ADHDifference

S2E24: ADHD, Shame & The Power of Action + guest Mordy Gottlieb

• Julie Legg • Season 2 • Episode 24

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Julie Legg sits down with therapist, sex addiction specialist, and former pastry chef Mordy Gottlieb, who brings a refreshing perspective on ADHD, shame, and self-worth. Mordy shares his own lived experience with undiagnosed ADHD, his journey through perfectionism. He discusses why traditional talk therapy isn’t always enough and how experiential and action-based approaches can help rewire the brain more effectively.

This conversation explores what it really means to stop fixing and start accepting, offering tangible insights for those navigating ADHD, trauma, shame, and stuckness. From redefining productivity to the healing power of movement, Mordy invites us to shift how we see ourselves.

Key Points from the Episode

  • Why perfectionism and productivity can mask undiagnosed ADHD
  • The link between trauma, shame, and ADHD symptoms
  • How traditional talk therapy sometimes falls short for neurodivergent clients
  • Reframing avoidance: not as laziness, but as a nervous system response
  • The therapeutic power of experiential modalities like psychodrama and accelerated resolution therapy
  • Delegation as a key ADHD-friendly productivity tool
  • How redefining success can be a radical act of self-acceptance
  • Dancing as a metaphor, and practice, for embracing imperfection and body trust

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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or ADHDifference. Read More

JULIE: Welcome to Season 2 of ADHDifference. I'm your host, Julie Legg, ADHD advocate, author of The Missing Piece: A Woman's Guide to Understanding, Diagnosing, and Living with ADHD, and an unapologetic doer of many things. This season, we're turning up the volume with a global lineup of brilliant guests bringing their lived experiences, insights, research, strategies, and resources. And of course, along with a healthy dose of humour and humility. Whether you're neurodivergent yourself or just curious, there's something here for every curious brain. Let's dive in. Meet Mordy Gottlieb, a licensed clinical social worker and sex addiction therapist. He works primarily with men and adults who struggle with impulsivity, anxiety, shame, and disconnection, challenges that often overlap with ADHD. His focus is on helping people understand what they view as brokenness is often just an unexpressed need for connection, structure, and self-compassion. His therapeutic approach blends psycho drama, experiential therapy, and accelerated resolution therapy, offering people action-based ways to process emotion and rewire habits that traditional talk therapy can't always reach. Mordy, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. [Excited to be here.] You've shared that you've spent years hiding behind perfectionism and over-achievement. First as a pastry chef and later as a therapist while feeling scattered and disconnected all at the same time. Can you take us back to that time? 

MORDY: Yeah, absolutely. And I believe it's a time that many people resonate with and it's an ongoing journey. But early on, I was taught that there's safety in perfection, there's beauty in perfection, that I would be loved if I was perfect. And that really set me up for a lifetime of failure. Because if my benchmark is perfection, I'm never going to get there. And that took years to help me to finally realize that what I was striving for and when I told myself I was going to be okay when I get there was something that I never was going to get to. Now, what's fascinating about the pastry field and culinary specifically in baking is that you basically need close to perfection because if you give a half a cup instead of a cup, you don't or you forget something, it's probably not going to work. So I think when we're dealing with something, you know, scientific or baking and it makes sense and precision is needed. Precision is worthwhile and that's not a metaphor for life because the reality is the way I feel one day or the capacity that I have on Sunday may not may not be what I have on Monday. And while it's easy to blame myself and say I got to reach this high bar, what's it like if I bring the bar a little bit down and I my goals and expectations of myself are lower? How much better would it be. 

JULIE: What's your relationship with ADHD? Do you have ADHD yourself? 

MORDY: Yeah. And I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday and I'm sure there's a lot of science and data and research and I'm sure some people will love this, some people hate what I'm going to say. I believe for me my ADHD was because of my trauma, because of my history. I was so uncomfortable being in the moment, so uncomfortable being with myself that I would do anything to distract because the things that I enjoy, I could focus on the things that I love, I don't need medication. I don't need any coaxing. I could do it for eternity. So why is it that in other areas so to say I'm not focused or I'm scattered when it really comes down to it sensation in my body it's uncomfortable. People use all sorts of words, a tightness, a tension. A lot of people probably even don't even realize it because they've never slowed down enough to get into their body and they're so stuck up here. So to me it's about an avoidance of reality. And as we talk about, I'll tell you how I deal with my ADHD today as we go on. But for me, what I realized the first piece is having compassion for myself. I didn't choose this. I didn't want it. I would give all the money away not to have it till I learned how to deal with it. Because while you, while it's undiagnosed or not sure what to do, life sucks. You want to do something and you forget. People are relying on you. They're counting on you. Your intention is there. I'm going to remember where my keys are for sure because I know where it is right now. And then you're looking for a half hour and you're like, well, what happened? I was so clear about where we was going to be. Or my partner asked me to do something and I so much wanted to do it. It's so important to me and then they feel unseen. They feel unheard. They feel like I don't care about them. And I'm like, no, it's just this funky brain of mine that just likes doing things that are exciting and fun. And that seemed like a burden to me. That didn't seem like fun. But I was going to get back to it just as soon as I remembered. It might have been in 20 years from now, but I definitely was going to do it as soon as I found the time for it. And it felt exciting enough. 

