The Over/Under ADHD Model

Your brain isn’t stuck in one gear. It’s constantly moving.

Cameron sketches a plus sign on a piece of paper (or in the sand, if you’re on a beach) and introduces a new tool: thinking and doing across the top, over and under down the side. Four quadrants. Most of us are sure we live in one of them. We don’t. With ADHD, we’re making rounds through all four: overthinking, over-feeling, overdoing, and then underthinking, under-considering, and underdoing. Avoidance counts as doing, too.

The exercise this week is to notice your language. Cameron shares a client who “over rotates” on unfairness, another who’s late for some things but never for others (it comes down to under-considering light cycles), and a mom who overdid it the moment her son left for college. The words we choose show us which quadrant we’re in, in real time.

It’s a tool for orienting to the ADHD dilemma and quieting the inner critic with better data. And if you’re wondering, mindfulness isn’t stillness. It starts with noticing the busy brain.

The metronome has a fourth dimension. Let’s go find it.