Cleaning Your Car with ADHD

Many people listening, they will have AuDHD or ADHD and there's the gulf between basic self-care in terms of what we would like to be doing for ourselves and what is more of a challenge. So I will ask you a little bit about that, like how might listeners make it easier for themselves to clean their own cars?

Welcome to episode 107 of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD podcast. I thought they were so adorable when I met them at a local networking event.

I wanted them to come on and help all my ADHDers to clean your car, know that you deserve a delicious car to drive around in.

They are Danny and Peadar from Atlantic Valets and they are so new to business and they're doing so much amazing work so quickly. I've been going for like over nearly 22 years now and they are so on message and just so joyful and delightful.

I hope that they'll inspire you to keep your environments clean, to outsource it where that's an act of self-care for yourself. They're based in Achill but wherever you are you might have similar and I really hope you enjoy this very unusual episode.

If you're a trauma survivor and AuDHDer like me or simply find self-care more of a “should” than a joy, then the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD podcast is for you.

I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham, a trauma therapist, AuDHD and self-care coach, senior accredited supervisor and counsellor, columnist and author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-Care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Each Tuesday I share a mix of solo episodes and conversations with other self-care professionals. From other therapists, coaches, yoga teachers and authors to neuroscientists and medical professionals, many of them are neurodivergent themselves and all are honest enough to share the gap between their ideal and ACTUAL daily self-care.

I hope that it will help you learn to love and care for all of your parts including trauma and AuDHD from the soles of your feet to your soul. You can sign up for bonus content and polyvagal informed journal prompts and more for Míle Buíochas Mondays, my free newsletter via the website solestosoul.ie. Let me know if you've got any questions and thank you for listening.

Thank you so much for joining me, Peadar and Danny.

Have I pronounced that right, Peadar? Peadar, it's Peadar. Peadar, I'm sorry.

No, it’s quite all right, everybody seems to have their own version of it.

It's a traditional Irish name, isn't it?

It's a very traditional Irish name, yeah.

Do you know what it means?

It's the Irish version of Peter.

OK, yeah. I met you both at a recent Westport local business event which was really lovely and you are both so delightful. You're not my normal kind of guests.

Great, you've met it. But I just thought I think people will really love you set up this Atlantic Valets. Is that how you say it? Valet? Valet or valet.

Yeah, yeah. Valet is more for if you're trying to get someone to write it out so like you have to make it sound phonetic. Okay, so.

Like people write valet. Yeah. And you're very new to it but you're going amazingly so quickly and I loved what you were saying about how you basically almost gamify it because so many people listening they will have AuDHD or ADHD and there's the gulf between basic self-care in terms of what we would like to be doing for ourselves and what is more of a challenge.

So I will ask you a little bit about that like how might listeners make it easier for themselves to clean their own cars and also how can people find you online or anything? Absolutely, yeah. Well, yeah.

Yeah, we kind of gamify it. How to gamify it. That is going to be very unique to the individual first of all.

Yeah. Like first of all how into games are they in the first place but I suppose the first the initial thing you want to do is break it down to small pieces. Yeah.

Like you know if you go on cleaning the car, a car can be fairly daunting because like there's a lot of things to clean and when you start thinking about them you'll get overwhelmed because like you have to clean this, you have to clean that, you have to clean that and then also it's the sequence in which you clean stuff. So what we like to do, we like to clean back to front, top to bottom. OK.

So like that's the way we sort of move so that we're not going over ourselves repeatedly. Yeah. And then we break that down further into smaller pieces so.

Yeah. We'll say one of us will start working on the boot and the other one will start working on the mats and then we'll have that out of the way and then before one of us works on the boot we'll clean the top part of the boot, the glass and the outside and then work our way inside. So like it's all done in small sections.

Yeah. In a step-by-step motion which then sort of breaks it down into like these little tiny little tasks. Yeah.

That you can focus on and not worry about anything else. Yeah. So you're not overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that you have to do.

You know. Yeah. And just like Peadar says you know top to bottom, back to front.

Keep it simple and just you know take it down one step at a time. Yeah. You'll get through it and you know there's nothing like a fresh clean car at the end of the day.

Yeah. And I was using you as inspiration a few days ago the weather was clear enough my partner was here and I was like right I'm going to wash both our cars. He was doing something for me in the garden and I had them both in the back and I had the hose and I was and I didn't do what you're doing.

He's like why are you doing both at the same time? And it's like well I do millions of things at the same time and you're saying that back to front, top to bottom. Just having a system in place. Yeah.

So it's not each time where am I? Why am I? And wandering off and getting distracted. So that alone is fantastic. Exactly and you know when you clear each part.

Yeah. You know it's just like clearing your mind. You know it's one step at a time.

Yeah. Step by step, bit by bit. Yeah.

Fresh, clean, back to normal. Feels good. Yeah.

Absolutely and it's also it also ties into efficiency. You know if you are easily distracted or things easily grab your attention. Yeah.

