ADHD-Friendly Mindfulness with Beverly Atkins
This week I’m chatting with Beverly Atkins, founder of Pauseture, an audio-based mindful movement platform grounded in the Feldenkrais Method. It’s actually kind of funny, despite Feldenkrais not being particularly well known, this isn’t the first time I’ve discussed it on a podcast, although the last time was on my old ultimate frisbee podcast nearly a decade ago.
Anyway, in our conversation today, we discuss how Beverly spent decades unknowingly managing her ADHD by overachieving at work and ignoring her body. But we all know this story and how we all eventually hit a breaking point. Fortunately for Beverly, she stumbled her way into the Feldenkrais method.
In the podcast, we dive into how these seemingly simple movements helped Beverly calm her nervous system, get better sleep, regulate her sound sensitivity, and develop an entirely new relationship with her attention. We get into how movement can rewire attention, why novelty is so important for ADHD regulation, and how she took her training and built an app that looks to specifically accommodate neurodivergent needs. I loved this episode; there's a lot of wisdom here about self-awareness, regulation, and finding what works for your unique ADHD flavor.
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
Beverly Atkins: First, William, thank you so much for having me and for all your work. I've really, as I've been on my journey, have been binge listening to many of your episodes and since I was so late in life, diagnosed with ADHD, just about two years ago a friend pointed out to me, maybe those are signs of ADHD. And then I started seeing an ADHD specialist for a year and a half. I was in therapy with her and so understanding it. But until I started listening to ADHD podcasts, really did I understand the similarities of people who have ADHD? So I want to thank you for all the work that you're doing.
William Curb: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's a lot about figuring out this lived experience. So often when I had been doing group work with ADHD, it was the experience of being like, oh yeah, that's me too. And being like, I just thought that was the thing for it. I didn't realize I could do anything about it or that there were other people like me. And that kind of experience I find is just so valuable. And one of the reasons I love doing the podcast.
Beverly Atkins: And I mean, it's not every symptom is for everybody. We're still very, very unique because sometimes I'll be like, that's not me. But oh my gosh, that's so me. So it's fascinating to hear the commonalities, but also to hear the differentiation within the community. So thank you for that. So my story is that now that I look back on my life, it was incredibly clear that I had ADHD from recently I went through my report cards from grade school and repeatedly talked about me and interrupting in class. And I had lifelong insomnia for years. It was what was the trauma based thing that happened in your life to cause this insomnia. And now I just understand my brain is wired differently. So the signs were definitely there my whole life. And I compensated with my distraction.
So reading a book, I could never sit and read a book. I have four older sisters we were born within five years and we're pretty competitive with each other. And that I always had an overachievement. And so instead of doing poorly, I would outline my books. I couldn't just sit and read. I had to make an outline. So to read something took me probably four to 10 times longer than anybody. But I had that overachievement, which the sad part is looking back in life, I was always working and always working so hard to compensate for my distraction. And then in work, I always just thought if I'm the hardest worker here, I'm going to be the one is going to be well rewarded. And it doesn't take long in corporate America to know that's not true.
William Curb: I mean, really, anywhere as you go, you find like the there's the reward to getting just more work ratio is not not great.
Beverly Atkins: People want to work with people they like. And I wasn't super likable. And my ADHD therapist goes, you have 10 out of a 10 and self awareness. That's pretty incredible to say that. But it's taken a lot of reflection. And I kind of had a motto for a long time. I don't want to be liked in the workplace. I just want to be respected. And so I just worked really, really hard, which worked well in certain work environments. But one thing I became very hyper focused on in 2010, 2011, 2012, I was in a media planning role where I bought media. And so I looked at metrics of media numbers and I saw what was happening at Facebook.
And I saw that it was something that had never existed before. And I was hyper focused on I'm going to work at Facebook. I'm going to work at Facebook. And I it wasn't until I worked there, we had a tool where you could look up applicants. This was early in the company. And I had applied seven times. I didn't even realize I had applied. I really wanted to work there. And so I got the job finally after seven times applying and the role I got, I had 17 interviews to get it. And the reason I had so many interviews was because they weren't certainly wanted to hire me.
