Hello, So i’ll keep it short and just say that i’ve been practising magick with demon evocation and spirit communication. I also have the gift of feeling when something bad is gonna happen. But recently i’ve been diagnosed with Anxiety and ADHD and it’s really hard for me to meditate and just concetrate myself with a spell i want to cast, and i dont feel that connection to the astral realm as i did before. And it seems like nothing is working the way i wanted it to be.
If anyone else struggles with ADHA or Anxiety or both, how do you deal with it withing the magick field, also if anyone has some advices for me i’ll will be really greatful.
I would probably be diagnosed if I had been young enough for them to get their claws into me when ADHD became an earner, so all I’ve even had is coping and the luxury of never having a label to be judged by or getting energetically blocked by drugs, which is a side effect other, I will say. active minded people here report as a common problem on these things, and the only solution is not to take them.
So my advice is multifold and involves developing your own style of being that is about you and not using drugs to force you to conform: the way I see it, basically we process fast and therefore get bored fast so we have to up the ante on the inputs.
You know how some people are all “wait! one thing at a time!” … we don’t have that problem. So we can often get more done while everyone else is still catching up.
Don’t let the label become a curse by using it as negative self talk for yourself.
Consider instead that you have different (but not worse or better) learning and focus needs than some people, and use them to your advantage to get more shit done than the average person can.
Keep moving and multitask so you body and mind are both busy at the same time, ALL the time: always have something for your body to do while your mind is occupied. I cannot for the life of me listen to a meeting without moving. I work from home so I put on bluetooth headset that lets me be mobile and do chores, make art, do easy repetitive tasks that need minimal mind input. The language centers can only be on one thing at a time, so there’s your divide. Vice versa, for getting chores done listen to a podcast at the same time. Also try fidget toys and gum, doodling is an old fashioned favourite if you’re sitting in public and can’t get up.
Yes, I know people go “oh multitasking is inefficient”, but not for us it’s not, it’s how we stay on task at all.
Meditation: NO zazen, that’s useless, can’t do it, my mind will never be still and empty and it’s not meant to be, and that’s OK. I can’t sit still through a movie let alone an online meditation unless it’s 2 minutes long, not even wim hof active breathing, I have to add something else for it to be enough to keep me occupied and interested, or I’m gong to find something else more interesting to do.
This is what mantras and guru beads are made for, but for the that’s not enough, so what I can do is switch the mantra for a music track that has the right energy and go with that as the backdrop for and and involved shamanic journeying style or evocation where I’m engaged and having a conversation. I am busier in my head when “meditating” than I am at work. I’m running energy, I’m astral travelling, I’m visualising an outcome, it doesn’t take long so you don’t have to wait until you’re bored of it.
If I want to feel the peace and quiet that’s what going for a walk in the woos is great for. In nature, looking out over a scene you’re occupied and your body is settled. You will see things and think things that never occur to other people in tat state, I recommend trying it and it feels great, balanced your energy and helps you stay very healthy.
I try to deal with it with walks in nature or wherever I can. Laughing about it helps me. I’ve got ADHD, anxiety and dyslexia. It’s hard but I won’t take medicine for it. I can’t do meditation, but I found just before I fall asleep it’s a little better if I want to concentrate on certain things. I’ve found that chaos magic can be good for people like us. What Mulberry wrote here is really good advice.
I have only been diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and it made me learn so much more on how my brain works and it’s been soothing to learn so much more people deal with the same shit I do and in such knowing nothing is wrong with me. I just have a different operating system than neuro-typical people. So like was said before. Don’t see your diagnosis as a curse. There is nothing wrong with you. You just operate differently and you are definately not alone.
In terms of meditation, I learned that you don’t have to sit still in order to practice getting into meditative and/ or trance states. Walking through nature while meditating is a good excersise. Drawing/ doodling while meditating has helped me and the biggest one was combining archery with meditation in order to get into a meditative state more effectively. This all has been a great help for me to learn to be better in sitting meditation and to be able to get in a more focussed state in rituals and spellwork
I guess the biggest thing is getting to know how you can regulate boosting your dopamine in order to be more focussed. You will fail, but that is alright. You just learned what doesn’t work for you
I’ve never been as effective multitasking as I have being task oriented, if you know what that means. Like, as long as I’ve got the main objective set before meself then I know I can do a little of this and that and still not lose task focuses. It’s called to me compartmental prioritizations. You’ll have to train your unconscious to know “important things” and versus “unimportant things or side jobs”. Mindfulness exercises are the best things for meditation to meself, but tantric practices are best for improving focusing skills. Grounding exercises worked best for meditation that’s rooted in anxiety depravations.
Sweet thangs, mindfulness is duh bestest. Just taking notice of the little things but not getting do invested in the trivial, the stimulus in the environment that’s begging for our attention spans to take us all off our task focused livelihood and work that’s important. For example, you might like to ignore other people’s actions. Literally, what’s important is that you’re doing your fucking jobs. It’s not important what others in the class think of you as it is to focus on your work. It’s not as important to think of what the boys are looking at as it is to think of what’s right there in front of yous. Think of your tasks at hand and stop engaging what others are up to thinking about us. Ignore all of those thoughts.