SuccessFULL With ADHD

Rescue Your Relationship: Unlocking the Power of Communication in ADHD and Beyond

• Brooke Schnittman MA, PCC, BCC • Season 1 • Episode 82

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In this episode, I sit down with the incredible Mika Ross, therapist, relationship coach, and all-around relatable expert on navigating the messiness of relationships, especially when ADHD dynamics come into play. Mika shares her journey from aspiring child therapist to becoming a relationship expert, all while unpacking her own family experiences. We unravel the nuances of communication, understanding, and empathy, especially in relationships affected by ADHD and rejection sensitivity. Mika offers unique tools like her trusty "scales" for gauging feelings, strategies for paraphrasing to enhance active listening, and tips for avoiding the dreaded resentment that can creep into any relationship. Mika’s wisdom will inspire you to embrace those "big feelings," communicate effectively, and find those win-win solutions that make relationships thrive.

 

Episode Highlights:
[1:29] - Meet Mika Ross, the relatable therapist who’s real about the ups and downs of relationship dynamics.
[2:42] - Mika shares her journey from child therapy to relationship coaching, driven by personal experiences and a late-in-life ADHD connection.
[5:33] - The "ADHD detector" moments: how Mika notices the signs and patterns of ADHD within couples.
[12:08] - Unpacking non-verbal communication and why assumptions often lead to misinterpretations.
[15:44] - Mika’s go-to strategy: using "scales" to bring clarity and eliminate guesswork in emotional exchanges.
[20:21] - Tools for the highly sensitive: using scales and structured communication to reduce misunderstandings.
[25:19] - The power of paraphrasing: How Mika learned to listen actively and avoid surface-level conversations.
[34:31] - Postpone persuasion! Mika’s "five P’s" strategy for truly understanding your partner before jumping to conclusions.
[35:38] - Win-win solutions vs. compromise: finding what feels good for both sides without resentment.

 

Connect with Mika: 

 

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Mika Ross:

There's a reason that there's pain scales on the walls at the hospital. It's because feelings are inherently really tough to communicate about. There's a lot of room for miscommunication. And so I use scales here, there and everywhere. I use them with my kids. I use them with my husband. The most benign example I have is if, if I make a really and I think that people non verbally speak very different languages, so I'm very expressive. Like, if you made me a dinner and I thought it was fantastic, I would be telling you with my whole face, oh, my hands would be moving. I would be saying, Brooke, you you need to make this on reap. You need to get a food truck. You need to sell this like you would know that I liked it. My husband, if I make a really good dinner and I say I like this dinner, he says it's good, high pitched good for me. Would mean it's not that great, it's not that great, but I don't want to argue about it, or I don't want to hurt your feelings, so I'm going to say it's good, but I don't really mean it. Now, instead of assuming that that's what his high pitched good meant, I started asking on a scale of zero to 10, how much do you like this meal? And he said, I kid you not, 9.5 and I was like, that's how you express 9.5

Brooke Schnittman:

welcome back to another episode of successful with ADHD today. I have Micah Ross who's the relatable Therapist and Relationship Coach who wants to scratch her husband's eyes out sometimes. I mean, who doesn't? But? But thank you for being honest about it. Yeah. I

Mika Ross:

think anger, frustration, irritation is a normal part of relationships. Yeah, yeah.

Brooke Schnittman:

Big feelings. Big feelings. I know you talk a lot about big feelings. So for those of you who hadn't heard my podcast episode with Micah, I had met her because she brought me onto her podcast, and we had such a great conversation. And I think that you just really get into the feelings and the science and ask questions that others might not ask or say things that go deeper than others. So I would love for you to kind of just quickly introduce yourself, your story behind why you specialize with ADHD and relationships and then, like, let's get into all the fun stuff after Yeah,

