Forgiveness the KEY to Unlock your Limitations

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hello, hello. Welcome to Beyond ADHD, a Physician's Perspective. I am Dr. Dean Mecado Mage. I'm a family medicine physician practicing in rural Texas. I used to be hindered by my adhd, but I now. Made as a gift that helps me show up as the person I was always meant to be, Both in my work and in my personal life.

In the past two years, I've come to realize that unlearning some of my beliefs and some of my habits were just as important as learning the new set of skills.

So today, I. Talk to you guys about how beautiful our brains are and how sometimes we can go down the rabbit hole and, uh, learn very useful things. And one of those useful things that I learned was about forgiveness. So, of course, you know, picture this, I am trying to, um, , I'm trying to do some of my notes.

And of course to try to help me concentrate. I turn on my candles, I turn on, uh, YouTube, and I put it, you know, on a sound that doesn't on, on a music that. That has just sounds that doesn't have any words. And of course after a little while, then you have an ad that comes up. And one of the ads that came up was, um, about a mom talking about forgiveness and how forgiveness could like help you re rely your.

And of course there I am, right? Like paying attention. , I should be doing something else, but there I am paying attention. And so then that takes me down a rabbit hole to go figure out like if h d could benefit from forgiveness and all this other stuff, right? So this shares a story and he says that his meditation teacher told them.

If I throw a stone at you and it hits you, like who are you angry with? Are you angry with the stone or are you angry with a person? And of course, amongst this, well, I'm angry with a person because the stone had like no intention of hurting me. It's like just an object, right? So then the teacher asks them, if we use that same logic, should you be angry?

The person, or should you be angry with the pain that that person might be going through and it's just maybe reacting and doing this because they went through something themselves. And so that got me thinking, you know, um, we. Tend to be your worst critics. Right? Like I remember, um, for the longest time, and, and this is something of course I've been working in the last three years to rewire my brain and, and coming to the understanding that, you know, for 6,000 years our brains have been conditioned right to.

Survive . They've been conditioned to think and like the negative, to think like, What's it gonna kill me? What's gonna kill me? Right. And I've been coming to understand that if I keep focusing on the gap instead of the gain, and if I keep telling myself that I'm falling short on stuff, um, that's not gonna get me very far.

The thing is, like the way we talk to ourselves really matters. If I keep thinking, Oh, they're gonna find out like I don't belong here, they're gonna find out I'm not good enough. They're gonna find out. Like that emotion is heavy and it weighs on me. And sometimes I would tell myself all kinds of things that I would not allow my.

Ran even my enemy to tell me, but yet I was doing it as a protective mechanism thinking that if I caused that pain to myself, there would be nobody else who could cause worse pain to me. So I was like protecting myself. So in this exercise, you know, then I went down the rabbit hole of Latino. If people are affected or, you know, become traumatized because of their adhd.

And then I found another statistic that said that 80% of people with ADHD have trauma and that that trauma can really limit their own, like self development and, and of course can affect their self worth and all self-esteem and all that stuff, right? So, One thing that caught my attention was that the act of forgiveness is not necessarily for that other person, but it's for yourself.

Like that it would benefit yourself. And that in doing so, it would help like your brain have a state of more like, um, coherent. And so I thought that was interesting. So I gave it a shot, . I was like, Let me, let me try this method that they're talking about. And what they say is that, you know, when you forgiving people or even yourself because there's so much stuff that the younger version of us did not know any better and it got us into trouble, right?

So, You forgive others, um,

you are the one that benefits and you can really forgive anything, and that

forgiving them does not mean that you're dropping the charges or ignoring what happened to you. It's just that you learned to deal with it in a different way, or you learn to maybe see their point of view. That other person never even has to know that you forgave them. Like you don't have to. Like that person doesn't even have to be or anything.

You don't have to send letter, you don't have to anything. So what they talked about was,

There was an experiment that they did. I'm telling you, I went down the hole. . There was an experiment that they did at an institution where they put, um, 12 electrodes into pe uh, so that they could measure like the different way brainwaves to see how coherent people could become if they process their emotions and they give them all.

Free reign. They said, Okay, you're gonna meditate for five days and you're welcome to do whatever you want. Like you could picture a number, you could visualize something, you could listen to sounds. And then they started to say that this one lady. Was having like amazing, like synchronicities on the, it seemed like the EEG was lighting up and they were trying to see, um, if they could reproduce, uh, the state of meditations that monks could achieve after meditating for like, you know, 40 years or something.

Uh, and so that's why they were using this EEGs and this one lady was just like, Pull outta the park . And so they up to her, they're like, Ma, what are you doing? And she said, I'm just trying to forgive my husband to be such an asshole. They were like, Uh, aha. Okay. So some people were trying gratitude, some people were trying like, you know, different things.

