Hold on to Your Happy Place

Often, we talk about how ADHDers tend to be their own worst critic.

When something goes wrong, they are usually the first ones to point it out—even if no one else seems to notice, many ADHDers seem to be able to take a bad situation and make themselves feel worse about it.

But, have you ever found yourself sabotaging your own feelings of joy and happiness?

Positive Affect Tolerance

Recently, on Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast, Pete and I sat down to talk with long-time friend of the show, Dr. Dodge Rea. He shared a new concept we had not heard before: Positive Affect Tolerance.

Basically, we can only take feeling good for so long before we think we have had too much. At that point, we may even find ways to sabotage these good feelings. It's kind of like we feel selfish for feeling good for too long.

It might sound silly when you say it like that, out loud, but, have you ever been excited for something to happen and then you started to think about how you might mess it up? Or maybe you have wondered how long the good feelings would really stick around before you inevitably messed it up? You may have even chastised yourself for feeling good or happy for one thing, when things were going bad in other ways.

Do any of those sound familiar?

Allow yourself to sit with the good feelings a little longer

Dr. Dodge talked to us about practicing sitting with our happiness or those moments of feeling good for longer periods than you may be used to or even feel comfortable with.

The act of practicing by holding on to the good feelings for a little longer allows you to stretch and strengthen those emotional muscles. The more you continue to practice this, the easier it will be to hold on to those feel-good emotions for even longer.

Practice through acts of mindfulness and meditation

When you recognize yourself pulling away from those positive feelings or beating yourself up inside to keep the good feelings at bay, try to gently bring yourself back into the happy glow and allow the negativity to continue to flow away downstream.

The more you do this type of exercise, you may find it easier and taking less effort to hold on to the positive vibes in the future.

So, why not give it a try! You're worth it!

Thank you for your time and attention,

Nikki