Create the Calm: Lesser Known and Underappreciated Ways to Reduce Stress as a Mom with ADHD #203
Are you juggling 6,358 things?
If life’s been a little too much today or in general, let’s talk. I’m hanging on for dear life as things get next-level chaotic over here in the Sung house…
And I haven’t lost my ish on anyone yet! *celebration*
Last year, I couldn’t have said that.
I would have yelled at kids or my spouse or both, felt awful about it, and then hid under my covers and as I sunk into shame and guilt.
But this year is different.
I’m prioritizing different things, and they aren’t fancy or obvious self care ideas. It’s the little things. It’s the tools I’ve built up in my emotional regulation toolbox to take care of myself, which allow me to keep moving forward and get stuff done without shutting down or exploding. Even with a giant weight on your shoulders, you can be mentally present with your family. (You can watch my Instagram stories @motherhoodinadhd for the behind the scenes of the chaos LOL.)
Listen in for what’s helping me right now, as I hope it helps you, too.
I’m also sharing behind the scenes of the retreat in this episode, because you are invited! Come hang out with me and 8 other mamas next month! You deserve rest, care, and relaxation, too. Because taking care of yourself IS taking care of your family.
Learn how to Create the Calm in your life at this year’s luxury retreat for ADHD Moms.
You’re not alone.
“This is a chance to invest in yourself and build a community that will empower your future. Worth it!” –ADHD Mama D.B.
Our annual ADHD Moms Luxury Weekend Retreat is coming up October 6-8, 2023 in Houston, Texas! And we hope you’re coming, too!
I’ll take care of all the details - you simply show up and enjoy.
Put it on your calendar now.
Having a circle of moms who support you and believe in you matters. Register for your all-inclusive ticket here: https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat
Patricia Sung 00:00
What do I do? I feel like I'm dating again. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. What's too eager? What's taking too long? Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest or the visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families. Well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD. Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. Last week I had a kid over for a playdate for my oldest son. And I didn't really know the mom. Well, like I talked to them a couple times, like cost parties and stuff. But I didn't know if it was like, oh, this person is cool to talk to you, or great a person. And so when we invited them over, I told them I'm like, Hey, you're welcome to stay in chat for a little bit. Or if you want to just drop and go totally fine with me just let me know we want to do. And so when she came, she's like, Oh, I can stay in chat for a minute. And I just absolutely adored talking with her. It was super fun. We hit it off right away. And like we're talking about things that matter and like raising our kids and we took like very similar reason kid philosophies, which is, you know, always like a big relief when you know that somebody is like on the same page as you can be really stressful when your friends don't have the same parenting philosophies that you do. And it was really awesome. And like I had planned to do some like mindlessly add many things I needed to get done for work while the kids were playing. If they were like playing fine. And I ended up talking to her for the whole two hours in it was really refreshing and peaceful. And like part of me then was stressed because I'm like, Okay, well, what do I do now? Like, when do I reach out? Do I ask her to like, hang out and I asked her to do like a couple's thing with my husband, like I sort of babysit and it's like all these like, stuffs
Patricia Sung 02:48
running through my head. And I was like posting in the Facebook group like, Okay, send help. What's your like, friend advice? So you're not in the Facebook group? Like, go hop in there. There was some good advice in there.
