A Note on Interoception, ADHD and Internal Calm

My agenda for this Saturday looked pretty standard: a long walk, some website updates, and sitting down to meditate. It was a solid, functional list. My thoughts are not on interoception or ADHD.

Two questions I’ve been spending more time with lately: Who am I being while I do these things? What values are actually showing up?

It’s can easy for us divergent thinkers, ADHD, AUDHD, Autistic or other to give the intellectually “right” answer to questions like that. We are brilliant at abstract planning, systems thinking or pattern seeing. We can rationalize our way through anything. But finding the an answer that is both rational and experienced—the one grounded in my body experience rather than just cognitive theory—takes longer.

Today’s value that is important at this season in my life wasn’t about productivity, growth, or momentum. It was this: I deeply value feeling internal calm in my body.. (although I need those other things to support having time to feel calm in my body..)

And here’s the catch. To value feeling calm in your body, two things must be true:

1. You have to be able to actually feel your body.
2. You have to allocate the time to feel it.

The Interoception Tax

If your brain moves fast, you probably can easily spend 95% of your day from the neck up.

For many of us with divergent wiring, interoception—the literal biological ability to perceive sensations inside our bodies, like hunger, tension, or fatigue—is naturally weaker . We’re focused on the thoughts. We are incredible top-down processors and system processors.. We can map out complex relational architectures, connect completely disparate ideas, and build entire worlds in our heads. We are a curiosity engine on overdrive. When if our bodies are uncomfortable or situations make it easier to retreat to our heads, it is tempting and often unconscious..

But that biological reality means we often spend a massive amount of time completely disconnected from our physical selves. We carry the load entirely in our minds until the cognitive burden becomes too heavy, and we suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed, exhausted, or utterly stuck.

The Two Layers of Action

This is why traditional advice to “just push through” or “make a better list” completely misses the mark. It only addresses the abstract planning layer, the what. It ignores the execution level—managing the body and focus in the moment, part of the human how.

If you want to move from stuck to starting, logic alone isn’t enough. You can’t out-think a dysregulated nervous system. You need bottom-up nervous system regulation.

Because I spend so much time in my head, coming back to my body isn’t an accident; it requires a conscious, deliberate change in where my focus is. My Saturday walk and my meditation aren’t just “wellness tasks” to cross off. They are the strategic sequence I use to create internal alignment. They are how I slow down to speed up.

An Invitation to Explore

This isn’t about being fixed or finding a cure for how your brain naturally operates. It’s about building a better instruction manual for the brilliant, divergent mind you already have.

So, let’s explore this for a moment. Look at your own to-do list this weekend.

Beneath the tasks, who are you being? Are you relying entirely on top-down thinking, or are you making space for bottom-up regulation? You might notice that when you actually carve out the time to feel your body, the internal calm you’re searching for becomes much easier to access.

True capacity isn’t built by staying in your head. It’s a whole-body experience.