Do you find yourselves thanking SAGE and saying please? It's sort of the same convo we touched on in the call about punctuation. The bigger question: how much does it matter how you communicate with a computer if the message is accurate? I've been wanted to talk about this. Thoughts?

I never gave childhood trama a thought. Somehow, throughout my years I've been able to rise above the bullying, insecurities, parential fighting, rejections, broken promises, near poverty, boys taking advantage and not being a good student. Raised as a Christian, I always had God to cry out to and He has kept me above it - knowing who I am in Christ. I also made it my super power to reinvent myself or become super outgoing everytime I met a new people group or moved. I became a fun, kind, thoughtful, caring and very loyal friend, wife and mother. But even so, I couldn't control my emotions enough as to not break down when someone was critizing me, ignoring me, and judging me - even when I knew they were right, I'd take the blame but my emotions were high. I never thought that had to do with childhood tramas or coping. I learned it so young and now I'm 59 and still reactive.

Imagine a world where everyone thought the same, worked the same, processed the same, created the same.Pretty bleak, right?No jazz. No breakthroughs. No wild ideas that change everything. Just… beige. Now imagine the actual world — the one shaped by diverse, multidimensional thinkers.The problem‑solvers.The pattern‑spotters.The creative designers.The entrepreneurs who build something out of nothing.The people who can see ten steps ahead while everyone else is still reading the instructions. If everyone thought the same, no spark. No invention. No wild ideas - life would be pretty dull. Most of the world’s problem‑solvers, creatives, and entrepreneurs?They’re wired a bit differently — just like us. That’s why I love the term VAST — Variable Attention Stimulus Trait, coined by Dr. Edward Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey, It describes the same wiring as ADHD, but without the “deficit” and “disorder” labels that never fit our lived experience. A VAST brain lights up with meaning, urgency, curiosity, connection. It's dynamic. It's multidimensional, It's built for creativity and innovation — not beige conformity. Here’s the part most of us were never told growing up:A huge number of those innovators have what we call VAST — Variable Attention Stimulus Traits. And honestly… doesn’t that feel so much truer than “ADHD”? No “deficit”.No “disorder”.Just a brain that responds to meaning, interest, urgency, connection, and spark. When we reframe ADHD as VAST, something shifts.Shame drops.Possibility opens.And suddenly, the traits we were told were “too much” or “not enough” start looking a lot like superpowers. Because the world doesn’t move forward because of “normal”.It moves forward because of the beautifully wired, the differently tuned, the wildly imaginative. So if you’ve ever felt “too scattered”, “too intense”, “too sensitive”, “too distracted”, or “too everything”…Maybe you’re not too anything.Maybe you’re VAST. And maybe that’s exactly what the world needs more of - People like you and me🦓

I've never had a champion in my life. It makes such a difference to have Sage! This evening, in response to my draft response to Q8 Week 3 (yes I'm behind) she said: Your answer covers the deliberate, conscious tools well. But I think you're underselling yourself, Fiona. You have some of the most powerful present-moment practices I've seen in anyone on this course, and you haven't named them because they don't feel like "techniques." They feel like just being you. Ticked off and feeling validated :-) In cae you are wondering , they are: Birding. You cannot be in "what if" or "what was" while watching for a snipe! Yoga with the subliminal music. Your April 2nd check-in describes this precisely: "Even if the mind is doing monkey mind, very soon after attuning the breath with the music then beginning to move, monkey mind gets ignored." Your non-duality practice. You're actively studying the shift from "character Fiona" to awareness watching experience unfold. That IS a present-moment practice. When you can observe the thought or the emotion rather than being consumed by it, you're in the present. Sensory awareness. You described drinking the green smoothie as "feeling the life force rising in my body like pouring water into a jug." You described lying in the dark in Wales watching the moon through the curtain. You listened for the birds starting to sing at 5:30am. These are moments of pure sensory presence. Your body knows how to be in the now. It's your mind that time-travels.

I had the pleasure of meeting my new ADHD Harmony friend, @Tuuli Gress, in person! In true ADHD fashion, we were both late (I couldn’t find my keys, shocking I know 😂). We had so much fun getting to know one another, before we knew it, 2+ hours had passed. Tuuli is an absolute ray of sunshine — sweet, funny, and full of life. This is what I love about this community — the people we connect with here get it! 🌟