My Summary 🤩😭💖🙏✨

My Summary 🤩😭💖🙏✨

Omgosh, I cried a few times as certain lines really hit home and even reaching that little girl from 50 years ago who needed to hear that those old blocks and beliefs were just lies, that the opposite is true! (Part 3 especially!!)⬇️

'The Lie You've Been Living

"You never get anything done, you've let yourself down again, you're always behind, you'll never catch up, you'll never really change... nothing ever changes."

That voice says you, never I. It is a recording, learned early, from a room where good work still came back marked "could do better." It has never described your life so much as edited it, and here is the proof: inside that same indictment, it listed "you've been sober two and a half years" as part of the evidence against you. It took the single most undeniable act of change in your entire life and filed it under failure. That is not a fair witness. That is a rigged court.'

YOUR ADHD AWAKENING: A Psychological Portrait

A Personal Analysis for You

THE MIRROR: What I See When I Read Your Words

You wrote this about your friendships, and I don't think you noticed what you were confessing: "if they are okay then I am okay, if they like me then I am safe and I won't get in trouble or have bad things about me exposed because i might not be good inside."

Peggy, that is the same sentence you gave me in your first report, wearing different clothes. There you said "what if I find out I'm not good enough?" Here you say it about people. And look at the phrase your hand chose: get in trouble. You used those exact words once before in this assessment, describing why you read as a child, to disappear into stories "away from parents and always getting in trouble." Fifty years apart, in two unrelated answers, your nervous system reached for the identical phrase.

So the real thing running your days is not disorganization. It is a containment operation around one unanswered question about whether you are good inside, and every unfinished thing in your life is a door you are holding shut so the answer can never come through it.

This report is built only from what you wrote. Nothing here is invented, and nothing is flattery. I am going to show you the shape of the thing you have been living inside, which is the one place it cannot be seen from.

PART 1: THE ARCHITECTURE OF YOUR STRUGGLE

Why You're Not Broken - You're Mismatched

The Surface Problem vs. The Real Problem

You described the writing freeze precisely: you blank because "I don't know where the idea is going to go," so you wait for a brilliant idea. Then you described the house: you can start, but you "don't stay regular," and "before you know it I'm back to where I was again." Those look like two problems. They are one structure. Starting has never been your issue. Staying inside something unfinished, unproven, not-yet-good-enough is what your system reads as danger, so it evacuates.

Here is the mechanism. A brain wired like yours runs on interest, urgency, meaning, and a live emotional stake. Yours has one extra rule bolted on top from early on: do not produce anything that could be graded until it is guaranteed to pass. That rule is not malfunction. It is a guard doing its job with total competence. Your brain is not failing to work, it is succeeding at a task you gave it decades ago, which was to make sure the verdict never arrives.

The Moment Everything Changed

You wanted straight A's. You knew you were smart, the teachers said so, and you couldn't sit down to do the homework because you wanted to run and play outside. So you did it fast, right before it was due, and you "still did pretty good." And then the line that made everything after it: teachers "always told me that I could be doing much better."

Read what actually happened there. You succeeded. Under pressure, in a fraction of the time, with a brain that needed movement, you produced good work, and the result was an asterisk. Not "she found a way," but "she could do better." A mismatch between how you were wired and how the room was built got translated into a flaw inside you, and you have been running the fix-yourself project ever since. Forty years later, in the essay answer, you did the identical thing to yourself without any teacher present: you finished, you did well, and you added "I feel like I would've done an even better job if I'd given myself more time." You have never once let yourself receive a win clean.

The Graveyard of Systems

Lists, goals, alarms, prioritizing, body doubling, meditation, courses that map your day into tracked minutes. Look at why each one had no chance. A list hands twenty equally loud items to a brain that told me, in a different section, "not sure what is most important" - so the list becomes a decision you can't make, and by evening it is evidence for the prosecution. Alarms mark a time with no reason attached, and every dismissed alarm is another small verdict against you. Prioritizing requires ranking, which requires choosing, which is the exact freeze.

