Episode 5, Focus in 3D: Mind, Body, Spirit
🎙 Focus in 3D: Mind, Body, Spirit
Episode 5
Restarting Without Shame: What the Last 6 Months Taught Me About Focus
Hi everyone… and welcome back to Focus in 3D: Mind, Body, Spirit, the podcast all about how to create a healthy lifestyle that supports and nurtures your ADHD brain. In this podcast, I talk about how to not only live with ADHD as a professional, a mom, a partner, and an business owner, but how to thrive and be happy!
It has been six months since I last recorded an episode of Focus in 3D, and I want to begin by sharing why, not with an apology and not with an explanation rooted in pressure but with truth and transparency, because at the heart of it, it’s an perfect example of what I teach as the skill of “focus resilience.”
Over the last six months, two significant things happened in my life that interrupted my work on this podcast. The first one is simple and sacred.
My daughter entered her senior year of high school and her final indoor volleyball season. And when you know something is the “last,” you feel it differently, especially when it comes to your children or loved ones.
I know I will have this podcast for the next decade… maybe two.I know my work as an ADHD coach, healer, and educator will continue evolving.But there were only two and a half months of her final season: two and a half months of last games, last bus rides, last team dinners, last moments in the stands cheering her on.
I was faced with the hard truth that I only had so much mental and emotional energy for all the things I was doing in my life, and I made a conscious decision.
I was not going to experience those two and a half months of “last volleyball season” distracted, half-present, or internally calculating what I “should” be producing.
Instead, I chose to be a fully present and proud volleyball mom. Just writing that, makes my heart jump with joy!
I don’t regret my decision for one second.
The second interruption in my work came later was more internal.
After releasing the first four episodes of Focus in 3D something interesting happened. Momentum started building, engagement increased, the vision felt bigger.
Internally, I froze, not because I doubted the work.But because I subconsciously started to feel the weight of what success might require.
More visibility, requires more consistency, which requires more responsibility to show up every single week as a creator, thought leader, expert.
And if I’m honest, there was a part of me that feared that level of expansion.
So I stalled. I didn’t make it a dramatic stop, nor was I obvious about it. I just quietly stopped working with no announcement or warning to my audience.
What’s been transformative through this process is that I received incredible coaching during this season of life from my own business coach. She’s someone who specializes in helping entrepreneurs heal trauma patterns as they step into new levels of identity and leadership.
What I realized is that sometimes we don’t avoid failure. We avoid the responsibility of success.
And that realization changed how I understand focus. You see, focus isn’t just about managing distraction. It’s about managing identity expansion while managing all the emotions that come with that. It’s about recognizing nervous system capacity as we grow. It’s about who we believe we’re allowed to become.
So today, I share what stepping away both intentionally and subconsciously taught me about sustainable focus.
If you’ve ever paused something important, if you’ve ever chosen your family over productivity, or if you’ve ever felt yourself freeze right as things started working, you’re not broken. You just may be expanding. The best part is, there is a way to return to your passion project without shame.
Here are the three biggest lessons these last six months taught me.
Lesson 1: Focus Requires Regulation, Not Just Discipline
When I chose to fully show up for my daughter’s final volleyball season, I was regulating the emotions around recognizing and choosing my priorities. I had to keep reminding myself, I wasn’t “dropping the ball;” but rather, I was intentionally reallocating my energy.
High-achievers often override their nervous systems in the name of consistency, but if you struggle with ADHD like I do, then you know that real focus isn’t possible by forcing output. Real focus, through emotional regulation, allows you to honor your nervous system’s capacity for energy and flow.
When your nervous system is overwhelmed, distracted, stretched too thin, you don’t necessarily need more discipline. In fact, you’re likely to avoid action and discipline like the plague!
What you do need is conscious conduit to channel and practice emotional regulation as a skill. Let me tell you, I’m 53, and I’m still learning the art of mastering my emotions. Now when I say, “mastering” I certainly don’t mean to imply that any human being ever truly masters their emotions the way they master learning to drive a car. I’m referring more to the art of becoming comfortable with my emotions, even when they feel hard. Emotional regulation is a skill that I truly believe is evolving within us from birth, until the day we die. A coach’s job is to hold space for you to find your emotional conduit.