You want to be very efficient about how you use your attention because you don't have much of it. Absolutely. Like you know something's gonna happen that'll take you away and then you come back and you have no idea what you've done.

But if you've broken down the tasks into like small little sections. Yeah. And you know for sure okay I've just done that.

I don't need to go and look at it again. You can move on to the next thing or I haven't done this bit yet so I know where I'm not. You know.

Yeah. I can go back and okay yeah right I'm over here instead of that. And you mentioned that you'd worked for someone who was quite exacting like in another capacity and that had given you this training and this eye for detail when it came to doing your own.

Did you learn like what did you learn from them about like kind of. Yeah and yeah I can give them a shout out John Frasco from Ferndale. They give us some great training.

I mean we spent a lot of years at this five-star B&B restaurant and it's run by a Swiss and a German. Yeah. You know the Swiss and the Germans like they like things to be precise.

Yeah. To say the least. Yeah.

And I swear we developed our eye for details and the small touches and the finer things. Yeah. You know really how to bring something to life and bring it back to the full brilliance.

It's all about just the finer details. Every little bit you do it all adds up in the end and it makes one amazing piece of art or work when you're finished. And you know it's yeah we learned a lot from them I have to say.

Great people. Wonderful. And where can people find you online? Where like.

Yeah right now we're mostly just on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. We'll soon have our website up and running.

Yeah. Able to take bookings there but we get a lot of our bookings through word of mouth and WhatsApp as well. Yeah.

WhatsApp is quite active. Yeah. So yeah for now we're just doing that.

We're trying to branch out now to our own website and yeah. So it's at Atlantic Valets. On Instagram you can see our before and afters.

Yeah. Just so there'll be a link in the show notes. Oh thank you so much.

Yeah. So what about your own self-care? So it might include cars and homes or it might be completely different but I talk about that kind of the lowercase s apostrophe self-care as in the stuff we do to feel better. So it might be like going for a swim or then I talk about.

So it's my Feel. Love. Heal. framework. So the feel bit is like how are you doing in any given moment. What's going to help you feel better.

So it's something that's going to help you regulate. And then the Self the uppercase Self Self care for the love. So the recognition with love and acceptance.

There's actually nothing that no one needs to do. You can just let it all go and remember peace is our birthright. But that can sometimes be harder because what helps you connect with that kind of self-care and then the collective care the heal part.

So it might be turning what hurts your heart into action. It might be groups you're a part of. It could be anything but in each section.

And I'll ask you as we go through like your ideal and then the actual like what would be your essential. Does that sound OK. Yeah that sounds pretty straightforward.

Yeah. So starting with the self-care the things you do to help yourself feel better. What would be your ideal and what would be your actual.

I know what it is. I do it on a daily basis. I just don't know how to sort of express it because like it's an automatic thing.

Well I'll go first. Self-care is just taking a moment. Taking a minute just to sit down not think about anything if you can just sit by the door or on your own or just look at the stars at night.

You know it's been very dark the last couple of months. Yeah. A lot of time to look at the stars or just listen to the wind.

Yeah. Or just watch the rain. Just take a minute to really be in the present moment.

You know and just trying to feel that present moment because we're always two steps ahead or two steps behind. Yeah. You can just get five minutes to yourself just to be in the present.

It really resets the mind the body the energy and then you can go back to business refreshed rejuvenated and revived. That's something I like to do anyway. Wonderful.

And how often in an ideal world would you have a chance to do that like it wouldn't just be once a day or it would be like how often? For me once a day if I can get one one five minute in a day yeah maybe 10 minutes five minutes 10 minutes once a day in the evening maybe. Just be on my own. Yeah.

Listen to nature. You know we're very lucky we live on the west coast of Ireland. Oh my god I'm still pinching myself.

It's a great place to be and you've got so many sounds and feelings and energies and everything from all the nature around you. So you just be in that moment five minutes a day and it does me the world of good. Thank you.

How have you thought of how you can explain or? Weirdly enough cooking. Wonderful. I love when I get home like after a long day.

Yeah. The first thing I think about now I'm also a bit of a foodie. I love food.

I've always eaten. Yeah. So as soon as I get home I'll immediately start thinking about what am I going to make? What am I going to cook for myself? What am I going to make the family? Because I live with my mom and dad at the moment.

Uh-huh. And my little sister too. Something that I've gotten into lately is a cilbir.

It's like a Turkish dish and it's yogurt, dill, grated garlic, sumac and poached eggs. Yeah. Yeah.

Salt and lemon as well. Like I've gotten really into that one. Like I've had it nearly every day over the last two weeks.

Yeah. Well yeah for me that's what I like to do. If I get I don't know 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

It depends now what am I what have I decided to cook? Yeah. But yeah if I get it just a moment just to lose myself in cooking something, making something. Yeah.

It's very much like the present moment isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You sort of like turn off everything else and you're just doing this one thing here that just.

Yeah. It doesn't require so much energy. It's something that sort of like rejuvenates you as well.

Like you know. And yeah you're nourishing yourself. It's like you deserve to have good food.

You deserve to have a clean car to drive in. Exactly. A lovely space.

