Acceptance and its power to help you.

[mokeone11]

Why do people fight what they are thinking after the fact that thought occured? Is it sane to seek clarity for thoughts now in the past? Or is fighting the thoughts we don't want to think of normal as the human condition? Every pain and sorrow in our life is from fighting what we think. Or we get stressed about a future event before the fact it occurred. How can you possibly know the future? Is it real or 'thought' to be real? Is mankind living in the past and the future?

When one seeks happiness by a future event it never lasts right? Then when we are happy we are focusing our attention in the present moment. Right? We are feeling at our best when we are free of thought. Instead of looking for any moment for happiness outside this moment is impossible. We can only feel free now. We can only feel peace right now. When there is a mastery of living in the present moment there is constant peace and well being. It is all about practicing acceptance.

When I say acceptance it is acceptance of what is occurring right now in our lives. Then we stop the manifestations of the mind, and we become acclimated to the Now. It takes practice repeatedly to live in it, but it is well worth the effort. It can be called letting go. We each do it daily when we do fight our thoughts we eventually naturally either learn to accept it or ignore it and seek more future fulfillment out of the situation. Is it sane to avoid the moment which makes us happy? Or is it something most are not aware of. With conditioned thoughts there is judgement and reactivity.. Even getting rid of judgement you will feel much more peaceful.

It is important to become aware of our thoughts and actions. When you become aware of the truth behind that thought you are freeing yourself from the trapped thought process most of us live in. Once awareness is brought on a thought process, you gain understanding and gain wisdom of what is what, and why you think this or that. One way to get there is curiosity. Become curious in yourself.

After you master awareness of thought those thoughts will still repeat unless we put ourselves in those thoughts and accept them as they are. As you continue this practice you will become more and more aware. Your energy level rises. Intellect and truth comes from within you. You feel better. It is in the present moment that we reach is when a thought may occur and pug you back into your conditioned mind. Because in the now we can b blind. So you get yourself back in the present moment and practice it until you master it. Then either with or without medicine for ADD you will have that awareness. It is very helpful in life. It has helped me. Maybe it could help you.

[SquarePeg]

I agree to a certain extent but I have been living "in the moment" and in a state of acceptance for many years and whilst it serves me very well I have come to realise it doesn´t serve my family.

My 13 year old son has been recently diagnosed ADD and coming on this forum has led me to believe that I also have it. Whist I had accepted myself being vague, forgetful, disorganised, absent, lack of amibtion and direction I now realise that my son needs me to help him and at the moment I can´t because in many respects I am worse than he his.

I can´t accept these traits as simply being me any more, I have to now seek help and treatment for myself in order that I can help him with his schoolwork more, be organised etc. I am now questioning everything about my past and my attitude towards the future.

I now see everything so differently and I don´t like what I see but it´s time to face reality.

[fracturedstory]

I don't fight my thoughts. I embrace them, in all their incredulousity.

[Ipsofacto]

mokeone11, I totally agree with what you are saying. Having said that, I don't believe that's the best way to get the message across.

I think mindfulness may very quickly become a mainstream therapy for ADHD. The research studies are showing significant positive results. One of the biggest hurdles that general acceptance of mindfulness as a therapy will face, is overcoming it's spiritual connotations.

Words like "master" and "truth", and the overall tone makes me think of Buddhism, or a similar spiritual path to mindfulness.

Mindfulness can be taught and learned in a clinical way. A person might develop a spiritual aspect to mindfulness, but mindfulness does not depend on any spirituality to be a very effective therapy.

[fracturedstory]

Yeah, I'd prefer the practical step by step instructions of mindfulness. The tone people use kind of turns me off.

To be honest I'm finding it hard to read the OP. I suppose I don't need it. I don't struggle with my thoughts, not as bad as before. If I have anxious thoughts I can re-direct my focus onto something stimulating. I pretty much putt down all the mind chatter down to needing stimulation.

[meadd823]

To reply or not to reply that is the deeper question - okay for me it is

This has a Buddhist tone due to the terminology, but it is by no means Buddhism.

Originally Posted by mokeone11

Why do people fight what they are thinking after the fact that thought occured? Is it sane to seek clarity for thoughts now in the past? Or is fighting the thoughts we don't want to think of normal as the human condition? Every pain and sorrow in our life is from fighting what we think. Or we get stressed about a future event before the fact it occurred. How can you possibly know the future? Is it real or 'thought' to be real? Is mankind living in the past and the future?

Mankind is living like every thing else on the planet, in the present moment but a life of mindfulness shouldn't be without intention - or more secular terminology = goals.

One without destination never arrives any where - Too much of my life has already been spend going no where - More no where does not sound very appealing.

Originally Posted by mokeone11

When one seeks happiness by a future event it never lasts right? Then when we are happy we are focusing our attention in the present moment. Right? We are feeling at our best when we are free of thought. Instead of looking for any moment for happiness outside this moment is impossible. We can only feel free now. We can only feel peace right now. When there is a mastery of living in the present moment there is constant peace and well being. It is all about practicing acceptance.

Being free from thought = thoughtlessness Our world has enough thoughtless folks without adding to their numbers.

We need not only be aware of our own thoughts but we must be aware of our environment and this includes other beings.

Actually ADHDers are natural masters of living in the moment - to the point of it becoming a fault. This is why we tend to suck at planning ahead = forethought.

Living in the moment does not mean I am automatically happy in it either - I can be totally stressed by over focusing on the moment - Some times to deactivate stress it helps me to put this moment into the context of other moments and place it into the context of the collective moment experienced by all of life.