Mika Ross:

yeah. So I'm a therapist and relationship coach, and I did, I sort of got into this accidentally. I really thought I wanted to work with kids. My degrees are in marriage and family counseling. Both of my parents have been married three times, so I did not. I thought my background sort of unqualified me to do work with couples, but I actually have come to believe that it's probably madely made me weirdly qualified. I know what great relationships. I know what not great relationships look like, which I think can make people clear about what they do look like. I know what not great communication sounds like, and what it feels like. And so I think it's been sort of a roundabout path. I started to work with kids, and realized pretty quickly that I had more of an act with their parents, and I thought I could probably create more sustainable change by helping the parents change dynamics between the two of them and with their children than I could just taking one little piece of the system out every once in a while and then putting it back into the system that maybe created it. So that's a little bit about my background. I have a kiddo who was diagnosed with ADHD daughter at 13, kind of late in the pandemic. And the thing that made me realize that she had ADHD is that I was scrolling the internet and came across an article entitled which I cannot find anymore. So nobody asked me to send them the link. The title must have changed, I don't know, but the title exactly, was people with ADHD tend to tend to self medicate with conflict and drama, and that explains a lot of our home life, why we had this highly emotionally intelligent kiddo who, when was triggered, could could not stop poking, could not stop compulsively engaging like she couldn't not, she couldn't stop. That is sort of what sparked a whole lot of interest in ADHD for me, and I started seeing its effects within the couples in my practice. And if people weren't already diagnosed, when I would ask, you know, I would, I would put together some things as I. Was listening to people, you know, like I was hearing some rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, you know, like maybe they're taking some things personally that their spouse doesn't quite understand. Or, you know, they go from zero to 100 or they have sound sensitivity, or, like, all of these weird things I would start to hear. And then I would ask, by any chance, is there an ADHD diagnosis in your history? And most of the time, I was right. But then even if I wasn't, they would go get assessed and come back and say, You know what, I do have ADHD so

Brooke Schnittman:

like the ADHD detector, yeah. But in the weirdest

Mika Ross:

I feel like it's kind of a strange way. I just put a reel out to promote the podcast that I did with you. Just kind of like pointing to some things that I noticed in session and the I mean, it's gone viral. People are like, Oh my god, this is me. So people in who have ADHD diagnosis from childhood, I feel like so often, don't understand that maybe the impacts in their relationship. It's like, I think most of us, I mean, even with training in counseling and learning diagnostic criteria, I really just thought about it like, you know, a disorder that impacts boys in a classroom.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, like so many of us, there's so many nuggets that you just shared that I would love to go into a little bit more, if you don't mind, yeah, first of all, the fact that you said you felt like you were unqualified for your position, because you had parents who were divorced three times, right? It's almost like what you said, okay, so you knew what to not do, and you know how to advise people? Sorry, yeah,

Mika Ross:

well, I knew what to not do, but it also created an intense interest in me to figure out what to do. So I was reading when I was a teenager. I was reading books on relationship, well being, books by Wayne Dyer, spiritual stuff, psychological, I mean, like I was devouring all kinds of texts that most of my peers were not.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yes. Well, first of all, I know you don't have an ADHD diagnosis, but you suspect that you might have it, and definitely want to talk about that too, but you had a strong interest in what not to do, and that led you to be even better at your craft. And I find it fascinating too, because people always think that you have to experience all the levels of like what to do, but I find that there's so much information that can be understood when you figure out what not to do. And that's even like when you're an entrepreneur, you are a boss, right? You learn what you don't want from your previous bosses and what you did like from your previous bosses. So yeah,

Mika Ross:

the director in my PhD program, I was having a like, total imposter syndrome meltdown in his office one day, like, I don't belong here. I don't know what I'm doing here. I was sobbing, and he took me by the shoulders and said, your past has given you X ray vision into other people's pain that I can't teach Yes, and it didn't that did make me feel slightly better in the moment, but I'm not going to say that like I totally bought into it that day, but over the years, I really, I think I have, I think that my experience being in a not fully functional, seriously dysfunctional family, you know, I know what it feel I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to go to bed really nervous not knowing what the next day is going to bring, or walking on eggshells with the people that you love the most, and being terrified that you you don't know how to have control in this situation or you or you don't know how to move it forward in a better way. I know what it's like to sweep my wants and needs under the rug and just act like everything's okay, because I just want today to be better, right? I understand that at a deep level. Who I think people, I mean, I think everybody kind of comes from, you know, some dysfunction, even my kids. Yeah, it does. It weirdly helps me in my job.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, they say with ADHD too, that we can be more hypersensitive and in tune because of the struggles that we've experienced before. And Dr Dodson talks about this with rejection, sensitive dysphoria, that if you have experienced shame, feelings of frustration, where you've been like actually rejected, or you perceive yourself being rejected, then you end up intending to be more intuitive and aware of sensitivities. So, yeah, a core. So what you're saying with experiencing that trauma, with your your family, and now being more aware and intuitive to other people's needs?

Mika Ross:

Yeah, and so before I had an inkling that I might, I might have ADHD, I did all I always identified with anything that I saw about highly sensitive people, and I think for a lot of highly sensitive people, they feel like it's their kryptonite, and I think that it's our kryptonite, to the degree that we don't understand deeply, you know, like where we end and other people begin, and also like we're not if we're not really clear about what's okay and what's not okay. So I tell this story where, like, I had a neighbor, I could take anything personally. There was a time not that long ago where I could take, I mean, it's, it's the things I think about that I took personally at one time are wild. I had a neighbor who we moved in. We had two tiny kids. It was an older couple lived next door. I mean, maybe early 60s, late 50s. She would always talk, talk, talk to us, and he wouldn't speak. And I would come home and I would say, Eric, I don't think he likes us. And my husband would be like, What are you talking about? And I was like, he didn't like us. He doesn't want to live next to little kids. He's irritated that we moved in. He wants his quiet yard back. The stories, the stories that I couldn't have been more wrong he had one day weeks into living there, he mustered up a joke for me, and through a lot of strain, told a joke, and I realized that he had a terminal, degenerative neurological disease, I had found a way to take personally.

Brooke Schnittman:

Oh my gosh, wow. So there was just like, so much information you didn't know and you thought, because of your intuition and your sensitivities, that you were right.

Mika Ross:

So I find that a lot with people, I think that the easiest things to miscommunicate about are non verbal communication. We are going to fill in those blanks and intent. And so I think that we can feel stress in other people, but we fill in the blanks with the details of what that is. And that's a really dangerous things to do in close relationships. And so I am constantly teaching people how to, how to check those things out, how to how to paraphrase what you think that you're hearing, so that you're not having two totally different conversations at the same time and end up in an argument that doesn't even need to be

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, the stories that we create with ADHD get very blurred into the oh, we have strong intuition, And I love that you share, that you know we can feel other people's stress, but we don't always know what they're thinking, and we have to fill in the blanks, and we have to understand the facts, and unless we have all of the information, how would You know? So

Mika Ross:

my husband used to come home frustrated, irritated, stressed. He would slam a cabinet. He would be stomping around, clearly mad, and I would immediately think he's mad at me.

Brooke Schnittman:

He's mad at me. I was the same

Mika Ross:

way, yeah, instead of assuming that, I realized one day. So I tell people that with what I do all day every day, it has nothing has made me more clear than my job, that miscommunication is just too easy. So I assume Now, having done this for 18 years, sitting between couples all day, every day, now, I assume miscommunication always. I suspect something, and then I check it out, I could be right, but most of the time I'm wrong, especially if I think it has to do with me. And so I would look at him and say, Okay, are you mad at me? And he would say, No, which, you know, really sounded like he was mad at me. And so I wouldn't believe the No, and then that might spiral into Yes, you are. Why aren't you just telling me? You know, in this back and forth that would get us nowhere. And one day, I looked at him and I said, are you mad at me? And he shortly said, No. And I said, I hear you saying no, but it really sounds like you're mad at me. Zero to 100 free to put this all into a pie. How much are you mad at me and how much are you mad at something else? And he said, it's to you and 98 something else. But if you keep fucking asking me, those numbers are gonna flip

Brooke Schnittman:

me. It's not about you.

