It’s not about what people with ADD don’t see, it’s about what they do see. The connections they make that you don’t make. You can hardly explain that in words. I suggest we focus more on that, instead of turning it into a competition about who can concentrate the longest.
This is especially important for children who find it hard to explain that they can form new connections very quickly and can think very creatively. When ‘adults’ tell them they need to focus more. On what? “They are ten levels ahead,” says Mary.
If you see a work day as a swim, people with ADD swim very fast for short periods of time (hyperfocus) or they swim slowly.
People without ADD swim at a more average pace.
There is no real difference over the long term. So people without ADD need to let people with ADD be a little more and trust that they can accelerate at an unbelievable pace. On the other hand, people with ADD have to realise that they do everything either (1) faster or (2) slower than other people all the time, which takes time to get used to.
But there is no need for everybody to swim at the same pace all the time. It’s more a style thing, like how different painters have different styles.
If your thoughts and feelings follow each other quickly, you have shorter and higher waves (ADD). “Normal people” have lower tides.
The problem is that two people can both have ADD, but that has nothing to do with each other.
Social media obviously matches the frequency of ADD (shorter and faster input), so that accelerates the symptoms.
A way to see your thoughts is like a barrel organ. The pacing in between thoughts is important. How fast do they follow each other? Is there space in between?
A lot of people, especially in the ‘ADD regions’, need to speed up to match their thinking speed with the outside world. For people with ADD, where thoughts and feelings follow each other fast, the outside world and other people are simply too slow. Other people should realize that too: that by limiting the speed of somebody with ADD (for example in a classroom), you are overstepping boundaries as well. It’s like trying to push back a very fast car.
When I have crazy thoughts, I try to do crazy
Frequency matching means that you align the state of your whole body (or your energy) with the state of your thoughts. It’s like mirroring and practicing with your own brain.
So, if your thoughts are excited, you move in an excited way with your whole body, or vice versa.
This doesn’t mean that you are a slave to your thoughts. It’s your body explaining that it has two sides, like two sides of a coin.
You can also take the opposite stance, for example with anxiety: when you have anxiety and you do a breathing exercise. But I don’t like that. When I am anxious, I try to be as anxious as possible.
Frequency matching is very useful if you feel your head is disconnected too much from your body, so to speak.
This is it. That chaos in your head is part of it.
And now what?
Basic Mechanics of Thinking
Sometimes, when I hear a Buddhist or a neuroscientist talk about thinking, I am baffled. Baffled by the level of misunderstanding about how the basics of thinking work. One can easily sense that nobody sat down for a few minutes and looked at how thoughts work within themselves. “Oh, this thought comes from there, and that thought comes from there.” It’s like the blind leading the blind (no offense to blind people, of course).
Thinking is beautiful. You can literally look within yourself right now and see, visually, where your thoughts come from. It feels like you are Indiana Jones, looking for lost treasures within yourself. You’ll find the story of Adam and Eve (Adam’s apple). You’ll find the cryptex. You’ll find the dance within yourself. It’s unbelievable. Your own body provides such bizarre insight into its own mechanics through sound, feeling, and thought.
Why Thinking Is Useful
First of all, daydreaming and reflecting are vital to unloading your nervous system. This is important to note, since Buddhists constantly mess this up by overly focusing on breathing. The thing is, thinking works. The point of daydreaming backward and forward in time is that sometimes we need to reflect on things in order to learn from them. In sexual situations, for instance, it is important to look back and see whether boundaries were overstepped. So thinking about the past is absolutely vital.
If you only lived in the here and now, you wouldn’t even know where you lived, since all you would have would be information about the here and now.
Laat je soms leiden door je gedachten.
En soms niet.
Zo leert je lichaam jezelf kennen.
En leer je dat je niet alleen je brein bent.
Soms eigenwijs en soms even niet.
Ik ben altijd eigenwijs, dus voor mij maakt het geen verschil.
Sometimes you let your thoughts guide you.
And sometimes you don’t.
This is how your body comes to know itself.
And how you learn that you are not only your brain.