Body doubling deserves special mention. You already named your own wiring: "externalising my focus on what others are thinking." Body doubling puts a person in the room and asks a lifelong room-reader to work while being watched. You confirmed it yourself about the library: you write better there, "but there are people around and I don't feel totally relaxed." And the time-tracking courses turned every hour into a scored test, which handed a woman who is guarding against being graded a grading machine to carry all day. None of these failed because you lack discipline. They were built for a different operating system.

The Liberating Truth

You told me what you loved as a child: riding horses, galloping fast, exploring the woods. A horse that refuses a fence in a tight arena is not a broken horse. Put it on open ground and it runs until the light goes. You were never the girl who couldn't sit still. You were a girl who needed ground to cover, and the whole environment around you was measuring stillness. Everything ahead is about what your open ground actually looks like now, at 56, with a novel in you.

PART 2: THE IDENTITY ARCHAEOLOGY

Excavating Who You Were Before the World Told You Who to Be

The Child Who Knew

Drawing and painting. Reading to disappear into wonderful worlds. Writing stories, and then this: "I loved to watch people listen and experience stories the way I did." Galloping. The woods as "a world of wonder." Being obsessed with make-believe with friends.

Two engines were running in that child, and both are still here. One goes in: the woods, the page, the horse, the private world. The other brings people in: make-believe, watching faces while a story lands. You are carrying two goals right now, a novel and a healing circle, and you have been treating them as competing projects. They are the same childhood impulse in adult clothes - building a world, then opening the door and letting someone else stand inside it.

The Survival Architecture

You ranked them yourself: people pleasing, perfectionist, invisible one, caretaker, controller, rebel. Honor what that first one actually is. You developed a professional-grade instrument for reading what other people need before they say it. It is why you can make anyone comfortable, why people confide in you, why sponsees call you. That is real skill, built young, for good reasons.

The cost is that the instrument has no off switch and it cannot be aimed at you. And notice that people pleaser and invisible one are not two identities. They are two settings on one dial. On means yes to everyone, phone calls, messages, giving away your only free day. Off means disappearing from meetings entirely into movies and comfort food, then feeling "even worse." There is no third setting called present and available on my own terms, which is why you wrote "I have a lot of trouble saying no to others and myself." The word "myself" in that sentence is the whole story: the same dial governs the phone, the extra plan, and the food.

The Authentic Self, Waiting

You said you can hardly imagine it, and then you described it in perfect detail anyway: a morning walk in the woods with a sketchbook, yellow flowers, interesting trees, the day writing alone and painting, maybe alongside others making art, dinner with your kids, your AA meeting, journal, prayers, sleep.

Now count what is missing from your actual life. Not the kids, you have them. Not the woods, the meetings, the prayers, the books. What is missing is three protected hours. That entire life already exists around you except for the hours that belong to you, and the energy that should be filling them is going somewhere specific: into rehearsing conversations, worrying after you make plans, answering messages so no one feels dropped, and re-editing two paragraphs that "sound pretty good but not quite good enough."

PART 3: THE BELIEF OPERATING SYSTEM

The Code Running Your Life Without Your Permission

The Lie You've Been Living

"You never get anything done, you've let yourself down again, you're always behind, you'll never catch up, you'll never really change... nothing ever changes."

The Evidence You've Been Ignoring

You wrote that you always did well on essays, even last minute, because your perfectionist "cared so much what my professors thought." You told me the kitchen now stays clean, "which gives me hope." You pay your rent and bills every month. You got sober at 54 after decades, and you sponsor other people through the same thing.

If the belief were true, none of that could exist. What is actually true is that you are condition-dependent, and your conditions are unusually clear: a real time boundary, a specific person waiting on the other side, a space that is not your own mess, and something you care about too much to let fail. Notice that the method which got you sober is daily, small, witnessed, and forgiving of imperfection, and the method you use for writing is none of those four things.