Mika Ross:

I said, Oh, okay, but then I could let it go, like until I put things on scales. I couldn't believe somebody's. Fine or No, I'm not mad. Like, on a scale of zero to 10, how fine Are you nine and a half? Oh, okay. But for me, pretty bad, yeah. So for do you know? Like, it's, yeah, there's so much room for miscommunication and non verbals and and intent. There was a study at UCLA done in the 70s is trying to tease out like, how much of communication was non verbal, how much of it is the words that we say. So verbal communication. And they found the numbers that they came up with with, you know, no studies perfect. But was that 93% of communication is non verbal, so it's not the words that we say, 7% is the words that we say. You

Brooke Schnittman:

know, I always thought it was like 80% non verbal and then I was talking to Chris Voss on the podcast several episodes ago, and he was saying it was even less than that for non verbal communication. I don't know how scientific, right? I don't know how scientific it was. And he he disclaims that, but it's so interesting. Yeah, I know a lot of communication is non verbal, and I would love to go back to the point that you are making of the scale. I think that's a great tool for people to use, especially highly sensitive people like myself, yep, to use with their partners, to use with their friends, and not make it so much about them. Do you have any other like sentence starters that you would suggest to our listeners, to use with other people? Because with rejection sensitivity, with highly sensitive people, we pretty much often think it's us and it's not an ego thing. It's a real rejection, like everyone hates us type thing. So yeah, so

Mika Ross:

I there's, there's a reason that there's pain scales on the walls at the hospital. It's because feelings are inherently really tough to communicate about. There's a lot of room for miscommunication. And so I use scales here, there and everywhere. I use them with my kids. I use them with my husband. The most benign example I have is if, if I make a really and I think that people non verbally speak very different languages. So I'm very expressive. Like, if you made me a dinner and I thought it was fantastic, I would be telling you with my whole face, oh, my hands would be moving. I would be saying, Brooke, you you need to make this on reap. You need to get a food truck. You need to sell this like you wouldn't know that I liked it. My husband, if I make a really good dinner, and I say, are you like this dinner? He says it's good, high pitched, good for me would mean it's not that great. It's not that great, but I don't want to argue about it, or I don't want to hurt your feelings, so I'm going to say it's good, but I don't really mean it. Now, instead of assuming that that's what his high pitched good meant, I started asking on a scale of zero to 10, how much do you like this meal? And he said, I kid you not, 9.5 Wow. And I was like, that's how you express 9.5 so oftentimes I'm looking at people, and one speaks not non verbally. They speak Japanese, and the other person might as well be speaking Spanish. And I think that that's another sort it's just, it's just like a constant source of miscommunication, right,

Brooke Schnittman:

right? I think of the movie line, do you understand words that are coming in my mouth, right? But like, when I used to be a sixth grade teacher, we talked about communication, and it's not just about talking or non verbal. It's about messages being received from one person to the other in the way that it's meant to be received, right? So question for you, nuance here, the scale piece. How does that make you feel asking your partner on a scale from one to 10, how he feels in anger or in how much he likes your food like? Does that make you sensitive when you have to do those types of things? Does it feel like a lot of work, or does it have a positive result on the as the outcome.

Mika Ross:

I think when we're clear, I can't if there are no blanks to fill in, I'm not going to fill them in with the worst, which I feel like our brains have a tendency to do. Our brains are wired for survival, so we're going to fill in those blanks with the worst. Now, if it is a two out of 10, I would rather know and be clear and have a conversation about what to do about it. So there have been times where, you know, I've been talking to my husband about something, and I have it has felt like he's not fully on board or fully in agreement, and because he's not really saying much, but I'll say, okay, like 00, to 100 How much are you on board with this? And he'll say, I. Oh no. Like, 95 and I'm like, Okay, so what's you're not talking a lot. So what does that mean? He's like, it means I'm so on board. I don't have a lot of words to say. I'm like, Oh, okay. So where that might have been, like, you're not really on board. Like, I can tell you're not on board. Like, yes, I am on board. What

Brooke Schnittman:

are you talking about? Like, and then his 2% madness of you gets to it, like, 20% 200% right?

