Riding the Emotional Wave

Our days are filled with tides - subtle shifts and crashing waves of emotion. For the ADHD mind, these are not just tides; they are riptides, unpredictable and powerful.

A forgotten task can feel like failure. A criticism can echo for hours. A moment of boredom is physically painful. We feel joy, frustration, longing, confusion, fear, and everything in between, often all at once.

This is not a moral failing. It’s not something to fix. It's the neurodivergent experience of being human.

But we were never taught how to move through these waves. We were taught to sit still, to focus, to calm down - instructions that felt like being asked to stop the ocean itself.

So instead, we learned to outrun them.
To silence them with noise.
To drown them out with a new obsession.
To react now because the urgency is a physical ache.
Or to reach for a screen, a snack, a story - anything that will make the relentless discomfort stop.

It’s no wonder we so often feel disconnected from our own sense of knowing.

We have been taught to mistrust our own emotional intensity.
To confuse the brain's urgency for a true emergency.
And we lose the already fragile spaciousness where our wisest choices once lived.

But what if we could learn to understand our emotions instead of fearing or being hijacked by them?
What if we allowed them to move through us like waves, rising, peaking, and gently passing, without letting them decide the course?

the two systems: why pausing feels impossible for us

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes two systems our brains use to make decisions. For the ADHD brain, this is not a gentle balance; it is a constant tug-of-war.

System 1 is our default. It is the engine that is always on.
It is fast, intuitive, automatic, and deeply emotional.
It is the source of our creativity and our chaos.
It reacts before you have a single conscious thought, fueled by a lifetime of accumulated feedback, rejection sensitivity, and a brain that seeks dopamine now.

It’s not bad. It is trying to protect you from the pain of boredom, the overwhelm of a task, the sting of perceived failure.

It’s efficient, but not wise.
It offers the fastest escape from discomfort, not the one that serves your future self.

System 2 is the executive function. It is the weary manager.
It is slower, more thoughtful, and requires immense energy to engage.
It is the part that steps back, pauses, and reflects.
This is where intention and long-term planning live.

It is the wiser part of you, but for us, it is easily depleted, easily drowned out, and needs deliberate invitation to activate.

The profound challenge is that in any emotional moment, our System 1 is already at a full sprint.
System 2 arrives more gently, it needs time, and with our working memory challenges, the moment has often already passed, leaving a trail of reactivity in its wake.

This is why learning to pause, to ride the emotional wave rather than be swept away, is a radical act of neural rebellion. It is the practice of building a pier into your own stormy sea. You are not stopping the waves; you are learning to stand within them, creating a moment of space for a choice that aligns with your deeper needs, not just your brain's immediate impulse for relief.

changing the pattern

Over time, the more you do this, pause, feel, wait, the more you teach your nervous system that intensity is not danger.

Your System 1 learns through repetition and immediate consequence.
So if you keep reacting to the urge, scrolling, snapping, abandoning, you reinforce those neural superhighways.
But if you start responding differently, even just once, you begin to carve a new, fragile path.

You show your brain: This feeling is a wave, not a command. I can feel its intensity and not be consumed by it. I can choose.

And over time, your System 1 begins to trust the pause.
It begins to learn that the discomfort of an unmet impulse will not destroy you.
That you can tolerate the uncertainty of not reacting immediately.
That the other side of the wave often holds clarity.

This is how we reshape a lifetime of automatic responses. Not through force, but through gentle, consistent return. When you stop reacting and start getting curious, you are not just managing a feeling - you are literally rewiring your system to respond with intention instead of fear.

This is how transformation happens - slowly, quietly, in the space between the impulse and the action.

A Gentle Practice to Ride the Wave

Notice
Pause. Just for one breath. Notice the shift in your body - the tension, the restlessness, the heat.
Name it quietly, without judgment.
"I feel the urge to escape."
"I feel overwhelmed."

Listen
Get curious, if you can. Ask gently:
What is this emotion trying to protect me from? Boredom? Overwhelm? Rejection?
Does it feel loud? Urgent? Familiar?
You are not analyzing, just listening.

Pause
This is the bravest part. Do not react. Do not numb.
Just sit with the energy of it - even for three breaths.
Set a timer for two minutes if it helps. You are not trying to solve it; you are being with it.

Feel the Peak
If you feel safe enough, let the emotion rise fully.
You are not running. You are witnessing.
It may feel overwhelming, like too much. That is the wave at its peak. Acknowledge it. "This is a big one."

Watch the Release
Every wave softens eventually. Every single one.
As it eases, notice the shift. The tightness in your chest may loosen. The frantic thoughts may slow.
A quieter voice may appear- the one that is rooted, the one that knows what you truly need.

Reflect
Ask yourself, write it down, or say it out loud:
How do I feel now that the intensity has passed?
What was this emotion really about?
What does the wiser, quieter part of me know or need right now?

the work, again and again

This is deep work. Brave work for a brain that craves immediacy.
It is not simple or fast.
But it is the kind of quiet practice that changes lives.

Even doing this once a day plants the seed of a different life - one rooted in self-trust, not in reactivity.
You are learning to hold yourself through the discomfort of your own intensity.
To listen before acting,
To respond with presence instead of ancient pattern.

You’re already walking the path of self-trust and emotional maturity.
You’re teaching your mind and body that you can hold the storm and still stay rooted.
You’re building a life that is not reactive, but intentional.

Not perfectly regulated, but deeply and compassionately your own.

This is the work of living a well-curated life - not free from intense emotion, but guided through it by presence, patience, and a quiet strength you are slowly remembering.

One wave at a time.