Yelling With My Breath - Meditating As A Women With ADHD

If you picture someone meditating, what do you see? Often meditation is portrayed as someone sitting in lotus position on a mountain all zen and calm.

In the real world? Yeah… no. As a woman with ADHD, some days meditation can be a frustrating grind. I feel compelled to “make it work” (sound familiar?). With some challenges with emotional dysregulation and  executive function, sitting and seeing a task through can be tough.

The whole allowing and accepting thing just feels so hard. Because I self-identify as of being someone who can actively figure out anything, who can “make it work” in any situation, this whole allowing thing can be a bit of a challenge.

When I’m in a position (mentally, not lotus-like) to be still, meditation literally transforms my day. I use the Calm app, specifically Jeff Warren’s Daily Trip. Jeff is a meditation teacher who also has ADHD, and his guided meditations help put me in a more centered place on those mornings when my brain feels like a squirrel on crack. Sometimes it’s only for a few breaths, sometimes it’s for fifteen minutes, but the length of time isn’t as important as the peace it brings me (yes, even a few breaths help!).

There are, however, some mornings when even Jeff’s delightful Canadian accent isn’t going to do it for me. I sit and feel frustration and impatience and sometimes anger boiling up in me, and the longer I try to sit, the more difficult it becomes. I keep trying to force myself to be calm (I know, that makes total sense, right?) I try to keep “coming back to the breath”, but I finally get to the point where I try so hard, I’m “yelling with my breath”. Instead of gently breathing in and out, allowing my focus to rest on the breath, I am mentally yelling, “Relax, dammit - what the hell is your problem?”

Not exactly conducive to reaping the full benefits of meditation.

The best way for me to proceed is to accept (that kind of is one of the main goals of meditation) that I’m having a Yelling With My Breath day, and let it go. Often I’ll find a bit of peace somewhere else during my day. I’ll close my eyes (unless I’m driving - don’t do that), and take those few magical breaths (or more, depending) and feel calm settle over me.

I’ve discovered that there’s a real upside to these days for me. The purpose of meditation isn’t to sit for a half hour in the morning and evening, and then go on about your day carrying all of your baggage with you, it’s actually to bring us more peace thorughout our day. (Although, to be clear, meditation doesn’t take away your baggage, it just lightens the load and makes it easier to carry).

When I’ve had a “challenging” time sitting in the morning, I usually find that I consciously stop to take a breath several times during my day. I don’t have the same overall feeling of peace and well-being when I get off the cushion as I do on a “good” morning, but, whether I’m trying to “make up” for having a crappy time meditating in the morning or it’s just my brain (and soul’s) way of saying that a little peace might be a good thing, I seem to discover some equinimity during my day.

But no matter how my meditation has gone in the morning, I practice one of the most important aspects of meditation - I keep coming back. Today, tomorrow, and the day after that, forever and ever amen.