A Revisit: Attacking the Gremlins with Jane Massengill
We're on summer break, so this week is a Revisit: a favorite conversation pulled back out of the archive. The idea takes after Dr. Kurosh Dini's concept of the visit, showing up to something with curiosity rather than judgment.
In this one, we talk with coach Jane Massengill about the negative self-talk that so many people with ADHD carry, why it can run louder for us, and a simple practice she calls word watching for catching it in the moment. It's a warm, useful conversation about learning to be kinder to yourself. Whether it's your first listen or a return trip, it's worth your time.
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Hey everybody, it's me, Pete.
So you might notice something a little different this week. We're in the thick of summer, Nikki and I are taking a bit of a break to recharge — because, you know, rest is a productivity strategy too — and while we're out, we didn't want to just leave you with dead air in the feed.
So we're doing something we're calling a Revisit.
If you've been around a while, you'll remember our conversations with Dr. Kurosh Dini about the idea of the "visit" — the practice of showing up to a thing, a task, a moment, on purpose, with a little curiosity and a lot less judgment. Not white-knuckling it, not forcing it. Just... visiting.
And that felt like exactly the right way to think about these summer episodes. We've got years of conversations back there in the archive — episodes a lot of you have never heard, and episodes some of you might love to hear again with fresh ears. So we're going back to visit them. On purpose. Together.
This one's a favorite of mine. It's our conversation with Jane Massengill about taming your gremlins — that insidious inner voice that most of us with ADHD know a little too well — and some genuinely practical ways to notice it, name it, and choose what you do with it. It holds up. I think you're going to get a lot out of it, whether it's your first time or your fifth.
So settle in, and enjoy the Revisit. We'll be back with new episodes before you know it. Thanks, as always, for being here. We appreciate your time and your attention.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Taking Control, the ADHD Podcast on RashPixel.fm. I'm Pete Wright, and I'm here with Nikki Kinzer. Hello, Nikki. Are you feeling okay?
Nikki Kinzer:
I'm feeling great. It's a great day.
Pete Wright:
Oh, I'm glad. It's great to have you here, right here, at this time.
Nikki Kinzer:
Thank you. At the right time. Yes. I had a moment.
Pete Wright:
You had a moment.
Nikki Kinzer:
I had a moment today, and I messed up on my scheduling. But I have great clients, and they're flexible. She was working with me, and so I'm here.
Pete Wright:
That's perfect. It's just perfect. And I'm very excited about our conversation today. We're going to be talking about gremlins, and I think we have the perfect guest to talk to us about gremlins.
Before we do that, head over to takecontroladhd.com to get to know us a little better. You can listen to the show right there on the website, or subscribe to our mailing list and we'll send you an email each time a new episode is released. You can connect with us on Twitter or Facebook at Take Control ADHD.
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Jane Massengill has been coaching adults with ADHD for the past twenty years, helping them to put the brakes on their internal chatter long enough that they can begin to experience their bright spots instead of focusing on their dark spots. She's the director of the aptly named Gremlin Taming Institute, and speaks to audiences of all kinds on the benefits of learning how to listen to yourself. As a clinical social worker and master certified coach, we are thrilled to have her on the show today to talk about taming our gremlins. Jane, welcome to the ADHD Podcast.
Jane Massengill:
Good morning, good morning. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
Pete Wright:
Now, Jane, you are a wonderful person for joining us here. You and I have never met in person, but we've had technical conversations this morning. But you and Nikki — did you just meet at the conference? Is that how you came across one another?
Jane Massengill:
A couple of years ago we met each other at the 2017 ADHD conference. At least, that's my first recollection.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Excellent.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes. And I actually took one of the sessions that she led prior to that, but I didn't go and introduce myself. I was shy. But I did buy the book after her session — Taming Your Gremlin. And then, I think at that point in 2017, I introduced myself. I came up, I did one of her sessions again, and introduced myself, and that's when we met. And then we saw each other at this last CHADD conference and had a great conversation, and I was like, I want you on the show.
Pete Wright:
Well, if you guys have known each other for that long, then it's about time.
Jane Massengill:
That's about time, that's right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
It's about time.
Nikki Kinzer:
And her message is perfect.
Jane Massengill:
That's right.