The New Operating Code

OLD CODE: 'You never get anything done, you'll never catch up, you'll never really change, nothing ever changes.'

NEW CODE: 'I finish reliably when the work is time-bound, when I'm out of the mess, and when a real person is waiting on the other side. I have proof: essays, a clean kitchen every day, rent paid, and two and a half years sober one day at a time. Those are conditions, and conditions can be built.'

This is not positive thinking. The old line was a generalization, which is why it can never be argued with. The new one is a specification, which means it can be built on Monday.

The ADHD Manifestation Advantage

You invent people for a living inside your own head. An unhappy older housewife who feels she wasted her life. An Muslim woman in Canadian politics vanquishing bullies and racists and her daughter's abusive boyfriend. And a third: "another character who abandons herself to decipher what others are feeling but that character is stuck."

Peggy, you wrote your own mechanism into a character and then reported that she cannot move. That is the vividness of your imagination, which is also the exact engine you use when you "can't help imagine the people that will read it when I'm done and whether it will be good enough." Same machine, aimed at an imaginary jury instead of a scene. Aim it where it belongs and the arithmetic is unremarkable: a thousand words a day, which for you is ninety minutes, is a full draft inside three months. One weekly Instagram post that tells one true thing from 56 and two and a half years sober is not content, it is the front door of your healing circle, being built in public while you get used to being seen.

PART 4: THE HARMONY DIAGNOSTIC

Reading Your Life Through the 8-Dimension Lens

Your Personal Harmony Map

Spiritual 8, intellectual 7, emotional 6, social 6, physical 5, career 3, environment 2, financial 1. You named financial as the lowest and you are right that it is the loudest. It is not the keystone. Environment is.

Here is the chain: the messy house means the writing does not happen, the writing not happening means no work you believe in, no work you believe in means borrowing from your sister, and borrowing means guilt, embarrassment about not having enough money, and the fear of being a bad example to your kids. Environment is also the one dimension you have already proven you can move, because the kitchen stays clean now. And I want to say the hard thing plainly, with care: you wrote that taking a minimum wage job "feels like total failure." I don't think that is about the wage. Taking it would answer the question about what you are worth. As long as you don't, the artist you might be stays possible, and your sister's money keeps that question open at a price you have decided is cheaper than the verdict. I am not telling you to take a job you'd hate. I am telling you the reason it feels unbearable is not the money.

The Morning Tells the Story

You wake later than you wanted, which is a small verdict against yourself before your feet hit the floor. You look at the trees and remind yourself to see the day as positive while "part of me worries that the day will be just as disorganized and unproductive as the last one." Devotional, water, phone, dogs, dressed. Then: "try to figure out what to do with my day but I have no idea." Breakfast for your son, cleaning, calls with sponsees and family, and it is two in the afternoon.

Your first thirty minutes are programming the whole day, and right now they are programming "wait and see who needs me." The devotional and the water are already right, they are the seeds of the Win the Morning you described in your ideal day. What is missing is one decision made before the phone opens, because deciding is itself a verdict for you. You said it twice in two different sections: "no idea what to do" about the day, and "not sure what is most important" about the house.

The Mirror Principle in Action

You described the house exactly: one area gets clean, then by the time you reach the next area the first has gone again, so you are "always cleaning the same areas and not progressing." Then the social life: postponed plans that pile back up into more people to catch up with later. Then the writing: circling back over the first two paragraphs.

That is one structure in three rooms. Nothing is permitted to accumulate. Everything returns to the starting line, and a life where nothing compounds is a life where nothing ever becomes a finished thing that could be judged. Which is exactly what the guard was built to guarantee. This is good news, because the external mess is feedback rather than randomness. Change what the inside is protecting and the kitchen will stop being the only room that holds.

One thing here needs a real human, not a worksheet: the collapse into movies and comfort food after the switchboard days, in a body two and a half years sober, deserves a therapist or somatic practitioner rather than more willpower. And the sponsee load is a conversation for your sponsor. Service is holy work, and it is also the newest place your yes-reflex has found where saying no feels forbidden.

