you so happy, right? Or you listen to an awesome podcast or a great audio book or something that helps keep that dopamine and that serotonin, which is our happiness chemical, helps keep it in. I call it the green area, right, that regulated area.

Speaker 3: 16:27

Okay.

Speaker 1: 16:27

And not too high, because if it's too high then we know it crashes right. Anything that goes up comes down. We like to keep it in that kind of green area that regulated area, so you said the green area.

Speaker 3: 16:37

are there orange and red areas and how does that play in?

Speaker 1: 16:41

Yes. So when I work with clients, I work a lot on zones of regulation. So with zones of regulation, we have just really briefly, we have blue at the bottom and blue is really low. Right, I can't get out of bed, I can't do this thing, I'm feeling really tired, I'm feeling really bored. Then we have green, and that's regulated. I can do the thing, but I'm not like so hyper focused on it that I can't do anything else and I can't go to the bathroom and I can't eat. Right, I'm feeling pretty good, that's where we want to be.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Then we have yellow, which is a little elevated. So yellow could be a positive or like a feel good emotion, like I'm really excited or I'm really happy. So I can't quite if you've ever planned a party or something where you're like all over the place cause you're so excited it's happening and you're not like doing one, not ever finishing one task, or it can be I'm a little bit frustrated, I'm a little stressed and it's hard to do the thing because I'm feeling out of whack. And then we have red, and red can be super hyper-focused, which is what I spoke about, which when we're in hyper, when we're in hyper focus, that is where we do. We forget to go to the bathroom, we forget to eat, we forget to drink water. Somebody can say, hey, come on, we got to go, and just five more minutes, just five more minutes, just five more minutes, and it just feels so hard to get out of it. And that's what I spoke to can be a really difficult emotion. We're really angry, we're really stressed, we have tons of anxiety and we can't get things done and the goal is to stay in that green area as much as possible. And that goes back to the awareness is.

Speaker 1: 18:21

I have everyone from my elementary school clients to right now I have. My oldest client is 70. I have every client keep track of when they're in which area and then practice at least three tools that can help them get back into green, and we write it down and oftentimes they don't even realize that they're not in green. It just is so overwhelming, we're so offline, and so if they start to be like, oh, wow, yeah, I went to clean the garage and I just couldn't do it, I couldn't get off the couch and I felt terrible. I didn't do it all day. You know what? I was in blue. So I actually went for a run instead and I had a really great breakfast and I called my friend. Then I felt better and then I was able to go do it. So, rather than just try to force yourself off the couch and it takes 10 hours to clean the garage because you're so low doing that tool in between to get you back into the green can be really helpful and actually save time in the long run.

Speaker 3: 19:21

Yeah. So let's fast forward. If the parents are off, they're empty nesting and they're just. They get get home and they feel lost. I'm, I can't get motivated to do things, I'm not sure what comes next for me. How do they know? Is this a symptom of just the kids leaving? Is it because the stress of the move and the change in energy in the house that my cortisol levels are raised and I can't? I'm in the red level, I just where I'm in the blue level, I should say. And so how do we know? How do we know if it's an executive functioning issue or just a moment in time where it's emotional?

Speaker 1: 19:56

Yeah. So I would say, if it is systemic, right. If everybody has one or two days or even weeks where things feel really hard, especially in transition, right. I've now dropped my oldest daughter off, or she's gone off twice now and you know two separate years. She's going, she's a rising junior and it doesn't get easier. I thought it would, but every time she leaves a little piece of my heart breaks. And she's actually in your neck of the woods, she's in New York City. I live in San Diego, so about as far away in the continental United States as you can be, and it's hard.

Speaker 1: 20:37

And so there is time, I would say, for a whole family, even for her younger siblings, where we all feel a little off kilter. We walk past her room and feel a little sad, the dogs go in there, which kind of breaks your heart. But then we regulate, right. It's not that we don't miss her, it's not that we wish she wasn't with us, but we get into our new routine. I would say if you are in true executive dysfunction, you don't ever really, after several weeks, even get back into that normal routine. It keeps going on and on. And the things that you used to do pretty easily, or the things that you, you felt or you feel like you should quote unquote, I hate that word should but you should be able to do. You just can't, don't seem to be able to do with any sort of ease, then I would say you're probably in a slump of executive dysfunction.

Speaker 3: 21:26

Okay. So I would say people who are my clients listen to the show it is. They would characterize that as feeling lost, like they come home they've dropped the last one off or it doesn't matter, one of them off, and all they seem to be able to do is I can sweep the floor in the kitchen. It seems like it's never enough and that's all I can manage to do. That's all that feels good enough for me to do, but everything else in life just maybe has lost its flavor and I can't get motivated to do anything else to go for a walk, to go to a gym, to grocery shop regularly, to clean anything out, to move forward with anything. That sounds more like it could have been or could be an executive functioning disorder. Is that sounds correct?

Speaker 1: 22:11

100, 100. I feel like you just like check, check, check, check, check of pretty much all my clients. So you, just, you just created my like perfect client.

