My ADHD Mind Finds a Moment of Peace

an unexpected moment to reset during a busy day

It was Thursday at 5:15 and I was up with our pets. They are my alarm clock and so is my brain most days.

I started the coffee and decided to take advantage of these quiet moments before the day began around me. My ADHD and my introverted self, needs quiet moments like this to reset.

Soon our son would be up for school, followed by my husband for work and then construction that would begin at 8 am to finish the flooring in our sunroom. This was a job that was supposed to be completed in a half day turned into 3 days due to the uncovering of dry rot.

My brain buzzed over my to do list for the day. I tried ignoring my spiraling mind and instead sunk into the present moment. I told myself this moment was mine and that I was sharing it with my pets, my creative mind and fresh coffee.

Dysregulation. It doesn’t take much to happen to an ADHD brain. The past few days I had been irritable and felt overwhelmed. Our furniture from the sunroom was seeping over to our living room, and kitchen. The workers, all nice, but were invading my personal space and thoughts. Their music, 80s power ballads, were being accompanied by the sounds of drills and hammers.

It wasn’t the sounds, but the chaos around me that my system felt. My concentration was gone. My brain flipped from one thing to another, absorbing all the distractions and making it impossible to focus on anything.

Overwhelmed by daily life

On Thursday, I had a few pet sitting jobs, errands, a quick meeting with our tax preparer, more pet sitting and more driving. My mind was in overdrive. I wanted to listen to a few Substacks, but my mind wandered. Music? I couldn’t decide on that either as my brain was too busy flipping around.

I ate lunch in my car. Granola bars. Bad choice and they added to my mess and chaos. I wanted to sit at a park, but they were occupied by trucks. Where was solitude I was looking for?

Before I knew it, it was time to pick my son up from a job shadow. They were wrapping up filming and he gave me the 5-minute signal when I arrived at the site.

I parked my car in the gravel parking lot to wait for him and then I heard it, the gentle peeps calling out from the woods in front of me. “Spring Peepers!” I whispered to myself.

This was the moment my soul needed!

Those few minutes of quiet and the soft melody of spring peepers reminded me to live in the moment and that this long winter would be ending soon.

While listening to their chorus, I looked around the interior of my car. I noticed that it looked like I was living out of my car with the crumbs and papers strewn about.

I found a grocery bag and started cleaning up the worst of my mess. When my mind gets dysregulated, it shows up around me, and the state of my car said it all.

My son got in the car and said, “Spring Peepers, Mom!”

“Isn’t it wonderful! I love hearing them!” I said. We both listened for a moment before driving off to continue our day.

My son talked a little about his job shadow that day, which was an assignment for school. I savored the conversation with my teen and was reminded that life was a series of moments. I wanted to wrap this one in a bottle in save it forever.

Sometimes we need stop and take a few minutes for our brains to reset during our busy days. We can clean up what we can, which for myself was my messy car. I had control over that but the dry rot and the chaos around the house, I did not.

There are tiny moments of peace around us, and we can find them if we pause long enough to look.

Questions:

Have you ever felt yourself overwhelmed by your daily life?

What do you do to reset your brain during chaotic times?