Patricia Sung 02:58
Yeah, there's some smart mamas on there. A lot of them. Yeah, anyways, when I was talking about Oh, but I realized, like, I just kind of like focused into this, like, July was like kids and work and it really like wasn't doing a lot for me, it wasn't really taking care of me. And I realized like how life giving it was to just have a really good conversation where I felt heard and understood. And it was relaxing in here's got to thinking like, we don't often give enough appreciation or like, like, when we talk about taking care of ourselves, these kinds of things go unnoticed. But there's a lot of ways that we can take care of ourselves that don't have to be like overt big ways that really make a difference in our stress level, and creating calm and allowing us the space to be less stressed and just overall like better wellbeing. So it came with a few more. So you've got you know, a really good conversation where you feel heard and understood things like mobile rest, we've talked about this a lot and successful on meetups of like when we rest it doesn't have to be doing nothing. It doesn't have to be absent of activity, it can be mobile, it there can be movement, things like going on a walk or doing some kind of like art or like crafty things with our hands like puzzles, things that are still activity, but we're not like trying to meet a deadline and like gotta get this done by bla bla bla point like it really is. The goal is to rest to recharge your energy. Another way that we can lower our stress is lowering our responsibilities, which is a mom, like we always have higher responsibility, but in those times where we can lower the stress like I think that's one of the reasons it's like really great to have like when you have families or other moms that you can hang out with and I do playdates and stuff when you're at like somebody else's house and they're providing, you know, the food and the space and you maybe you're like contributing to the potluck or whatever, but like there's less responsibility there because you're outside of your house. I was in, there's not like the stress there, those little ways that we can have like lowered responsibility. Like, I think that's why it's really great to hang out at a friend's house because it's not your space, you don't see all the things you're supposed to be doing. You're not the one responsible for all the decisions about food, like, lowering that responsibility makes us feel less stressed. And other like under appreciated thing in feeling less stressed is like right now we were planning our last summer vacation trip, we're doing like a four day weekend to San Antonio, which I guess by the time you listen to this already gone. And I was talking to my husband and like one of the main things they want out of this trip is really that it's low responsibility to low stress that things feel restful. So I was torn between I wanted to do something familiar, because that has less stress to it, because they know what's coming. But also like, I want the excitement of going somewhere I've never been before. So I ended up settling on San Antonio, which I've spent a bit of time in but not a lot, and certainly not in the last probably like 10 years. But Bill building out this vacation in a way that it feels low stress was high on my list of priorities, because I wanted to be able to slow down and not be on alert all the time. Because by contrast, we had gone to Denver earlier in the summer, and we ended up staying in part of town that has a lot of homelessness and drug issues, alcohol issues. And it was very stressful, because we had like the cocaine pack. Now it's kind of funny, because we had a bunch of like Candid Camera moments where I was like, somebody's videotaping me like what is going on. I mean, it was a zoo, we just kept having all these like, really bizarre encounters with people who were on a lot of substances. And my like, my stress was very high, because I'm got my kids there. And I'm like, This is stressful to me in a different way than like, like, I have traveled all over the world. I backpacked through Spain by myself, like, I have a fairly high tolerance for stress. But having my kids there made it so much harder, have like some very intoxicated person, like started yelling at my five year old and swearing at him like it was just a lot. And I told my husband like, I don't want to do that, again, like, it takes me a long time to recover from that stressful event. Like I still feel stressed for hours. And I don't want to do that again. So being able to create these situations where I can slow down and allow my nervous system to reset and not be on high alert, that is a really important way to be less stressed. And yet it feels like it doesn't count, like planning a vacation that feels familiar. Sounds like kind of a silly way to de stress but like it really matters. And it was really important to me, and being okay with saying that, that these things matter to me on this trip, the next trip, I might be like full adventure or let's go explore somewhere new, but this time around, I need something that's calmer and slower, and is just I need to be not on alert for this trip. Let me add in here that like I get that I have the privilege of being able to do that. Like yes, I have worked very hard to create a life where I can sustain my nervous system in a way that feels safe and calm to me most of the time. And I have the privilege to be able to do that. Not everybody does. But with the resources I have, I have purposefully created that for myself because I know how much it matters to me and how important that is to me. And part of that creating those low stress situations is knowing what's coming. So having a rough idea of what to expect allows me to be less stressed because I'm not feeling I'm just not worried I'm not as anxious