Nikki Kinzer:
It's so right on and so important for our listeners to hear.
Pete Wright:
Outstanding. Well, let's talk about that.
Jane Massengill:
Well, thank you.
Pete Wright:
Nikki, how did this conversation hit your calendar?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, in particular, it's the exercises, Jane, that you did in the different sessions we had. Your sessions are very participatory — the audience participates, so you practice what she's teaching. And it's a lot about mindfulness and really paying attention to what's around you. One of the things I specifically remember from the session in 2017 is that you had us look around the room. You just had us take a second to look around and notice things. And I remember noticing a telephone on the wall and how weird that was — there was a phone on the wall. But you wouldn't have noticed that unless you were really taking the time to pay attention.
And she talks — and she will today talk — a lot about that internal dialogue that we have with ourselves. As we know, so many ADHDers have negative internal dialogues; they really beat themselves up. So if we can shed some light and make that be different and look more positive, then I think that's a really good thing to do.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. And as somebody who trucks with ADHD myself, this is an element of constant practice. It's something you just have to constantly be with. Sometimes I find that the noise in my head, the chatter in my head, is so loud I don't even know that it's negative. I couldn't even tell you if there was an emotional component to it. It's just invisible. It's just busy. And that can certainly hurt my worldview.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
So I'm thrilled that you're here, Jane, to lead us through some of these things. Where would you like to start?
Jane Massengill:
First of all, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, excited to be sharing some stories and information with you guys. It's so true, Pete, what you just said — sometimes that inner conversation, that dialogue, is so insidious that we don't even know that it's there.
What excites me so much is learning some solid techniques, having some solid tools to practice myself and to be able to share with other people, so that you can do something about it — first of all, even noticing that the conversation is showing up in the first place.
It's interesting. I've been doing some work recently, just trying to get some clarity. First of all, I have ADHD. So for those of us who have ADHD, do we really have this voice more than other people do? Or is it just something that everybody has, and we just happen to be talking about it and noticing it?
Pete Wright:
Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
I started getting really curious, and I went back and started thinking about my past career. I've been curious for most of my life about why some people struggle and other people don't. We've all been given this amazing gift of this life, and yet there are some people who have certain biological issues that they struggle with more, and other people who completely succeed despite their biology. That fascinates me. It got me pretty curious. Why do some people with ADHD struggle with a lot of their daily challenges? I started researching a lot of famous people with ADHD. Why do people like Jim Carrey, Michael Phelps — how do they push through their challenges? They've both come out speaking openly about having ADHD, as well as many others. But what makes them different, and how can we learn from that? I propose that it has something to do with what you say to yourself, the words that you use, and these inner conversations that are going on inside of us.
Pete Wright:
That is fascinating. I have to step back, because you bring up two names that are close to me culturally — Jim Carrey and Michael Phelps. Based on their own performance, I look at them as very serious and cognitively adept, cognitively aware people. When you look at Michael Phelps, he's got the headphones on and he's planning. He is in his zone, and that is a zone in which I think many ADHDers don't often find themselves.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah, or maybe don't even know how to get there sometimes.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Jane Massengill:
And I would also propose that it's because we've conditioned ourselves to believe that maybe it's not even our gig, and maybe it's not even possible. Maybe we can't, because we have ADHD. I want to challenge that, because there's no doubt in my mind — I've had so many experiences of watching people who've struggled, with and without ADHD. Some thrive and some don't.
In my days as a social worker — I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree in social work — when I first got started, I spent the first seven years of my career in hospitals. A lot of people had really varied circumstances then. I worked with so many people: a forty-one-year-old woman who had two small children and was literally in her last year of life with melanoma. A father who was grieving his three-year-old son, who he backed over and crushed with his backhoe. A thirteen-year-old who was pregnant for the second time, and both of those children were fathered by relatives. Just horrific life circumstances.
And yet — maybe it was the short-term nature of the work I did, because I was in a hospital setting, so I didn't hear about the inner conversations that were going on — what I witnessed is that they stayed so strong in the moment, rather than focusing on beating themselves up for being in that moment in the first place. They really stayed present, rather than bringing the past in. Their focus was more on, what do I need to do right now? Let me forget about everything that ever got me here if I'm going to be able to manage what's going on right here. Because when you start bringing in all that stuff about what's happened in the past and how you got here, you don't have the wherewithal, you don't have the gifts to access what you already have inside of you to deal with what's going on in the moment.