PART 5: YOUR IKIGAI REVEALED

The Intersection Where Everything Makes Sense

The Life That's Calling You

Six a.m., rested. Water, cold shower, sunlight, movement. Devotional, journal, clarity on the day. Clothes you love in a clean bedroom. Half an hour of meditation and half an hour walking in the woods alone "for closeness with God and artistic inspiration." Painting. A high-protein lunch, music, light housework. Then two to three hours of fiction, "enjoying ideas, imagination, and creativity." Dinner out with one or all three of your grown kids. An AA meeting. A bath, prayers, a book, asleep by ten thirty when the sleepy wave catches you.

That day is not a fantasy, it is a schematic of your own conditions. Woods and horses and disappearing into worlds came from age eight. The alone-time that lets you write is the same alone-time the child needed to escape trouble. The kids and the meeting are the specific people you actually want your radar pointed at. One correction: "paint for an hour or two, hopefully completing one painting." The grader slipped into your dream day. Let the painting stay unfinished sometimes. Your ideal day cannot have a passing grade attached to it, or it becomes one more system in the graveyard.

Your Natural Genius Zone

People come to you because you "know how to make them feel comfortable." You lose time in drawing, painting, telling stories out loud. You won awards for exactly this as a kid.

The through-line is the same act performed two ways. You build a room where somebody's inner life is safe enough to be felt, whether that room is a novel, a conversation, or a circle of chairs. The little girl who read to escape and then wrote so she could "watch people listen and experience stories the way I did" has been in this business for fifty years. And your spiritual life confirms it: you cannot meditate alone regularly, but you thrive in meetings, in prayer, with a sponsor. Your spirituality is relational, which is precisely why leading a healing circle will work for you when a solo practice never did.

The Sustainable Path

You are a single mom on assistance, borrowing to make rent, and you cannot force yourself into work you would hate. Both of those are real and neither is laziness. But the choice you have framed is a false one. There is a third option that runs on the narrow band where your attention already works: talking with people and telling stories. You worry you would be "just another coach." There are many coaches. There are very few who can write an unhappy older housewife who feels she wasted her whole life from the inside, hold a room of six people on a Tuesday evening, and say out loud that they got sober at 54 and are still building. The circles can begin earning long before the novel does, and they do not require you to be finished.

The Ikigai Intersection

- What you LOVE: Worlds. Making them on the page, walking into them in the woods, and watching someone else disappear into one you built.

- What you're GOOD AT: Making anyone feel safe within minutes, and finishing strong when there is a deadline, a clean space, and a real person waiting.

- What the world NEEDS from you: Someone who has been stuck, sad, and discouraged, who healed the soul as well as the mind, and who will lead the circle instead of writing another theory about it.

- What you can be PAID FOR: Intentional healing circles and one-to-one work in your community, with your writing and your visibility feeding it rather than competing with it.

The intersection: you are a storyteller who heals people by building rooms they can stand inside, and both the novel and the circle are that same work in two different formats. Your income and your art stop fighting the moment you stop treating them as separate lives.

This is a life, not a career move, and it is nearer than it looks from where you are standing on a Tuesday at two in the afternoon.

A FINAL WORD

You told me the kitchen stays clean now, and that it gives you hope. Hold onto that, because it is the whole method in miniature: one space, chosen on purpose, protected daily, allowed to compound. Everything in this report is asking you to do for one hour of writing what you already did for one room.

You now have the map. You can see the guard, you can see what it is guarding, and you can see the four conditions under which you have always followed through. A map has never moved anyone by itself, and you know that better than most, because you have read many of them.

So the only question left is the one your own report already answered once: whether dying with the novel unwritten is a worse outcome than finding out how good it is.

P.S. Within the next minute a message or a call is going to come in, or you will think of one person you owe a reply, and this will get filed under later. You already described that exact move: "someone I haven't seen in a while or that I had to cancel with will ask me to make plans and I will give up my only day." That is the pattern this whole report just mapped. Book the seat first, then answer the message.