Like there were some red flags about me for sure. And but I got hired and I worked really hard and was quite successful. I was in a sales role and my revenue numbers were really strong, which I was making good money with that. But fundamentally, I was really struggling working there. And the open workspace, the loudness of the open workspace and in the culture of the Los Angeles office, they would play music really loud. And I was struggling a lot. And a big part of it came down to the music playing. And I was like, you need to turn the music off.
And they're like, you need to fit into our culture. You need to leave, literally. And I mean, this was a job I really wanted. So I didn't want to leave. But ultimately, I got put on a performance plan, which is one step away. I mean, they were trying to fire me. And it was, it wasn't because I wasn't performing.
It was because they didn't like me, right? So I got put on this performance review and immediately my back went up. I just zipped my mouth and I was like, okay, I'm not going to complain. I'm going to follow the rules. And my back went out, which I think we now know, like it's common for physical pain to show up when, when you're trying to mask. So my back was out and I couldn't walk for three weeks. And I happened to have a vacation plan to a fitness resort where it's like a workout class every hour on the hour. And I went with my sisters and my sisters are going off to the cardio kickboxing class.
They're going to hiking, you know, all the physical things. And I literally couldn't even walk. And I read the course descriptions and they offered a class called Felden Christ Awareness Through Movement. And I had no idea what it was, but the description was lie on the floor and make small gentle movements. And I went, okay, that's the class I'm going to literally crawled into this class. The pain was so bad. And the instructor told me to close my eyes.
That's how I feel. Listen to my verbal cues. You can't do it wrong. Just make the movements. However, you think you can make them. And I did it. And I, as I was laying there, I was like, this is weird. This is silly. And then at the end of the 45 minutes later, I stood up and my back pain was completely gone. And I was like, what is this voodoo magic? And how come nobody knows about this? This is crazy. Now, my back pain kind of came back a little bit during the day. It's not like it was an instant fix. I'm not trying to say take a 45 minute class and it's gone, but it was gone in the moment. And then so every day I went to one of these classes and at the end of the week, I went up to the teacher and I was like, seriously, like, I need this in my life. What do I do now? What do I do now? I can't leave this place.
I need more of this. And she said, well, I have 24 free lessons on my website. Why don't you do those when you get home? So I started doing them every day for 24 days. And not only was my back pain gone, my problem softened. I became more present with people. I became more likable. I got off my tip. I wasn't going to get fired. And I began to, I didn't know what was happening, but I knew I needed to do these lessons every day before work. And I would say it's probably the way when somebody learns to meditate that they're like, I need this every day before I start my day. So I had these movement lessons that I was finding online. I did her 24 and then I would redo them. But I found that when I redid them, they weren't quite as magical as when it was new and I was curious. Like the novelty is so important.
William Curb: One of the things I was just hearing is like the aspects of mindfulness, but also needing something that is unique to you. Like this is, oh, I haven't done this before. And it is therefore engaging because it can be often really hard to stick with something that is, you know, like, oh, and just a little bit more for my brain to want to do it.
Beverly Atkins: Our brains crave novelty. A lot of people will say to me, well, you've done so many of these lessons. Why don't you just lie on the floor and just do the movements? But the thing is, is it's not really about doing the movements. It's about the attention and the curiosity and the unknowingness of what comes next. So I just started doing these lessons. I was a very athletic person and I thought I was doing it for the back pain to go away. And I also had a very hunched posture. I continued to do it, but it was really for the physical reasons. It didn't completely occur to me later how much my life was changing. I started sleeping better. And then I'm like, huh, why are these lessons making me sleep better?
Here's my theory. There's a lot of rib opening lessons. And with my ribs now open and my posture more upright, I'm breathing better. And because I breathe better, I'm sleeping better. So that was my answer. This method is amazing because it helps me breathe better and sleep better. The whole neuroplasticity thing did not. It didn't occur to me. That's what was happening to me.
