Just click on the link right before 4 Eastern and you will be in a waiting room.

This is a benefit for paid subscribers.

See you soon.

Sari Solden’s Zoom Meeting

Sep 2, 2026 04:00 PM America/Detroit

Meeting ID

854 4261 1801

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Invite Link

Invite Link https://us02web.zoom.us/j…

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I would love to see you at the Reflection Zoom on Wed, Sept 2 at 4 P.M.

To prepare for the Reflection Group on Wed, you may want to read my post # 95 called Secret Sorrow. These are the kinds of reflections we can explore.

This group is a benefit for paid subscribers so I wanted you to get a sense of our reflection groups in case it appeals to you and you would like to join for this month, you still have time to upgrade.

This is not a therapy or support group, but instead a time and a space to reflect on these ideas we all grapple with but rarely acknowledge.

Come and just listen if you want. There is no pressure to share these deeply private experiences.

I simply want to create a a space to “notice” and “name” these issues as Tara Brach calls it. in Radical Acceptance.

I want us to talk about the concept of accepting and walking along side of these hidden sorrows, to acknowledge the strength that develops often from carrying these secrets.

Mainly I want to validate that all women have something -either feelings, thoughts, or experiences, they are carrying deep inside that they don’t share even with people close to them. When you have ADHD you are even more sensitive to sharing feelings that may trigger shame about difficulties and differences. Hiding is sometimes second nature.

The prompts and issues to reflect that I discuss in Post # 95 are concepts such as.. how we can mourn things that never were, unacknowledged losses, grief that no one knows about or that society doesn’t have a way to help you through. These are different for everyone but it is often taboo for women to express negative feelings about (to name a few), disabled children, mental illness, addiction, financial problems, in the family.

To quote myself from Post # 95:.( we can discuss in the group):

“The most destructive effect is not the sorrow itself, but the long-term cost of denying it—even to yourself.

Counterintuitively, these feelings do not grow bigger because you let them in.
Instead, when you soften and open your heart to them, their grip often loosens.

This is courage—from the Latin cor, meaning “heart.”
Courage is not the absence of fear or pain; it is opening your heart in the presence of them.

Healing, at its root, means to restore to wholeness—to see the whole picture of who you are, including both the sorrow and the strength.

When you let yourself do this, your sorrows may not completely go away—but they often lose some of their destructive power.

Instead of abandoning ourselves, when we stop denying the truth of our experience, we reconnect bravely to our hearts.”

*********************************************************************

This poem by Rumi expresses the carrying of sorrow and one way of approaching these universal experiences that I think can bring comfort.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

***************************************

Hope to see you on Sept 2.

The zoom link will be posted at 9 A. M. Eastern.

Gratefully,

Sari

Today’s passage is from Chapter Five where we discuss the importance of beginning to “play with possibilities” and to re-ignite hopes and dreams that may have been dormant for many years before diagnosis, and even after. This is because the management of ADHD itself can become the main focus of your life.

In this chapter and excerpt and my video take on it, I talk about becoming playful again, trying on old dreams like old clothes, to see what still fits and what needs altering or discarding. The goal is to take those early dreams and now that you have the missing piece of ADHD, see what might still be important for you to fulfill, but maybe in a new form now.

If you like this idea of using passages from my three books as prompts for reflection and exploration of our own life passages, check out my Passages Club. This is ADHD friendly because we only share passages-no whole books-and it only meets once a month for 90 minutes on zoom.

Discount for all subscribers to my substack.

Discount Code is SUBSTACK20

Click here to Register! or for more info

.

Please join me and other members of the community for our monthly Reflection group on Zoom. Terry Matlen and Regina Carey will join us for this group where we reflect on subjects that I have discussed and prompts I have offered on my Inner Work Posts.

This time we will use Post # 95 on Secret Sorrows as a jumping off point for our discussion. So you might want to go back and look at it. I will send or post prompts the day before and I will post the zoom link Wed morning as well as email it.

This is a benefit for paid subscribers and I would love to grow this part of the community.

If you have been considering upgrading or have an interest in this kind of community you may want upgrade before Wed at 4 eastern.

Please let me know if you are able to attend. (You don’t have to respond but its helpful to know. )

And like always, there is no pressure to talk during the group. I know it is comforting and a relief just to be there and listen.

I look forward to sharing this time with you and creating a space to begin to contain even in a small way these ‘secret sorrows” We will also talk about the secret strengths that are revealed to us as we confront these long buried pains and learn to live well alongside of them.

It is hard to live in silence with these unacknowledged losses.

Important: This is not a support or therapy group but instead a time to reflect on and explore these life experiences and gain strength and comfort from hearing that others also often feel alone in these secret feelings.

Gratefully,

Sari

Today’s excerpt and my take on it is about the price we pay for hiding who we are. It makes us feel safe in the short run but if it becomes extensive and with everyone it blocks out all our gifts as well. We want to be seen and known and yet it is our greatest fear as well. So try it out with a safe person at first, revealing little bits of yourself gradually to the right people so they can see all of who you are, We don’t want them to miss out on all you have to give.