because I know what's going to happen I feel like I can see the bigger picture and that somewhere with ADHD a lot of us can struggle with when we don't know what the end result should look like. It's hard for us to create that result. And also it's very stressful when we don't know what's coming down the road. Which is oddly ironic thing is how a lot of us come from families full of ADHD and has always unpredictable and lots of trauma and like all of that disruption creates stress on people so being able to know what's coming and know that you're going to be safe matters. And as I was thinking about like all this stuff like I want to get out of this you know this last trip of the summer How am I taking care of myself How am I resting like I know I've got this really big month ahead of me like the month of August is a lot over here at the song house. Between wrapping up summer staff one of my kids birthdays all of the preschool prep work like Open House orientations getting things ready trying to get back on the school schedule so like all that usual getting back into the swing of things but then layered on my assistant is going to be off on vacation the next week which is stressful because she helps me a lot. I've got the construction project if you've been following along our construction project for one of our rental properties burst pipe at Christmas how to get the whole thing it's supposed to wrap up this week. I'm sorry, not this week this month. However that means that I also need to fly out there and set it all back up. Do the final walkthrough is move over things from store ridge back into the house. So that's ready for renters. Because like we rent it for an Airbnb, and like being able to take a week away from my family in the second week of school, like literally like, I'm probably going on like day four of school that is stressful in and of itself, like leaving my family for a week when they're not really solid on routines. Like I'm sure my husband we find, but it makes me stressed out. I don't like that my kids are like going to come home from school and I'm not there and they're adjusting. Like all that stuff. It just like piles on right. Plus, I gotta figure out all this moving in and taking care on these big projects and coordinating all the purchases and like replacing all the things that are ruined in the flooding, but making sure they arrive in time that I'm there. So I can set things up. But like, oh, wait, hold on, one of these cabinets got delayed, and now you're this is a stressful month, I'm sure you have just as much stuff going on. It might be quote unquote, under appreciated stressful things. It might be something really big, like full transparency. Tomorrow, I have a secondary mammogram because the first one didn't go well. And while they say like, oh, it might be just that we just had a hard read. We didn't quite you know, we couldn't quite see what was going on something about like dense breast tissue. I don't know, if you're small chested, it's hard to read, I don't know. But like, it's never comforting when they're like you need to come back for another scan. Like that's going on tomorrow, I'm worried about my health from like a broader picture, like I need to be getting back into, like my physical therapy from when I before I was sick. And I gotta start moving again, like all the things like, just layer on like, there's never a shortage of stressful things, right? Maybe you're dealing with something really big right now, something that feels life altering, or earth shaking, and it just feels like too much. And want you to know that these little ways that you can take care of yourself matter. And when you don't have space for a big thing, you can do the little things. And when you do have space for a bank thing, can we make space for like, how do we figure this out? How do we make it work? How do we take care of you, so that you can take the time away? Because yes, those little distressing moments really matter, so that you have more capacity throughout the day. And also, all those little fixes along the way aren't going to give you a big reset, like truly taking some time to rest. Well. This is why I created my retreat for moms because they want you to have a chance to get away and take care of yourself. And really let yourself be taken care of. So that you can reset, you can relax, knowing that the weekend was built by a mom, me, for other moms like I know the kinds of things that you need for space and healing and relaxing and what are the things that weigh us down as moms?
Patricia Sung 12:55
How can I take that weight off of you for the weekend. And in honor of like realizing like a watch times, we do need to know what's coming in order to feel safe as I want to walk you through what this weekend looks like. So that you will know like, Hey, this is a good fit. For me this feels comfortable, but yet also different. And want you to have that place to know that like I've really did my best to create all the things that I hope will make it a really relaxing weekend for you that you get to be taking care of that you get to slow down and have space to recharge. So I'm going to run through what the weekend retreat looks like. And I hope that you will join us I hope that you will sign up that you will be there. If you listen to this and you're like oh my goodness, I totally want to go but this time doesn't work. Like I want you to sign up for the waitlist for next time. I'm also working on some behind the scenes like creating like extended payment plans where you can pay a little bit a month I'm like maybe I should have said that cuz what if it doesn't work out, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Because I'm gonna speak this into existence, I want to have an ability for you to be able to like pay forward towards this thing that you want. Because I recognize