William Curb: So I can definitely see like when I would be my initial reaction to doing like a physical thing that helps me. Like, oh, yes, if I'm relaxed physically, I'll sleep better. That's that makes sense to me. But also like being like, oh, if I'm relaxed mentally, that will also help me sleep better. So it's not just the one thing there too.
Beverly Atkins: I think the method is called the Feldenkrais method. And there are two modalities of the method. There's awareness through movement, which is the group self move where you move yourself with from the teacher's cues. And historically, they were always live lessons. And it's a very little known method.
Not that many people know a handful of people were doing recordings that were very expensive. And then there's also functional integration, which is hands on work, where a practitioner puts their hands on you and they move you. So there's two modalities. So Moshe Feldenkrais was a he was born in present day Ukraine. And he was a physicist and a judo master. And he had a longstanding knee injury from being athletic, doing soccer. And I haven't read his biography because there's not an audio book and I can't read.
So I'm hoping his biography goes to an audio book one day. So my best retelling of the story is that he had a knee injury and he was working for the British Navy during World War Two. And he slipped on a ship and he was limping for years because of one knee hurting. He slipped and fell and he hurt his other knee. And as soon as he needed to favor the other knee, the first knee no longer hurt. So that's when he got curious and went, wow, that pain in my knee was not actually in my knee.
It was in my brain. And so one of his famous quotes is I'm not after flexible bodies. I'm after flexible brains. So he talked about brain rewiring and he started this method in the 1940s, 50s, started doing the trainings in the, I think, 70s and 80s. And the word neuroplasticity really didn't get validated until the 1990s.
So he was pretty ahead of his time. So what I've since learned is while doing these lessons, it's not really about the movement you're doing. It's about how you focus your attention as you're doing the movements. So you can be given an instruction on how to do a movement and somebody watching from the outside looks like you're doing the same exact thing. But as you toggle your attention between your shoulder and your hand and your hip and how you're touching the floor, and then you also kind of pan out and look at your whole self and you're like, how does your left shoulder connect to your right hip? And for me, the meditation part came in because I was so intently listening to the verbal cues. And I'm like, I'm because there's no videos during these lessons.
It's all audio. So you got to listen, even if you're a bad listener. And I was curious and committed because it helped my back pain. And my mother had lifelong back pain and I did not want to end up the way she did. And so I was committed to this practice, not knowing what was happening in my brain. So as you focus that attention on your shoulder than your hip, and then you look at the whole, and you look at how they're connected, what's happening is you can't erase your old brain wiring, but you can strengthen new ones. So you're developing a tension between your right hip and your left shoulder, than your whole self.
And you're really listening, you're following the cues, you're noticing, and you're strengthening those neural pathways for shifting your attention. So now, as I'm working, when that ADHD thought gets in, hey, who's that celebrity married to? What year did they get married?
What year did they get divorced? Oh, wait, I got to get this work done. But wait, let me just Google this really quick. Now I have that ability, and I have choice in where my attention goes, instead of being like this compulsion of, okay, I got to Google this right now and look up something about this celebrity, this random thought that just came into my head.
And I now have choice. And that really comes from the movements, because we repeat the movements over and over, but you don't repeat them just to repeat them. You repeat them to modify and change so that your brain now gets out of its pattern, and it creates new patterns. In the beginning, I thought what was happening to me was just voodoo magic. Ultimately, I became a certified Feldenkrais instructor. It's a four-year training program that I did while still working at Facebook, miraculously. It's eight weeks a year.
And I was able to go to training eight weeks a year and keep my job. So I understood it better, and then just understanding the latest scientific research about the brain and understanding that this genius of a man created this method so many decades ago. And so for me, it's just been such a powerful method in helping to calm my ADHD symptoms.