Choose carefully of course. Choice is the important word. You get to decide who to open to and how much but you want it to be a choice and not a huge wall you reflexively put up everywhere, every time.

I’d love to hear your comments on hiding.

A reminder that if you upgrade to a paid membership by Sept 2, you will be able to join our monthly zoom Reflection group at four P.M. Eastern time. This is where we talk about the “inner work” and reflect together on these delicate topics.( or just listen)

I want to let you know that as a result of your interest in these excerpts, I am forming a Passages zoom book “club” based on favorite passages from this book and my others that I’m excited about. Women have been bringing me their underlined copies of the books for many years and wanting to share them or they say “this is me” ,

I thought this would be a perfect ADHD “book club’ ..no books to read, just passages to share that reflect our own life passages to reflect on.

I now have dates and details if you want to take a look here is the link.( Discount for all of my substack subscribers regardless of membership status.)

Discount Code is SUBSTACK20

Click here to Register!

I am forming a Passages zoom book club based on favorite passages from this book and my others that I’m excited about because women have been bringing me their underlined copies of the books for many years and wanting to share them or they say “this is me” ,

I thought this would be a perfect ADHD “book club’ ..no books to read, just passages to share that reflect our own life passages to reflect on. Stay tuned for details.

I explain my new idea of sharing Passages from our upcoming book that has a double meaning to me. The name reflects our constant passage from one stage or season of life to another. And, in this case, it also means I will be sharing my favorite current or sneak preview of new material from our Revised edition of A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD. (not out until March 2027.

In the video today I talk about how I will coordinate my notes on Substack by publishing the excerpts with these posts where I talk directly to you about my thoughts related to the passages.

(I am developing a book passages club where we can share favorite passages from all my books so you can also use these as prompts to share your self with others in the group. Stay tuned for more on that. )

I hope you will listen to the video as I explain my thought process. I would love your feedback on this format. I would also, as I mention in the video, love the paid subscribers as a benefit, to be able to join me on video each month to ask me questions to share with everyone or to do a mini interview!

Let me know if you are interested in a small group or individual opportunity to do that.

I am just full of ideas today!

Yes I’m the real deal!

Not an ADHD imposter!

As a therapist for women with ADHD for 38 years, I am very familiar with the secret sorrow women carry inside them.

There are things we carry inside that most of us almost never talk about.
Not with friends.
Not with family.
Often only—maybe—with a therapist.

These parts can feel too raw, too dark, too deep.
They aren’t the whole story of who we are, but they’re real.

You can love and hate at the same time.
You can feel hope for the future and dread of it—within seconds.

And often, it feels like no one really wants to hear the pain.
Truth be told, we ourselves often don’t want to share the pain.

So it “works out”:
No one wants to hear it, and you don’t want to share it…
and life goes on, with you quietly denying and avoiding the pain you carry.

Often, we bury it under:
“I’m fine.”

What else are we supposed to say?

You are fine on one level.
But on another level, there are often..

Lumps of Pain Or Sadness We Carry:

• When you have differences or difficulties no one quite understands.

• When your children struggle in ways that are misread or dismissed.

• When you have serious financial difficulties and feel ashamed or “irresponsible.”

• When you have adult children with mental illness or addiction.

• When you have health problems that are consuming their thoughts and time, and you sense that others are tired of hearing about it.

• When you feel irrelevant or invisible as you age, or after retirement, or after losing a role or status that once anchored you.

• When a spouse is aging or facing cognitive decline.

Mourning Things You Never Had

One woman once described it as “the loss of things that never happened.”

Psychologist Dr. Kenneth Doka (1989) called this disenfranchised grief—any grief a person experiences but cannot openly mourn, publicly acknowledge, or receive social support for, because the loss is not seen as “valid” or “significant” by others.

No one quite understands how you can mourn what you never had:

• The career you wanted.

• The education or recognition you longed for.

• The child, the partner, the adventure, the travel.

• The version of yourself you imagined but could never fully become—maybe because of anxiety, money, family obligations, identity, or struggles with focus and follow-through.

You may feel you’ve lost your footing and are afraid you’ll never find it again.

Of course, there are also,

Sorrows and Losses That Are So Big They Are Not Secret At All.
But even then, time passes.

At first, people are sympathetic.
After a few years, you may feel the unspoken message is:
“You’re still grieving this?”

These are all natural human feelings.
We all have some of them.

So What Are You Supposed To Do With Them?

When they are not expressed or even acknowledged to ourselves, they don’t disappear.
They fester.
They grow.

Naming Them

If you have a therapist, you can tell her.
You can write about it.

You can’t always share it with your partner, because often it involves family dynamics and can’t be received non-defensively.

So much of the work becomes inner work.

Sometimes there is a quiet but powerful practice that is available to all of us at any time, if we are willing to try it and become more comfortable with it.