also like sometimes it's really hard for us to budget and we put money away knowing that we want to do this thing, but then we end up spending on something else. So that's in the works. I'm going to make that happen somehow. But for right now, what I want you to know is that the the cutoff for like Registration closes at the end of August because I have to turn in all the information to the hotel the first week of September. So the very last day to sign up is August 31, which is a week from today when you're listening to this. So this is the time go sign up, register for the conference. You matter and this is going to be a really great weekend for you to take care of yourself and here's why. Here's what we're gonna do. Mama, are you ready to get away? You are cordially invited to this year's annual retreat are successful as a mother luxury weekend getaway retreat conference amazingness that is happening this October. This is a chance for you to get away and take a break and truly rest for you to learn about your brain in a way that makes sense for you. And most importantly, know that you are not alone and have a real life community of moms who get you we are staying at a beautiful four star hotel. This is an all inclusive event, which means I will handle everything for you. Once you arrive, I take care of your hotel, I take care of your meals that you neither cooked and cleaned up, nor cut anybody else's food up that you truly get to have a weekend where you take care of you because you deserve rest you deserve to be taken care of. And I'm going to do that for you at this retreat. So I invite you to go ahead and grab your ticket at https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat again, that's https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat, grab your ticket, and let's hang out in person, I cannot wait to meet you. When you check in on Friday, I've already got your room reserved, I've been sitting here of all you have to do is go pick up your key, you get to go to your room and relax. Every mom has their own room, you have your own king sized bed, you need a space to relax, it's yours, because we're doing something that is different. And maybe you're wondering like what's going on where Who am I going to meet, I want you to have that dedicated space for you to be on your own that space to relax. It's like your safe space. But I also know that like there's plenty of people hanging out with you don't hang out by yourself. So just a side note, you get either one, you have choices here. And that's really important for me as people with ADHD like there's no one size fits all. And they want you to have like options for like taking care of yourself. No matter which end of the spectrum you fall on if you really want a lot of downtime and space to yourself. Or you're like No, I love people give me more people, you've got both options. So as you get your own room, put all your stuff down, relax, there is a swag bag of goodies there waiting for you know, spoiling surprise. And you get to enjoy that time there. Before you head down to the lobby for dinner. All of us will meet in the dinner, I'm taking care of transportation, I'm going to take you to one of my favorite restaurants in town. It is an all inclusive event. So I handle your transportation your room, your meals, like I got it covered. So as you get there, you're going to experience like one of our favorite things as a family is good food. This is one of the best restaurants in town Reno rated by Food and Wine Magazine in the Houston Chronicle, which is like our local paper. This is delicious food. And it's a nod to my alma mater, I went to Tulane in New Orleans. So it's a nod to that and who I am. And you'll see pieces of me wound throughout here because I want you to have a piece of my home here. And also a non to my past and a city that I really love that has delicious food. And they want you to feel pampered and taken care of and that you can rest. And at this dinner, you will get to hang out with the other moms and start to build your support network and know that you're not alone. We all are dealing with a lot of similar issues, similar themes. And you know, like, it's not just you, you're not the only one who's dealing with the struggle in your relationship or dealing with this thing with your kids. Like do we all have the exact same struggles? No, but there's like the similar themes that run through and people who get it and most of the moms have not met each other before and the ones who have met they've met because they're in successful mama meetups together like nobody is last year was like friends in real life. We didn't know each other. We came from all over the country. And the totally bonkers part to me was like we all showed up. And there was like no small talk. And that's one of the things is like really hard for a lot of us is like little small talk. We didn't small talk like we just dove straight in to really big questions like tough topics, deep conversations, like really getting to know each other because that's the kind of community that I created is that we're here for each other and that we can be ourselves. So there isn't that like glossy, fluffy, small talk beyond the first like couple of minutes of introductions like everybody felt like we had known each other for a long time. It was really kind of weird, be honest, but really comforting to know that like this is a group of people that get you and understand you and even though we were all totally different people, some people feel more on the extroverted side, some are more introverted. We had younger moms and older moms or vintage moms, if you will. We had moms of various races, socio economic backgrounds, like there was a really beautiful mix of mom's religions, cultures like we were quite the like diverse crew, I have to say, and yet we