Transforming ADHD Challenges into Strengths Using Positive Psychology
Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Summer Series, where we're revisiting inspirational conversations from the subscription Toolkit Series.
On this week's Summer Toolkit episode, Kate is joined by Katherine Tiddy, a positive psychology practitioner, coach and founder of the Work Happy Project. Katherine shares how focusing on your strengths can lead to growth, resilience, and lasting wellbeing, especially for women with ADHD. From burnout to flourishing, she offers practical insights and empowering tools to help you reconnect with what lights you up and move forward with purpose.
My new book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, is now available, grab your copy here!
What You'll Learn:
- How positive psychology helps you move from surviving to truly flourishing
- Ways to heal and grow after trauma using strengths and evidence-based tools
- Why recognising and using your unique strengths is key for ADHD women
- How to overcome strengths blindness and notice what lights you up
- Tools for managing negativity bias and shifting unhelpful thought patterns
- How to build your personal wellbeing toolkit using strategies such as journaling, mindfulness, and body doubling to support your unique mind
- How trial, error, and failure can help you find your flow
- The link between fear and excitement, and the role of the prefrontal cortex
- How to break challenges into small steps to feel hopeful and in control
Timestamps:
- 02:42 - Introduction to Positive Psychology and ADHD
- 07:40 - Understanding Strengths and Personal Growth
- 09:40 - Understanding the Negativity Bias
- 12:00 - Tools and Strategies for Managing Negative Thoughts
- 15:07 - Navigating Positive Psychology Tools
- 23:41 - Understanding ADHD and Energy Management
Links and Resources:
- Join the Waitlist for my new ADHD community-first membership launching in September! Get exclusive founding offers [here].
- Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
- Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
- Find out more about Katherine via her website and take her FREE online strength assessment here!
Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.
Transcript
So, hi everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome to the summer Toolkit series.
Speaker A:So over the month of August, I'm going to be taking a little break from the podcast.
Speaker A:I think with the book coming out and just lots going on, I really want to be able to just have a little bit of a break, breathe, try and process what's happened with the, with the book and actually listen to my own advice because sometimes we all just need to breathe and decompress a little bit.
Speaker A:So that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker A:Over August, however, I have so much content and so many things that I still want to share with you.
Speaker A:My amazing team have put together some shorter clips from different workshops and different episodes that we are bringing together.
Speaker A:We're trying to keep it themed of the chapters of the book, so really to give you these insights and just a bit more in depth understanding so you can hopefully while you're on holiday or you're at home with the kids, whatever you're doing, you're able to still get your fix of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing podcast.
Speaker A:This is a snippet of a Toolkit episode, which was one of the subscription podcasts that I launched a while ago and I wanted to share some of these workshops from over this time for the summer.
Speaker A:So you're gonna expect a new toolkit snippet every Thursday throughout August and going into early September.
Speaker A:Hopefully by then I'll be ready, refreshed and excited to come back and you're gonna hear a range of different topics.
Speaker A:So covering loads of different areas from adhd, hormones, relationships, mindset, tools, blending it all together with so much expert knowledge.
Speaker A:I'm really excited for this series.
Speaker A:So here is a snippet of a Toolkit episode with my good friend Catherine Tiddy, who is a positive psychologist, expert and coach.
Speaker A:She's done a Masters in Positive Psychology and she's also the founder of the Work Happy Project.
Speaker A:What you're going to get from this episode with Katherine is a bit of an introduction to positive psychology and how to use it in your everyday life and how to move forwards from being in a place of pain, trauma, challenges, and why using this can help you work with your strengths, which is such a powerful thing for ADHD women because we have lived for a long time with these challenges and this is now about reframing what we've gone through and using this for our resilience, for our inner strength, and hopefully moving forwards with more positivity and deep self acceptance.
Speaker A:So this is all about understanding how we can use positive, positive psychology strategies and to shift from that negative thinking and building lasting resilience and self worth that we can utilize a lot of the healing path that we've gone through for good.
Speaker A:So here it is.
Speaker B:Probably the best way to describe positive psychology to people who maybe aren't aware of it or aren't specifically aware of it is if you think about traditional psychology and psychologists, they will operate at trying to fix or heal mental illness.
Speaker B:So if you imagine a continuum between sort of a minus 10 here and a positive 10 here with zero in the middle, psychology as normal will focus on how do we heal people with mental illness.
Speaker B:And between minus 10, those suffering, those struggling with mental health up to zero.
Speaker B:Being a healthy functioning human, positive psychology goes from zero to plus 10.
Speaker B:So it's about how do we take somebody from that healthy I. E. Not mentally ill state, but help them flourish.
