I agree... the first (few) time(s) I did this kind of thing I could not for the life of me keep my mind on track, instead it was jitteringly jumping to this or that visual detail, this or that sound, or whatever spark of thought popped up.
Every single time I could not help but hallucinate gigantic infrastructure from the tiniest speck of dust, and I further digressed into blaming my stupid self for being unable to perform such a simple task.
It felt hopeless.
I felt hopeless.
But I kept at it, a day at a time. A moment at a time. I accepted that failure is part of the process. I let go of blame. Oh, here's a thought, oh well, I lost focus; well so be it, let the thought float, a soap bubble drifting wherever it fancies, I could physically feel it wandering around my head while I went back towards the goal, if only for just a little bit, if only for just a little while.
And then, one day, the magic happened. The stray thought vanished, the bubble faded away. I did notice the thought popping up as usual, I did take note of its presence, but I did not notice its later absence. I was there, in the moment, but I did not notice being there in the moment. I only noticed that retrospectively.
I had let go.
I had let go on my mind, but also, and perhaps more critically I had let go of the illness. I am not ill. I am different. This is who I am. This is me. There are others like me.
It does not work at first with ADHD, but long term it does work, and it's a fantastic tool for one to manage ADHD without medication. It's training, like so many other things, one can't reasonably expect to be good at it overnight. And with continued training it gets easier.
Mind you it's not a silver bullet, but now I have one more tool up my sleeve in that endless struggle.
Every single time I could not help but hallucinate gigantic infrastructure from the tiniest speck of dust, and I further digressed into blaming my stupid self for being unable to perform such a simple task.
It felt hopeless.
I felt hopeless.
But I kept at it, a day at a time. A moment at a time. I accepted that failure is part of the process. I let go of blame. Oh, here's a thought, oh well, I lost focus; well so be it, let the thought float, a soap bubble drifting wherever it fancies, I could physically feel it wandering around my head while I went back towards the goal, if only for just a little bit, if only for just a little while.
And then, one day, the magic happened. The stray thought vanished, the bubble faded away. I did notice the thought popping up as usual, I did take note of its presence, but I did not notice its later absence. I was there, in the moment, but I did not notice being there in the moment. I only noticed that retrospectively.
I had let go.
I had let go on my mind, but also, and perhaps more critically I had let go of the illness. I am not ill. I am different. This is who I am. This is me. There are others like me.
It does not work at first with ADHD, but long term it does work, and it's a fantastic tool for one to manage ADHD without medication. It's training, like so many other things, one can't reasonably expect to be good at it overnight. And with continued training it gets easier.
Mind you it's not a silver bullet, but now I have one more tool up my sleeve in that endless struggle.