Pleasant moments will pass no matter what we do , just like the unpleasant moments one do - It just seem to take the unpleasant ten time longer but much of our perception of time is relative to the extreme - Ten minutes will feel like ten years if what I am doing is un-fun - Fun activities things I want to do ten hours can feel like thirty minutes and if I am not medicated I have absolutely no concept of the passage of time - I am time blind by nature and this has not always been a good thing.

Happiness is a relative term with little to no actual universal meaning - What make me happy may not make you happy.

Living in the moment is not necessarily acceptance. . . .but I do agree that expecting to be some thing we can never become increases the likelihood of being unhappy

Originally Posted by mokeone11

When I say acceptance it is acceptance of what is occurring right now in our lives. Then we stop the manifestations of the mind, and we become acclimated to the Now. It takes practice repeatedly to live in it, but it is well worth the effort. It can be called letting go. We each do it daily when we do fight our thoughts we eventually naturally either learn to accept it or ignore it and seek more future fulfillment out of the situation. Is it sane to avoid the moment which makes us happy? Or is it something most are not aware of. With conditioned thoughts there is judgement and reactivity.. Even getting rid of judgement you will feel much more peaceful.

Introspection's a good thing but many with ADHD lack this. Actually more accurately stated is most of the people who I know that are ADHD lack a proper balance of introspection and letting go - We either do not think our feeling though thus we may react without properly understanding why never mind consider how our actions will effect others or we introspect ourselves right into our own heads and become so anxious as to how our actions will effect others we are afraid to come out of our shell

Originally Posted by mokeone11

It is important to become aware of our thoughts and actions. When you become aware of the truth behind that thought you are freeing yourself from the trapped thought process most of us live in. Once awareness is brought on a thought process, you gain understanding and gain wisdom of what is what, and why you think this or that. One way to get there is curiosity. Become curious in yourself.

Gosh what I would give to be able to think about why I felt like posting this reply without my mind going off in a thousand different directions and winding up in never never land -by simply willing myself to do so would save me $200.00 a month in pills

Taking the time to consider the origins of my emotions is a good practice and it is one I do my best to engage in but not because it leads to happiness or peace of mind.

When I find myself feeling pressure or anger I have trained my self to slowly spell the word T...H...I...N...K this gives my brain the split second it needs to kick start the part that will map out the consequences of any stupid actions my emotions may impulsively lead me to act upon - Emotional insight also offers up a chance to see where my own action lead me to this place that way I can see how to change my own behavior as a means of preventing future unpleasant moments or increase future happy ones - If revenge is needed that moment of hesitation gives me a chance to think creatively

Originally Posted by mokeone11

After you master awareness of thought those thoughts will still repeat unless we put ourselves in those thoughts and accept them as they are. As you continue this practice you will become more and more aware. Your energy level rises. Intellect and truth comes from within you. You feel better. It is in the present moment that we reach is when a thought may occur and pug you back into your conditioned mind. Because in the now we can b blind. So you get yourself back in the present moment and practice it until you master it. Then either with or without medicine for ADD you will have that awareness. It is very helpful in life. It has helped me. Maybe it could help you.

While I am a huge fan of questioning our "social conditioning", that conditioning is not always bad.

I am also unsure of how we can not live within our emotions

The best way I know of to suspend judgement is to become a neutral third person observer which may or may not be the same thing as acceptance.


I am glad this technique has helped you, many of the suggestions may indeed help some but many may not be to the point of being able to do these things you suggested regardless of how much they may want to thus without rebuttal, this may simply become another source of failure {hence my reason for replying}

If I could control the direction of my focus and length of attention span by simply willing myself to I would not be ADHD - What you describe sounds a lot like gaining insight. While it is an excellent idea many here may need to address some biological issues that prevent them from doing so!

Thanks for sharing your success - Hope it continues to work well for you!

[fracturedstory]

Wow Meadd, I never got any of those things you said from the post. I'm glad I chose to ignore it.
Introspection is a good past time for me.
I love to be self-analytical. Actually, there's hardly a time when I'm not analytical. I love breaking things apart and finding out where they came from.

What helps me become more aware is learning about these differences in my brain and develop ways to deal better with then. And also, get a better understanding about human behaviour. So it's neuroscience and psychology that I turn to.

[mrzyphl]

I feel the same as fracturedstory. But I think adder's tend to be more self analytical because we can't always trust what we're thinking.

The 'power of acceptance' is simplistic tripe. Those high minded thoughts have little substance. Your writing reminds me of Ekhardt Tolle. His writings are a random vomit of differing philosophies expurgated into book form. If you want a real philosophy you should start with solipsism or nihilism and stay away from the canned wisdom and fake spirituality.

[Ipsofacto]

Originally Posted by mrzyphl

I feel the same as fracturedstory. But I think adder's tend to be more self analytical because we can't always trust what we're thinking.

The 'power of acceptance' is simplistic tripe. Those high minded thoughts have little substance. Your writing reminds me of Ekhardt Tolle. His writings are a random vomit of differing philosophies expurgated into book form. If you want a real philosophy you should start with solipsism or nihilism and stay away from the canned wisdom and fake spirituality.

Just posted on another thread which made think of this one. I think acceptance is maybe not the right word, but trying to live without judgement might be a better way to put it.

This has more to do with a clinical behavioral therapy for ADHD, than adopting any particular philosophy. Our self judgement of our ADHD behaviors as being bad, is one the most debilitating aspects of ADHD. Removing the negative feelings we have about certain things we have difficulties with, reduces them to what they are, and not some monster we can not face. It's not cure, but it helps.