Speaker B:So I very much operate in this zero plus 10.
Speaker B:So it's the science of human flourishing.
Speaker B:It's very science based.
Speaker B:So as much as I love some of the more woo woo sort of manifestation and all I always seek to kind of pull it back to yeah, but why, why does that work and how in the.
Speaker B:What's going on in the brain and that's ultimately what I help people do really is get from.
Speaker B:As I would describe, I was in myself, this sort of languishing state, this state where nothing's terrible, nothing.
Speaker B:You're not suffering, you're not necessarily in a.
Speaker B:In a very bad situation.
Speaker B:But you know, there's more to life.
Speaker B:That sort of feeling of how do I unlock and uncover what actually will help me flourish as a human.
Speaker B:And that's why I called the business what I did as, you know, it's that, you know, you were with me in the inception of it of that kind of like, what's this all about?
Speaker B:And it is around, you know, how do I help people lift themselves out of that languishing state where they just.
Speaker B:And I see it so many times with clients, you know, we're just on this treadmill.
Speaker B:It's crap.
Speaker B:We're in perhaps midlife, wherever we are in our working careers.
Speaker B:And we just think I just got to get through to retirement age.
Speaker B:I mean at the age of sub 40, I was like, how do I retire?
Speaker B:When do I retire?
Speaker B:How can I get there?
Speaker B:That now isn't really a thought for me.
Speaker B:I don't see myself ever retiring and that, you know, I feel like that's a really privileged, lovely position to be in.
Speaker B:And that's, you know, I set off on My own work, happy project.
Speaker B:And now to be able to help others do that is amazing.
Speaker B:So that's what the business.
Speaker A:I mean, it's so inspiring to hear this and, you know, that's why I think you and I are on such a similar page, is that, you know, this is what I have set my business up as.
Speaker A:You know, like, after we get this diagnosis, it's like, okay, we've lived life potentially in this languishing state that you mentioned, but often much worse because we don't even know what's going on.
Speaker A:We don't understand ourselves.
Speaker A:And so it's been challenging, it's been difficult.
Speaker A:We then get the diagnosis.
Speaker A:And actually, you know, you talk about this post traumatic growth, we want to go in that direction, but very often we're stuck in the what ifs and it could have been this way and if someone had helped me.
Speaker A:And there's a lot of grief and there's a lot of sadness and anger and resentment and we, we have to move through that.
Speaker A:But then I, like, want to help.
Speaker A:So we sort of like recognize, okay, yes, these, all these things did happen, but then it's like, okay, right, how can we grow, how can we thrive, how can we flourish like you say?
Speaker A:So I'd be interested to know a little bit more about this post traumatic growth, because I think this is really relevant today.
Speaker B:Yeah, because I think it is.
Speaker B:It's that the first step comes with realizing the current reality of, you know, this is where I am now, this is my maybe new set of circumstances.
Speaker B:Like you say, you know, that kind of post diagnosis of this is.
Speaker B:This is what I'm dealing with here.
Speaker B:And that is never going to be easy.
Speaker B:Our brains don't like being in this state of flux, don't like change.
Speaker B:So when we're in this sort of scenario, that acceptance, you know, is, is the first and really difficult stage to go through.
Speaker B:But it's then helping people understand, okay, so this is what I am and this is where I am, but actually what do I want to choose to do from here?
Speaker B:And I think, you know, I talk with clients a lot about this is we have agency and choice in our lives.
Speaker B:Not always, and it's not always fair and it's not always equally shared.
Speaker B:But where can you see kind of that ability to choose and what support do you need?
Speaker B:Probably most importantly to think about what that could look like.
Speaker B:You know, I don't mind sharing.
Speaker B:I'm going through this process currently with my son with regard to ADHD diagnoses.
Speaker B:And I See in him such super strengths that I hope I can really help him see.
Speaker B:And strengths.
Speaker B:And understanding your own strengths is a massive, massive part of this.
Speaker B:It's one of the sort of fundamental jigsaw pieces of positive psychology is not a focus on the weakness or the deficit or the things that aren't good or that aren't right.
Speaker B:It's how do we shine a light on all of the really positive things and the elements of you that absolutely can shine.
Speaker B:And it's helping individuals then find those, understand those, because we quite often have what's called strengths blindness.
Speaker B:You know, people aren't very.
Speaker B:You can reel off your weaknesses, but we're not very good at identifying our strengths.
Speaker B:That's where I often start with clients, is that sort of first base of let's really understand what lights you up.
Speaker B:And it's not just what am I good at?