Speaker 3: 22:22

Perfect client list. Yeah, and it's interesting because my clients many of them are the same, and so it's a mix, I think, of the emotional rollercoaster ride and executive function disorder, whereas I'm just stuck is the best way to describe it. I'm stuck.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Yeah, for sure. And, like I said earlier, there's lots of things that can put us in chronic executive dysfunction and trauma. Or big life change is a big one, whether it's divorce or a child leaving or a death in your family that you know to get neurological just really quick it ignites that amygdala part of our brain which is our fight, flight or freeze because we don't feel safe. Right, our body is our body doesn't know why our?

Speaker 3: 23:03

because we don't feel safe right.

Speaker 1: 23:04

Our body doesn't know why Our bodies are we getting attacked by a bear? Or did we drop off our kid at college? I don't know. So I'm just going to act like we're getting attacked by a bear, just in case. And so when we do that, when the amygdala is lit up, that prefrontal cortex actually does physically go offline. Because when we are in a space where we're getting attacked by a bear, we don't want to think critically right, we don't want to have time management, we don't want to like pause and decide what to do. We need to react. And so when that's happening for a really long time, that's really hard on our bodies and our nervous systems.

Speaker 3: 23:41

Yeah. So if you're wrapped in a blanket with a coffee mug listening to this episode on your couch right now, after possibly dropping your kid off, or they left her summer camp, or whatever it may be, you're exactly where you need to be. Exactly Like listening to this episode, because this is what we're talking about. Okay.

Speaker 1: 23:59

And taking care of yourself. Right, wrap yourself in that weighted blanket, get your favorite drink. Take care of your nervous system, because if your nervous system is not is working overtime, you're not going to be able to do those other things physically.

Speaker 3: 24:16

So what are some tools? You talked a little bit about that, but what are some more tools or mindset shifts that people can do in order to help jumpstart this, so that they get back to feeling okay. Life feels good to me.

Speaker 1: 24:27

One thing that I do with all of my clients is which is not part of executive functioning, but it's like the bridge to executive functioning challenges Our support is building self compassion. So if you have been living in executive function challenge for a long time whether it's since you're a little kid or, you know, recently in midlife, because of hormones or dropping someone off or life change we tend to get in a failure feedback loop. So I will use the sweeping the floor as an example, since you brought that up. I have to sweep the floor today after dinner. I have to do it. Dinner happens, you sit on the couch. You just can't. You can't physically do it, you can't emotionally do. It Seems so simple and you just keep telling yourself just do it, just do it. Why can't you do this? This is so easy, just do it. Then our body reacts to that stress in that fight or flight and so we actually it makes it even harder and then we get in that failure feedback loop and so that happens that's just one example of you can imagine, throughout the day of all of the times. And if you are someone with ADHD. Research shows that ADHDers get 20,000 more negative messages by the time they reach middle school than neurotypical kids, whether they're diagnosed or not, and so think about that when your brain is developing. You've had so much negative feedback. Why can't you do this? Just pay attention. You're late again. Wait, why can't you turn in that homework? You forgot it. You lost it right All the time.

Speaker 1: 26:06

So building self-compassion is essential, no matter whether it's been 40 years or one month, and self-compassion is treating yourself with kindness and curiosity and love, regardless of what's going on around you, regardless of if you've sweeped the floor, regardless of if you return that phone call, regardless of if you got the project for work in on time. And so building that is really important and really hard. It's not easy. So I suggest with just starting with paying attention to what your brain is telling you and then writing it down, physically, seeing it and if it is not truthful or kind, crossing it off and reframing it. So I'll use the sweeping the floor.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Why can't you just sleep the floor? You're so lazy. Everyone else in the world is sweeping their floors every night. Well, that's not true. Not everyone is doing that. It's also not kind to call yourself lazy. So crossing it off and then maybe saying this is really hard for me right now because I'm just trying to get through. Every day I'm missing my kid. My routine has completely changed so I'm going to sweep the floor, maybe tomorrow morning when I have more energy and just allowing yourself that reframe. Tomorrow morning when I have more energy and just allowing yourself that reframe. And the more we do that, the more we see what we're saying to ourselves and that physical cross off and reframe, the easier it becomes a little bit more automatic and we start to see, wow, we really don't treat ourselves very kindly.

Speaker 3: 27:39

Yeah, we don't speak to ourselves, kindly, it's. How is that thought serving me right now? Is it really serving me to beat myself up, or can I think of it a little bit differently? It's okay if I'm on the floor tonight. Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 27:52

And the other thing to start, the foundation of it is keeping track of what is in your control, and I love this. Yesterday I took my high schooler to a college showcase. She's a water polo player and they had an Olympian there and she sat them all in a circle on the gym floor and the whole talk was about what is in your control and how can you come back to that over and over. And so I'm so grateful she's telling this to 16-year-old athletes, because a lot feels out of their control.

