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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Feelings and focus
Name the thing you did, own it flatly, and stop there. Then do something that shows it: the phone call you dodged, the mess cleared up, the thing you promised done today rather than sometime. Children hear the difference between the two versions instantly, and so does everybody else. The look she gave you can be raised another day, as a conversation rather than as a defence.
'My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excess' (Quran 39:53). The excess is named plainly first, and the mercy comes after that, not instead of it.
الزمر
۞قُلۡ يَٰعِبَادِيَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسۡرَفُواْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمۡ لَا تَقۡنَطُواْ مِن رَّحۡمَةِ ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَغۡفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًاۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلۡغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Say, ‘[God says], My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excess, do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful
Qur’an 39:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of mediation studies asked which parts of mindfulness based programmes actually carry their benefit for mental health. The transferable lesson is that the part everyone can see is not necessarily the part doing the work. It is evidence about therapy rather than about apologies, so take the parallel as a way of thinking about repair and not as proof of it.
Gu J, Strauss C, Bond R, Cavanagh K. (2015). How do mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction improve mental health and wellbeing? A systematic review and meta-analysis of mediation studies.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The moment you explain why you did it, the blame has gone back across the table and the other person has to defend themselves again.
ADHD rarely turns up on its own. If anxiety or low mood is in the room as well, it needs treating in its own right, and that includes when it is the other partner who is struggling.
Nobody tolerates something unpleasant for no reason. Before starting anything difficult, get clear about what you want on the other side of it, in your own words.
Try turning 'I will not mess this up today' into 'today I am going to do this well'. You do not have to believe it yet. Said the other way round, it keeps the disaster in front of you all morning.