Sometimes it is as simple (not easy) as this:

Psychologist Tara Brach, PhD, in her book Radical Acceptance, reminds us of the power of simply naming our experience.

She teaches a practice sometimes called “mental noting” or “naming”:
gently recognizing our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations with a simple, caring awareness.

This might look like pausing and silently saying to yourself:

• “Sadness is here.”

• “Grief.”

• “Fear.”

• “Shame.”

• “Loneliness.”

Not to judge it.
Not to fix it right away.
Just to recognize it and open your heart to it.

Secret Strength

Over time, these secret sorrows can become quiet strengths—
they can transform you, open new roads, new doors.

But this only really happens when you:

• Name what you’re experiencing, instead of trying to outrun it.

• Share it in some way: write it, draw it, speak it, or sit with it quietly and consciously.

Pausing, as Tara Brach suggests, allows you to look at your experience from a bit of distance—
not to push it away, but to see it clearly and hold it with gentleness.

Let the Reality Touch You.

The most destructive effect is not the sorrow itself, but the long-term cost of denying it—even to yourself.

Counterintuitively, these feelings do not grow bigger because you let them in.
Instead, when you soften and open your heart to them, their grip often loosens.

This is courage—from the Latin cor, meaning “heart.”
Courage is not the absence of fear or pain; it is opening your heart in the presence of them.

Radical acceptance, to me, means facing the reality of whatever your life brings.
It does not mean resignation.
In fact, it is the first step in problem-solving, because:

• You see the situation more clearly.

• You free up the psychic energy that was spent on denial, so you can take action if and where you need to.

Healing, at its root, means to restore to wholeness—to see the whole picture of who you are, including both the sorrow and the strength.

When you let yourself do this, your sorrows may not completely go away—but they often lose some of their destructive power.

Instead of abandoning ourselves, when we stop denying the truth of our experience, we reconnect bravely to our hearts.

***********************************************************************

This subject will be the focus on our next Reflection group on September 2.

I hope you will consider upgrading to join this part of our community where we explores these topics together on zoom.

The True “Radical” Goal of Treatment

Note:The Revised Edition of a Radical Guide for Women with ADHD by Michelle Frank, PsyD. and me will be released by New Harbinger in March of 2027. I will be sharing material from this edition until then here on Tuesday’s Inner World. Some of this will be somewhat familiar to readers of the current edition, but I will also share new material.

Here now is excerpt two. Look at Post #90 for the first one I shared.

***************************************************************************************************

Consider for a moment how you have been thinking about your ADHD and what you have been told or come to believe about ADHD treatment goals.

When we use the word “radical” to describe our approach, we are actually saying that we must go to the core—the deepest, strongest parts of ourselves—to address our struggles and to accept who we are. This is the way we think about any treatment to help us live well with our unique brains. The word “radical” comes from Latin, meaning the root, the fundamental or essential part, even though it is commonly used to mean extreme or even dangerous. As Angela Davis put it, “Radical simply means grasping things at the root” (1989).

We have always said it was with a sense of irony that we called this book a radical guide; as if it were a radical idea to say that instead of trying to fix herself, a woman could just learn to be who she is, all of who she is, right down to the root. Unfortunately, for many years it had been seen as an extreme treatment goal to accept your whole self, ADHD and all. So consider a change in the way you think about treatment for ADHD. What if a shift in how you describe your goals and how you relate to yourself as a woman with ADHD is the missing key to making treatment work much better for you, in a new way.

We believe that the goal of ADHD treatment should be not to get over, fundamentally change, or otherwise contort who you are, but to move toward your hopes and dreams, to deepen your relationship with your authentic self, and to use your strengths and voice to create spaces and relationships that work for you.

What if the goal of treatment is to make it easier to access more of who you truly are, not to get over who you are?

We ask you to consider accepting yourself and your challenges. Not to become resigned, not to be passive, but to begin a process of real and satisfying change in your life toward meaning and connection.

We absolutely recommend all the effective strategies out there for addressing your ADHD challenges. We just don’t want you to wait until you are perfectly organized before you let yourself have a life! Medication, therapy, coaching, and other ADHD-friendly interventions will make it much easier to be more of who you really are—not less. This is the true goal of any treatment.

Strategies and organizational help should make life easier for you and calm your inner distress, but they should not be approached as a way to fix “damaged goods” or turn you into someone other than yourself.

We know, without a doubt, that tackling the issue of shame is absolutely imperative for women with ADHD. In fact, many renowned ADHD professionals and researchers have begun to emphasize the importance of this deeper work as an essential element of ADHD treatment (Hinshaw 2018; Hallowell and Dodson 2018). This book will take you on a journey that embraces this groundbreaking evolution in ADHD treatment.

Until you feel comfortable with the idea of differences, you will spend your life with ADHD pretending, placating, hiding, and feeling ashamed.