Speaker 1: 28:22

She's telling this to 16 year old athletes because a lot feels out of their control. Sure, and the same thing for us as midlife adults, right is, what is in our control? And if something feels out of our control, is there something that we can do to respond to it rather than react? And so if we start to do that, we start to see, well, there's a lot more that's in our control than feels in our control, and then we can start to create some reactions to those that feel a little bit more helpful to get us out of that. And then the third is honestly planning, rest and recharge.

Speaker 1: 29:00

And when I say rest it doesn't mean like laying on your bed. It might, but there's several different kinds of rest. There's physical rest, there's mental rest, there's emotional rest. And so planning that and putting it in your calendar and giving yourself time to recharge and regulate right now in life is not, it's not a yeah, I should do that, it's essential. You plug in your phone, you plug in your computer, right, there's all those analogies. You can't pour from an empty cup, it's all so true. So if you don't take time to do that hobby you really love, or to go on the walk with your dog, or to meditate or pray or whatever emotionally or spiritually helps you. You can't, you're going to burn out.

Speaker 3: 29:49

Yeah, I love how you framed rest in multiple ways right Than just saying you should rest and take care of yourself because people are like rest means oh, I should be sleeping for a while, or as opposed to saying no, it can be multiple different ways to take care of yourself. So I love that too In this journey, especially at midlife. I was never a napper myself, but I have come to love an hour nap with some positive meditation music on a couple of times a week just to reset and reframe, and it's so good for my brain and then I also just ask my brain questions there to let it process during that time too, and it's a wonderful way to do that. I'm curious through this journey of yours, corey, you've done a lot of work, obviously in an executive function and helping people, but what's one thing you've learned about yourself in this journey?

Speaker 1: 30:35

Oh, just one thing, a million things. Do we have another hour on?

Speaker 2: 30:40

this podcast.

Speaker 1: 30:41

I think the big thing that I have learned and this is I say this all the time is I used to tell everyone everyone would say how do you do it all? And I used to tell everyone that I had a giant Thanksgiving platter. Some people have a plate right A lot on their plate. I'm like I just have this giant Thanksgiving platter. I can do it all, I can say it all, I can be on every committee.

Speaker 1: 31:03

It was not true, I was lying to them and I was lying to myself. I really had a really small plate and it was just piled really high and things were getting lost in it and it was cracking and I was dropping things. And so I have really learned what my capacity is. And going back to what's in my control it's not in my control what other people's capacity is. So some people might have a bigger capacity. That doesn't make them a better person. That doesn't make them a better parent.

Speaker 1: 31:30

And once I set boundaries which are really hard, but I practice and I practice and I started really taking care of myself in ways that were right for me and not just what I thought I should do my whole life view changed. My relationship with my kids got so much better because I wasn't rushing all the time or out all the time or forgetting things or yelling at them for things that weren't their fault and they were my fault because we were overscheduled. My relationship with my husband changed, with my friends, and so figuring out what my capacity is at this time in my life, it was a game changer and I have to come back to it often because it's really easy to let that plate get bigger and let things sneak in. But I reassess that all the time and I think to myself okay, what kind of life do I want to live and how do I want to show up?

Speaker 3: 32:26

Yeah, Two great questions. How do I want to show up in this life that I want to live? It's amazing, right, yeah? So when I think about that, do you have a life motto? I know you're not an empty nest or just yet, so got one one in that journey, but if you had an empty nest, life motto or life motto, what would it be?

Speaker 1: 32:46

That's a great question. I think it would be that show up every day like it's a new day, and I think that's really important for people like me that have neurodiverse brains, because we are a little bit like goldfish and every day feels like a new day and it's really easy to bring shame and anxiety and guilt from previous days. So show up like every day is a new day and just figure out what's going to happen that day and how you want to show up and then do it and honor how you feel that day, whether it's a day you're going to get a lot done and go for it or a day you're going to take a nap and take it slow.

Speaker 3: 33:27

So good. Yeah, it's like those graphics where it's showing up every day is like people think it's a full cup every day, but it's really a full cup, a half a cup, a quarter cup, no cup. That's what showing up every day is. It's like how it works for you and I so appreciate you bringing to the table in this conversation today around how you know what, if you think you're abnormal, you're really normal for you as an individual and I think that might be the biggest takeaway from today's episode.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Awesome. I love that as a takeaway. I think that's really important, for sure.

Speaker 3: 33:59

That's so good, Corey. Thank you so much for being here. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation for sure. That's so good, corey. Thank you so much for being here. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. It's where I live every day and I hope, folks, if you're listening, that you take a little bit away from this. We're going to put all of Corey's information in the show notes. If you feel like you're struggling with this ADHD and not feeling like you're living efficiently or calmly or balanced, you can reach out to her and get in touch.

Speaker 1: 34:23

Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you Loved it.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Are you ready to start living and enjoying your empty nest years? If so, head over to jasonramsdencom and click work with me to get the conversation started. This Empty Nest Life is a production of Impact. One Media LLC. All rights reserved.