Mika Ross:

Yeah, yeah. So scales. Scales help me a lot with and, and, you know, I can in session, I will, you know, sitting with two people there, somebody will say something, and I can tell maybe the other person, like, just doesn't fully believe it, because they say it kind of flat, but also, like, that's just kind of how how they communicate. And I'm like, scale is zero to 100, and they'll go 98 and the other person is, like, had no idea. So, yeah, I think scales in terms of communication, especially if you're sensitive, can help you get to the bottom of, really, what is going on in somebody else's head, so you're not filling in the blanks with the worst.

Brooke Schnittman:

I love that scale from one to 100 do you use the feeling wheel as well?

Mika Ross:

You know, I don't, I'm familiar with the feeling wheel. I don't know why I don't use it. I must have other things that I'm using. You

Brooke Schnittman:

must have other tools in your toolbox.

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah. There's

Brooke Schnittman:

no it's not good or bad or right or wrong, right? You're just not, yeah, yeah. I

Mika Ross:

wonder why. I don't have to think about that. I have no idea.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, I was using the feeling wheel today because one of my clients in group was mentioning that he had done this whole chakra assessment of himself, and then put his strengths of his chakra to describe words of who he was. And I said, you know, words make things so much better. For us, highly sensitive people, right? Like to put a label onto how we're feeling helps so much. And then I went into the feeling wheel like easily someone could say they're mad, they're angry, they're sad, but then if you take the feeling wheel and go to the outer edges, you can define a little bit more of what you are. So I

Mika Ross:

think one thing that I'm sort of strangely good at is, and this is something that, even if you don't nail it, it still works well, but when you can really paraphrase what you think somebody is saying and how that might make them feel, you know they're either gonna go yes, you know they might get teary and go yes, and then, you know, you've nailed it great. But I don't want people to be stressed out when it comes to paraphrasing and these active listening skills, because even if you whiff on that paraphrase, it still forces the other person to be more clear. No, I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm resentful, you know, I would say I'm whatever feeling, the whatever it is. So I, you know, I think in substitution of the feeling wheel, I'm probably dragging people to their feelings, you know, with paraphrases constantly. But I've, I've been told that I'm I really had to be convinced of the power of the paraphrase. When I was in graduate school, I really didn't believe it. And paraphrasing, praise, paraphrasing is just really great active listening. If you crave to feel deeply seen and heard and understood, I encourage you to learn how to say get maybe get it tattooed on your hand. Hang on. Tell me what you heard me say. Because even if your partner is not a great listener, like they're just hearing, they're not actively listening, you're if you're still getting what you need, if you can drag them into that paraphrase, like, hang on, tell me what you heard me say. Funny

Brooke Schnittman:

story for you. My husband used to do that to me. When we first met, he would paraphrase what I was saying, and I got so annoyed. I'm like, will you stop parroting me? Like, yes, I said that. And so I think intent knowing someone's a dad is really important, and there's a small group of people where that paraphrasing doesn't work, at least in the beginning.

Mika Ross:

Well, there's also skill to paraphrasing in a way that doesn't sound like parroting, and that was my biggest fear when I was learning how to paraphrase, I was like, This feels so in graduate school, if you're going to school to be a therapist, there is a point in your training where you are doing therapy with someone like maybe somebody that's first year in the program, and this is all being videotaped or watched through two way. And then every second of that video is being scrutinized by by a supervisor. And I had this tendency in sessions to really keep it surface level, like, like somebody would start going down into their feelings, and this is how we're trained to do conversation out in the world, and then you bring it back up, like