It can take a long time to get to a place where you can make a shift in your ideas about ADHD, depending on your early life experiences. Just remember, it doesn’t matter what medication you take or what shiny new organizational system you try: you won’t get there as long as your goal is to get over who you are.

copyright 2027 Solden and Frank (not to be reproduced without permission)

****************************************************************************************************

Passages Club

(Forming for the Fall)

Note: If you are interested in a new type of book “club” with me where I will be sharing favorite passages from all my books for us to discuss and where members of the”club” can suggest and share their favorites for discussion, please let me know.

This will not be a traditional book club where we have to read whole books!

It is ADHD friendly and it is in response to my work over these 38 years where women want to share and discuss their favorite passages. There will be opportunities for members to lead portions of these get-togethers. We will also have a chance to break off into smaller rooms for part of the gathering.

“Passages” obviously also has a double meaning since it is about the passages we are all going through in life and with ADHD. The original name of my book, Journeys Through ADDulthod was “Passages” (It got edited out so I’m bringing it back.)

Back story:A woman wrote to me recently about her having book parties about the book in Mexico since our book was released in Spanish. This sparked my vision and excitement about creating a celebratory atmosphere.

I will post details here and at sarisolden.com very soon but I’d love your feedback on what I imagine will be monthly zoom “parties” to celebrate our Passages.

(Special discounts will be available for substack members.)

In the meantime I’d love your comments on the upcoming revised edition of Radical Guide.

Gratefully,

Sari

Oprah asks:
What do you know for sure?

When I ask myself: “What do I know for sure?”…

I think about what I’ve learned after working as a therapist for 38 years with probably more women with ADHD than most, simply because I started so early, at the beginning of when women started to be identified, when I wrote the book that described what I saw.

What I Know For Sure is the look on someone’s face when they read with a shock of recognition the description I wrote about their inner world. Because it undoubtedly means they are not alone in this experience.

What I Know For Sure is the relief women feel when, instead of giving them a quick fix, I offer understanding.

I know, for sure, the feeling I see when their whole body receives this message—the surge of relief and letting go—when they realize someone has put words to what has felt indescribable their whole lives. It’s like reaching the end of a mystery book: the moment when the mystery is finally solved, and they’re discovering the answer they’ve been searching for all along. The clues all add up.

What I Know For Sure is that although many women come in hoping to be “cured,” they feel a mix of amazement, peace, and incredulity, when they see, very early on, that I don’t want them to be cured of who they are.

I want them, above all, to be themselves.

I want them to feel seen. I want them to feel that I value them at their core, so they can begin to see that possibility for themselves. Over time, they can start to hold that vision of themselves on their own.

What I Know For Sure is what it’s like to have the privilege of being a therapist for women with ADHD for 38 years now, and to watch women move from self‑hate to self‑respect, from running away to standing their internal ground. I watch them move from measuring themselves by what others think they “should” be able to do, to seeing their ADHD traits for what they are…the way their brain is wired, not a moral failure.

What I Know For Sure is the power of the moment when they look at themselves and start to see the woman I’ve seen from the start: proud, strong, and whole. Not just a collection of strengths and challenges, but a full human being.

I know what it’s like to start with ADHD and overwhelm as a baseline—and then add everything else life brings to everyone at different times, grief, loss, pain, illness, relationship disappointments, children’s struggles, spouse issues, financial stress. You start off already “filled up” with chronic issues, with very little extra space for all of this.

I know that a women with ADHD is a human being who suffers, struggles, and still stays in the game. She is someone who is overwhelmed, and needs to rest and recover and step back. And, she is someone, who, somehow, miraculously, gets up at some point and keeps going. She persists and eventually finds a new way .

If you are one of those women, you most likely use those deep inner qualities to move through your challenges—not by trying to measure up or perform some set of superficial skills, but eventually being able to see yourself like I do, from a 30,000‑foot view, seeing the amazing women you have always been even if hidden from your own clouded view.

It begins with that moment I see on your face when amazement and hope replace fear and shame—the look that says, “You see me.”

This Is What I Know For Sure:

Women with neurodivergence and ADHD are not doomed to some textbook description of “comorbid this” or “disordered that.”

You are not just a label.

You are deep, warm, human beings.

What I Know For Sure is that I am profoundly grateful for the privilege of witnessing these miracles every day.

I ask you:
What do you know for sure about yourself?

Description of CHAT Groups

This is an informal zoom session. Bring your questions, comments, or just come and enjoy a relaxing time together with me and other members of the community.

No pressure to talk if you just want to attend and soak it in.

I think of this as a chat for community members who want the closer connection and two way communication that we can get this way.

These will meet for 45 minutes for approximately 45 minutes and I don’t record these so it’s a free-floating discussion.

Links will be posted at 9 AM Wednesday for all paid subscribers to access.

I hope to see you there!

Sari

This material is from my book, Journeys Through ADDulthood , Chapter Four.

This is an audio I made several years ago from a series I called, In Your Ear, to guide you through how important it is to find people and make relationships with individuals who can truly see you and value you.