Pete Wright:
I have an incredibly difficult time comparing any of my baggage and voices in history to some of the experiences you just described.
Jane Massengill:
Right. And yet, at the same point, some of the things that we get into with having ADHD — one of my most painful coaching clients was an older gentleman with ADHD, and he really struggled with his finances. He lost most of the money that he ever made, and he was so ashamed of that that he ended up taking his own life. He definitely had ADHD. He was struggling with trying to work through it, and yet that shame, those conversations that were going on in his head, were so prevalent. He had trouble sorting himself from it. He didn't know how to, or he chose not to, stay in the present moment and work with what was going on now. He brought all of that contaminated stuff from the past into the present.
I don't want that to ever happen to anybody, ever. So these little things, Pete — they feel sometimes like little things in comparison to some of those issues I just talked about from my early days in social work. And yet it's all those little things that can add up. A life is a life. So regardless of what gets in the way, it's still getting in the way of a life, and we all equally have the responsibility to protect that gift as much as we choose to.
Nikki Kinzer:
The power of choice. That's interesting. I don't know if you're going to end up talking about that, but I was rereading some of the book yesterday, just to remember what I was learning before and catch up. There were a couple of things that really stood out — the power of choice, but also finding joy inside of yourself. I had to reread that paragraph, because that was a really interesting concept. I think we all kind of know it, but don't. We expect that other things are going to make us happy, that other things are going to bring us joy. But the example he used in the book was going out to dinner with his son, and his son was eating these barbecued ribs. When he got done eating the ribs, he just had this look of satisfaction, smiling ear to ear, because it was pure joy — just from eating something he really liked. I don't know where that came from, but it was that moment.
Jane Massengill:
Well, we lose the joy in the moment. That's a really important point, Nikki, because part of what we're going for — when I ask myself, what is it that makes some people survive in difficult circumstances and some people have challenges — part of it is coming back to that present moment, and being able to connect with what's underneath the circumstances, the life's breath that you're given. And it is so easy to take that for granted.
Before we go any further, I want to say that the book we're referring to, that you showed a picture of, was written over thirty-five years ago by Rick Carson. It was the only book that was ever required when I went through my coach training program twenty years ago, and it's now been written in about fifteen different languages — none of which, by the way, was initiated by the author, by Rick. This always fascinates me for authors. It just organically happened; other people said, this should be in this language, in this language. It's used all over the world with all sorts of organizations and companies, and lots of coaches and therapists and substance abuse programs. I feel so blessed to have picked up that book and let it guide me in so many ways.
And I took Rick seriously when, in the back of the book, he says, if you have questions, call me. Here's my phone number. That was a great part of being impulsive — I picked up the phone and called him, and he answered. From there we've had a great long collegial relationship and a great friendship, and I've learned so much. I'm so grateful to him for everything he's brought to me.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
One phone call changed the direction of where you were going with your coaching as well, I'm sure.
Jane Massengill:
One phone call. So true. Another phone call that was really pivotal in my life — again, this is where that impulsiveness of ADHD shows up. When I left hospital social work, I went into psychiatry. We moved from UMass Medical Center over to Fairfield, California. I picked up the phone book, the yellow pages, because there wasn't an internet at that time — I'm sounding a little older — and called all the psychiatrists. One new psychiatrist in town interviewed me, brought me in, and I convinced him to hire me. It turns out that it was Daniel Amen. You may know Daniel Amen. So we started working together.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yes.
Jane Massengill:
And it was through his work — I started doing all these evaluations. This was back in the mid-to-late eighties, early nineties, when adult ADHD was just being considered as a DSM diagnosis. It was also the time when, shortly thereafter, he started doing all these brain images. He asked the whole staff to come in if they wanted to. Come on in, I'll give you a brain image — I need some brains, is what he said. I need some normal brains. So I thought, I don't know if you're going to get normal, but I want to see what my brain looks like. So I went in, and we both looked at my scan together. He went, hmm, I kind of didn't expect this from you. I said, well, tell me about this. He says, well, your prefrontal cortex isn't working quite like the typical brain that I was expecting, because you look like you have it pretty together most of the time.
