Hope, Trust and... Fun? Reclaiming Positive Emotion in the ADHD Hard Place

This week, Cam takes us from a quiet full-moon dog walk in Virginia to the Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon, and back into the terrain of ADHD emotions. Using awe as a starting point, he unpacks how often people with ADHD live in a pinched emotional state—caught in pressure, urgency, and the adrenaline response cycle—and how rare it can be to experience the more complex, nourishing emotional states like gratitude, trust, curiosity, and wonder. Cam revisits the “ADHD Hard Place,” that tough spot between awareness and meaningful change where frustration often grows faster than progress. Drawing on the Prochaska model, the emotional health ladder, and years of coaching experience, he explores why our awareness can outpace our ability to act—and how that mismatch fuels negative emotions in ourselves and in our most important relationships. From here, he lifts up three emotional companions that help us move through the hard place: hope, trust, and fun. Hope as flotation. Trust as the quiet foundation of self, relationships, and systems. And yes—fun—as the spark that emerges when skill, challenge, safety, and teamwork meet. Cam shares mindfulness practices, his own self-care rituals, stories from coaching, examples of high-performing groups, and reflections on what happens when hyperfocus is mistaken for flow. He also talks about the importance of emotional safety, community learning, and bringing a spirit of curiosity back into the daily experience of ADHD. It’s a spacious, heartfelt episode about reclaiming the emotional landscape of ADHD and learning to bring more meaning, purpose, and connection into everyday life—one moment of hope, trust, and even fun at a time. Finally, Cam introduces one of his group coaching classes - Equanimity, a 10-week positive-intelligence-based program for building awareness, reframing emotional patterns, and transforming emotions into resources rather than something just to regulate.