Speaker B:Oh, well, I'm good at blah or I'm good at presenting or I'm good at teamwork or whatever it is.
Speaker B:They're kind of learned behaviors.
Speaker B:And quite often our careers are based on learned behaviors.
Speaker B:So actually, coming back to it's not about what can I do and what can I do?
Speaker B:Well, it's about what really lights me up and energizes me as opposed to depletes energy.
Speaker B:And it's understanding that.
Speaker B:That I think certainly for a lot of people, and especially those with any form of neurodiversity, it's understanding what are the things they're really good at and how can they really do more of that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I'm not saying we can easily ignore our weaknesses, but we can absolutely dial them down and find solutions.
Speaker B:It's about managing your weaknesses and really shining a light on.
Speaker B:On those strengths and then managing that into something that looks more fulfilling for that individual.
Speaker A:This is what I talk about all the time.
Speaker A:And you mentioned the word deficit.
Speaker A:Obviously that's part of the terminology of adhd.
Speaker A:And that in itself is so damaging.
Speaker A:We get this diagnosis.
Speaker A:The stigma and the taboo is there from the name alone.
Speaker A:Attention deficits.
Speaker B:You've already been told there's something wrong with you, wrong order.
Speaker A:We have an abundance of attention in the stuff that lights us up.
Speaker A:And, you know, the amount of entrepreneurs.
Speaker A:There are successful people with ADHD because they've channeled, they've outsourced, they've got support, they've got the help for the more, you know, more challenging parts of their life or personality.
Speaker A:And then we've got the.
Speaker A:What you sort of said is that we can.
Speaker A:We Sort of tend to hone in on our weaknesses.
Speaker A:The ADHD side of us.
Speaker A:We tend to go down that negativity bias.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I know we're going to talk about this where we.
Speaker A:If we're having a bad day, a bad week or energy slow, we've not slept properly, we've not eaten enough, we've overworked, we're feeling burnt out, hormones massive.
Speaker A:Like this is a huge part of the conversation.
Speaker A:That negativity bias feels much stronger.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we kind of go down that thought loop and the catastrophizing and the worrying and the anxiety and all of a sudden the stuff that we thought we were really good at or we thought really lit us up.
Speaker A:All of a sudden it's like, no, we want to shut it down in life.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And this can be a monthly cycle for many women, you know, who identify and I know you work with.
Speaker A:With that.
Speaker A:So is that when positive psychology, like that's when we need to bring in those.
Speaker A:The heavy arm.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's how I love to think about it.
Speaker B:And when I'm talking with clients about it, it's a toolkit.
Speaker B:It is not the answer or the solution to everything.
Speaker B:I live and breathe this stuff.
Speaker B:I still have bad days.
Speaker B:I still have days where I want to give up and I think I can't do anything.
Speaker B:You know, that that is part of being human.
Speaker B:And it's interesting.
Speaker B:You talk about, you know, the negativity thinking bias.
Speaker B:You probably heard these stats.
Speaker B:70, 80% of our thoughts are negative and they're negative for a good reason.
Speaker B:Our brain's primary function is to keep us alive and to keep us safe.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, it's rubbish as a detector of what actually is a risk and what isn't.
Speaker B:So quite often we'll perceive risks and we will.
Speaker B:We'll create stories based on all sorts of different thoughts and remember and experiences and everything will come up.
Speaker B:But it's the negative seeds that we'll find.
Speaker B:So we finally.
Speaker B:These automatic negative thoughts, or ants is a nice little analogy for it.
Speaker B:These automatic thoughts pop in and they can be really destructive because the negativity thinking bias then has us into these spirals and we can very, very easily spiral down and incredibly quickly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the types of tools and strategies, therapy and those sort of.
Speaker B:More psychology.
Speaker B:Cognitive based.
Speaker B:You might have heard of cognitive based therapy and you know, obviously I know that you're an expert in the EFT and the tapping and lots and lots of different ways to understand those thought patterns and to try and work again.
Speaker B:You know, work at finding reasons and logics that, that go against them.
Speaker B:But ultimately it's noticing in the first place that they're actually sabotaging you before they've taken you too far with it.
Speaker B:And ultimately, you know, that really is.
Speaker B:And, and I work with clients a lot around resilience because it's building up this ability to bounce back and bounce back that little bit quicker is the positive approach to that attack, if you like, of negative thinking.
Speaker B:It's almost, it's that sort of breaks on, spot it and then regulate and enable your body to regulate quickly enough to catch you before it's too, or not, not too late, but you know, before you then miles down that lane, like you said, in terms of I'm just gonna, what am I doing with this course?