To me it was like a lightbulb went off, because I was doing all these evaluations for adults with ADHD thinking, come on, everybody's got this. It sounded so much like me, so I made the assumption, of course, that everybody had it. But when I saw my scan results, it really made sense. And I want to make it clear — the scan doesn't diagnose you, but it's the whole picture together. At home, what Daniel Amen didn't see is that I had lots of projects that were started and unfinished, my desk was a shambles, and I didn't have a whole lot of patience with my kids. So I was really blessed to have connected with him. I worked with him for a dozen years, and I got into coaching during the time I was also working with him.
Nikki Kinzer:
So I have a question for you, because I want to circle back to when you were talking about being curious. Is the internal dialogue different with ADHD, versus somebody without ADHD? What did you find out?
Jane Massengill:
I think so. Here's what I found out. I think so, because we're being told our whole lives — sit down, shut up, don't move, sit still.
Nikki Kinzer:
Sit still.
Jane Massengill:
Clean up your messes, stop interrupting — from very early ages. Every experience we have in our life, we create some ideas about who we are based on those experiences. That's true for everybody. And what's also true is that when you don't fit into the same box — especially in our school system, the way it's set up — you're going to get, for the most part, way more of those messages than the average child might receive. Diagnosed or not, it doesn't matter. So you start making up all these ideas about who you are.
And those ideas may actually have nothing to do with who you truly are. All of a sudden this line becomes blurry between who am I, and who am I really, and what are people saying about me? So we start taking on that internal dialogue.
One example I can think of — these experiences start early. When I was six years old, in first grade, I talked a lot. Very chatty. I went to a Catholic school. I remember being pulled up to the front of the classroom, and Sister Laura — bless her heart — would have me hold my lips shut, and she'd make me stand in front of the classroom facing all my peers, holding my lips shut for anywhere between one and five minutes.
Nikki Kinzer:
Wow.
Pete Wright:
Oh my goodness.
Jane Massengill:
It was public shaming.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
And I was probably pretty vain at that age, so I was equally as worried — I was ashamed, and I was worried that the longer I did that, my lips were going to look like hers. She had these big lips, and I didn't like the way she looked, either.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
So I started faking that I was holding my lips. And if I could talk to her now, I'd say, Sister Laura, I get paid for talking.
Nikki Kinzer:
Look at me now.
Jane Massengill:
That's right. And if I wanted big lips, I'll go to Botox.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's right.
Jane Massengill:
So, anyway. Yes, I do believe there's truth to this, Nikki. I do think the dialogue is different for adults with ADHD, and for kids too — which is why I'm such a big proponent of parents paying close attention to what you're saying to your kids. Because whether you know it or not, these are all formative memories, things they're going to take with them in terms of who they start believing that they are.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's the curse of being a parent with ADHD, right?
Jane Massengill:
Yes.
Pete Wright:
Sometimes I find myself in ADHD-understanding mode, where I'm parenting with ADHD in mind, and sometimes I find that I'm parenting normatively, and it's just because we're not in sync. I find myself saying things that were said to me, and I want to just slam my head in a car door. I hear it as it comes out of my mouth. It's so triggering.
Jane Massengill:
Me too.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
I know, you want to pull them back, right?
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah. It's painful. So it's interesting — when I came back from the ADHD conference in St. Louis, Russ Barkley spoke on adults with ADHD having shorter lifespans. I didn't even want to go to that session, because I thought, why do I want to learn that I'm going to die earlier? But I'm really glad I went, because he talks about conscientiousness, and one of the things that can increase your lifespan is being more conscious. I thought, perfect — being more aware, noticing more, paying more attention. And then I thought, well, hang on a second, we have ADHD. Paying attention and being more aware, that's part of the challenge; our focus is all over the place.
I have been practicing simply noticing — sort of the essence of gremlin taming — now for about the last twenty years. Simply noticing really is paying attention, but you're paying attention to a whole lot of things. So I thought, how can I help people simplify what it is to pay attention to? How can I take this buzzword of mindfulness, awareness, simply noticing, and bring it down even more, to help people have a simple place to start in the beginning? So I started thinking about word watching — kind of like bird watching. When you're bird watching, you're just sitting, maybe you're looking for a specific bird, or you might just be sitting on your porch going, what's flying by? All day long those birds are flying by, whether you know it or not. You just haven't stopped long enough to really focus on them, to pay attention to them.