On this audio I give suggestions from this chapter on how to find these people and guide you through reflections about your relationships as you move through your journey on your way to acceptance.

Let me know if you have these kind of people in your life or where you may start to look for them.

Gratefully,

Sari

These are my scheduled live zoom events for August through October.

I hope you will consider upgrading so you can join this part of the community and so we can grow it.

We have two kinds of zoom events, one type each month.

The first kind is what I call a “Chat” because it is informal and way to connect and relax. You don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to, but just being there makes you feel part of a place that feels safe and where you belong.

The second type of zoom each month is a Reflection group. These are for a deeper kind of conversation, often based on a theme , often drawn from my weekly Inner Work posts where we discuss things like resilience, aging, change, struggle. loss etc. I usually have a co-facilitator.

This is not a support group but a place where you can reflect on prompts I send before if you like or just join in and be stimulated or touched by the often common threads you hear from others.

If you want more details look st Post # 85 where I describe these in more detail.

Help us build this community by upgrading or, if you already have, by joining us .

Hope to see you there!

Gratefully,

Sari

I was just getting used to ADHD, and then boom—another label, another diagnosis. And in this culture, it’s one that is even more pathologized than ADHD!

The name of this “disorder “is O.L.D.

And no, it doesn’t stand for “Old Lady Disorder.”

In our culture, people who develop this “condition” feel it is a disorder when it is obviously a natural process.

But O.L.D. does require the same kind of internal battle to live shame-free and proud as it does for a neurodivergent individual. That means we can apply what we have struggled to learn about living successfully with our ADHD to the process of continual change as we age.

Both O.L.D. and ADHD both require fighting against stereotypes, stigma, and internalized self-hate. They both require resisting the pressure to change who you are to match some cultural norm of what is a worthwhile way to live or to be.

O.L.D. requires the same kind of radical acceptance as does ADHD -the need to come to a new view of yourself as whole, re-imagining a new identity, (not less than but different). This requires that you keep expressing yourself, but with modification, support, structure, and adaptations-just like ADHD.

Whether it’s just plain old “O.L.D.” or it comes with co‑occurring conditions—illness, disability, or other changes—it’s critical to remember that you are not to be shamed about this condition! Neither O.L.D. nor A.D.H.D. equate with worthless and do not add up to “less than.”

Aging doesn’t mean you have to stay trapped in some cultural idea of what “old” is supposed to look like—especially the version that still holds you to standards of how to do “it’ right.

In the same we that we, as women with ADHD receive messages from the culture about our value, when we are aging, we receive messages that you must stay endlessly healthy, endlessly active, or you must keep doing things the way you did when you were younger.

O.L.D. doesn’t make you less vital.

Vitality takes many forms. You can have an inner vitality even when you are physically challenged. In the same way that ADHD leads you to live a different kind of life, (not lesser), aging may express itself in quieter ways than the outer world wants to judge you by- (younger, not better) standards.

Both conditions can make you feel invisible, misunderstood, or unseen. In the same way we did or are still doing as we live neurodivergent lives, we must fight against that as we age.

The goal of aging, as I see it and study it, is not to learn how to stay young.

The goal is to learn how to grow old.

This is a different message than most of us hear and feel we must aspire to. Our worth as older people is measured by how much we keep looking and acting young. This is especially true in a culture that judges you by productivity, by speed, by whether you look or act “young enough”, or by whether your brain or body is “typical”

Living with the condition of O.L.D. requires careful inner work around:

· Accepting that all things change.

· Seeing that change doesn’t automatically mean “loss”; it means just what it says..”change.”

· Letting go of one season of life so you can keep becoming who you are at your root.

“Radical” literally means “at the root.” My co-author Michelle Frank, PsyD. and I use the word “radical” in our book, The Radical Guide for Women with ADHD, to mean that at root you need to stay who you are at the core regardless of the struggle and to continuously find ways to work with who you are, not to prove your acceptability to anyone. Instead, we need to find a fulfilling way to live our lives,.. just as we need to when we are O.L.D.

Whether it’s neurodivergence you were born with, like ADHD, or acquired neurodivergence as we age and our brain changes, the work is similar.

Your inner work this week may include thinking about these…

• facing fears

• feeling and moving through grief and pain

• facing your wounds

• finding new connection

• repairing old wounds and relationships

• finding ways to forgive others, to forgive yourself,

• acceptance of changes

• finding new ways—or rediscovering old ways—to be you..continuing to find ways to express your essence.

So again, I compare the inner work of ADHD with the inner work of aging:

With ADHD and with O.L.D, you need to accept yourself and continue, with support and adaptation, to:

• express yourself

• contribute

• find meaning and purpose

• become quietly content with who you are, as a whole person

The goal with ADHD, is not to become neurotypical. It’s to resist measuring yourself by a cultural standard of “normal”

When you age, the goal is to resist comparing yourself to some commercial message of youth and how you’re “supposed” to be.