William Curb: And this echoes when I've talked to people about mindfulness, just this idea that often we're not very aware of what's going on in our body, and that is a big piece of the mindfulness. And so when we're like, oh, we're going to focus on movement and how we feel while we're doing that movement, that's just really strengthening that sense of mindfulness. I can see how that would easily translate everywhere else, because, oh, I'm doing this practice, and my brain, our brains are lazy. They want to do things.
They're like, oh, there's this thing I learned on this other thing. I'm going to use that too. And so I was like, oh, yeah, I could just do that for this too. And it makes it so much easier for us to make everything a little bit more mindful when we do just a little bit of mindfulness. And then this sounds really great to me too, because I mean, I've dealt with back pain before, and I know how debilitating it is. A little bit of back pain, you're like, oh, yeah, I can get around. A lot of back pain, you're just like, I'm not going to move because lifting my arm hurts.
Beverly Atkins: And that was my why. As soon as I started doing these lessons and I found the online lessons, my why, I mean, my mom died because of back pain. And so my why was, wow, if she had access to this method, what a difference life would have been for her and for so many people.
And so I'm like, this method has got to get out to more people. And the why was around pain management. But it wasn't until, and I hear you and I hear your story and I'm sorry that after I went through it, I mean, that's when I better empathized with my mother and like, oh my God, I wouldn't want to live if this continued beyond the three weeks that it continued. I worked at Facebook and so I was definitely, my brain wiring about building things for scale and helping, like, you know, it wasn't just I want to become a felt in Christ practitioner and help 10 people a week. I was like, oh my God, we have got to help millions of people with this method. I got to build an app. I got to get out of here and I got to go build an app. And that was my wife for so long. And it wasn't until I started building the app and going to an ADHD therapist and realizing how much I personally changed in my nervous system. My family members were like surprised how much I became a better listener. Like I was a pretty annoying sibling probably because I was, you know, me, me, me all the time. You know, my, my siblings commented like, you have matured so much and you're, you're more present. And so it wasn't until I understood that I had ADHD because I was like, what's happening to me? Why am I changing?
What's changed? This should change everybody. And then I was like, oh, well, it's actually changing my neurodivergence and I'm better co-regulating with other humans. And I saw the change for me. So obviously I believed in it so much and I, I have spent, you know, 13 years studying the method in the last two years building this app that we just launched. I don't want to come off as this like, oh my God, this method solves everything. It solves back pain.
It's the most nervous system. So I really just like want to share my story and, and see if people have the opportunity to try this method. And I, you know, I've worked hard to build this app posture so that people can access it, but I'm not trying to steal the brilliance of Moshe Feldenkrais in any way, shape, or form. I'm not trying to take away from the live practitioners who are out in the world. My goal really is for people to have access and learn about this method and, and they can go to Feldenkrais.com and find a live class or an online class. They can find a practitioner for in-person lessons or a cheap, easy, affordable way is the lessons in posture.
So it is a whole body system. So right before the pandemic, I left Facebook by choice. I had six months left in my training and I went, this is 100% my life's mission and my passion and what I want to do. So I left Facebook just before the pandemic and opened a private practice. I was opening a private practice working one-on-one with people during lockdown, which is interesting, being like triple masked and of face and touching people.
William Curb: And that's before you were diagnosed too.
Beverly Atkins: So you, I didn't know I had ADHD.
William Curb: Because I can imagine like running through these lessons with people is a little bit funny too, just being like, oh, I have to now sit with people that are being quiet and then I have to be quiet myself.
Beverly Atkins: And what they say is when a practitioner works with a student, I mean, client students would come in and they would talk and tell me their story. And we were told in the training, you know, let them tell their stories and listen to them, but their stories don't really matter.
If you change how they move, how they feel, they're going to change. You don't even have to know their story. But you listen to their story because people really want to be heard. They want. Absolutely.
They want it. So here I am with ADHD, but my ADHD symptoms had dramatically reduced. And so here I have a private practice.
The majority of my clients were chronic pain because when people are in chronic pain, they will do anything and they will, they will even discover the word felt in Christ. And there's a couple books. There's Norman Doge's book that recommends felt in Christ. And then the book, the body keeps the score also. So most of my clients came from reading one of those books. So the majority of my clients were in chronic pain and they would come in and tell their stories.