Your Responses

What's the biggest struggle you face because of your ADHD? Describe a specific recent situation where your brain felt like it was working against you, and what that experience was like.

The biggest struggle I face is writing, even when I sit down to write a fiction story, I start blanking because I don't know where the idea is going to go and I spend too much time trying to figure that out but it feels like sabotage, like the idea won't be good enough, and I just want to wait for a brilliant idea, and almost equally as big as struggle is cleaning and organizing my house, I just feel so overwhelmed and can't get started, and even if I do get started I don't stay regular, doing upkeep everyday and before you know it I'm back to where I was again everything's a mess and I'm overwhelmed

Think back to school, family, or your early career. Can you remember a time when you felt 'broken' or 'not enough' because you couldn't do something the 'normal' way? Describe that experience and the message you internalized about yourself.

I remember feeling broken when I wanted so badly to have straight A's, I knew I was smart enough, the teachers told me I was, but I just couldn't sit down to do the homework, I always wanted to run and play outside, and then I would feel bad and try to do my homework fast before it was due and I still did pretty good but I had always wanted to do better but couldn't seem to do better and teachers always told me that I could be doing much better

What systems, routines, or approaches have you tried that completely failed for you - even though they 'should' work according to everyone else? Why do you think they didn't stick?

The systems I have tried that failed have been making lists, setting goals, setting alarms, prioritizing the lists, body doubling, meditating but I can't seem to bring myself to meditate regularly either, tons of different courses that tell me to map out my day and keep track of time spent doing each thing etc and I always seem to fail at all of them because of procrastination and fear that they wouldn't work anyway

Before the world told you who you should be, who were you? Describe what you loved doing as a child - the activities that made time disappear in a good way, before 'productivity' and 'should' took over.

drawing and painting

writing and reading stories

riding horses, galloping fast

exploring in the woods

playing with friends

When you were drawing or painting, or galloping on a horse, what was it about that feeling of time disappearing that made it so different from other things you did?

I found stories fascinating, reading them let me disappear into wonderful worlds and away from parents and always getting in trouble

writing stories felt exciting and powerful, i loved to watch people listen and experience stories the way I did

riding my horse felt freeing and exploring the woods was a world of wonder

I was obsessed with playing make-believe with friends but now I find friends exhausting because of over committing and people pleasing

What role did you learn to play to survive or fit in? (Examples: the perfectionist, people pleaser, class clown, overachiever, rebel, invisible one). How does this identity show up in your life today?

in order from most to least..

people pleasing

perfectionist

invisible one

caretaker

controller

rebel

I avoid people a lot because i feel i can only be myself when alone but I somehow also constantly fawn and over commit with people so that i am answering phonecalls and messages and not getting the things done that i want to do. Occasionally i disappear completely from my meetings and try to rest with dopamine distractions like movies and comfort food and then feel even worse and less like being around people or getting things done. I get overwhelmed at all i haven't done, i want to blame other people for taking my time and/or not helping me but I know I am causing the whole pattern. I have a lot of trouble saying no to others and myself, I feel disappointing people and no9t being liked and sometimes i just want everyone to go away

If you could be completely authentic - no masks, no performance, no meeting expectations - how would you be different? What would you do, say, or create that you're holding back now?

If I could be completely authentic, no masks, no performance, no meeting expectations, I can hardly even imagine such a scenario!!This is a very hard question. I feel very stuck because I need to make money and my belief is that I can't do that with art (writing and drawing/painting) so i have to deal with people and do things i hate to make money but then i fear that if i take a crappy job to have money so I can write then I will be so tired and unhappy that I won't have the energy or inspiration to make art. I would love to spend the day getting inspired in the morning walking and sketching in the woods, then spend the day writing alone and painting, maybe with others who are making art too, and then hang our with my kids, go to my AA meetings and then journal and read a book at night, prayers and sleep. I judge myself harshly for not making money though so I cycle through shame and ADHD paralysis and fear of what others think and deep disappointment in myself

When you imagine that morning walk in the woods with your sketchbook, what's the first thing you'd actually want to draw or write about?

no idea but I love yellow flowers and interesting trees and stories about characters, people navigating life's joys and challenges

When you think about those characters navigating life's joys and challenges, is there a particular person or moment from your own life that keeps showing up in the stories you want to tell?