But this lady, as was trying to do. Forgive. Right? So then they went ahead and did an experiment where they asked the next five days for everybody to forgive something like forgive something that irritated them, like forgive their coworker, forget themselves, forgive, whatever. Right? And they started to notice that that had the most like growth, the rewiring of the brain and.

And I, of course, have to go down the rabbit hole and be like, Hmm, let me try, like, let me try this experiment not to go get the wires on my very place electrodes, but let me try to see if I can think of something or somebody that I can forgive. And here's the thing, like we all hold onto things and. Those things really do weigh us down.

We, we think they don't, but they do. And, and going through something like this could really be something that finally sets you free so that you can do more things. And so through the studies they were saying that, um, people are saying were able to like, Have more physical endurance or were more resilient, or were more understanding and, and could tap into compassion better and had become, um, you know, just more in sync with themselves how they really wanted to be.

And so, They went through like, uh, a way of doing it in an organized way. They gave a method, and so I wanted to share that with you guys to see if this resonated with you. I tried the meditation one or two times, uh, before sharing it and talking to you guys about it. And I felt a shift. So I mean, it might be worthwhile trying.

So remember, when you are doing something like this, it doesn't mean that you're excusing them, right? Like if they stole money from you, it doesn't mean that you dropped the charges instead of go to jail. It just means that you make peaks with it and. Then you're able to just show up different for yourself.

So we often get that we have adhd and that part of the emotional dysregulation is real. You know, in the US they don't really talk about it, but in Europe they do talk about emotional dysregulation. So I'm just trying to introduce a possible other new tool that can help like tame that emotional dysregulation that can happen when we are holding onto those little grudges.

Okay. So they gave, they gave a set of, of, uh, sequence to follow. So what they say first is to picture that person or to picture yourself, like if it's yourself, let's say your younger version of yourself. Okay? Um, once you picture that person, You invite them or yourself to your safe place. Like maybe it's to the beach where you usually enjoy being.

Maybe it's to, to a mountain, maybe it's to a park. Wherever you call yourself a safe place, you invite them there, you see them walking towards you, and then you start to feel like what they made you. Like for 30 seconds, a minute at the most, like start feeling that emotion of pain or anger or disappointment or frustration.

Whatever it is, start feeling it, but do not feel it for longer than thir than 30 minutes. 30 seconds to one minute.

Once you do that, you are the one who's gonna talk. They're not gonna say anything. You're the one who's gonna talk. You're gonna tell them how they did you wrong, tell them when you did this, this happened, da, da, da. So you tell them like you read them like the charge, right? So you tell them how they wronged you after doing that part.

You are then gonna tell them what you learned from that event or that experience.

And then you're gonna try to understand why they might have done that. Instead of you judging them and telling them what's wrong with you, try to understand what might have happened to them. Like maybe somebody like abuse them or maybe somebody. Cause them some type of pain that then they thought that this was the norm to do to somebody else.

Right? So try to see it through their eyes.

I know this part's gonna be hard, but you, it's an exercise, right? It's a muscle. You gotta try to see it through their eyes to, to think what might have cause them to lead to where they're at. Right. And then after you see it through their eyes and you tell them that you understand, you're gonna tap into compassion and you're gonna tap into love.

So you're gonna picture yourself giving them a hug and, and forgive them. If you are not able to do that part, that very last part, then you do this whole exercise again every day. It might take you a week, It might take you a year to finally get over it or to not necessarily get over it, but to trans mutate that pain.

Weigh on you. And again, you don't have to do this by ever even telling them that you are working on this. It could be that the person is already passed and they're not even around for you to tell them. It could be that they're in another city or whatever. You're not writing them no letter. You're not calling them, you're not doing anything.

You're just a dual. All this in your mind, in your own space.

And remember, sometimes the most powerful thing is to forgive ourselves because we didn't know any better. We didn't know what we didn't know, and. We have blamed ourselves for so many things that sometimes we were not even aware that it was our adhd, like for our tardiness or for, um, for getting the keys or for, um, forgetting to show up for a kid's event because we have forgotten to put it in our calendar or for not paying the taxes or for, uh, you name it, right?

So, Forgiveness is a powerful tool that when you combine it with compassion and forgiveness into love, you are the one that benefits. And so I tried it and one of the meditations, or one of the examples that I tried was forgiven myself for lying. So I think I shared this story with you guys before. Must have been about eight years ago.

I don't remember how long ago it was, but was still living in Houston at that time. And everybody who knows me knows I'm not the best cook. , I mean, our, my first date with my husband, like the fire firefighters had to come over because I was trying to cook a steak and it got burnt. And at that time, you know, Uh, , it set up the, the alarms and everybody came and the whole building had to be evacuated and Oh my God.