I mean, during lockdown, we're like triple masked wearing face masks. It was, you know, pretty crazy way to practice this. But 10 years before I started doing this as a practice, I wouldn't have been able to sit still and listen to somebody's story. It was remarkable for me in my development to have the attention to listen to people. And then they say the work with a client is a dance of two nervous systems. And so regulating my nervous system to move this person, to teach this person to find, you know, more efficient, better ways to move was a pretty profound experience. But having the recorded lessons, the awareness through movement lessons helped me to regulate my nervous system so that I could be present with people that previously in my life just wasn't something I could, I just couldn't do.
William Curb: That sounds like such a valuable skill to have learned too.
Beverly Atkins: It's such a shift. And in the beginning, it was weird because I'm still kind of an introvert and I need my alone time and but you become that person that, you know, just like when you're in the park walking the dog and somebody talks, oh, my dog just died. And, you know, in the past, I would have said, Oh, yeah, I've had a dog die too. And let me tell you about my grief. And let me tell you that. But now I just say, Oh, your dog died when and I don't feel the need to share about my story.
They just want to be heard. And I couldn't really pick up on that. And I think having my own private practice, such a life changing thing for me was, I mean, this was also in 2020 when I opened my practice. And I had, I have and had pretty strong political beliefs. But I would have clients who came in who had very, very different political beliefs.
And historically, I would have been like, I'm helping people with their chronic pain. I'm only going to help people who agree with my ideas, right? And I'm like, let me sit and let me try to understand why their beliefs are what they are, because I'm about to regulate my nervous system with their nervous system. And if I'm sitting here in judgment of them, we're not going to have a good nervous system regulating going here.
So I need to understand them without judgment. And so it was a big shift for me to just regulate with other humans in a way I had never done before. And then people become quite attracted to you. And you start to become that person where you're like, Give me a minute.
I can't like you're draining my batteries now. So you need to figure out, then I'm like, Oh, now I understand why people avoided me because I only talked about myself when I didn't ask them about them. And now this person's doing it to me because I'm now that person. So then you have this new skill that people are like, let me come and tell you all my problems, whether, you know, yes, my clients definitely, that was my job to do that. But then it starts to happen in personal life.
So it's a new skill. And so you need to learn to regulate on both sides. As I've been listening to ADHD podcasts, you know, I do hear like, we need to, you know, regulate with your own people and your own tribe. But I don't think we're put on this earth to regulate with just 10 to 15% of the population, right? Like, yeah, finding how to regulate with other people is kind of a nice life skill.
William Curb: Like I've been thinking a lot about masking this year. And that's not helpful for like, because I've talked to a lot of people with ADHD, they're like, Oh, it's great to talk with ADHD people because then I can take my mask. And I'm like, I do the same thing. But why am I doing that with those other like that? They don't want that either. Like they want to have a more authentic experience with me. And it's important to be like, Oh yeah, everyone needs these kinds of experiences.
Beverly Atkins: Yeah, just figuring out your authentic self. But also in allowing them to be their authentic selves. It's a dance of the nervous systems of how to regulate. And it's even like what I noticed working with clients, if a client came in really high up, and I tried to be too mellow, we stay disconnected. So I would have to raise my energy to where they were a little bit. If they came in really low, I'd have to lower my energy a little bit.
So it's really regulating your nervous system to match the energy of the other person. So this, I have ADHD, I am who I am, I'm not going to change. We all know that person who is that great public speaker and can perform really well and is a good talker, but they're not necessarily regulating with other people. And so having that ability to adapt and regulate. And it's not about taking, it's not about putting a mask on and masking who you are. It's about regulating your nervous system to be able to connect with other people.