It really. I have a link to the show notes to Jayne Leonard's first episode but she's a nutritionist and a therapist and she was talking about cooking as self-care. I'd never considered it like that.

I am 50 and I've spent way too many dinners having crisps because I couldn't be bothered to do something. Yeah. Whereas now framing it as actually it is self-care.

You're you're deeming yourself worthy of. Absolutely. Yeah that's wonderful.

Yeah. If I may just for a second. Yeah.

Just going back to cleaning a car. Just like cooking food. I mean you really lose yourself and your sense of time is completely gone.

I mean I would love to challenge anyone who watches this podcast to clean their car and just not look at the time and tell them ask themselves halfway through how long it's been. I guarantee it's been way longer than they expect. Every single day.

You really do lose yourself in the moment when you're cleaning the car. That's for sure. Well how wonderful that you found work that you love like that.

What about that kind of that love self-care? I mean you've talked about connecting like looking at the stars but what helps you connect with that part of you that's part of the divine part of nature that doesn't need anything different? For me it's I have about four dogs at the house. Wonderful. Spend time with them.

Yeah. Like they have so much love for us. It's absolutely incredible like and it's a few minutes with them and the way they're just so happy just to be around me.

Immediately. Immediately I'm happy and then I also think about that that brings me into thinking about things that I'm actually grateful for. Things that I have.

Simple stuff like someone just to be around. My mom, my dad, my best friend. Those little things and that actually matters but on a daily basis you kind of have horse blinders and you forget about these things.

You forget about how important these connections are but bringing back to the dogs again they sort of like remind me that these people are there and like they actually matter and they're you know seemingly happy to be around me. I don't know. That's what they say anyway.

As in the people or the dogs? Both. I know the dogs are happy to see me. They're all excited to see me.

It's having that gratitude for these connections and the people and the support they give and also the support I give to them. What I can do for them is also just as important what they do for me. Thank you and Danny? Yeah so just like Peadar you know I've got a dog too.

Best dog ever. He's amazing and you know it's fills my heart full of love and joy when I come home from a long day and he runs up to me and you know he's so excited to see me and I go for a walk or play a little bit. Yeah it's just the best thing ever and you know same thing family everything and my wife is just amazing.

She takes really good care of this business too behind the scenes. You do all the hard work at night. It was washing towels you know drying things getting everything ready for the next day.

Yeah so you know it's nothing like sharing that with someone and having a great support behind you. Yeah do you want to give her a shout out here? Absolutely Andrea if you watch this you know. I love you loads.

And that's amazing and what about kind of the heal bit the collective care the like you've mentioned already family your partner any groups that you find supportive or like community what would you say there in terms of ideas? Definitely I'd say our community as a collective group of people. Our local community here in Achill Island are so supportive. I mean they're absolutely incredible.

They're really you know waving our flag and pushing us forward. They're shouting from the rafters for us you know to succeed so that that means a lot you know and just having that support of your community. I mean it's you know it's something a lot of people find hard to find is that to be a part of their community is something I had. For a long time I didn't feel a part of my community but when you actually do find something to get some way to give back and be a part of it oh yeah it's the best feeling ever yeah it really feels great and people here in Achill have really rallied and really rallied behind us you know especially on the social media stuff a few quite a few people like and share and post yeah you know a lot of our stuff like almost on a daily basis yeah you know it's really nice to see you know.

But you're so delightful why would they not like you like most people are like oh I have to clean the car and you make it sound so exciting. We do really enjoy it you know it's the labour of love like yeah just we want to get better faster stronger yeah everything just keep improving and just you know that term you know just little improvements every day oh yeah make it a better place for everyone.

If you could go back to a younger version of yourself at any age and send some love some wisdom some care what might that be? Start doing car valeting sooner get into it you'll love it if I could tell myself back then like just get into it how long ago and I would just say don't worry so much yeah you'll find a way you know you will find a way just keep your eyes open and yeah your heart open to new ideas and your head open to yeah yeah yeah just let things happen and just if you see a door that opens you know walk through it you know it could be on the other side it's worth the shot.

Well as I expected you'll have been a delight thank you very much. Thank you so much for having us it's been absolutely fun. Brilliant, so do you want to say again where people can find you on insta on Facebook or Instagram. Just Atlantic Valets. Yes you can find us there on Instagram check out our befores and our afters they will blow your mind you'll believe things we can do to cars.

Wonderful thanks again thank you so much absolute pleasure thank you.

As you think about this episode, I want you to imagine scanning your whole body, your whole energy field from the soles of your feet to your souls. Notice what has come up for you as you've listened and as you think about it now.

How might you show yourself some extra love, some extra care today, this week?

Make some notes, doodle, whatever feels good. And if it feels comfortable and you want to, email eve at solestosoul.ie or comment in any of the comment areas. Feel free to subscribe, rate, review, all the things. And thank you for listening. I'm your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. Find full links in the show notes and full transcript and let me know if you have any questions. Really looking forward to joining you again next week. Have a brilliant week.