Instead, you can use your hard won wisdom, scars, and courage to inspire, create, or turn inward and reflect on and review your life’s rich experiences.

Let’s face it, it is scary to age. It is scary to change. Avoiding that fact though doesn’t help—just like avoidance with ADHD doesn’t help. Avoiding who you are, or fighting reality, just keeps you hidden from others and, most importantly, from yourself.

So Remember..
A.D.H.D. is not a pathology.

It’s a natural way that some brains are wired.

O.L.D. is not a old lady disorder.

It’s another phase of life.

In both cases, our work is not to erase who we are, but to become more deeply, more honestly, ourselves—with support, adaptation, and a refusal to let the culture define our worth.

I”d love to hear your reflections on aging and ADHD and the ways you can apply the lessons of ADHD to the process of change and becoming O.L.D.

On this audio, I introduce our book, The Radical Guide for Women with ADHD, which will be published in a revised edition by New Harbinger in March of 2027. This is a book by Dr. Michelle Frank and myself originally released in 2019. There is much new material and many updates in this new edition that we are excited to share with you. So whether are a new reader or someone who has already read the current edition, you will find a great deal to relate to in this revised edition.

I am planning to use my Inner World Tuesday video or audio each week to read from the current edition and to preview excerpts from the new sections here for you on my Substack.

Today, I have read a passage from chapter one to give you a flavor of the book. I think you may be able to select the transcript to be shown so you can read along with it.

I would love to hear your comments.

Gratefully,

Sari

George Santayana says:

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”

Sari Says:

This quote by the philosopher Santayana struck me, especially after our recent group on resilience, my own inner work, and my work with clients who are getting older and need a new way to think about letting go and moving on—and about viewing and valuing themselves differently.

In my work with clients on aging, and with others facing chronic or new life circumstances, it is critical to work at accepting a change in identity as something natural—not as a loss, but as a “becoming.”

Just as each season becomes the next, we are never without a season: each is beautiful and challenging in its own way. The only problem we run into is, as Santayana says, when we “fall hopelessly in love” with one of them. He refers specifically to spring, which makes sense because, to me, that season represents the bloom of youth, the hope in the air when all things seem possible.

When we fall in love with and hold onto one way of being in the world—one identity—we fight and grieve that we are no longer the same woman or man. We don’t look the same, don’t have the same face or body or memory, or the same job, role in the world, identity, or impact.

When we hold on for dear life, as if that can stave off change, impermanence, or imperfection, we forget that we never give up being who we are at the core. Instead, we need to recognize that we constantly need to find new ways to express ourselves, to modify, to keep up with changing circumstances. We need to discover or recognize new ways we are able to make an impact.

By moving into a different way of being in the world—not a “role” so much as a way of relating more authentically—not lesser, maybe not with the same splash, but with a quieter connection: mentoring, helping, teaching, imparting the wisdom of who we are and all we have gone through in our lives, we leave a legacy. This legacy can build on all those changes, all the seasons of our life, without insisting that we stay in the vibrant colors of summer or that we can’t move into the tenderness of a fading winter or an early fall evening.

We change, and our roles change, and only when we cling to them do we feel such intense loss of value or identity. We have to move over and make room for a new generation, professionally and in our families—changing role, but still loved, appreciated, and valued, just in a different way. Letting others rise, imparting our wisdom, instead of engaging with the world in the same ways we did before.

Research shows that the people who are able to shift in this way stay happy and engaged, while others, equally bright or successful, become depressed or bitter—feeling that any change in a role is a change in status that they can’t bear.

I admit I am a romantic, and so sometimes I, as well as others, hold on to a certain vision of the way life used to be—or the way our kids, now grown, used to be—or the memory of what we used to do easily. But I think we are still “us” in a new way, if we modify, get support, and find new ways to express latent or emerging aspects of ourselves: to be of value in new ways, or to live in a new way. Maybe turning inward, maybe turning outward—whichever is an expansion that accommodates your changes.

So let’s not insist on one way of being in the world as the only valuable way. Let’s keep moving—shedding, blooming, retreating, and emerging like the changing seasons. We have many colors and many aspects we can keep discovering. Clients who can’t let go of that one identity, feel the pain of growing old or of changing circumstances much more acutely. Instead of insisting on one way of being, we can open up a different experience of aging or changing by fully experiencing whatever beautiful season of life we are in—letting go and moving on.

What do you say?

What are you still insisting on?

What season of your life do you measure yourself by?

Is there another way you can modify—to move into a different identity, or a different way to be yourself?

Can you let go of old roles and find a more authentic way to be yourself or give yourself?

Can you appreciate the beautiful memories of the ideal or idealized part of your life—when maybe you were in full bloom—while also appreciating life in its changing seasons? From full bloom to a more stark beauty, where your hidden facets can be revealed, like a beautiful winter scene?

Where are you in the seasons of your life?