William Curb: So I had one thing on here on my list that I wanted to make sure we hit. It's an interesting topic. I'm sure a lot of your ability to better regulate your mesophonia for people that don't know mesophonia is like a extreme sensitivity to sound where it really throws off regulation for a lot of people. I've known, and it's not, it's always seems like when you're not dealing with it, it's like, well, why don't you just ignore the sound? It's not that bad. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It is an extreme aversion to hearing these sounds. It's not something that it's quote unquote controllable, like just a reaction that from what I've read, there's like some like trauma-based aspects of it where it's like, oh yeah, this is something that when I was a kid, I was disciplined for, you know, maybe like making too many mouth noises while eating or something.
Beverly Atkins: I think the research is out on the cause. So I learned I had misophonia when I was working at Facebook in 2013 and I was so dysregulated and upset with the noisy work environment. And I literally Googled, why do I hate noise? The diagnosis misophonium, misophonium, not sure how to pronounce it exactly, came up. And so then I just self-diagnosed. I have misophonia. Now what I wish had been in that literature was it's a high comorbidity with ADHD.
And you should see if you also have ADHD. It didn't occur to me. But it did give me a label so that here I am working at Facebook, what I thought was my dream job. And it's an open workspace and they offer free food, which includes lots of snacks that are like potato chips that people open. So the noise of opening a bag and then the noise of somebody chewing potato chips, it put me into fight or flight. So I would literally want to punch the person. Like that's how angry. I don't know any other word to say, but it would, I would feel angry. And I honed in on that noise that that's all that I could think about.
Would like, until that person would stop eating those chips or I would have to get up and leave, like go to a different area or find an office to sit in or just remove myself from the situation because it would put me into such rage. And so, I mean, it just regulated my nervous system, which made me hate everybody I worked with and then in turn, they hated me. But over time, as I started doing these lessons in the morning before work, I didn't realize what was happening. I could change my focus and I had choice. And so instead of honing in on those chips, I could say, okay, I hear chips and I have choice and I can shift my focus. And I didn't realize it was happening until I, you know, much later understood the neuroplasticity of the Feldenkrais method and what was happening. And I was strengthening those neural pathways, you know, back to what we were talking about before, I had choice and pain in what I paid attention to. I could pay attention to my shoulder. I could pay attention to my hip.
I could pay attention to my toe. These lessons give you guided attention of where you're focusing your attention. So I strengthened those neural pathways so that when the chips were eaten, I could say, okay, I can shift my attention and focus. And those neural pathways were strengthened by doing these daily lessons. And I really didn't know that that's what was happening. And I don't want to say that my misophonia or my ADHD is cured by no means are they cured.
They're there. And in times of fatigue, stress, eating poorly, those symptoms arise. But when I'm taking pretty good care of myself and I'm getting good sleep, I'm eating well, I'm exercising and my nervous system is regulated. I definitely regulate my nervous system with these lessons daily. I don't want to punch people when they each. Yeah, which is a pretty good skill in life to have.
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things with like, I get it from like people like clicking pens. I'm like, what are you doing? You need to stop like, but if I'm clicking the pen, no problem. I remember once I was doing an episode where I was like, I'm going to do the clicking pen sound for something and I'm like, do I want to keep this in the episode? Because I hate this so much just doing it for the and then like listening to it later.
And I'm like, I don't remember if I did. It's like from like the first 20 episodes, but it's amazing that it's like it's like hijacks your your nervous system. Completely.
Beverly Atkins: You know, the whole just shift your attention. You just can't. But with a regulated nervous system, it shifted a lot. It's not definitely if I go out to dinner and there's like utensils on a plate, that's also super annoying to me. I'll be like, but it definitely if my nervous system is regulated, it's more tolerable. And for somebody to say, well, then just regulate your nervous system. If you don't have the tools for that.
And so for me, these lessons gave me that tool. I would also say that everybody's different, right? I'm not saying, oh, my God, this is the end all be all. If you do this and you do 10 lessons, you're your ADHD, you know, if you do this every day, everybody's different. It's like, just be curious. And if it's a tool you want to explore and see if this helps your nervous system. I would also say again that it had I had it not alleviated my back pain. I would have thought it was super boring and stupid, right? But because it alleviated my back pain, I was super curious about what was happening.
