S2/Ep10: Lynne Edris – Time to Thrive! Learn How to Master your Mind and Meet your Potential
- Lynne Edris is an ADD coach who specializes in working with professionals who struggle to reach their potential because of poor time management and distractibility.
- She is a woman with ADD herself, and she was able to get to a life of calm and success.
- Lynne Edris is a wife, a mom, a successful entrepreneur, a writer, a singer, and her professional work is in ADHD coaching.
- Dena wants Lynne to start with her story about what led her to her work.
- Lynne says everything in her life has led her to where she is, all of her pain and triumphs have created who she is today. She is very passionate about the people that she works with and supports every day.
- Her more direct path is that she is one of four daughters, and all of them were ADD. She grew up in a loud, chaotic, energetic household. She thought all of that craziness was normal. She went to college and gravitated towards people who were like her.
- She got married, and her husband does not have a drop of ADHD in his blood. He is an engineer and a very logical and organized person. They balance each other very well, they have been married for 32 years.
- Lynne’s son who is now 25, has ADHD. He had impulsive, crazy behavior. He was walking at 8 months old.
- Dena asks when Lynne recognized that she had ADHD. Was it prior to having her son, or was it not until she had her son that she recognized it and learned more about it?
- Lynne has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology with a concentration in human development. She learned a lot about ADHD in the early to mid 80s.
- When she learned about ADHD, the symptom checklist matched up to her own symptoms.
- Lynne says she is the inattentive type and not physically hyperactive.
- Once Lynne started to learn more about ADHD, she realized that she probably did have ADHD.
- Dena asks how Lynne’s ADHD fully manifests itself? Is it different for everybody?
- Lynne says people’s ADHD is different for everybody.
- ADHD is not a deficit in attention, it is a deficit in our ability to regulate our attention. When we are stimulated by something, we can have hyperfocus, and the rest of the world can disappear.
- In adults, ADHD shows up in challenges such as procrastination, disorganization, and poor time management.
- ADHD is highly undiagnosed in adults.
- Colleen asks if you can outgrow ADHD as an adult?
- There is some disagreement on this, but there is some neuroplasticity in puberty. What happens more often, is we learn how to manage and develop coping mechanisms.
- Lynne says “mental gerbils” can be a by product of ADHD. This is typically when people are scattered or stressed out about something, or not taking time to take care of themselves. Thoughts can feel whirling and pinging. It can be difficult to regulate thoughts and focus on a thought.
- Dena asks what kind of tools that can help calm and self regulate the whirling in one’s head.
- Lynne says she does this every day. It comes from understanding how your own brain works and how you organize things naturally and process naturally. These are all keys to your strengths that you can use to managing ADHD. This is called a strength approach to managing ADHD.
- Colleen asks if clumsiness can be part of it and if it manifests physically?
- Lynne says yes, it can be not focusing on the present moment and manifest as physical accidents.
- Lynne is an ADHD coach who works with professionals all over the world. Not everyone who comes to her has been diagnosed, but they present with poor follow through, time management, and organization. She helps people correct these so they can accomplish what they want to.
- Colleen asks how to turn a facet of ADD into something positive.
- Lynne says that every characteristic has a positive and a negative side. For example, if you are struggling with focus, the positive side with difficulty regulating attention is that you notice more things. You may tune into things better and be more empathetic. You may see different patterns, problem solving, and thinking outside the box.
- Lynne helps people tap into these gifts and use the positive side of things.
- Dena asks if someone came to her about time management, how would Lynne help people improve their time management?
- Lynne says first it is thinking about time management. It is more of an umbrella term that encompasses how people perceive the flow of time because people with ADHD process and feel time differently than someone with a more linear brain.
- Dena asks if going “all out” on a goal is an ADHD tendency, and if this extreme effort seems balanced?
- Lynne says it is not very balanced, but again, everyone is different. This pattern can be something we develop over time and is reinforced. If we procrastinate things, and the impending deadline fires up our brain and goes into the intense mode of hyperfocus. This might work at a young age in certain instances, but this cycle can result in a crash and burn.
- As people get older, they have more responsibilities and the crash and burn cycle can be dangerous. These cycles can become more frequent, and it is not sustainable.
- People who work better under pressure typically have ADHD and have reinforced delay and motivation which results in the crash and burn cycle.
- Experts estimate that 80-85% of adults with ADHD have not been diagnosed.
- A big part of the problem is that the symptoms present differently in a 60 year old compared to an 8 year old. A lot of times, professionals only know what symptoms to look for in an 8 year old presenting with ADHD.
- Dena asks if Lynne has encountered people who self-medicate to cope with this hamster on the wheel phenomena?
- Lynne says that people can develop unhealthy strategies and coping mechanisms to help them deal with life. They can be counterproductive and destructive. There is a lot of shame and self blame for these people.
- People with ADHD do not have less knowledge or skills, they are not able to do things that work for THEM.
- When people struggle for years to do things they intellectually know they need to do but can’t, they draw the conclusion that there is something wrong with them, they are not driven, they are lazy. This is what Lynne wants to help people fix.
- Lynne wants to help people resolve their ideas about themselves. She wants them to know that they are as capable as the next person when they know how to tap into your skills correctly and do things that work for their ADHD self.
- Dena asks Lynne to talk about her tribe, and how to join her tribe.
- Lynne’s tribe is adults with ADHD or adults with busy brains who struggle with procrastination, disorganization, weak follow through, and poor time management. It is incredibly powerful to be around other adults who struggle with the same things.
- Being able to talk about their struggles openly is life changing. It helps people to know that there are people out there struggling with the same things.
- Lynne shares a story about how she decided to create something to help her tribe come out the other side of the pandemic better off than when they went into it. She wanted to create a place to connect and grow.
- Her idea was to create a free program 8 weeks long to talk about ADHD and self improvement concepts. She wanted to do 3 live sessions, create a FB community, and more. She wanted to do it in two weeks or less.
- She was able to get Dr. Ned Hallowell who is the leading expert in ADHD and she knew that her program would take off from there.
- There were 1,800 in the program and community. She loved seeing people holding each other up and supporting one another. She called it the “Time to Thrive” Group, and it is still going. She is doing another round in January.
- Colleen asks how the tribe structure looks like.
- Time to Thrive is different from her paid programs. All you have to do is go to www.timetothrivegroup.com and sign up, you will get your onboarding email and a link to join a private Facebook group. The events are live streamed to Facebook and Youtube.
- People can sign up for group programs as well, which are paid. She also has private clients which are individualized and 1-on-1.
- Lynne’s parting words are to understand that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken, you are not damaged goods. There are millions of people like you who have struggled with the same things, and have come out the otherside. You can learn to fire on all cylinders in all areas of your life. To fulfill your potential is something that is possible. Every individual on this planet can fulfill their potential with the right help. No matter what, don’t give up!
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