How to Stop Fighting your ADHD and Start Loving your Creative Process
Or What an Oracle Card Taught Me About My Creative Brain
Every Monday and Wednesday morning, I write with two women—one in LA, the other in Pensacola, Florida - virtually. Sometimes one of us arrives with a topic or prompt, but most often we pull a card from an oracle or tarot deck.
No matter how we land on direction, all three of us are committed to using writing to wrestle with the deeper questions in our hearts.
This morning, I pulled a card from Kim Krans’ Archetype deck. The black circular container—like a miniature hatbox gilded with a multifaceted jewel—holds large circular cards that are almost too large for my fingers. From the middle, I chose the Shapeshifter: a snakeskin-patterned background with roughly cut images melded together—bits of tiger face, snippets of mask, gems, and an eye.
The description reads: “When the shapeshifter card appears, it’s important to imagine you are looking at life through a kaleidoscope rather than a single-focus lens. At any moment, the scene may shift, revealing a more enchanting vision than you imagined.”
As I read this quote aloud to my writing peers, it revealed something profound about the creative process—the kaleidoscopic quality of seeing and making that refuses to be pinned down.
The ADHD Creative Mind
Having been diagnosed with ADHD two years ago, I've been learning how this wiring impacts different parts of my life, like sleep and work. Lately I'm learning to understand my creative rhythms through the lense of ADHD too.
My energy and interests are not consistent—and I'm finally beginning to see this as a feature, not a bug.
While neurotypical creative processes might follow linear paths—developing expertise in one medium, building consistent daily practices—the ADHD mind operates like that kaleidoscope card I pulled. Each turn reveals new patterns, new connections, new possibilities.
What looks like inconsistency from the outside is actually sophisticated pattern recognition. Those of us with neurodivergent brains constantly make unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, mediums, and experiences.
This means honoring cycles of deep engagement followed by integration periods. Like me, your creative process might look like intense bursts when inspiration strikes and someone (including yourself) recognizes that particular gift, followed by what others see as “downtime,” but is actually essential processing.
This isn’t laziness or inconsistency—it’s energetic wisdom. The pressure to create on command or maintain constant output goes against our brain wiring.
This goes against all of the buzz I heard in art school and beyond about having a creative practice, and more specifically, an art-making practice.
Really, this is blowing my mind as I write to you.
The Trap of One-Size-Fits-All
As a solopreneur, I’ve been bombarded with advice to choose a niche and stick with it. I’ve caught myself in this trap many times: “I just want a uniform so I don’t have to think of what to wear every day,” or “I want to design a weekly meal plan so I don’t have to think of what to cook each day.” I’ve tried these tactics, but they don’t work for me. My interests change. I get inspired by new recipes, new ingredients—like the garlic umami sauce I recently discovered that’s transformed my cooking.
The same pattern shows up in my creative life. I’ve given myself endless grief for not maintaining consistent practices—daily painting, morning pages, meditation routines.
But with these new insights about my wiring, I’m beginning to dismantle those archaic and limiting ideas.
Another concept I'm pulling apart for myself is that to be creative means you have to be making stuff (ie, art products). This idea, along with those above, I recently spoke about on live radio! (Scroll a little further to get the link to listen or watch the interview!)
The week before last, I drove up to my little hometown of Chewelah WA to be interviewed on the local radio station. The program went live at 4pm on a Tuesday and the interviewer was my own mother. She started a radio program two years ago called Artists on the Air and is perfectly positioned, with her endless curiosity and abundant support of the arts, to spearhead the project.
Listen or watch the interview below.
Art Making vs. Creativity: A Vital Distinction
Here’s where I want to make an important teaching point. Creativity is the larger field—the way you see, connect, synthesize, and imagine. It’s that kaleidoscopic vision that finds patterns and possibilities others miss. Creativity flows constantly, in how you approach conversations, notice morning light, or make unexpected connections.
Art making is creativity given form through specific mediums and practices. It’s when kaleidoscopic vision gets channeled into paint, words, clay, or whatever material calls in that moment.
Art making is creativity’s temporary dwelling place, not its permanent address.
For someone with ADHD, this distinction is liberating. You don’t have to be making art constantly to be creative. Creativity might express itself through how you hold space for others, arrange your living room, or synthesize ideas from different traditions. Art making happens when the right invitation appears—when a particular medium or project recognizes your unique vision and calls it forth.
More and more, I celebrate creative practice in general. Some days it’s the meal I prepare. Some weeks get consumed with pure inspiration for a new knitting project. Currently, I’m inspired to make my son a quilt for graduation, compiled of small fabric squares I’ll stitch every day of his senior year.
All of this is creative practice. All of it matters.
What This Means for You
This understanding offers permission to trust your own rhythms rather than forcing yourself into productivity models designed for different nervous systems and energy types. Consider that:
Periods of exploration and interest-shifting are not distracted and non-commital—they’re creative research
Not every creative impulse needs to become a completed project
Creative energy has seasons, like everything in nature
Your particular way of seeing and processing is valuable, not deficient
The Shapeshifter’s Gift
The "shapeshifter" oracle card became the perfect metaphor.
We’re often told to focus through a single lens, to pick one thing and stick with it. But what if the shapeshifter’s gift is exactly that ability to see kaleidoscopic possibilities that others miss?
What if your creative superpower lies not in consistency, but in that rare ability to turn the kaleidoscope and reveal “a more enchanting vision than you imagined”?
The world needs your kaleidoscopic way of seeing. Trust it.
Your particular way of moving through the world isn't broken; it's needed.