And so I stuck with it. So anybody who does want to try it, I would say if the first lesson feels boring to you, try other lessons. The other thing I will add that I just spent a lot of time doing in our posture app, because I realized in my training program, a lot of the lessons we did in the training program were very still subtle lessons. And there's a lesson called the bell hand where you open and close your hand. This is the entire lesson for like 45 minutes opening and closing your hand. And at the end of that lesson, everybody in my training stood up and was like, oh, my God, my stay is altered.
This is the best feeling ever. And I was like, are you kidding me? That was the worst 45 minutes of my life. And I am so annoyed, right? I was so annoyed. And that's when I realized, you know what?
I'm different than most people because that was super irritating to me. So after we built the app and launched it, and because right now I have 10 teachers in the app and we want to grow that to 100. We want diversity because one teacher's voice may be incredibly annoying to a different person. Like everybody needs to find the voice that resonates for them. And that, you know, right now we have 10 teachers will grow it.
A feature we added to the app, I actually just fit. I just we have 350 lessons in the app right now and we should have a foul. You know, we'll keep growing probably one lesson per day because that's about how many lessons I can review and have edited each day.
So we'll continue to grow the library. But teachers submit these still lessons that still aggravate me. If my nervous system is not already regulated, they still aggravate me. And then I had to realize this is my ADHD.
And if I'm going to be marketing this to ADHD years, I don't want them to do this. Still lessons, I don't want them to be annoyed. I redid all the lessons recently and we added in a filter for still slash subtle versus active. So if people explore our app, I would encourage them to filter for the active lessons because it's really counterintuitive, right? Like the still lessons are super irritating to me. But the active where you're rolling and moving, those calm my nervous system. And I think that's likely true for not all ADHD people. We're all unique humans. But my theory is that we will be testing is is that true for other people with ADHD?
William Curb: I've done a number of things on mindfulness and meditation. And I know I always get questions just they're like, this sounds great. And I want to get these benefits, but this sounds great, but I can't. And it's just another way for people to try and do some of these ideas. I think is really great.
Beverly Atkins: Yeah, it's sad that this method has been around for a long time and nobody's heard it. Very few people have heard of it. I think the name turns people off, which I want to give Moshe Feldenkrais all the credit in the world.
He is the genius behind it. But I didn't call the app Feldenkrais because I do recognize it's a challenging name. So I'm hoping with the posture, branding and name, we can attract people to give it a try. And then if they want more of it, there's live classes, there's other recorded lessons online. People can go much deeper into the method if they choose to get hyper focused on it. But I think this is a great, easy way to. I also think of the importance of making a daily practice because it's kind of like meditation. You can't go on a silent meditation retreat for a week and your nervous system is calm for the rest of your life.
It's a daily practice. And so it was important for me to build an app that was affordable and accessible. And also you can filter lessons. I mean, there's pure magic in the 45 minute lessons. People don't have 45 minutes a day. So if people have five minutes, I want to give them the opportunity to filter for a five minute lesson and do a shorter version so that you need to regulate your nervous system daily. So we've built the apps to make it easy for people to develop a daily practice.
William Curb: Sounds pretty good. Lowering those barriers to entry for doing these things is sometimes just what I need. I might have 45 minutes in the day to do the practice, but I might not have the mental fortitude to start something that's 45 minutes long.
Beverly Atkins: No, and I definitely took the approach. So I did marathons. I was like 34 when I started running and then hyper focused on running and did marathons. And then I got into triathlon and I did an Ironman. So I understand the periodization and we have some entry level series, nervous system regulation series that are seven days. And I tried to like do them like five minutes and 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, then back to five minutes. So it kind of builds up to that 20 minute lesson so that people build the mental stamina for, I mean, ultimately, if they can get to a 45 minute lesson, there's pure gold in those lessons.