Yeah. So anyways, they give my husband the, the Chinese thing and said she's a medical student. Right. Call a Chinese place. Point is that about eight years ago I was Trent to have a better cook. I was trying to make this. Roast Ciy chicken in the oven, and I was trying to be fancy, trying to follow all the instructions from a cookbook, and part of it required that I add some rosemary, um, spices.

Well, I had forgotten that, that the day before, I think. I don't know if I forgot or I wasn't paying attention or maybe I half listened or I didn't think it would matter that my husband had told me not to use certain spices cuz he had done something to them. I don't remember what it was. And I used the rosemary that he had told me I guess not to touch.

And I was cooking the, the thing and it was done. And I was so excited. I, you know, we were gonna have a fancy dinner and. And he asks me, he's like, Did you use Rosemary ons? Like, no. Even though I knew I had, but I could not bring myself to say that I had, because if I said yes, then that meant that.

That he was gonna reject my chicken and therefore he rejected my chicken. It meant we were not gonna have this nice, fancy dinner that I have been trying to put together this romantic night and da da da, right? So I was trying to protect the romantic night.

What developed after that was that he was so mad that I had lied to him that. Now I did not, we not have a fancy dinner. He stopped talking to me for like almost three days . And anybody who knows, uh, I'm an extrovert, and so you not talking to me is like death to me. Right? And then you throw in the rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and then you throw in the fact that you bring condition once just to think, which is love and acceptance.

I mean, I was like, what the hell? Right? And of course my brain of saying, You're overreacting, you're overreacting, you're overreacting, right? Like, that's what it kept saying because I wanted to keep me safe, like I wanted to be taken care of. Why am I saying all this? Eventually, of course, that led to me, um, uh, going to counseling because he said I was a liar, , and I.

Too many people, it might be like, Okay, it doesn't matter. I kept telling myself, it doesn't matter that white little lies shouldn't matter because they're white little lies. And I was it. It's always the means to the end. Like I was just trying to please him. I was trying to do a nice thing, but the thing is that we should be okay to say what it is without feeling like we have to keep masking or people pleasing.

So I, I learned from that experience that a white little lie could become dangerous. Like to him, his point was like, if you're lying about this little thing, what else are you lying about? You're gonna be lying about the big things. And of course, like we didn't even have any big problems. Like to me, those little Li white lies didn't mean anything.

But through the therapy, I got to realize that I was using White Little Lies as as a defense mechanism, right? Like I didn't want to be that five year old who was. Like not accepted or loved. Right. And I did, and I had learned the mechanism that if I am just well behaved and quiet enough sometimes, or change myself enough, like, you know, I would be okay.

So why am I saying all that? Because when I went through this exercise and. Used at meditation where I pictured myself, you know, my younger version, and I created that space. And then I felt that I was angry at him. Angry at myself. Why? Can't just understand, Don't know . But what I learned from the event is, You have to just be honest and, and, and that my integrity really did mean the world to me.

And that of course his love for me was important. But more importantly, my love for myself was the most important thing. And me being able to be my full self, bring my full ADHD self into the picture was more important. Um, And I learned to see myself from what I now know, my wiser self now understands because I have deep dived into understanding my brain and defense mechanisms and understanding that that time I had no awareness that I was acting in, in what is called like childhood, like emotional states, right?

Where I was just trying to, um, Man, I don't wanna say manipulate the outcome, but I didn't realize that how he felt did not have any, or should not have any insight on how I felt, meaning I controlled whether I was happy or not. And I didn't need to necessarily have this perfect dinner in order for me to feel like I was worthy of his love.

But in that moment, I didn't know that in that moment. I was trying to do my best to protect what I thought was the right thing to do. So my wise self, my older self now is able to tap into compassion and say, Of course, you were trying to just have a nice dinner. Of course, you were using a white line mechanism that had helped you to mask so much that at some point you didn't realize could.

Lead to one too many white lies that could maybe derail you from where you needed to be, right? So I forgave myself for not knowing what I didn't know. And here we are. I'm sharing this with you because it sounds silly, right? All this like, um, Feelings that we're not used to talking about feelings in the medical field, but what I've noticed is that feelings are at the center of everything and that we all are holding on to little events or grudges or traumas or something that has happened, and in it, it weighs us down.

It really does. So try it for yourself. See what you think. We all go down the rabbit hole. You can , you can let it be something or learn something from it like I did and apply it, right, Because it's in the application where things start to shift. So there you, they heard it . I can't wait to hear what your reflections are on this.

And yeah, if you are interested in telling me any other topic that I should listen to or do, please let. Um, thank you so much. We be touch. Thank you for spending your time with me. I really believe that time is your most valuable asset. Please subscribe to the podcast, share with your colleagues, and don't forget to check out my website at.

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