Please leave me a comment, and we can discuss this in the next Reflection group on September 2nd or here in the chat.

Overview of This Month’s Reflection Group on Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth, (the subject of post #75).

My co-host, Terry Matlen, and I discussed these concepts and invited participants to share their personal resilience stories.

The group discussed how resilience involves processing pain and difficulty rather than denying it or rushing through healing, with participants noting how their struggles led to personal growth, career changes, and the development of compassion and inner strength.

(This community is building and offers two live zooms each month with me and the other members who are paid subscribers so I encourage you to upgrade and join us!)

Read more

This is a recording I made several years ago where I expand on the explorations at the end of each chapter of my book, Journeys Through ADDulthood.

I have been posting this audio series called “In Your Ear” each Friday. Last week I posted the recording about the first half of chapter three’s guide to exploring, examining, and correcting the faulty thinking about yourself and your life that many adults with a late diagnosis have developed.

Last week in post # 84, I gave you the actual written text of the entire Explorations of that chapter, so I encourage you to reference that text since I refer to it here.

This is part two.

I would love to hear your thoughts about these explorations in your own journey!

Gratefully,

Sari

All of us in the ADHD world have had parts of days like this.

Those really scary ADHD days ( or is it depression? Or both? How do you even tell the difference?)
Often it doesn’t matter in the moment, because the experience is the same:

• Not knowing what to do

• Not knowing what you want to say

• Not knowing where to go

• Not knowing what to do first

• Not knowing how to even contact a feeling about something you want to do.

You remember there’s something you wanted to do, but it feels buried so far down you can’t reach it.

You know you’ve gathered great prompts or ideas for moments like this, but you can’t find them. Maybe they are scribbled on little scraps of paper, buried in one of a thousand files on your desktop, lost inside countless unlabeled voice memos on your phone.

So there you are.
Everyone else has gone on their merry way with their pre-planned day, and you sit there with an empty brain, with no desire to do or say anything and no one there to prompt you.

That’s the scary part: there is no external cue. No one saying, “Hey, do this next.”

You just may need a life- line to connect back to your brain and to yourself!

The Emergency Contact Card

I gave this suggestion to a client the other day.
It felt so simple I was almost embarrassed to suggest it.

After all, she had big, serious issues: losses that needed grieving, relationships that needed healing, big decisions that needed to be made.

We could have spent the session creating brilliant plans and insights.
But tomorrow, when she was alone, she might not have the activation to use any of them.

So first, she needed something else, a way to reach herself when she was in shutdown.

I told her she needed to fill out what I think of as an emergency contact card – a way to contact herself in an emotional or brain shut down emergency. You won’t have the energy or motivation once you are in shut down mode. It’s like preparing in advance in case of a power outage. You need to make sure that beforehand, you have a working flashlight and stored water and know where they are.

Or, here’s another way to think about it…

The Dead Battery Metaphor

Sometimes your brain feels like a car on a frozen winter morning that won’t start:

• You turn the key – nothing.

• Car is too cold.

• Battery feels completely dead.

Once the engine is turning, you can figure out:

• where to go

• what to do next

• whether you need gas, a map, or a mechanic
  What we want with this card is not a big drive across town.
  We want that first tiny spark: the engine beginning to turn over.

Fill Out Your Emergency Contact Card in Advance (Not when you’re in shutdown).. While you still have access to memory, motivation, perspective.

Because once you’re actually in shutdown – whether it’s depression, cognitive overload, emotional overwhelm, or physical exhaustion – you won’t be able to do this.

Not a huge plan.
Not a list of “10 steps to change your life.”
Just the smallest, most reliable, first spark. Just a way to turn over the engine on that dark, cold morning.

Because in those times, big ideas are overwhelming and useless.
You need the tiniest possible next thing.

What if you give this a try right now?

• Take a scrap of paper or a 3×5 card. (cardboard is better so it doesn’t disappear or float away)

• Or tape it somewhere visible – bulletin board, wall, next to your desk.

The idea is to use something you won’t have to search for it when you’re already overwhelmed.

On this card, you’re going to write only things that are already proven to work for you:

Things that activate you

Things that connect you

Things that give you energy (1% more energy, not 100%)

.
This is not what you’ve been told “should” help.
This is completely individual. It’s what has actually worked for you in the past.

Questions to Help You Fill In Your Card

Ask yourself:

1. What stirs you?

• Is there a passage in a book that never fails to move or awaken you?

(If so, put it next to your bed or chair and make sure it has a post it or is book marked in a way you can find it easily in an emergency!)

2. What sounds help you?

• Is there a piece of music on your playlist or on Pandora that always activates you?(
  (If so, write the song or playlist name on the card and make sure you know the password or how to find it.)

3. What physical spaces help?

• Is there a spot in nature or in your home that makes you feel safe or soothed?

A particular chair?

A corner of your porch?

A spot in the backyard?
Write down instructions to yourself you can use when needed

: “Go to the ___ chair” or “Sit on the back steps.”

