Why I Couldn't Sit Still: ADHD, Trauma, and the Myth of Willpower
I joined a creativity program because I couldn't create. I didn't expect it to lead me into an investigation of stillness, survival, and the leadership lessons hiding beneath both.
Recently, I decided to join a creativity container run by a woman that I’ve followed for a long time. Ok, maybe that’s a little bit unfair - I haven’t just followed her; I have had actual conversation with her over the phone, on zoom, and through working with another business coach. Her name is Lyssa Scott, her brand - Maximum Potency. I met her through Rob Bailey’s CCV program. When we met, she was working with Rob on sales and marketing. Lyssa got on the phone with me and while we don’t always align on everything (I’m very much an outspoken liberal that doesn’t subscribe to organized or - unorganized - religion, Lyssa is very much a very outspoken follower of Jesus), and since I’ve been really attracted to her carefree vibe. So, as I said, I recently joined her creative container - the reason? Because I was feeling really stuck - like I couldn't create.
That probably sounds strange coming from someone who spends so much time writing, speaking, and creating content, but it's true. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped trusting my own voice. Every time I sat down to write, I found myself looking at what everyone else was doing. I'd save posts, study captions, and compare my work to theirs. I felt like I wasn’t writing in my own voice but looking for words through others voices. The more I consumed, the less certain I became about what I wanted to say or if what I was saying even made any coherent sense.
I wasn't looking for healing or anything woo woo. I went into this knowing that Lyssa would likely talk about Jesus, but prepared myself to do what I always do when people start talking religion — smile, nod, and take it for face value. I was looking for creativity and if some people need to look to the divine for that, cool for them. That’s not my vibe. I can appreciate that some people feel very strongly about spiritual / religious beliefs and I’m not one to take that away from them nor am I going to discount what they are saying because I don’t necessarily believe the same things as them. What I do appreciate about Lyssa is she doesn’t tell me that I have to believe in what she believes in. She shares how she thinks about things, and allows me to take that however it feels good. Usually I look at what she calls divine and put it into my pattern recognition language. Do I think God or GUS or some holy being is telling me to do things if everything is pointing to the same thing? Personally? no. Do I think that when everything seems to be saying the same thing that there’s a pattern that my mind is finally open enough to recognize and I probably should be listening/paying attention? Yes. So, that’s what I have been doing.
Anyway, I’ve gone down a bit of a segway I didn’t mean to go down so — back to the creativity bit.
One of the first assignments in the program surprised me. Because this was creativity for business owners, I thought we’d be talking about offers and mission/vision/values. Instead, Lyssa challenged us to sit in stillness.
Now, if you know me, you know that isn't exactly my comfort zone.
My mind immediately started making a list of everything I could be doing instead. There were emails to answer, projects to finish, ideas to chase, laundry to fold, books to read, and a dozen other things that suddenly felt incredibly important. Sitting quietly felt wildly uncomfortable and almost... wasteful.
At first, I blamed ADHD and said my brain likes movement, novelty, and solving problems. Stillness isn’t “my thing.” But, I promised I’d give it a try - plus, it’s 20 minutes, and I have done harder things for longer than 20 minutes.
That first stillness day was .. rough.
I sat in my green chair by my window and I could not sit still. I was thinking about so many things. When would the time end? Why is 20 minutes SO long? Why do the trees move in the wind the way they do? What if someone can see me just sitting here? Gosh, I really need to reorganize those books. We have too many towels.
A few days later I was on a call with Lyssa when she asked the group of us to share how things were going. When it was my turn to share the first words out of my mouth were … “stillness is…. weird.”
The next morning I was walking my dog and I decided to check out the page of someone Lyssa mentioned during that call. His name is Chase. A business coach she had used earlier on in her business. I scrolled down on his instagram when I saw a post on his grid where his face was WAY too close to the screen. It caught my eye so I opened it. Why in the world would someone put THAT photo on their grid?
What he said smacked me in the face so hard I immediately welled up in tears. And if you know me, you know that is NOT something I do, especially from an instagram reel, especially from someone I’ve never met.
In his video he said, quite plainly that if you struggle to sit in silence, if you struggle to sit still, it’s because your nervous system is holding trauma. Essentially, it’s because you have learned you’re not safe.
Now, I want to be careful here because I don't believe every quote on the internet should be accepted as truth. But this one, in that moment, for me, didn't feel like something I needed to prove or disprove. In the moment it hit something deep inside me because I had a physical reaction to the words. This led me to want to investigate what this reaction was about and so, I started asking some questions.
Why did it feel so weird to sit still?
Why do I feel guilty if I am not working on something?
Why does rest always feel like something I have to earn?
Why is my instinct to fill every quiet moment with another task, another goal, or another project?
The more I’ve reflected, the more I’ve realized that I have spent much of my life confusing survival with strength.
For years, I have proudly described myself as driven, resilient, independent, and someone who could always figure it out. “Everything is Figureoutable” after all, right? And those qualities have absolutely served me well over the years. They've helped me build a career I'm extremely proud of, raise a family that I love, and start a business that feels deeply meaningful.
But I also wonder how many of those qualities were born out of necessity rather than choice.
Receiving an ADHD diagnosis has given me language for patterns I have spent decades trying to explain, and to say that I’ve figured it all out would be silly, because it’s clear I’m still learning. But, as I continued learning about trauma and the ways our nervous systems adapt to keep us safe, I start to see my own story with a little more compassion.
Maybe I was never succeeding because I had some extraordinary willpower, maybe I had simply become extraordinarily good at surviving. This realization has truly changed everything.
Instead of asking myself how I can become more disciplined, I’m starting to ask what has been creating so much friction in the first place. In so many areas of my life I’ve built systems that supported me without even realizing it. But the more I dig the more I realize that calendars replaced memory, checklists replaced mental juggling, written processes replaced the expectation that I should simply remember everything… I stopped relying on motivation years ago because I realized that motivation didn’t work for me.
The more friction I removed, the less I needed to rely on willpower.
What surprises me most is how quickly this realization has changed the way I’m thinking about leadership.
For years, I'd been coaching leaders to become better communicators, stronger coaches, and more confident decision-makers. And while those things still matter, I’ve been noticing that I started building the same types of systems around teams as I did in my own life without having the language for it.
When someone struggled on a team, how often did we assume the problem was the person before we ever examined the system around them?
How often did we call someone unmotivated when expectations weren't clear? How often did we label someone resistant when they hadn't been given the support they needed? How often did we celebrate the people who were "pushing through" without asking what that persistence was costing them?
The same question that changed my life began changing my leadership.
What's creating the friction?
That question doesn't remove accountability and it doesn't excuse poor performance. What it does do though, is simply asks us to investigate before we judge people. Curiosity over judgement, right?
Ironically, I joined a creativity program because I wanted to make better content, get clear on my program, and make sure I wasn’t letting my brain rot.
Instead, I found myself becoming curious about my own patterns, my own assumptions, and the stories I'd been telling myself for years.
I'm still in the middle of that investigation and like every investigation that is ongoing, I don't have a tidy ending or a list of five lessons. What I do have is a growing belief that curiosity is far more powerful than certainty.
It's changing the way I understand myself, and the way I lead, and maybe, just maybe, it's changing the questions that matter most.
If this resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you. Has there been a moment where you realized something you thought was part of your personality was actually a survival strategy? Leave a comment below or email me at suzanne@lvt.vet I'd genuinely love to hear your story!