Welcome back to day four of ADHD and relationships. And yesterday, we started to really build on how ADHD impacts your relationship specifically, now we're going to flip the switch. There is always a lot of focus in the ADHD community and world about symptoms and challenges of ADHD. And obviously, we were talking about that yesterday in a relationship. However, what about the other side of the coin, the strengths, the strengths of ADHD, and you both as individuals, ADHD, or no ADHD.I invite you to go on an analogy exploration. Imagine you're on a boat moving forward to a land, and suddenly a storm comes. And all we can see on that boat consists of waves, and not much else. It clears and then the next wave, it clears in next wave, as sailors in a boat, we react to a situation by dealing with the problem in hand, the problem of the waves, and it's hard to see a way forward. Like ADHD in our relationship, when we focus on what's in front of us, we are constantly reacting to a behaviour or a reaction, and it can cause conflict, resentment, endless emotions, not very nice dynamics. And today, I invite you to look beyond this, zoom out to the bigger picture. When we go back to that boat. "Yeah, the storm is what we can see in front of us. But the boat itself in that storm in those ways, is the driving force". What does the boat have that can help it be equipped to deal with the storm? The boat itself is equipped with sailors, equipment, resources to get through safely, but as sailors we look at the storm itself, not what we already have. And it's the same here. What we do is we look at the challenges and the reactions. But, when we look at the individual, and work with the ADHD challenges that may arise, we look at it through our strengths and resources, and ourselves, and what we have to help work with the challenges and also prevent some of those challenges occurring. This is what we call proactive and preliminary responses.One way is to look at the strengths of ADHD, and also us as individuals, and how we can use them to work together to get to the same objective, the same objective if we want a happy harmony relationship. So today, we're going to find those strengths. Step one, identify your strengths. Write a list of your strengths. Write a list of what you think your partners are, share, text them that list. What do you bring to the relationship? What do they bring to the relationship? Where do you thrive the most in the relationship? And where do they thrive the most? When you've got those lists, compare your lists with your partner. See what they thought of that you didn't. Now, how can we use these to help with the challenges and come up with systems that work for us rather than against? It's just like the boat, how can we use what we had on the boat as sailors to get through the storms? Here's an example. So the challenge or symptom of ADHD is reacting when being interrupted. What's the strength of that individual? Well, they're so passionate about situations, and they get into a flow in their work. They're dedicated. But that causes reactions when they're interrupted. What could be a preventative there? Well, they know that can't be interrupted, because they're so passionate, and they need to be in this flow. Well, if the other partner needs to interrupt them, then they can use a nonverbal hand sign to show them that right now is not the right time. Or they could be touched on the shoulder rather than saying their name. Here's another one, a challenge in a relationship. Hard to take the cleaning and keep up with chores. What's the strength of the of the the ADHD individual there? Well, their out of the box thinking. Their fairness, they want to do it. But they, sometimes they can't. What could be the preventative there? Well make a list of jobs. Which ones are high and medium and low effort tasks, meaning that the individual can get the tasks and divide them equally, and use each other as accountability. And that sort of lists this out of the box thinking. And it's fair, because you're doing equally. These are just a few examples on how to apply these strands. But the bottom line is, what is the challenge? What are the strengths of you both? That is, could be used in this challenge? And how do we come up with a preventative proactive, to find a solution together, to use the strengths to help with the challenge?And this is easier said than done. And sometimes in a rush your emotions when they're high, it won't matter how much preventative you have in place, however it's a start. And over time, it can really help getting you to focus on the good in the strengths, like the boat and use it to pull through those waves and those times rather than just looking at the waves themselves. And I'm going to leave you with this last thought. I want you to step back, zoom out and see how you can use what you already have versus what's not working. One of my favourite quotes is when a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. What you're doing here is nothing needs to be fixed, the environment just needs to be shifted, in order for you both to bloom. And I hope that looking at your strengths and using them can help with this.