JULIE: I can relate to that. And also, you know, the science behind ADHD. I think those things that you mentioned about when you're interested, being able to hyperfocus and be really driven and interested, but the ones that you aren't, that's when the typical ADHD triggers will, you know, the traits will kind of spill over. There are positive strengths with ADHD and harnessed and kind of thrown in the right direction, we can do amazing things. 

MORDY: And I think though there's a lot of freedom in the diagnosis if your whole life you're running around trying to figure out why you're so scattered and you blame yourself and you don't want it enough and you're like, oh well that's what the issue is. So to say it's like I know what the issue is and more importantly because the diagnosis now I know what I can do about it. Now I can finally change. So I know what you mean. I got ADHD. It's like, but that's where the solution is and that's where the empathy comes in. 

JULIE: Mordy, you've said that adults with ADHD often wrestle with shame and not because they're failing necessarily, but because they're trying to function in systems that don't, but how their brains work. What does that kind of shame look like in your clients? And how have you learned to help people move through that? 

MORDY: To me, shame is the number one offender, the number one thing that people are struggling with that makes them not want to get out of bed in the morning. It makes them feel worthless. It makes them feel unvaluable, makes it as if what they do doesn't matter and it's not important or pathetic and weak. And everybody has their own version or conversation that they tell themselves about themselves. A story that if they told the people that love them would say, "We don't see you like that. We value you so much. We appreciate you so much.” But for whatever reason, we have shame probably based on our childhood and our upbringing and all that. And because people feel shame and disconnected and they don't know how to deal with those sensations or feelings or because they're so scattered, which really means they're want to get away from their bodies and they want to disassociate in a way. It could lead to a lot of harmful ways of coping, right? Scrolling on the internet, scrolling on YouTube, that's not the end of the world. While it's not ideal and maybe a waste time, but you know, getting into pornography, getting into drugs, getting into dangerous activities, staying up late at night, drinking a tremendous amount of caffeine, really looking for ways to regulate, looking for ways to feel at home. And what ends up being if I would have just treated the problem, ADHD, how do I come back to myself, a lot of the stuff would have been would have been alleviated. We get caught up in that. Oh, yeah. This big issue and it's like no, no, no. It's just very simple. This person doesn't know how to be present how could we support them in that. So to me that's really what I see is underlying shame leads to more detrimental problems that have far more consequences than the ADHD ever had.

JULIE: My understanding is that particularly for undiagnosed ADHD adults that's where some of the self-medicating addiction kind of tendencies come and when they are medicated in many cases those things are alleviated because that self-medication drive is no longer there. What are your thoughts on that?

MORDY: The way that I look at you know people like, should I do medication? Should I not? Should I do this? Should I do that? And it's like, just try it. Just because my experience was that doesn't mean that's going to be your experience. You're you. I'm me. And you know there's a lot of stigma, there's a lot of over medication and the reality is, if it's working for you, who cares what people say? Like [ __ ] the stigma. Your life, you're not functioning as well as you could. And if there's something as simple as taking a pill that could support you, great. If you don't want to do that and we could discuss, there are many, many other ways of going about combating ADHD. I think my approach is rather unique and people when I first tell it to them are sort of skeptical or say, "Oh, you're just lazy. You're just this." And I found my approach to be so beneficial. And I love it and it's easy. And that's the main thing. 

JULIE: Through your work as a therapist, you're helping particularly men with ADHD reframe how they think about focus and productivity and success. Tell me more about your work and what's exciting you most about that work. 