Speaker B:I'm just gonna, everything's rubbish and I'm just going to give up.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:How do we sort of catch those?
Speaker B:And this is where so many of the tools that you can kind of have in your positive psych kind of tool bag, if you like, can really support, but they're so different, you know.
Speaker B:And this is where in my humble opinion, no two brains are the same.
Speaker B:So how we can have a normal brain and a subnormal brain or a deficit brain, as you said, it doesn't make sense to me because everybody's brain is a connection of thoughts, experiences that are all super, super personal to them.
Speaker B:So it follows suit that the tools and techniques that you can use to support yourself to move towards a more positive state aren't going to be uniform for everyone.
Speaker B:What might be in your toolkit might be completely different to what's in my toolkit.
Speaker B:What I love about positive psychology is it's all evidence based and it's all research based.
Speaker B:So what we do know is there is really sound grounding behind these strategies that make sense of, you know, hormones and make sense of neurotransmitters and the way that our brain operates and connects.
Speaker B:So it's about identifying the ones that work for you as an individual, which takes a bit of playing around with.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, what you're saying that, you know, that makes huge sense because like you say, we're all wired differently with the ADHD brain.
Speaker A:Would you say that the positive psychology tools are a great way of navigating us towards what is truly authentic to us?
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think that you take strengths as an example.
Speaker B:It's about almost coming home to yourself, which I know sounds a little bit contrite, but it's about Accepting who you are, it's about embracing who you are and it's about understanding what are those strengths that you can lead with and also what support structure do you need around you that is going to enable you to not fall over at the first hurdle and.
Speaker B:And to start berating yourself.
Speaker B:Because it's almost at that point that if you can almost stop that point occurring, you then not likely to hit that downward spiral.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It almost feels like a real privilege to stumble across something that you love doing.
Speaker B:And that's why I get so much satisfaction from the job that I do, because I get to help people find it.
Speaker B:And there's a bit of a myth that you need to find your passion, you need to find your purpose, in my belief.
Speaker B:And I think we're both good examples of this.
Speaker B:You find it through playing with it and through trying stuff and through, dare I say, failing at stuff and, you know, or giving up on stuff or whatever.
Speaker B:You find what it is that actually is that thing that gets you in.
Speaker B:What we talk about in psychology and positive psychology is into that state of flow, which is what you're talking about, you lose all sense of time.
Speaker B:You feel fantastic, nothing.
Speaker B:Everything else pairs away in the world.
Speaker B:You just lost in the moment doing what you're doing.
Speaker B:And what I would always say to people I'm working with is seek out, notice those when you feel in that state.
Speaker B:And then it's about doing more of what you love.
Speaker B:And you'll have heard me talk about this, you know, it's not about doing more for the sake of doing more.
Speaker B:It's about going, what do I.
Speaker B:And I love this phrase because I think it just is so easy and so helpful.
Speaker B:What do I need right now?
Speaker B:And you know, that might be to sit down and do absolutely nothing.
Speaker B:That might be to go for a run, that might be to drink a big glass of water.
Speaker B:That might be to go and cry to your friend.
Speaker B:You know, it might be a whole host of different solutions, but the more that we notice, what helps us flick that switch almost of starting to feel a little bit more hopeful, feel a little bit more optimistic and getting it into your toolkit.
Speaker B:So a really simple thing to do is to think about.
Speaker B:And this helps address strengths, it helps address what I'm talking about here of what is it that I'm doing when I feel at my absolute best.
Speaker B:And that might be hobbies, that might be running, that might be swimming, that might be sewing, that might be gardening.
Speaker B:It might whatever it is, Hence why it'll Always be so different and actually keeping note of all of these things that do actually help us make that transition and help us kind of get into the state of flow and noticing what it is that gets us there can be a really useful, very simple sort of tool to enable you to kind of lean into just doing more of those, more of those things and moving away more from the automatic responses that we tend to do when we get into stress response response, such as scrolling Instagram, which just fires up your comparisonitis, goes through the roof.
Speaker B:But to actually know what is in your personal wellbeing toolkit, it's thinking through and learning what you as an individual and noticing how you relate to stuff.
Speaker B:So say, for example, like, if I'm overly excited about something, I also have to manage that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because that can otherwise lead me to work like a dog and then I end up knackered.
Speaker B:Yeah, I relate to that one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's also about like, if I feel that kind of, oh my God.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I could do this, I can do this and I want to do this, I want to do that.
Speaker B:I'll take myself off and go and work, go for a walk or go for a run.
Speaker B:A run is a really good way that I've learned that when I'm feeling that kind of real excitement, I can go for a run and then I can come back and go, right.
