As you can see by the title I have ADHD. I was diagnosed with this at a young age and it was a plague on my school career from elementary till I dropped out for trade school junior year. I was raised Christian so I never would have expected it to affect me elsewhere but my path has progressed and I now find myself 2 years into my journey with occultism and it is something I feel needs to be addressed. this post may come off as sort of a rant or whatever but bear with me because I do have questions. of course, it is a blight on my concentration on reading and study but when a book really pulls me in I won’t put it down till I feel the need to sleep. not only that but the main problem it causes is a lack of ability to get really deep into meditation because clearing my mind is a huge fucking issue. I have tried things such as visualizing a white/chalkboard erasing away all the clutter or windshield wipers dispelling the raindrops of thought, but those things only work so much and don’t do much for me. if anyone has anything to suggest or wishes to share their experiences if they also have this disorder I would like to hear anything you have to say.
sorry for the run-on sentences. i havent slept yet.
I know all about ADHD though a past career, is it your main diagnosis? or do you also have sensory issues and dyspraxia? I ask for a reason,old diagnosis criteria did not check for sensory processing disorder or co morbid Aspergers too.
Sugar is your enemy also Caffeine and energy drinks. It is all about balance and not becoming over stimulated. Once that is addressed, concentration becomes easier.
The other thing is Cannabis,it has its benefits for certain things but not good for ADHD or any sensory processing disorder.
Hope this helps
Sleep pattern regularity is also a must for you and depravation will make symptoms worse
I feel your pain.
There a few things that helped me over the years. Firstly the greatest has been sound therapy modalities.
Binaurals being one of them. I specifically recommend the one’s from EOC Institute, earlier research led me to conclude that it is military grade. It isn’t the older approach of listening to rhythmic sequences that purely engage one part of your brain, leaving you lob-sided. It focuses on whole brain synchronization and they take a very important element into consideration, everyone is different so you have a choice of 3 of them to choose from.
I also use a nootropic, if you can get your hands on modafinil I would suggest trying it to see if it works for you.
I’m mildly ADD. The thing is, I think we just think differently. We also have an ability to hyperfocus on subjects we like - if you tap into that you can get a crazy amount done.
It comes down to using techniques that work with the way you think, instead of using the techniques that work for other people as if they should work for everybody. They don’t. And it’s wrong for them (school etc) to criticise and stigmatise as if we should, but they do so we have to adapt and cope.
For me that means lots of information at a fast enough pace to keep me interested. Boredom is the enemy.
I don’t do zen, no clearing the mind, I do walking, moving meditations, running meditation, and other meditations that need you to think and have an active mind.
I speed up youtubes so they talk fast enough that I don’t get frustrated and start looking for distractions. Learn to speed read and read in very small chunks - 3 pages or a short chapter at a time then go do something with that, do something else or go to a different book. Keep moving, all the time, spiral though activities and switch as soon as your mind leaps to something else. It’s very easy to piece it all together afterwards so there’s no issue with doing things out of order or mixed up. Getting the information is the main thing, not getting it in the order someone else provided.
I have severe ADD and I found energy work to be a good way to get more physically and mentally into everything. Becoming connected to energy has let me get a new view on everything. The part that helped most was the fact that once I got used to energy I could have my thoughts and will be translated to action. That might not make a whole lot of sense… Basically energy has not limit on my ability to bring my thoughts to life so my way to fast moving brain stopped being a real problem. I never tried to limit my symptoms or negative them, instead I just changed my methods
As someone with ADHD dont bother clearing your mind if you cant(granted i have my succubus sweetheart Clara to help) just let the thoughts happen but dont focus on them.
I have a bit of adhd and it is difficult to sit still long enough to actually meditate for me as well. I learned that meditation isn’t about keeping your mind perfectly blank. I don’t know if this makes sense but I meditate with my mind but also my body. Hard to explain but that’s kinda been helping me. I also sometimes use my pendant of Azazel that is on a necklace, I basically put it on my head so that the sigil is resting on the middle of my forehead. That also kinda helps with my focus. Don’t force yourself to have a blank mind. That’s forcing yourself to be who you’re not. Go on the side trips your brain takes you on to complete the thoughts and then go back to center.
Hope this helps.
I have mild adhd. Maulbeere’s tips are really good.
For me, I practice void meditation daily. Random thoughts pop up for everyone. The key is learning to not get frustrated when thoughts pop up. Just sort of allow it to pass and influence them to disipate.
I just realized the original post was from 2018. Oh, well.