all connected through our ADHD and wanting to take care of ourselves and our families. And that was the tenant like underneath of the connection is that we all get each other and how we think so it was super fun to like meet everybody at dinner and have conversations and we had An awesome meal with great conversation. And then as we got back to the hotel, some people went up to the room for peace and quiet. Some wanted to sleep early, some just wanted to be by themselves. Other people hung out and chatted for a while. And there's like this theme of like having the space without being boring. So you can opt to do something and have like quiet space for yourself, or you can connect more, it's up to you. Then as we get up on Saturday morning, we meet in the conference room for breakfast. And I guess I also want to say like, a lot of us have a lot of food allergies and complicated chronic health issues. And that's something that's really important to me, because I spent many years not being able to eat a lot of foods. And I want you to know, like, that's something I consider like when you register, I asked you what your food allergies are, and like, I make sure that I've accommodated all of that. I don't want you to have any stress over like, what am I going to eat? Is this going to make me sick? Like, I want you to not worry about that. So know that like whatever food restrictions you are dealing with, I want to help make that happen as best as I can. So we eat together. And then we get into the conference portion of the weekend. So this year's theme is create the column, how do you take care of yourself? How do you create the space for you to take care of your emotions, like emotional regulation is one of the things that we don't talk about enough. And there's not enough research behind and I want to have those conversations about understanding like, why our emotions are the way they are how why do we snap sometimes? Why do we get mad? And as we understand, like, how our reactions happen? And what are the things that are, you know, especially bothersome to you and really understanding what you need, and what are the things that will support you, as you understand how you work. This is where we can really have this like so much more grace for ourselves when things aren't going the way that we want. And like those times, you're like, oh, I don't know why I just snapped like just felt like I went from like zero to 100. And then all sudden I was yelling, like, I want you to understand how that happens. Because then you can start to have more grace for yourself and forgiveness and healing around those things. Because you're also going to have the techniques and the tools in your tool belt to be able to take care of yourself and create calm when you need it. But in this creating calm, we're figuring out like how do we be present with our family in the moment when we've got 43 things on our to do list that are never going to get done today. And you're worried about the stressful thing with your one of your parents, and you're trying to figure out how to solve this thing, maybe at work or with a friend and you know, all the physical life stresses, how can you still show up and be present for your family? How
Patricia Sung 22:44
do you still show up as the mom you want to be? How do you still show up as the person that you want to be? And as we learn about emotional regulation, and understanding, like why we can have rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, and why those things bother us so much as we build those skills, we can have less guilt and shame. That's like underneath all those hurt feelings. So that we're not beating ourselves up about that thing you said six years ago about that mistake you made four months ago. And instead you can start to retrain your brain on like, how can we focus on what is going? Well, when we start on that anxiety spiral? Like what do we need to do? How do we direct ourselves in a different place? What do we want out of that? And like creating these new ways of doing things that we're not stuck in these old, unhelpful patterns that are dragging us down? And know how do we connect with ourselves and trust the decisions that we make so that we can then turn around and as we build these skills, actually teach them to our kids and teach them how to regulate? That's actually been our theme in successful mama meetups this month is like how do we teach our kids to regulate when we can't even regulate? The theme was Captain dumpster fire leads the way like when you feel like just a hot mess, and yet you're also trying to like teach other people how to be humans. Like that's really stressful. So how do we build up your skill set so that you can then turn around and teach your kids those skills. Now keep in mind we have lots of snacks, it's a very ADHD friendly space I want you to know that you can move around I got fidgets like this is a place for you to really be able to learn in the way that you learn best and it's not gonna bother me if you want to go like peace around the back of the room. If you feel like you know, in the past you didn't feel like you could be you in spaces I want you to know like this is a safe place for you to be you and I'm creating this for you to really get the most out of it as you can. So after we have an awesome morning of learning cool stuff about our brains and stocking up our emotional regulation toolkits, then we're gonna head over to lunch at a friend of ours restaurant it is a fun little adventure. We get to tour the whole place try lots of samples. It's a one of my favorite spots in Houston that like I love sharing the culture that is here. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the nation. Actually, I think technically it's ranked number one most diversity in the nation here in the US and we have so many different kinds of people here, and I love it. And I want to give you a taste of that of like the different cultures and the different foods just I'll be like the gloriousness of what is makes us different, because a lot of times we feel different. And we're going to celebrate that. But no, I also have lots of safe foods too. If you're like, Man, I don't I don't want to be adventuresome with my food. I always have seafood tutori. Like I said, I'm gonna take care of you, I want you to feel safe, I want you to feel comfortable. So after we go on our little lunch adventure, then we'll have space in the afternoon for we have an activity together, which will be a movement oriented activity. That's one of things the moms asked for last year was like something that is more like a movement thing, because we do well with you know, slowing down the hyperactivity in our mind means we've gotten some of that energy out through our bodies. So we'll have an activity in the afternoon that fulfills that request. And you'll have space to rest and relax and chill out before dinner. So once you've had your way of resting and relaxing, we will head to dinner. And I think what I loved most about dinner on Saturday is that now everyone's feeling comfortable with each other. And we were able to like really dig deep and connect with other moms and feel like we're talking with people we've known for a really long time. That's really cool. Yeah, but if you are like, dude, I'm done with people today, you can go head back to your room and Brassed after dinner, a lot of us went to the penthouse lounge in the hotel up on the 24th floor, overlooking the city skyline and just hung out and chat for a while. Yeah, just super casual hanging out. And while the weekend is all inclusive, it doesn't even cover alcohol. So if you do want to buy a drink on your own, you can, I would say last time, probably like half the people had a drink and half the people don't. So it's up to you, whatever makes you feel most comfortable. And then on Sunday, you have a leisurely wake up, you can have breakfast on your own, or you can meet up with one of your new friends. Some of the moms hung out for the day. So some of them like booked a spa treatment, they're at the hotel or sat by the pool. Or some people were ready to go home and either you know headed out in their vehicle or to the airport in we are looking for ways to coordinate like if people want to do ride shares. We're asking for that information, just let us know. So we can try to connect people together when they're you know, entering or leaving at the same times if you're heading to one of the airports. And a couple months often to stay an extra day because it is a three day weekend for a lot of people. So if you want to, you can like you are the priority. Here you are the center of attention for once, like what do you want out of this weekend, what was going to make you feel most rested most relaxed, like this time is about taking care of you. So as you're thinking about like what you need for rest and relaxation, I hope that you can take all these little pieces, these little nuggets and say like, Hey, if good conversation is something I'm really missing, here's how I could do that in everyday life and hanging out with me for the weekend. If what would really light you up is not having responsibility for the evening. How can you figure out like hosting with a friend they host dinner one night, you can host it the next weekend. And you can have a night where you're not responsible for food for like one of the 1000 meals people eat in a year like what are the ways that you can take these like underappreciated ways of taking care of yourself and work them into your your day, your week, your month. And of course, I hope that you will come join me in October there's one more week of registration for the retreat and you can head to my website Patriciasung.com/ADHD-mom-retreats, or just go to you know, motherhoodinADHD.com and it will be there in the menu at the top of the screen like, come check it out, read about it. If you want to join the waitlist for next time go there. I really hope that you'll be here next month that you'll have time and space to take care of you to relax, let someone else take care of all the details so that you can take a deep breath and relax, make some friends and take care of you for once you matter enough to be on the priority list for the weekend. Now before we wrap up, I want to read you three quotes from the moms who were there last year because they want you to know it's not just me saying you should come it's great. The moms who were there felt this way too. So Mama J said honestly this was one of the best weekend's I've had since becoming a mom. I've never felt so seen and understood. I would hop on a plane and go again no hesitation. I'll follow y'all anywhere moms in when you know she's coming back again this year. Next mama T said gift yourself this opportunity to meet like minded people literally make instant friendships and the space to finally be yourself. And Mama Kay said this weekend was nothing short of a dream weekend come true. It was life changing to learn to witness and to experience the bonding amongst a group of women. I felt truly celebrated every moment to bond with so many women neurodivergent mothers was truly a gift in itself. Only a mother could have thought of so many ways to check off all the boxes. Treat, check, pause check, relax, check. So head over to my website https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-mom-retreat. And I hope to see you in October or mama again the deadline is August 31. For when Registration closes and I cannot wait to hang out with you in October and give you that break you so much need. Alright, I'll talk to you soon successful for more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhood in adhd.com