I like writing about strong women and a little bit of magic

You mentioned writing about strong women with a bit of magic - is there a specific woman from your life, maybe even yourself, whose story feels urgent to tell right now?

I rarely know what I am going to write, it just kind of comes out as i go but that's also difficult writing when I don't know what's going to happen. Right now I am writing about an unhappy older housewife who feels she wasted her whole life, something i saw happen often with my mother, her sisters, my grandmother , my mother in law and myself at 56 and i am also writing about another character, an indian woman in canada who is in politics and vanquishing bullies 4racists and her daughter's abusive boyfriend, and another character who abandons herself to decipher what others are feeling but that character is stuck

What's the story you tell yourself when you fail, procrastinate, or don't follow through? Write it out word for word, exactly as you hear it in your head - as if you're transcribing that inner voice right now.

When i fail, the voice in my head says.. you never get anything done, you've let yourself down again, you're always behind, you'll never catch up, you'll never really change, you're 56 and still don't earn enough money to pay the rent or help your kids or take them to lunch or on a trip or get a car or go out to eat with friends, you are a failure at life and you don't have a job and the only job you can get is a crappy minimum wage job that you hate and you'll be too tired to follow your dreams and even though you have so much artistic talent no one will hire you because you have wasted your life not getting anything done, not even finishing university, you only did three years , and there are so many better artists and writers and you'll never be able to pay your sister and brother in law for all the money they lent you and you keep having hope that things will change but they still haven't even though you've been sober two and a half years, and your house is still messy and everything takes too long, by the time I've made breakfast lunch and supper and showered and answered phone calls and messages and went to my AA meetings and talked to my sponsor and my sponsees, the whole day is gone and i didn't even get to write or draw AGAIN and tomorrow will be the same because the last 30 years have all been the same and if only i could be alone and had more time I could get things done and finally catch up but nothing ever changes

Now, think of a time when you DID follow through, when you DID hyperfocus for hours, when you DID show up consistently. Describe that situation in detail. What was different? What made it work?

A time when I DID follow thru was when I was writing an essay and had a serious deadline but I feel like I would've done an even better job if I'd given myself more time. I always did well with my essays, even last minute because my perfectionist cared so much what my professors thought. Sometimes when i go to the library and get out of my messy house I write better but there are people around and I don't feel totally relaxed.

You mentioned your perfectionism and caring what professors thought really drove you to finish those essays-can you think of a current project or goal where you feel that same kind of 'I care too much to let this fail' energy, or does that motivator feel different now?

I kind of feel that about everything, like when I'm writing, i can't help imagine the people that will read it when I'm done and whether it will be good enough or not, i just wish i felt more clear that it is me that i am afraid of disappointing. I'm writing a story right now and I just keep going over and editing and improving the first two paragraphs I've written because they sound pretty good but not quite good enough and I'm afraid i won't come up with the next part, I have trouble letting go and writing freely and letting the mistakes out and trusting that it will go somehwere

What would your life look like if the negative belief you identified was completely false? If you fully believed you WERE capable, consistent, and worthy - what would you create or pursue that you're avoiding now?