But for that daily practice, like having the shorter ones. And the other thing I want to mention is doing the lessons, you can't do them wrong. The fascinating thing about neuroplasticity is when the brain, when you make mistakes, the brain is rewired. So if you do a demonstration and we were to do videos and you were to copy us and you were to do the movement correctly, your brain doesn't get rewired at all. So you need to make the mistakes. So doing the lessons wrong, there's magic in that. So it's about playing around, doing it wrong, letting your nervous system finding a better way to do it. That's when the brain gets rewired.
So we have seven day series to start. So speaking of mistakes and doing things wrong. So when I launched the app, we didn't launch a free version because I believed if somebody paid for something, they're going to value it more. We saw in our testing that people would download it and then they would never use the app. And I'm like, I don't want them to just download it. I just, I want them to actually use it.
So if they pay for it, they'll use it. So I'm not launching a free version. Well, it turns out expectation is that you have a free version. So we now have a free version. And it's also the thing I was adamant about is not doing a seven day free trial or a 14 day free trial because I know with ADHD, we subscribe to things and then we forget to cancel them.
Yeah. So I don't want people to have to put it on their to-do list that I need to cancel this in seven days. So it's for as long as you want, it's download it. It's totally free, no credit card.
We have two different seven day series. We have a whole bunch of lessons in there that are totally free and just keep exploring the free ones. And then if you get to that, you can filter them by not taking. If you get to lessons, if you've done the dozens of lessons that are in there for free and then you want to keep doing it, then you can pull out your credit card and pay for it. But I didn't want to do a seven day free trial that people felt urgency to do. I want them to do it because they want to do them. So yeah, that was kind of my ADHD nod is to not do a seven day free trial.
William Curb: I know where I'm just like, oh yeah, okay, I'm signing up for this, but I don't know if I'm going to want it. So I'm going to have to put this on my calendar to make sure. And then two months later, I'm like, why am I still getting charged for that? Oh, never actually canceled.
Beverly Atkins: My nod to the ADHD community is that you won't start being charged until it's your choice.
William Curb: No, that sounds great. Are there any final thoughts that you want to leave the audience with?
Beverly Atkins: For me, just curiosity, respecting that we are all unique and different. So I'm not here to say this is the answer to your ADHD. We're also incredibly different. And that's what this method has taught me. There's no prescription to fixing any one person. I think it's so important for us to all be our own scientists and to not listen to the experts of this is what's going to fix our neurodivergent brain.
While we have a lot of commonalities, we are all so unique. And so trying different tools. So I tried meditation.
It didn't work for me. So I encourage everyone to not try to find the answers from an influencer from a pie. No one expert, only you know you and what's going to work for you.
And it's the trial and error and being curious. We all know medical doctors aren't going to know the answer. And I'm also not saying this is a replacement for medicine. Like, I don't think any doctor knows the right medicine for everybody. We all have to be our own curious scientists and find the tools that work for us and respect that your history and your brain wiring is unique only to you. And to know it's really in your hands to find the tool that's right for you.
William Curb: All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. And I think there's a lot of people are going to get a lot out of this and are going to be really interesting in checking out the POSTR app.
Beverly Atkins: Thank you. I really appreciate your time and having the opportunity to connect with you and to have the opportunity to share what was profound and life changing for me with your listener. So thank you so much.
This Episode's Top Tips
1. Novelty can help drive engagement and attention, especially when it comes to something repetitive like a daily practice. It's not about needing something stimulating in the flashy sense, but rather something that’s engaging. Engagement can come in many forms, such as unpredictability, exploration, and just enough challenge to keep us curious.
2. That ability to move your attention on purpose is a skill, one that’s often underdeveloped in ADHD brains. While it’s easy to think of movement-based practices as purely physical, it’s how you’re paying attention during the movements that matters; strengthening your ability to shift and direct your attention.
3. Many mindfulness practices involve some level of stillness that doesn’t always sit right with some ADHD brains. It’s important to listen to what actually works for your body, rather than just what “should” work. If you find the stillness aspect of mindfulness makes you too agitated and restless, try something that has some kind of active aspect to it.