Brooke Schnittman:

everything started. I started,

Mika Ross:

and she looked at me and said, in the next session with this client, the only thing you can do for the whole hour is paraphrase. And I was like, Excuse me, she's like, that is the only thing you can do with her. You have to paraphrase for the whole hour. I thought I was going to sound like a parrot. I mean, I was sweating just her saying that. I thought it was going to be awful. I thought it was going to be terrible. I thought it was going to be awkward. I thought she was going to she already kind of hated my guts a little bit, I felt like and I didn't know why. And so I go into this session with this first year student who's older than me, who, like, clearly does not want to be there, and by the end of it, she was sobbing. She was sobbing and saying that she felt so safe with me, and that she'd had a wallet for me because I reminded her of the girls that bullied her in high school. And I was like, What in the hell just happened here? So the power of the So, it does take some you don't want to say exactly back to the person what you heard them say, if you can add on, like a feeling that you might feel, if you can do it with a question mark and curiosity at the end, like, you know, like, Oh, your son has asthma, and you had to go to the ER, God, that sounds, that sounds like traumatizing. That sounds horrifying, you know, because people will want to report on the surface like, yeah, you know, my son has asthma, and I had to go to the ER. And it's like, hang on, you had to go to the ER. That sounds, you know, I can't remember. I usually think of a better word than what I'm thinking of. But even if you don't think of the right one, they're going to go, well, it wasn't really traumatizing. We've done this a lot and, you know, but you know, I know what to look for to, you know, if I should be scared or not, but, you know, it forces people to be more clear. But yeah, yeah, there is, there is something. And yes,

Brooke Schnittman:

and it, and it shows the person empathy. My mind went off to an example, and I think the listeners might find this interesting, and you might find this interesting. I was talking to a coach, and this coach had been in the military, so and it's a she. I had told her something about my childhood. Oh, I went all the way to where she lives, and I'm not going to mention the city, but all the way where she lived. I went for a swim meet when I was 10. I qualified. It was one race, and I disqualified because and my parents all went up there. Took eight hours to drive up there because I left too early from the swim block. So where you dive? Right, it's 10. My dad had a fit with the the rough, or whatever you call it, the rough. I forget what you call it at that point. Yeah, but the guy with the whistle, the guy with the whistle, he's like, just let her swim like she doesn't have to, you know, it doesn't have to count, but just let her swim. We came all the way up here. They would not let it. So I tell this story, right? See your face. I tell this story to her, and she goes. So what's the lesson learned?

Mika Ross:

It's like, ew, uh huh. Ouch, ouch,

Brooke Schnittman:

right? So, like I feel with the parroting situation, you start with the empathy there, or you start with empathy in another sense before you go into a coaching mode, right? Or into therapy mode, or any mode, right? Yeah.

Mika Ross:

So I have this. I did not make this up. I call it the five P's. You want to postpone persuasion until you can paraphrase your partner's perspective to their liking. Oh, I love that. So until people feel understood, they often don't want to shift. So I give the example, like, if I have cancer and I go to the doctor, I don't know I have cancer. I just know I'm not feeling great. I stick out my tongue. She depresses it and goes, I think you have cancer. I haven't told you how I felt. I haven't told you what's going on. I don't I'm like, I don't believe this woman I'm getting out of here. But if somebody sits and talks with me for 15 minutes and understands that I've been having stomach pain and I'm having difficulty swallowing and and how I've been losing sleep and how it's felt like my life is being stolen. And then says, you know, I think we should run some tests. Now I'm probably gonna be more like to do. What she wants me to do, but yeah, so we have to postpone persuasion until we can paraphrase people's perspective to their liking, and

Brooke Schnittman:

it is the five keys.

