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My Therapist, Dr. Gary, who you have, or will read about in my Memoir, pointed out to me another fantastic benefit of Hyper-Focusing and that is to use it to meditate and heal thy self. Since time has began we have been using meditation to self heal, but for a lot of people meditating is not a very easy thing to do and you would think that it would be even more difficult for people with ADD or ADHD, but that’s not always the case.
A couple days ago I wrote about how our focus factor, Hyper-focusing, can help us become experts in subjects of interest. Hyper-focusing connects us with our inner selves quickly and efficiently. Those without ADD ADHD have a much more difficult time Hyper-focusing and go to great lengths to get there and still might not achieve it to the degree or level that we do. We can get there at almost any given time. That’s part of what makes us so special.
Although we are known to be distracted frequently, when we are in our Hyper-focused mode it is very difficult for others to get our attention and we become un-distractible. In the right circumstances this is good.
I used to wonder why I could practice pool/billiards for up to 16 hours and finish feeling refreshed and revitalized! I just couldn’t figure it out, but since it made me feel that way I constantly did it for years and later when I stopped playing pool/billiards I did not get that feeling as frequently and wondered what I was doing wrong or how to get it back.
When I practiced pool/billiards alone I would become so focused on the balls, the table and the holes that I would go into Hyper-focus mode for hours on end. Not realizing it, I was meditating. I would literally be shooting balls and playing position without ever really thinking about it and nothing, no thoughts-negative or positive would enter my head, it was almost like being in a void. Even though I was in action, moving around the table and shooting balls, I was not consciously aware of my surroundings and what I was doing. I will give you an example of what I mean…
Straight pool or 14.1 is a game of pool/billiards where the players must shoot up to 150 balls to win the game. It is possible to make all balls without the opponent ever having a chance, but this requires a very high degree of skill and only a handful of professionals can do it consistently. To shoot over 150 balls becomes even more difficult due to maintaining concentration and maintaining nerve/mental control. In competition play the highest number I have shot in succession is 139. That’s a respectable number and I have shot over 100 maybe 10 – 15 times in my pool/billiard career.
 However, while practicing on my own and in Hyper-focus mode my highest score is 236 balls in succession! Nearly a hundred balls more than my record in match play. Fellow players who watched me shoot this record described me as not being there, sort of like in a fluid automation. One person said it appeared as though I had the cue ball on a string. The thing is, I don’t remember 99% of the shots I made during that run and when someone described an incredibly difficult shot I had made, I just couldn’t, for the life of me, remember it! Another thing is, the pool hall had been packed on that day and when I came in, it was nearly empty. I hardly even noticed that so many people had come in through-out the day. It took me about 8 hours to shoot that record, so I must have been very methodic, taking my time and just going through the motions with my mind relaxed and reenergizing.
Fellow ADDers, we have some amazing attributes and Hyper-focusing, in my opinion, has many more positives than negatives, especially when we learn to control it!
~Bryan
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For along time I didn’t even know I had adhd. It wasn’t until I joined the military that I was diagnosed. It was like looking at the world all new. I realized in high school I didn’t do so well but somehow without realizing I do it I had set a routine. I sit at the front and practically stare the teacher down. It feels almost as if its just the two of us in a conversion and occasionally it shocks me when I realize others are there. Same hint when I read books or watch tv, my dad used to throw stuff at me to get my attention, same with music…I feel so…scattered all the time and have been wanting to learn how to meditate, but I dint know if it was even posible for…us. thank you for bringing to light our hyper focus. I don’t feel so alone..or just plain weird…is the way to learn to meditate different from others? I’m desperate for some semblance of peace.
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