Words are the same way. So it's helpful to be able to — I want to play around a little bit today with doing some word watching. There are certain words that I find, once you get underneath them, you start understanding the habits, the behaviors, and the beliefs that we have about ourselves. And once you notice those things, then you can decide what you want to do with them. Again, it comes down to the choice.
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, I want to say something about that before we do the practice. I know there's this power of choice. But you said, what is it that you want to do with it after you've noticed it? I guess where I get stuck is, how does a person stop believing what they've believed for so long?
Jane Massengill:
Great question. It goes back to that experience of joy that you talked about earlier, Nikki. The first time I ever had my own experience of — I'll go back to you, Pete — this insidious voice, it used to be so connected to me that I didn't know the difference between the two. I had a very powerful experience of being able to sort out that inner conversation, to take it and literally give it a picture, call it a gremlin, put it behind me, and then come back and have the same exact experience I just had, but only with that behind me.
Nikki Kinzer:
Behind you.
Jane Massengill:
It is separated from my body. I have goosebumps just —
Nikki Kinzer:
So you can't do that without the awareness, because you have to know it's there and separate it.
Jane Massengill:
Right. And the words are one way into that awareness.
Nikki Kinzer:
Okay.
Jane Massengill:
There's this big thing of being aware. Well, what are we supposed to be aware of? Our words, our behaviors, our habits, inner conversations, physical experiences in our body — all of those are grist for the mill in terms of things you can be aware of. But where to start? If you want to take one super-simple thing — I'm proposing you start with your words. That's a super-simple thing you can take. Do you hear yourself say the words "I can't," or "I should"? Just some of the more defining language.
So when I experienced myself without the gremlin in my body, there was such tremendous freedom. I honestly felt like I was being born again. Like, here I am. Holy crap. There's a me inside of here without all this conversation. That's the fuel. That's the motivation. It's not a decision, because you don't need to cognitively decide that. When you feel joy, when you feel happiness and freedom, you naturally move toward it. You don't have to decide. If you were behind a barbed-wire fence and somebody opened it up, you don't have to ask yourself, do I want to go through this today? Let me choose, let me decide. Heck no — you're taking a run for it. It's the same thing with that inner freedom. It's already there. But we squish it with all these experiences that we've had, based on being the square peg in a round hole, or whatever that thing is.
Nikki Kinzer:
So watch for those words. Those all-or-nothing words are something people can start to pay attention to — can't, should, ought to.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah, words, and then phrases. When I was a kid, my cousin would always say, oh Jane, you're such a Jane — when I'd do something goofy.
Pete Wright:
Oh.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right.
Jane Massengill:
She was goofing around, and yet, when I got married, my husband said, wow, that's such a put-down when you say it to yourself. I used to just automatically say it. When I really started thinking about what I was saying, the message underneath it, what I was making up, was: I'm stupid. I'm never going to be good enough. Why bother trying? Simply paying attention and noticing those words, that message — then I can decide, do I want to take that right now? Or do I want to put those words behind me, put them aside, or just choose not to interact with them? It's incredibly powerful.
Nikki Kinzer:
It really is. And I think I've already shared this story on the podcast, so forgive me, listeners, if you're hearing it again. But I think it's important. My daughter was going to a gymnastics meet, and she was in the car talking about how she was nervous. She said, I'm really nervous about this. I had just read something about how, when you say "I am," whatever comes afterward is what you're focused on, and what is going to come to you. So I shared that with her. I said, when you say "I am nervous," then when you go out there, that's what you're going to feel. So what's something else you can say that would give a different result? We came up with, I am brave, I am courageous, I am strong. And what was so great about it, Jane, is that she didn't make the scores she needed to, but she came out really proud of herself and really happy about her meet.
Jane Massengill:
"I am" are two really powerful words. Again, just listen to the words. There's a bird flying by. There's an "I am" word. Pay attention to that "I am" word. I wear a bracelet every day of my life that says "until now." So when I catch myself in the middle of an "I am" statement, and I catch anybody else in one, I will call us all on that, and try those two little words. Until now, I am nervous. Until now, I am not good at something.
