Post #55: Variations on a Theme

The First 90 Days! Inner Work Reflections

Well, it’s been 90 days on Substack!!

I must admit was afraid to begin! But now that it’s become a regular and big part of my life and I have connected with so many of you, I realize this is the start of the community I have long envisioned. I still have so much more to learn and so many more of you to connect to, but already I’ve discovered so many wonderful writers who have a lot to teach me. I have loved beginning to meet and hear from so many of my subscribers to whom I am so grateful for their support during this transition time and new adventure in my life.

As I reviewed my 55 posts so far, I realized that this is the perfect time to look back and see what I have created.

So for this Thursday’s Inner Work, I wanted to make a simple ADHD friendly summary and integration of the posts I have written on this subject and the prompts that accompany them so we can see how they fit together.

Additionally, since you may have missed some of these posts, today’s post, called Variations on Theme, can serve either as a helpful guide or a second look.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Over these first 90 days, a few key threads have woven themselves through the “Inner Work” posts. Today is about bringing those threads together—so you can see the tapestry you’ve already been creating, often without noticing.

For the last three months, especially on Thursday’s Inner Work, we’ve been circling around the same deep truth from many angles: Living the Chronic Condition Called “Life”

ADHD, aging, illness, loss, invisible differences—all of these are part of your life. None of them are a comment on your your worth.

You are not a problem to be fixed.
You are a human being learning how to live with the chronic condition called life.

So let’s to the core of these integrated themes.

(From post # 51)

Moving from Traditional Care to Neuro‑Affirming and (what I call) Human‑Affirming Care

Traditional Approaches are geared toward ADHD and executive function, but our work expands out from there.

Neuro‑affirming care says:
“Your brain is not wrong. Let’s work with it instead of against it.”

Human‑affirming care goes further:
“You are a human being with a time limited life, a changing body, and a tender heart. You deserve care, respect, and meaning—even when nothing is ‘fixed.’”

The core idea here is that your self‑worth and your right to a meaningful life exist even though you continue to struggle—with memory, attention, organization, illness, aging, or loss.

What is the evidence for this?
You are a human being.

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(From Post # 46)

The Obstacles Are the Way

Many adults with ADHD describe family crises, health issues, or grief as things that are “getting in the way” of your life. But again and again, a different truth shows up:

“The obstacles do not block our way. They are our way.” – (Rabbi Larry Kushner)

_Instead of waiting for life to “calm down” so you can finally live, we’ve been exploring how:

• The hard things shape you.

• The interruptions and derailments are part of your path.

• The question is not “How do I get back to who I used to be?” but
  “Who am I becoming because of what I’m going through?”

This is the heart of “The Inner Work”: transforming adversity from a tormentor into a teacher.

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(From Post # 44)

Yes/And: Moving Toward Wholeness

So many of adults with ADHD come into counseling with a black‑and‑white story: (especially after a late diagnosis )

• “Either I get on top of my ADHD, or I’m a failure.”

• “Either I’m organized, productive, and ‘together,’ or I’m a mess.”

• “Either I’m aging gracefully, or I’m letting myself go.”

We’ve been practicing here with looking through a different lens: Yes/And.

• Yes, you have very real ADHD challenges and you have zones of brilliance.

• Yes, you are disorganized and you are creative, kind, funny, perceptive.

• Yes, you are aging, losing some capacities and you are still deeply you.

Healing, in this view, is not about becoming all-strength, no-struggle.
It’s about restoring yourself to wholeness—holding all your parts in one image:

“I am a whole, complex human being with strengths, challenges, quirks, flaws, values, and a beating heart.”

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(From Post # 4)

ADHD as Training Ground for Life

From the very first posts, we explored how a lifetime of living with ADHD can become a training ground for everything else we may face in life. As women and men with ADHD, we need to engage in the continual practice of :

• Letting go of rigid cultural ideals

• Accepting imperfection

• Rebuilding identity after failure or misunderstanding

• Asking for help (or dealing with the pain of not asking)

These same muscles help when:

• Your body changes

• Your brain slows

• A role ends (career, parenting phase, relationship)

• Illness or loss arrives at your door

If you’ve been learning to thrive with and accept the difficulties of adult ADHD, you’ve been practicing inner work all along, often without calling it that.

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(From Post # 36)

Letting Adversity Change You

We’ve also explored a radical shift:

Instead of treating adversity as something to “get through” so you can return to “normal,” we’ve asked:

• What if you let it change you?

• What if you stopped clinging to who you were, and allowed yourself to become who you are now or who you are becoming

This doesn’t romanticize suffering. Hard times are hard.
But if they are inevitable, then:

• Let them mean something.

• Let them deepen you.

• Let them move you further down the river, to a different shore.

You will not be who you were before ADHD diagnosis, before illness, before loss, before aging. The work is to become someone new—and still recognize: “I am still me.”

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(From Post # 21)

The Practice of Losing

ADHD gives many of us a crash course in losing: keys, ideas, files, time, focus.

Aging and life add more: youth, roles, loved ones, health, illusions of control.

Instead of treating each loss as “disaster”, we’ve been experimenting with loss as a practice:

“Lose something every day.” – Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Over time, this practice can gently teach:

• You cannot hold on to everything.

• What’s lost may reappear in a different form—inside you, in your wisdom, in your softness, in your priorities.

• Loss is part of the fabric of a messy life well lived.

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(From Post # 16)

Pain vs. Suffering: Staring Down the Demons

Another thread has been : separating pain from suffering.

• Pain is inevitable—disappointment, grief, fear, shame, physical limitation.

• Suffering grows when we:

  • Decide pain means we are unworthy or we push it away

  • Compare ourselves endlessly to an impossible ideal

  • Refuse to accept what is real

Our “Inner work” invites you to:

• See yourself as separate from your struggle

• See your struggle as separate from your worth

• Turn toward the pain—stare down the “demons”—instead of running from them

When you face the demon directly, it may not vanish, but it often shrinks.

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(From Post # 40)

A Messy Life Well Lived

Across all of this is a quiet, stubborn commitment:

Not to a perfect life, or a “fixed” brain, or an ageless body.

But to a messy life well lived:

• Full of change, liminal spaces, and reinvention

• Full of mistakes, re‑starts, and second chances

• Full of tenderness toward yourself, even when nothing is tidy

The Inner Work isn’t about becoming “normal.”
It’s about becoming more yourself—again and again, at every age.

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I would love to see your comments and connections from all subscribers.

For those who want to discuss and reflect with me and with each other I welcome paid subscribers to join our Reflection Zoom Group this Friday at 4 P.MP Eastern.