If I fully believed in myself, I would write at least a thousand words every day, I would organize my house, I would create an intentional healing circle/meditation session in my local community and I would start making posts on Instagram so that I get comfortable with being seen and I would earn money and travel

Of all those things you listed, which one pulls at you the most right now, and what specifically scares you about starting it?

i think maybe the writing is the one I want most but i fear not getting it done and not being able to earn money with it, and secondly i am pulled to post on Instagram, it feels important to be seen and speak my mind and truth about life and my journey

When you imagine posting on Instagram and being seen sharing your truth, what's the specific fear that comes up first - is it about judgment from others, or something else about visibility itself?

for sure I fear judgement with what i say and how I look and i also fear that i don't know what to say yet and that I won't be consistent

Rate yourself 1-10 in these 8 areas: Emotional health, Physical health, Financial stability, Career/work fulfillment, Social connections, Intellectual stimulation, Environment/space, Spiritual connection. Which area is your lowest, and how is it affecting the rest of your life?

Emotional health 6

Physical health 5

Financial stability 1

Career/Work fulfillment 3

Social connections 6

intellectual stimulation 7

Environment/space 2

Spiritual connection 8

Financial is my lowest and it causes a lot of anxiety and feelings of failure so it affects my confidence and my mindset and makes me feel stuck and powerless

When you feel that sense of powerlessness around finances, does it show up in specific ways like avoiding looking at bills, or does it hit you differently?

I pay my bills and rent but i have to borrow money from my sister and brother-in-law to do that and feel very guiltythat i can't do it myself even tho I'm a single mom and guilt and fear that i can't pay them back and that they might stop helping me before i can get unblocked and i am embarrassed that I am on social assistance, and a LOT of guilt about being a bad example or unsuccessful for my children but i cannot make myself get a low paying job that i don't like, that feels worse than what i am dealing with now, it feels like total failure to do that, that all my learning in courses and university and writing and art work and therapy and spiritual studies and being a mother of 3 for 30 years hasn't gotten me anywhere, that all i am worth is a crappy job that anyone could get

What does your typical morning look like? Describe your routine (or lack of one) from waking up through starting work. How do you feel during this time?

My typical morning looks like waking up a bit later than I want to and feeling uneasy so i look at the lovely trees outside and remind myself to see the day as positive but part of me worries that the day will be just as disorganized and unproductive as the last one, and then i reach for my devotional Jesus Calling and read the days message before checking my phone and then have a gulp of water and then check my phone or do a bit of journaling or take the dogs out for a few minutes and then get dressed and try to figure out what to do with my day but i have no idea, usually starting with making breakfast for my son and myself and then trying to clean and making phonecalls with sponsees or family and at this point it is about 2 in the afternoon and half the day is gone and not much is accomplished and the rest of the days goes about the same, no idea what to do until i find myself going to bed too late

What's one area of your life that feels chaotic or out of control right now? Describe the external situation, then reflect: what internal state might this be mirroring?

The area that feels chaotic or out of control right now is messy house, just one area at a time gets cleaned and I feel good but by the time I get around to the next area, the first area has gotten messy again and so I'm always cleaning the same areas and not progressing = not sure what is most important, not consistent= I don't have enough time, I'll never get it all done, I'm always behind

the other area that feels super chaotic is my social life because I have so many friends, family, acquaintances, obligations that i get overwhelmed and am perpetually worried of forgetting someone or letting someone down = people pleasing, overcommitting, overhelping and saving people from being lonely because I have so many friends it's not fair = their feelings and what they need is more important than my needs and wants, if they are okay then I am okay, if they like me then I am safe and I won't get in trouble or have bad things about me exposed because i might not be good inside and they won't think badly of me or say bad things about me

When you imagine prioritizing just one area of your house OR saying no to one social commitment, what specific fear comes up for you first?