Emotional regulation may look like stepping back for a time, so you can return stronger, happier, and more deeply focused than before.
Lesson 2: Fear of Success Is an Identity Expansion Issue
Once the first four episodes of Focus in 3D were out, the podcast suddenly morphed from an idea into reality. The momentum felt real, and it felt fast, maybe even too fast for my slow moving soul. My break from writing, recording, and publishing felt like a necessity. I couldn’t just jump back on the wagon after volleyball season was over. But the longer the pause, the scarier it felt to think of getting restarted. And with that resistance came a subtle internal tension: How would I go about restarting without shame?
If this continues to grow, can I hold it?If I’m consistent, what will be expected of me?If I step fully into this identity, who do I have to become to carry the load?
The obvious answer looking back, is that I do have the capacity to expand my energy.
Here’s what I now understand as the Expansion Cycle:
Stage 1: Visibility IncreasesYou launch. You post. You speak. People respond.
Stage 2: Identity Pressure RisesYour brain asks: “Is this safe? Can we sustain this? What if expectations increase?”
Stage 3: Nervous System Threat ResponseFreeze. Procrastinate. Delay. Get busy with other things.
Freeze and delay, or procrastination on taking action happens all too often in those of us with ADHD, but not because we’re lazy. It’s the default because expansion feels unsafe to the part of you that learned visibility equals pressure, consistency, and responsibility.
Through coaching, I realized that I didn’t fear success, and I wasn’t lazy. I feared the responsibility attached to sustained visibility. Whew! Breakthrough! Once I named that, the freeze started to soften.
If you’ve ever stalled right when things were working well, nothing is wrong with you. You’re not a failure. You’re not lazy. You’re not self-sabotaging.
You’re navigating identity expansion without the proper support. And that, my friend requires compassion mixed with the right amount of challenge, from someone who opens the door for you and holds space for your self-discovery.
Lesson 3: Sustainable Focus Is Built on Self-Trust
When I chose my daughter’s final volleyball season, I trusted that this podcast would still be here waiting for me. I didn’t imagine it would take six months to get back to work, and when I paused to do deeper identity work, I trusted that expansion doesn’t require urgency. It’s not easily mapped out on a timeline or scheduled in a calendar.
Identify expansion yields self-trust which in the long run, allows you to pause without quitting. Self-trust allows you to recalibrate without spiraling into the depths of fear and despair.
Self-trust allows me to return to my podcast without shame.
And that’s the kind of focus I want to model here. I call it Focus Resilience.
It’s a not adrenaline-based focus, and it’s not pressure-based productivity. It’s integrated focus that is born from the energy of mind, body, and spirit alignment.
If you’re reading this today and you’re in a pause…
If you’ve stepped away from something important…
If you feel frozen right as you were gaining traction…
I want you to know this; you are not behind; you may just be expanding, and expansion requires clarity.
To support you with that, I’ve attached my Clarity Worksheet in the show notes of this podcast episode.
I invite you to take 20 quiet minutes with it.
Let it help you assess where your focus is aligned, where your nervous system may need regulation, and where identity expansion might be creating resistance.
And if, as you’re working through it, you realize you’d like support navigating this season, please reach out to me for a complimentary Focus Call. If you’re interested, simply send an inquiry email to veronica@focusedmindcoach.com.
We’ll schedule a time for you to find clarity and direction on what may be holding you back. Sustainable focus isn’t something you muscle through alone. I believe it’s built through intention, guidance, and compassion and patience.
I’m so grateful to be back here with you. The Focus in 3D podcast will now return on a bi-weekly rhythm, steady, aligned, sustainable.
And I can’t wait to continue this journey with you.
Until next time… stay focused in three dimensions — mind, body, and spirit.
Clarity Worksheet Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-DdFoeLDY0RwH6BmkAEcRYvCmmNMPCl/view?usp=drive_link [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-DdFoeLDY0RwH6BmkAEcRYvCmmNMPCl/view?usp=drive_link]
Send inquiries to: veronica@focusedmindcoach.com
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit veronicatrevilla.substack.com [https://veronicatrevilla.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