MORDY: What makes me most excited is that people could actually shift and change. And there's a lot more resources out there that they probably even realize. And to me, the way that I would deal with my own ADHD and the way that I suggest my clients do, well, initially I get push back. I was on medication for a long time and it worked. There was nothing I could focus for hours on end even on tasks that I didn't enjoy. And that was great. And then I said to myself the following question. What would my life be like if the tasks that I'm avoiding, probably I'm avoiding it because I'm not good at it and don't enjoy it. Because the things that I'm good at and enjoy I'll do. What would it be like to delegate those tasks to somebody that likes and enjoys it and let them do all the scheduling, the responding, the booking, the researching? How would my life be then? So, I did an experiment. I went off medication and I said the things that I don't like, I'm going to delegate to somebody else. And while people initially say, "Oh, that's going to cost me a lot of money." I found I have somebody who literally everything I don't like to do and that I avoided in my ADHD because I didn't like to do, he does. And there's been such freedom in accepting I'm not good at scheduling people and going back and forth via email six times. That's just not who I am. It's, I'm never going to be good at it. I could force myself to do it or I could be medicated to do it, but what's it like to not have to try something to accept that I need help? I'm just one person. I can't do everything alone. And more importantly, as men, we don't have to do everything alone. There's a belief of like I'm weak. I'm pathetic. I should just be able to do it. But when I think about productivity, right? We're having this conversation now. I have somebody working for me right now. I was traveling today for an hour. I had somebody working during that time. I think it's a massive productivity hack in addition too it alleviates me from all that pressure and that's what I that's where I found tremendous freedom to do what you love and know that the things that you don't love are still going to get done is very liberating. 

JULIE: Well done. Just because we're good at something doesn't mean that we necessarily enjoy it. It could be because we feel we have to because that's what our pay-check tells us that we should do but we might not necessarily enjoy that aspect. So I love I love that perspective. Thank you. Mordy, you also talk about helping adults move from self-criticism into this self-trust view which is really powerful. What sort of practical strategies or mindset changes really help those people make that leap? 

MORDY: I always tell my people, we get self-esteem by doing esteemable actions. And we could talk about in a therapy session, we could talk about in a coaching session about change. If talk was the solution, we all would have been healed. The world would be a better place. Unfortunately, just talking about it or thinking about it and going over it again and again and committing to ourselves unfortunately doesn't make change. I wish it did because then you all would have been better a long time ago. Some of the things that I like to do, which is unusual, but it works, is how do we help people practice that? So, if I'm in a session with somebody and we want them to have a challenging conversation with somebody, it's easy to tell them just do it, but it doesn't feel safe. What's it like if we could recreate that? Not recreate, you could create that conversation that they're going to have in the future, but bring it into the now. Let's set up the office as if you're having this conversation with your partner. Where would the couch be? Where would where would it be in connection to the door? Where would you sit? Where do you think she would sit? And let the client try that on and role play that and see what that's like. You have somebody that's afraid of asking for a raise at work. There's no thinking about it that's going to make them feel comfortable. The only way they're going to feel comfortable is if they actually do it. And when we do it in a safe environment, even though quote-unquote it's make believe and fantasy, we all deal with that the whole day. We get anxious based on fantasy, not reality. And what's in our mind is what feels true to my body. So if we could have a client so to say ask his boss for a raise and then we have that client become the boss and respond with something harsh let's say, and then they go back to their role and they get to notice what that feels like and they start practicing it. To me it's all about action but I think it's unreasonable just to expect people to take action because they have the knowledge because unfortunately knowledge to me is not power. Most of my clients know everything. Occasionally I could tell them something new, something snarky, something funny, maybe a little bit education and most of the stuff they know. So more importantly, it's how do we get in touch with what's preventing them to implement the knowledge or even better, how do we do it with them, the action so that they start getting into the motion or they body starts experiencing what that's like. To me, that's the most powerful. 

JULIE: I've been reading up on just that, on visualizing the win not just in your mind but actually feeling the feelings of small wins of good experiences. That trains your brain to respond in that way should that situation comes up. However, if we're always thinking and visualizing failure and things not working out, as you said, it's like a rehearsal. We're almost setting ourselves up for that experience to come out at that moment. So, being positive and looking at proactive solutions and situations sounds perfect and I'm very excited by that. Absolutely. 

MORDY: Could I give you just one or two other things that I just thought of as you were talking of like mindset shifts that are really subtle but really talk to the reality? Because the reality is what I believe mental health is the commitment to reality at all costs. I tell my clients like this I say, look you're not feeling great but you're coming in here not because you on a winning streak, not because life is peachy and rosy, because you're feeling like [ __ ] And I remind my clients like this again. It's subtle and it's so true. I said either you could feel like [ __ ] getting well. Not going to be easy. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be uncomfortable, but at least you're going to be getting well, or your other option is you could just feel like [ __ ] Reminding people that what they're doing is hard. They're struggling anyways. If they have to put in the work, they might as well do it in a way that's going to benefit them long term, that's going to lead to wellness. So there's this fantasy that one day it's going to be easy. One day my problems are just going to go away. I tell my guys that come home, I say, "Here's the bad news. If you don't change today, in 20 years, we'll be having the same conversation. It's not going to go away. That fantasy has to be busted. So if it's challenging anyways, let's just help you get well while dealing with the uncomfortable feelings." 