Mika Ross:

And so, like a lot of times with couples, you know, they just kind of jump to that persuading part of the conversation. And they might be on the same page, but it will really sound like they're arguing, because nobody's taking the time to hear and understand each other. And if I can just, like, back it up and be like, hang on, what did you hear her say? And inevitably, people look at me like, What? Like, I'm just supposed to repeat what she said. I'm like, well, in your own words, like, what did you hear her say? And then I'll go and then how do you think that makes her feel? Take, just take a guess. Wild stab doesn't even have to be right. Then people can, once they feel heard, shift and change. I tell this story in a I have a free training for couples called How to not get stuck in communication. And I tell a story when we had little kids, our first two are 21 months apart, and we were trying to do date night on a regular basis. But all we were talking about on these date nights was how much the baby slept, how much the baby pooped, if the baby slept, if the baby pooped, and they didn't feel meaningful or worth paying the babysitter at all. And so I was like, I'm gonna like, you know, Cosmo quiz this. And I looked at him just trying to talk about anything except our children, and I said, bucket list of places. Where do you want to go before you die? He said, I don't know. Little huffy. I perceived it was a little huffy, but at that point, I was really trying to not to take a whole lot personally. And I thought, okay, maybe he's stressed about his day. Maybe, you know, I don't know, maybe he doesn't want to talk. But I didn't take it personally, and I said, Okay, well, and I thought maybe he just needs a reminder of cool places in the world. I was like, Well, I want to go to Hawaii and Italy and Spain and Greece. So where do you want to go? And he boomed back at me, I don't know. Inevitably, when I tell this story to couples that are heterosexual, the woman is like, question marks on her face. She's like, I have no idea what's happening right now. And the man is looking like me so many questions really at me like, I know what you're saying, yes. So take me away. There's two ingredients that have conversations getting stuck, getting stuck in conflict, and those are perceived criticism and defensiveness. So I knew that at that time, and I thought, how on earth could he be hearing this as criticism? And I decided to try to I thought this was a stab in the dark paraphrase. I thought it was going to be so off. I thought it was crazy. I looked at him, and I said, Do you think I'm saying that it's your job to get me to these places, and because you haven't, you are somehow failing? And he said, Yes, that's exactly what you're saying. What? And I said, Eric, I work. I'm like, it is my happiness. Is my job. If I want to get me to these places that's on me. I do not put that on you. There is no part of me that feels that way. But because I paraphrased his perspective before postponing, I kid you not, without skipping a beat the next it was like, I got a different version of him. He was no longer defensive. He said, Well, you know, I think, I think I'd want to go to Spain and Hawaii. I was like, I don't even know what's happening. This communication stuff is so wild. This is, this is nutty, yes, yes, yeah, that's what I find. It's like so many people are getting in arguments about and they'll come they say it all the time. We're fighting about stupid stuff, and the stuff that they're fighting about isn't really what they're fighting about, and it's getting under the surface of that. And just knowing some you know communication techniques to get through that can just be create. I don't these skills. There's nothing that I'm more grateful, and I could cry. There's nothing I'm more great. There's nothing that makes me feel more free than having these skills. As a kid, I thought that relationships were confusing and there's no guarantee, and that was all horrifying to me. I didn't think I'd ever get married. So, yeah, this is it's like, I can't I just, I don't know, I don't know why we're not taught this stuff. And so that's why I'm kind of like screaming it from the Internets all day, every day.

Brooke Schnittman:

Yeah, I can see how passionate you are about this topic, and how emotional like, to the core, you resonate with what you're saying. It's so authentic.

Unknown:

I appreciate that.

Brooke Schnittman:

So Micah, I wanted to just quickly wrap up here. Of course, I had so many other questions, but like that, it was a game stopper for me. Um. On what do you say? And maybe it's the five P's, because that was so powerful. What's your number one success tip for couples and families to get on the same page?