Sometimes stubborn, and sometimes not.
I am always stubborn, so for me it makes no difference.
What is consciousness?
Consciousness is the distance you create between two things.
Between you and your thoughts.
Between you and your liver.
The point is that by doing that, you learn how everything in your body works, and in which state everything is in, which is probably even more important. The state of your lungs, for instance. You can literally feel the pressure on top of some organs.
Why you want to be good at consciousness
Because then you always feel good. Your energy levels during the day stabilize. No energy shortages or excesses during the day.
Basic mechanics
Start with the electrical tension in your body. Where is it located?
Sap
Het eerste idee dat je moet loslaten, is dat je denkt met je hoofd. Je denkt met je hele lichaam tegelijkertijd. Ik kan aan de manier waarop je zit zien hoe je denkt. Starre denkers ‘besturen’ hun lichaam op een andere manier (strakker) dan losse denkers. Hoe je jezelf positioneert binnen je eigen lichaam zegt heel veel.
Als je je lichaam hard aanspant bij het denken, verbruik je meer energie. Dit is iets wat kinderen met ADD bijvoorbeeld doen als ze in hyperfocus zitten. Elke vezel werkt samen aan de taak waar je mee bezig bent. De omgeving is er wel, maar ver weg. Het is alsof elke spier in je lichaam smeekt om mee te doen. Het is een heerlijk gevoel. Alles verdwijnt. Je zit in een obsessie. Met een beetje geluk krijg je niets mee van de omgeving.
Voor mij voelt het alsof ik een vrucht in mezelf kapotsla en het vruchtensap eruit komt. Alsof elk deel van mijn lichaam smeekt om mee te doen. Mijn bewustzijn draait rond. Misschien kunnen we uit deze gedachte nog wat sap halen. Of uit dit stukje spier. Snel, span je buik sneller aan. De binnenkant van mijn lichaam voelt scherp, de banen zijn scherp. Scherper dan normaal. Mijn stem is rokeriger, omdat ik ouder ben geworden, maar niet vies, zoals een roker, maar fris, zoals een stukje kauwgom.
Ik ben ergens. Ik probeer de vrucht te maken, maar ik kan het midden niet stabiliseren. De jongens (kunnen ook meisjes zijn) weten het. Ik krijg het midden niet stabiel, maar ik heb de vrucht in beeld. Ik wil het laatste terug.
Terug naar elke vezel van mijn lichaam. Ik voel dat elke vezel in mijn lichaam mee wil denken, mee wil vechten, alles eruit wil halen. Het is alsof ik een vinger leg aan de binnenkant van mijn lichaam en mijn vinger erlangs haal.
Juice
The first idea you need to let go of is that you think with your head. You think with your entire body at the same time. I can tell how you think by the way you sit. Rigid thinkers “control” their bodies in a different way (more tightly) than loose thinkers do. The way you position yourself within your own body says a lot.
If you tense your body hard while thinking, you use more energy. This is something children with ADD, for example, do when they are in hyperfocus. Every fiber works together on the task you are focused on. The environment is still there, but far away. It is as if every muscle in your body is begging to participate. It is a wonderful feeling. Everything disappears. You are inside an obsession. With a bit of luck, you barely notice your surroundings.
To me, it feels as if I smash a piece of fruit inside myself and the juice comes flowing out. As if every part of my body is begging to join in. My consciousness spins around. Maybe we can still squeeze some juice out of this thought. Or out of this piece of muscle. Quickly, tighten your stomach faster. The inside of my body feels sharp, the pathways are sharp. Sharper than normal. My voice is rougher because I have grown older, but not dirty like a smoker’s voice — fresh, like a piece of chewing gum.
I am somewhere. I try to create the fruit, but I cannot stabilize the center. The boys (could also be girls) know it. I cannot stabilize the center, but I can see the fruit. I want the last piece back.
Back to every fiber in my body. I feel that every fiber in my body wants to think along, wants to fight along, wants to get everything out of it. It feels as if I place a finger on the inside of my body and drag it along the surface.