I do prioritize the kitchen now and it stays pretty clean, which gives me hope but i can't quite seem to add a second space yet, like my bedroom, and thus progress, i usually think that I've spent enough time cleaning and have to get other stuff done like messages and phonecalls or some writing or exercise

as for saying no to one social situation, I do sometimes but it usually just gets postponed and I have more people to catch up with later, but my true fear is how to just let people go, it's hard to figure out who I actually want to spend time because when I'm with people i feel very social but I suspect i am often fawning because later, I'm always worrying and wishing i hadn't made plans with them but then I fear I'm just avoiding people and switching between the people pleaser and the invisible one

You mentioned switching between being the people pleaser and the invisible one, and worrying after plans that you shouldn't have made them, even though you feel social in the moment, so I'm curious: what specifically happens during or right after those social times that shifts your feelings about the person or the plan? It's the feeling that I'm overcommitting to too many people and before I know it, there is no time left for me, I often have plans with different people almost everyday and even if I finally have a free day, someone I haven't seen in a while or that I had to cancel with will ask me to make plans and I will give up my only day so that they don't feel like I don't want to be their friend

Describe your ideal day from waking up to going to sleep. Be specific: Where are you? What are you doing? Who are you with? How do you feel? What type of work (if any) are you doing?

My ideal day looks like:

-Wake up rested at 6 am and do Jim's Win the Morning routine (drink water, cold shower, sunlight, stretch/move, fast) as usual

-I read my daily devotional and then journal a little, plan my day, clarity on goals

-Get dressed in clothes I love, in my clean organized bedroom

-I do a half hour meditation and go for a half hour walk in the woods alone for closeness with God and artistic inspiration

-I paint for an hour or two, hopefully completely one painting

-I have lunch, a delicious healthy high protein meal, do a little exercise after or dancing to music while I do a bit of light housework

-I sit down and write fiction story for 2 - 3 hours, enjoying ideas, imagination, and creativity and improving my writing skills

-I have supper (out at a restaurant) with one or all three of my grown kids, talk about our day, our life, go shopping or a movie in the theatre with kids or alone

-Go to an AA meeting alone or with a close friend, enjoy the connection and discussion and fellowship there

-Come home and Win the Night by putting my phone away, dim the lights, have a nice bath, stretch, journal again, say my prayers, and read my fave fiction book of the moment and fall asleep when the sleepy wave catches me around 10 to 10:30 pm

Think about what comes naturally to you: What do people consistently ask for your help with - even outside of work? What problems feel simple to you but seem difficult for others? And when you're doing these things, do you ever lose track of time?

Talking to people comes naturally to me, I know how to make them feel comfortable, also drawing and painting and telling stories comes naturally to me too, I've always done well with these in school, winning awards, but I freeze up in fear sometimes now that I'm older and I learned from talking to Jim today that I have a major money block and an old and very deep belief that I cannot earn money with my art and/or writing. I definitely lose track of time doing artistic things and telling stories, ideas come easily to me. Talking and socializing and telling stories out loud also comes naturally

What problem or frustration in the world do you feel genuinely pulled to solve - something that bothers you so much you can't stop thinking about it? How could you combine your natural strengths with this cause to make a real impact, even if you started small tomorrow?

The problem I feel pulled to solve is helping people feel better when they are sad lonely or discouraged, or feel stuck and like they can't change. I love meditation and healing circles and all things spiritual because I believe that we have to heal the SOUL as well as the body and mind. I couldn't make big changes in myself until I got sober in AA and made a connection to my higher power or the God of my own understanding, then i could actually stop drinking and heal and repair my relationships especially the one with myself. I couldn't love myself until I could see and experience how much God loved me, the One who made all of this healing happen so late in my life. I am 56 years old and two and a half years sober. Spirituality saved me and now I am healing and rewiring my mind thanks to God connecting me to Jim's program at just the right time, I've taken many courses before I got sober and close to God and none of them worked like ADHD Harmony

When you imagine helping someone who feels stuck the way you once did, what's one specific way you could use your spiritual foundation and recovery experience to guide them toward that same kind of awakening?

I thought I'd like to start a healing circle using intentional healing and possibly support people thru group or one on one life coaching but there seems to be too many life coaches out there, it seems everyone has a solution, which is great but I feel like I'd just be another coach, I guess I've got some doubts about my ability to attract people or clients

When you think about the people in your recovery community or spiritual circles who've confided in you about feeling stuck, what's one moment where you naturally helped someone see things differently just by sharing your own story or presence?

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