Pete Wright:
That's great.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's great.
Jane Massengill:
I love it.
Nikki Kinzer:
I never thought of that... until now.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah, until now.
Pete Wright:
That's great. It's a great exercise, because I feel like part of the insidious nature of the voices, the things in our head —
Jane Massengill:
It brings you back into the moment, rather than letting the past contaminate the present.
Pete Wright:
They are, by their nature, sort of calorically exhausting, right?
Jane Massengill:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
There comes a time when you let the voices in because you're so tired of fighting them all the time.
Jane Massengill:
Great point.
Pete Wright:
And having a mnemonic, some sort of reminder — a physical tchotchke of something, your bracelet — is so beautiful, to remind you to just stop. Just stop. We know you're going to have to be reminded to stop. You live with ADHD. Just find something to remind you to stop and say something positive about yourself.
Jane Massengill:
Absolutely. And don't ever stop trying. Don't get so comfortable with your own habits and rituals that don't serve you. Because you've been given this incredible life that we all have, and what you choose to do with it is completely up to you. Why not do the best with it you possibly can, regardless of your struggles?
Pete Wright:
This seems like a great entrée into an exercise. Do you want to lead us through something practical here?
Jane Massengill:
Yes. So what I'd like all your viewers and listeners to do — and the two of you also — is think back for a moment on a time in your life where your ADHD kind of slipped you up, got in your way. It could be yesterday, or twenty-five or forty years ago. It could be an embarrassing moment — first grade, talking too much. It might be a deadline that you missed, that maybe you got in trouble for. Maybe you interrupted somebody, maybe you were late to something, maybe you had to pay a bunch of late fees because you didn't pay some bills on time, or you lost a property tax payment check that flipped behind your desk — that cost me a lot of money. A time you passed up an opportunity because you didn't think you could handle it. Just think about one of those, and write it down. Just one or two sentences about it.
Pete Wright:
Okay.
Jane Massengill:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
The sound of writing is always exceptional podcasting.
Nikki Kinzer:
Right, I know. Or typing — having the typing, yeah.
Jane Massengill:
There you go. All right. And then I want you to ask yourself, and also write this down: what did you make up about yourself as a result of that incident? Remember, with every experience we have, we make up something about ourselves — good and bad. And then, what do you do now, or not do now, because of that experience — either a behavior, a belief, or a habit?
Then I want you to go back through what you just wrote and underline or circle any words that you can watch for, that are going to clue you in — either to your choice to follow through with a pattern that doesn't fit you, or to change it. Just look for any clues, words that you would say, that when you circle them, underline them, you can watch for in your word-watching process, to help you become more aware of whether what you've made up about yourself works for you in this moment.
Pete Wright:
Can you clarify that a little? Can you give me an example of the kinds of words I'm going to be looking for?
Jane Massengill:
Yes. Things like — I'll go back to my situation with Sister Laura. When she had me hold my lips shut, what I made up about myself is, nobody wants to hear what I have to say, so I need to be quiet. I spent many years being second fiddle, I would say, or being really afraid to stand up and talk in front of people, or always feeling like what I had to say wasn't good enough — because I took that also from "you're such a Jane." So the words that I pay attention to there are "not good enough," or "talking," "my voice." You talk too much. I don't have a voice. They may or may not show up specifically in what you physically wrote. They might be underneath it a little bit.
Pete Wright:
Okay, yep.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
So I pay close attention to my voice, when I hear in my own mind saying, I don't have anything to say. Sometimes that is so subtle that I turn down opportunities, because I think, I'm not the one to talk about this. So — what did you come up with?
Nikki Kinzer:
So do we share?
Jane Massengill:
Yes, Nikki, go ahead. I can see you're an eager beaver over there.
Nikki Kinzer:
I know. Okay. Well, it's really interesting, because when you asked the question, I knew exactly what popped into my mind first.
Jane Massengill:
Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
I was in college, and I don't even remember the class or the professor. All I remember is him telling me that I needed to go to the writing center, because my paper wasn't good enough.
Jane Massengill:
Ah, okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
It wasn't formed correctly, or I don't know. But he told me to go to the writing center. And with that, it has always stuck with me that I'm not a very good writer.
