ADHD and the Art of Receiving, Part. 2

October 8, 2021

Do you have trouble with your listening comprehension skills? What about your reading skills? Is it hard for you to visualize what is being explained, either through auditory or visual cues? What about learning through tactile or kinesthetic ways? Last week I wrote “ADHD and the Art of Receiving, Part. 1”, which focused on the correlation between ADHD and self-esteem. In this post, I’ll talk about receptivity in terms of being able to learn new information. ADHDers often have learning disabilities because they have trouble literally “receiving” information. There are brain based reasons to explain why people with ADHD often have learning disabilities, but I wanted to talk about it from the perspective of intuitive receptivity.

The art of receiving is not only about receiving complements. It’s about receiving information from others, and from your higher self- your intuition. When you follow your intuition, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time. When you don’t follow your intuition, you’ll experience a lot of frustration, dead ends, and generally feel like you’re caught on a hamster wheel going nowhere. To connect with your intuition, it’s important to bring balance to your life. One of the most simple ways to find out how to bring balance to your life is by asking yourself. You are the only person that will really know how to bring balance to your life. This isn’t something anyone else can tell you how to do.

Everyone has intuitive gifts. The best way to strengthen your intuition is to practice asking yourself intuitive questions. But you need to create rapport with yourself first. Think about a conversation you’re having with a stranger. It takes time to build up trust. If someone starts asking you invasive questions, you’re going to back off. Think about how you’ve been communicating with yourself until now. Do you listen to what your body is telling you in terms of what it wants to do, how it’s feeling, and what kinds of food it wants to eat? I’m not talking about talking to your ego about these things. Your ego may say it wants to sit on the couch, eat Oreo’s, and feel crappy due to some immature tiff you had with a co-worker. Your ego will also try to make you think that activities to escape (overindulging in alcohol or other mind altering substances, over-eating, or other types of addictions) are bringing you authentic joy. Your higher self will probably want it’s real emotions acknowledged, and to be fed some nutritious quality food. It takes some patience and skill to listen to yourself though.

To be able to tune in to yourself to receive intuitive messages, it’s important to connect with your spark of joy. This can be done in a split second. Think of your 5 senses: taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch. Your intuition communicates through your senses. To receive messages, it’s important to get grounded- to feel your body. Wiggle your toes and bring your awareness away from your brain and down to your body. Then generate a spark of joy through your senses. Some people have an easier time receiving messages through a particular sense. You’ll want to notice things in your environment that bring you joy in all of your senses. For example:

• Visual: If you’re someone who receives a lot of information visually, make sure to have visually pleasing things to look at all of the time. I love looking at beautifully colored patterns, so will often look at photos of the stained glass windows from La Sagrada Familia.

•Hearing: If you’re someone who gathers information through your ability to hear things, make sure you’re tuning in to noises that bring you joy. Bird sounds, waterfalls, music, and bells, are ways to generate high vibe sounds that will tune your awareness into your intuitive hearing.

•Scent: People who gather information through their sense of smell are often wanting to learn how to improve their skills at receiving information through one of the other senses. I’m someone who has an intuitive nose, which I’ve been noticing since I was a little kid, but luckily I’ve been able to build my skills with my other senses as well. Clairalience is not always the most pleasant smelling! (I tend to intuit the smell of cigarette smoke more than I’d like). Anyway, it’s still important to consciously bring pleasant smelling scents into your environment. Opening a window to smell freshly cut grass, rain, or ocean breezes can be really nice. Essential oils, candles, or even the smell of a freshly cut orange can be really nice to awaken your intuitive sense of smell.

• Taste: Intuitive information can come from your sense of taste. The universe knows what you know, so it will pick tastes that you’ll be able to interpret as a way to bring answers to your questions. To connect with your sense of taste, either imagine tasting things you really love, or eat something that you really love the taste of. A glass of water with a slice of lemon may be all that you need to wake up your intuitive communication skills.

• Touch: Have you ever felt a wave of “thrill bumps” when you experience something really exciting? What about a feeling of coolness or warmth? A tingling in your toes? Your intuition can communicate by generating feelings in your body. Tuning into these feelings is one of the very best ways to really get out of your head and grounded so that you can tune in with yourself. To help your awareness tune into your body, you can have objects around that you really like to touch. A soft blanket, crystals, or a squishy lump of clay may really help spark your inner ability to feel. It’s also important to really feel your clothes on your body, your glute muscles in your seat, and your feet on the ground.

Why is it so hard for people with ADHD to tune in to their intuition?

There are many different reasons why ADHDers have a hard time tuning into their intuition, but for this post, I want to point out how much easier it can be to focus on the negative, rather than the positive. When your brain is tuned into the frequency of negativity, you will continue to perceive more and more negativity. When this happens, you’re not following your joy, which makes it nearly impossible to connect with your intuition or your ability to learn.

Obviously this is all based on personal preference. If you’re someone that loves the smell of sewage, more power to you! To tap in to your intuition, you need to tap into your joy. You need to stop the habit of fixating on negative perceptions and tune in to the things that bring you positive thoughts. Negative thoughts can be very distracting. ADHD minds are easily distracted. When you’re trying to access your intuition, and when you’re learning something new, it’s incredibly important to notice where your awareness is. As SOON as you become aware of getting distracted by something that’s bringing your vibe down, quickly switch your awareness to something that makes you happy. The more frequently you do this, the easier it will be. Soon it will become an automatic process. Continue to practice this, and you will naturally become more in touch with your ability to connect with your intuition and your ability to receive more information.

What are some of your favorite things to look at, listen to, smell, taste, or touch? Please let us know in the comments!