Mika Ross:

Oh, my gosh, oh, to get on the same page or

Brooke Schnittman:

communicate on the same level, yeah,

Mika Ross:

I really, I, you know, as a lot of people's definition of compromise, I don't love I think my definition of it might be a little the intent behind it is a little bit different. I think a lot of people think about, well,

Brooke Schnittman:

when you compromise, everyone loses, right? Well, when you compromise

Mika Ross:

in this way, when it's like, well, I'll do something dreadful this time and you'll do something

Brooke Schnittman:

dreadful the next time. Yeah, no, right? I'm

Mika Ross:

like, Oh, I don't love that, because the degree of dreadfulness of one person doing one thing and another person doing that's just immeasurable. And it becomes a tip for tad and, you know, and we're inevitably just like, disappointed that the other person you know isn't putting our needs above their own, like we have. So I tell people, I want them reaching for Win, win solutions, solutions that feel good to both people proactively. Like, don't go, oh yeah, I'll go to your your families on the Fourth of July if you really don't want to, it might be figuring out, like, okay, so there was, the example that I have is there was a time when I was teaching graduate school and we had three small people, and so evenings were just a lot of work. It's Bed, Bath, dinner, and it was all in my husband two nights a week when I was teaching graduate school. And so I would get home and he would look like he'd been through war,

Brooke Schnittman:

as most of us parents do at the end of the day, right?

Mika Ross:

So so I had a friend who was moving to Nashville, and I was like, Amanda wants me to go out to dinner with her in the next couple weeks, but that's gonna mean another night where you're alone. And he said, Oh, that's fine. I said, I hear you saying that's fine, but your whole body is saying that's not fine. So what would make it better? And he said, I don't know. Just go. She's your best friend. Of course, you have to go to dinner with her. Like all the right words, like all the right words were coming out of his mouth. Actions are not same as it but I say, like, the most dangerous thing a woman can say in a relationship is, never mind like her, it's fine. And that's what he was doing. And I said, But what would make it better? And I kept at it and kept at it, and he got irritated. He was like, I don't know, just go to dinner with her. She's your best friend. Just go. And I said, if you knew you had a happy hour on Friday with Matt and Neil, would that make it better? And he literally leaned on the counter and said, Oh, my God, that does make it better. I said, Good, okay, so I want people reaching for I think you have to know that they're always out there. In every circumstance, the Win Win is there, and sometimes it's just collecting information so that your perspective can change, and maybe a whole lot of behavior doesn't change, but that's the win win. So the Win Win is always there, and don't ever be doing anything that feels dreadful like that's what I would say. I

Brooke Schnittman:

love that so much. And just to put the ADHD lens on, we feel sometimes that we have to do these things because of the people pleasing the RSD. But the reality is, like the other person, your partner, probably would feel better in most times if you feel better, right? Not that you just do the thing because their family wants you to do it, or, you know, society tells you you should do that.

Mika Ross:

Yeah, when you're doing what works for you, everybody wins when you're when you're doing things that you really don't want to be doing. With a side dish of resentment. Everybody's losing Mic drop. Resentment is a slow growing relationship. Cancer, yes, yes, oh, that's good. I'm full of them. Brooke,

Brooke Schnittman:

yeah, I'm writing these down. Writing these down, all right, my guys, so where is the best place for people to reach out, get your course, find you if they want some relatable therapy relationship, scratch your eyeball, silly laughing stuff.

Mika Ross:

So the easiest place to and the most fun place to consume my content is on Instagram, at Micah Ross dot therapist, M, i, k, a, my website's Micah ross.com you'll find lots of there's two free trainings there. Free training for busy couples, how to not get stuck. Workshop. So if you feel like you're getting in stupid fights, like resentment is growing, like you don't feel as connected as you used to be, but you can't figure out what to do to get back there, then those. Are the places to start

Brooke Schnittman:

Awesome. Well, always a great conversation. And as I mentioned, if you didn't see my episode on Micah's podcast, go check it out,

Mika Ross:

which is my most popular episode, by the way,

Brooke Schnittman:

can you? Can you drop your podcast name? Here

Mika Ross:

it is, called How to talk about it. We've covered a few topics, and there's more coming. Our next episode is with a motherhood sociologist, which is really, it's was really fascinating to talk to her. So I'm loving it. So excited. Wonderful.

Brooke Schnittman:

All right. Micah, well, thank you for being a guest on successful with ADHD. Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD, I hope it helps you on your journey, and if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com, and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke, and remember, it's Brooke with an E. Thanks again for listening, see you next time you.

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