Jane Massengill:
Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
And when I do have to write, I get stuck a lot. It always takes me a while to get started, because I wonder if this is going to be good enough. And, Pete, you know this — I almost always ask you to take whatever I've written and fluff it up, is what I call it. Put a spin on it, edit it. I always ask somebody to edit my stuff, for the most part. Blog posts — not always, but you know what I mean. There's this little voice that says I'm not a great writer. And in my career, I decided to write less, to do less blogging and have more of a focus on podcasting.
Jane Massengill:
Because of that old belief.
Nikki Kinzer:
I think so, in a sense. I can't necessarily say it's because that professor said that to me, but I think it is that underlying belief that I don't write very well, I'm not going to get my point across, the conversation's not going to go where I want it to go.
Jane Massengill:
Okay. So the things for you to watch for, in terms of language, are what?
Nikki Kinzer:
Well, I think it's definitely saying that I'm not a good writer, right?
Jane Massengill:
Okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
Because really, I could be a great writer.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah. Say that again.
Nikki Kinzer:
I could be a great writer, right? And I think one of the words I saw was "feeling stuck." I don't have to feel stuck. I should be able to just start writing.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
Pete, you've said this before for other writers — just write. It doesn't matter what it is, just start writing. I've thought about that sometimes when I do blog posts, just start putting the ideas on the paper and have it form. But I think getting stuck, and that I am a good writer, are the things I have to pay attention to.
Jane Massengill:
Great. And I want to say one quick thing about that too. You might have a preference to speak and to do podcasts, versus to write. That might be a choice you've decided you want to follow, that path instead of writing, and that's okay. But at some point, should somebody come along and say — hey, this is a person I know you respect highly, and we need a two-paragraph something written about this person, would you be willing to do that? You don't want to ever box yourself in with a belief that says you can't do something in this very moment that you want to, or need to.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah, that's a good point.
Jane Massengill:
So, yeah.
Nikki Kinzer:
But if somebody came and asked me to write a book, I'd say no.
Jane Massengill:
Uh-huh.
Nikki Kinzer:
I did that once.
Jane Massengill:
Because you don't want to, or because you think you can't?
Nikki Kinzer:
I did it, and I hated it. It was so hard.
Jane Massengill:
Ah, okay.
Nikki Kinzer:
So for people who are authors, I have so much respect for you, because writing a book is so hard. It is really hard. And I know that's a total limiting belief.
Jane Massengill:
Yes, it's another concept.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is a concept, and I probably need to work through that. So maybe I shouldn't say that if somebody wants me to write a book, I would say no.
Jane Massengill:
That's another episode.
Pete Wright:
Right.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah. So I'm kind of working this out right now as we speak. I have lots of issues around writing. I should probably go to therapy and talk about it some more.
Jane Massengill:
Until now. Until now.
Nikki Kinzer:
Until now, yeah. Oh, you opened up a can of worms.
Jane Massengill:
All right, Pete, we better shift to you before we get too deep in this.
Nikki Kinzer:
All right, Pete, moving on to you.
Pete Wright:
I feel like we're coming off the rails. No — for me, part of my career is in video production. I ran into a client who wanted some very specific, heavy graphics-intensive work, and that's not a style I do a lot of work in. I'm much more of a documentarian. I don't do a lot of building sweeping on-screen graphics, animations and things, and that's what they wanted. I found myself in a place where it was just way too easy to delay, to take too long, to put myself in a bad light, because I was not fast enough or not good enough to do what they needed done.
As a result, I would stay away from clients who were asking for that kind of work. As I started thinking about it and writing about it, I realized that what they were asking for was some inspiration from me as a creative professional, and what I was delivering was uninspired. That's the word that stuck for me. That's a hard thing. And the truth is, if I'm looking at it practically, if I'm really watching those words and the other projects I've taken on — I may not be as fast as some others, but I can do the work. It just turns my stomach into knots. It's hard. Whenever I think of those projects, I go back to that one that still is over my head. Like, I did that badly. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't fast enough.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah. I want you to go back to that phrase, "I can do the work."
Pete Wright:
I'm uninspired. Okay.
Jane Massengill:
Say that again.
Pete Wright:
I can do the work.
Jane Massengill:
And notice what that feels like when you say that.
Pete Wright:
I can do the work. Right. Yeah. Well, it's appreciably different.