Speaker B:Okay, this is what I need to do.
Speaker B:And it all becomes clearer because quite often when we are in that sort of very, very energized state, engagement and fear sit.
Speaker B:Excitement and fear sit very close to each other, tip over either way.
Speaker B:And actually our prefrontal cortex, that's logic, that's order, that's organizing is impaired.
Speaker B:Anything that we can do to regulate whether that's, you know, a lot of common, well being tools.
Speaker B:So whether that's mindfulness, whether that's breathing techniques, whether that's journaling, you know, all of these are what you need to kind of almost determine work or don't work for you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What I mean, what you just described then I think so many of us can relate to is like that Tigger energy of like, so excited.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we get that a lot.
Speaker A:Like, we get these kind of like downloads of like, oh my God, if I just did this and I did that.
Speaker A:And actually very often they do pay off when we get that kind of intuitive hit.
Speaker A:You know, I typically get it in the shower.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Same like I've had shampoo in my hair and I need to get my phone because if I don't get my phone, I'll forget it.
Speaker A:But you're so right.
Speaker A:That fears, that massive surge of energy sometimes skews some of the things like the practical and the logic.
Speaker A:And you talk about the prefrontal cortex.
Speaker A:Oh, that's a big part of our executive functioning with adhd.
Speaker A:So it's so interlinked positive psychology and ADHD really, because the way we can understand our brain, we can work with it as opposed to, you know, kind of go, oh, I've had this great idea, but actually how am I going to do that and how I'm going to do this?
Speaker A:Scrap it, and I'm just going to be sat there.
Speaker A:And that often leads.
Speaker A:You know, we hear a lot about low mood and depression, anxiety and just feeling really despondent with ADHD because we have these big ideas, but our executive functioning then gets in the way and we can't take it to the next level.
Speaker A:What would you suggest if someone's sort of relating to this, they have all this like excitable energy and then the prefrontal cortex does get impaired.
Speaker B:I think again, you know, there's not a one strategy fits all solution.
Speaker B:I think there's, there's.
Speaker B:And it depends to what degree you're activated or energized, whichever way you want to look at it.
Speaker B:And I always think work with people around sort of energy levels from a extreme sort of point of view.
Speaker B:So I use scaling quite a lot.
Speaker B:So I'll.
Speaker B:I'll say so, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are you in terms of, you know, your whatever it might be?
Speaker B:So say if you are feeling an 8 or a 9 in excitement, we can do this to ourselves.
Speaker B:You know, I do it all the time, right.
Speaker B:You know, not to turn where I'm at the moment.
Speaker B:I'm an eight, right?
Speaker B:I'm an eight.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know if I'm an eight, I need to run or I need to do something that's quite active.
Speaker B:Number two, I need to probably just shut my laptop and go for a walk with the dog or, you know, do something that, you know, if I'm a two or a three, actually, the right thing to do for me can sometimes be to get my journal out and to actually think.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Okay, if I was to do this, what's the first step I've got to take?
Speaker B:And again, you know, very familiar with coaching for anybody that's had it will be this sort of concept of, you know, I was vision it as a staircase.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:What is the very first step that I'VE got to take here because this, this massive idea that you're so energized about feels massive.
Speaker B:It's like, how do I get there?
Speaker B:And then your brain starts pinging around the, like you say the, the kind of, yeah, right.
Speaker B:Who are you to do this?
Speaker B:And somebody's already doing that.
Speaker B:And all of that negativity that jumps in.
Speaker B:Whereas actually to step on that very first step of the stairs isn't as scary.
Speaker B:So it does.
Speaker B:Your brain doesn't instantly trigger that stress response.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's going, okay, so maybe I just need to put that idea out to a couple of mates and see what they think, okay, I can do that.
Speaker B:Done Dopamine.
Speaker B:Because we've achieved, and it's quite often we are just playing with these, like, neurotransmitters in our mind, thinking, okay, well, if I walk, that's going to give me a hit of serotonin.
Speaker B:If I do this, that's going to give me a hit of dopamine.
Speaker B:So the other benefit to breaking things down, if you feel you can get into that sort of, I suppose more cognitive state of thinking things through, is almost just staircase it out and just go, right, what's the first step?
Speaker B:Oh, I can do that.
Speaker B:I've done that.
Speaker B:Brilliant.
Speaker B:What's next?
Speaker B:And actually just really simplifying and pairing it right back.
Speaker A:If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, is out now.
Speaker A:You can find it wherever you buy your books from.
Speaker A:You can also check out the Organization audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.
Speaker A:I have narrated it all myself.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.