4. Who helps you feel less alone?
Connection is a lifeline.

Write down two names (and how to reach them quickly):

• Who can you text? are you sure they are in your text list easily accessed before hand.

• Who reliably brings you comfort?

• Who makes you feel less alone?

• Who makes you laugh?

Connection doesn’t always have to be live and two-way.
It can be memory, voice, images, story.

Your emergency contact card might include:

• “Pet the dog / cat.”

• “Listen to X podcast / audiobook – a friendly voice.”

• “Look at photos from [good memory].”Connecting to these emotions can break through just enough to start the engine.

Tiny Stimulation and Structure

Sometimes your brain is shut down and you need the gentlest possible spark.

• Is there a brain game or word game that tends to wake your brain up?
  Don’t dismiss it too quickly. Make it easy: one tap to open, no login, no decision.
  Even if you play it for 1–2 minutes and quit, that’s still 1–2 minutes of your brain coming online.

• Is there a “brain food” that helps you think a little clearer?
  Maybe coffee and a bit of protein. Again: not what’s perfect, but what works for you.

If so write instructions to yourself on a card:
“Eat ___.” drink_____” “Play ___ for 2 minutes.”

Vision, Imagination, and Hope

(These can serve as lifelines in an emotional or ADHD shutdown)

For example, Write down a title for a book you’ve always wanted to write or a future project you want to start or an organization you would love to build or a person you would love to hold or reconnect with or meet.

Look up a class you might take (but don’t sign up yet)

Browse pictures or sites for a place you’d like to visit someday

Write down one tiny dream or wish

Movement

• What has worked before for you? Something small -like walk to the end of the driveway.

• Put on Motown and see what happens (or whatever your generational equivalent is, i.e. where it would be impossible not to move or feel better.

The goal isn’t a workout. It’s a spark.

****************************************************************************

My Real-Life Today Example

This morning, I woke up with a brain like the one I’m describing:

• no thoughts

• no motivation

• heavy, blank, stuck

Then here’s what happened..

• I played my daily word game, even though I didn’t feel like it at first.

• My husband made me walk for ten minutes while it was still cool outside. I didn’t plan it; I just put on shoes and went out the door. (I doubted it would help.)

• I wrote two quick texts to friends, just to remember that they exist in the world and I can connect at some point.

• I ate some protein and changed my physical state.

• I had to call the bank about being locked out. I had been avoiding it since I hate phone calls to places like this. This wasn’t optional, but it became part of the “reboot”:

  • I listened to the customer service guy’s oddly funny voice and I laughed like crazy. (Note to self) Unexpected things happen when you take even a little action sometimes.)

  • I solved one small problem, then another.

Layer by layer, my brain started to re-engage.

And Somehow Here I Am Now, writing this to you, and I have no idea how I got here.

I had the experience we have all had at some time when you are driving on automatic pilot and all of a sudden you look around and don’t remember how you got there!

I am writing this and engaged and I don’t know how I got here except I took those few little painstaking and painfully slow steps for many hours at the beginning of the day.

I tried the key one last time and by some miracle, the engine started. The car was warmed up enough I guess by then.

Little by little, I had built enough momentum to sit here several hours later and write this even though I started the day with absolutely nothing in my mind.

I wrote what I felt and what I knew and what I learned.

What to do when you don’t know what to do!

So I can suggest to you to make a small emergency contact card to prepare in advance when you feel as if you have lost that most important connection -the one to yourself!

Prompts can help you when you feel like this. So you might want to make note of some of the questions in this post to fill out your card.

What small things activate you? connect you? give you energy? (1% more energy, not 100%)

I’d love to see what you come up with if you want to send in some photos or descriptions.

This group is for paid subscribers who want to explore the core principles of the Inner Work series in more depth, with more personal connection to one another and to me.

This is not a support group and not a lecture. This is designed for you to reflect on in private in advance if you want, and, in the group, you can listen quietly or share your thoughts and reflections if you wish.

The session will be on Zoom, and I’ll send a written summary afterward to anyone who is a paid subscriber at that point.

Paid Subscribers will receive the Zoom link on Friday morning by email, and I’ll also post it.

This Week’s Focus: Resilience.

Suggestion :You might want to review post # 75 in advance.

Here are some of the highlights of the prompts I suggested at the end of that for us to explore on Friday.

Being able to re‑examine your story by:
Facing what hurts rather than bypassing it.
Allowing yourself to lean into—not rush your healing…not forcing a timeline. That gentleness with yourself is part of what builds resilience.

Remember: resilience is not about pretending everything is fine.
It’s about looking at your life—your wound, your story—bravely and directly,
and allowing yourself to be changed by it

Information:

Co-Facilitated by Author and Therapist , Terry Matlen.

Friday, August 7th, at 4 Eastern.

Length approximately one hour.

______________________________________________________________

I hope to see you there!

Please consider upgrading to paid to join in and build this community event held once a month.

Gratefully,

Sari

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