Jane Massengill:
And?
Pete Wright:
I can do the work.
Jane Massengill:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
Feel that sense of freedom.
Pete Wright:
Mm-hmm.
Jane Massengill:
Like somebody just opened the barbed-wire gate for a minute.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
There's something internal that's —
Pete Wright:
And you just need to stick your foot in it and squeeze through.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah. And you still might not decide to go that direction, but that experience of, well, I can do this — that's the peace. That's that place of joy. Like Nikki, you said, I know I could. I know I can. It's the same thing. You could see it in you when you said it. It was like this shift of something. Again, you might not choose to necessarily follow through with action. Your decision is not necessarily relevant. It's that experience of peace that we're all after on the inside, that sense of freedom. To not tattoo yourself with ideas about who you are is incredibly freeing.
Pete Wright:
It is. It feels like — just writing it down and seeing the words — it's like a retroactive kind of continuity, right? I'm trying to change my experience of history a little bit, so that I can experience it in a more productive fashion.
Jane Massengill:
Really well said. When you bring things into the light — something as simple as watching your words and writing them down — there's something powerful about writing them down versus just saying them. Saying them is great too, but writing them down, I prefer it, simply because it comes into black and white, or red and blue. And you can then see, okay, what have I made up about myself based on these words? And is that what I want to do right now, in this breath? Tomorrow you might want to, but we get a redo every single breath. We breathe 34,000 times a day. That's a lot of breaths.
Pete Wright:
That's a lot of breaths.
Nikki Kinzer:
It is.
Jane Massengill:
And if you think that in every single breath we get a chance to redo — that's a gift. Don't take it lightly.
Nikki Kinzer:
Yeah.
Jane Massengill:
Don't take it lightly.
Nikki Kinzer:
That's beautiful.
Pete Wright:
What a wonderful little exercise.
Jane Massengill:
So bottom line is, watch your words.
Nikki Kinzer:
Mm-hmm.
Jane Massengill:
Watch your words, and what's underneath them, and choose what you want to do with that.
Pete Wright:
That is beautiful.
Nikki Kinzer:
So one point I just want to say, that I think was really interesting — Jane, you said, it may not be what you wrote down, it may be underneath that. I think that's a really good point, because at first we just look at what we wrote. What are we looking for? But we've got to peel the layer. We have to peel the onion a little bit more to really see what's under there.
Jane Massengill:
Yeah. And that's part of separating you from your voice, separating you from the ideas about who you are — digging a little bit deeper, so you can experience what's underneath it. And you become in touch with the one who's doing that, the observer. That's the power.
Pete Wright:
What a wonderful exercise, Jane. Thank you so much for sharing this with us and running us through it.
Jane Massengill:
You're welcome.
Pete Wright:
I have some more writing to do, and a new model through which to do it. As we're wrapping up here, share with us a little — where would you like people to go to learn more about you and your work? And is there a way we can take this exercise and share it as a PDF? Do you have a PDF, or something we could share with our folks?
Jane Massengill:
I don't have a PDF, but I can make one up for you and send it your way, no doubt. I would say the first thing to do is just keep a word journal. Keep some kind of a journal. I've called it a gremlin journal for myself over the years — that entails a whole lot. For me, the word journal seems super simple. It's just a quick, easy way in to start. So keep a word journal, just a place to catch yourself with your language.
Pete Wright:
And where would you like people to go to learn more about you and your work?
Jane Massengill:
Thanks for asking. Come to my website, janemassengill.com.
Pete Wright:
Well, that's easy.
Nikki Kinzer:
Easy, simple.
Jane Massengill:
It's probably the easiest way to find me. Jane Massengill dot com. I'm on Facebook — I have a business page, Jane Massengill. So I'm a name you can trust. Just come by.
Pete Wright:
Oh, listen to you.
Nikki Kinzer:
Awesome.
Pete Wright:
Thank you so much, Jane Massengill. We sure appreciate your time and attention today, as we do all of our listeners who have downloaded, and all our Patreon supporters who've shown up for the live stream. Thank you, everybody, for your time and your attention. Until next week, on behalf of Jane Massengill and Nikki Kinzer, I'm Pete Wright, and we'll catch you right here on Taking Control, the ADHD Podcast.
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