JULIE: You use some really interesting therapeutic modalities. Psychodrama, experiential therapy and accelerated resolution therapy that go beyond the traditional talk therapy as we've discussed. So for someone with ADHD, why can those approaches be so effective? 

MORDY: They're so effective because instead of talking about change, we're actually doing change. That's really what people need. I remind them and this is unfortunate. People think it has to be harder than it is. I ask guys all the time. I say, "You want this to be easy? You want this to be hard?" You say, "Well, how the results going to be?" I said, "The results will be the same." You say, "I think I think I want it to be hard." Because imagine somebody struggled for 20 years with a problem and then you tell them, "We could we could help you rather quickly." It could feel to them so invalidating. It could feel to them like, "Oh, you're not taking my problem seriously. You almost don't realize how severe it is." And part of the reason why I could get away with saying almost anything I want to my clients, being very straightforward with them, is because the amount of compassion that I have, the amount of lived experience, a professional experience, they see that and they feel that and that comes across. So this modality type of drama is like we talked about, more experiential, more trying things on seeing how it feels more doing more showing your body. This is what it looks like to do accelerated resolution therapy. I'm not sure if you ever heard of it. It's most similar to EMDR which is you know using eye movement. And really what's that therapy is and what they believe. We all have stories we tell ourselves. But more importantly, we all for most of us, not everyone has this, but most of us have images that we see. Like if I think about my ADHD, it's like I just noticed all the times I didn't want to go to school, all the times that I avoided. And what really I'm teaching my brain is by avoidance is that it's not safe. And that's another important piece actually as we're talking I'm not the thing is anytime I avoid doing something I'm telling my brain hey this is not safe for you to do. How do we retrain the brains? How come you're 50 years old and still reacting to something that happened when you were a child? So what we do is we take out those images, we take out the memory and we really reframe them. We say to the person, how do you want to remember it right? We help them notice their day, maybe we have them imagine their day that they're struggling. I struggle here. I struggle here. Just notice it like you're watching a little video. And then we go and we say, "Well, now go through your day as if you want to go through your day where you're not avoiding maybe certain things." And just like you talked about, the visualization piece combined with the eye movements really help it settle in the brain, really help it cement in the brain. So, it's not just, oh, I thought about it, now 10 minutes later, it's not here anymore. It really shifts the way the brains see situations. We could put in an ally. We could put in a mantra. We could put in anything we want so that the person moving forward really feels supportive. So again, it's not talking. It's going directly to the brain and changing the way it thinks, changing the way it sees things. And that provides healings so rapidly that it's too good to be true. And I see results every day that are just tremendous. And they get me excited to get out of bed in the morning is people don't have to work that hard. 

JULIE: Wow. And what's an amazing reward as a therapist to get and see those results from your clients. That's fabulous. 

MORDY: I want to share with you one other piece that again, I realize you know when I talk about I look at things very different than a lot of people and it comes from a place of such deep compassion so deep in acceptance of reality. It's really important for me to recognize and it's a balance and it's a challenge that when clients do well, I work really hard not to take credit. Because if I take credit when they do well, what happens when they don't do well? Then I also have to take responsibility that Mordy's not doing enough. So really what I focus on with my clients is am I taking care of myself? Am I getting enough sleep, getting enough rest? Am I managing my schedule in a way that works for me? Am I not overstressing my brain? Am I, and this is so important in ADHD management, am I planning my day to do the things at the times that work for me? Many clients want to come in the morning. I don't start work till 11:00. That's just not the way my brain operates. I'm more of 11 to 7 type of person. So, that's how I look at am I showing up for my clients or not. And what happens is on them in the sense of I can't control them. and I can't do the work for them. Sometimes I wish I could because I'm like, if you were just doing this one thing. But I'm humbled that I can't control anybody. I could really control myself. 

JULIE: You said that ADHD isn't something to fix, but it's an invitation to reimagine what focus and productivity and success can look like on our own terms. And I really love that. How do you personally define success now? 

MORDY: And this is a very deep question of making it may sound philosophical. This is really what I believe for myself. I believe for my clients, but I don't think anybody else agrees with me. And this is my truth. Anyways, no matter what I do or no matter what I don't do, I'm still a success. No matter what I do, no matter what I don't do, I'm still a success. Because if I could do better, I would do better. There's so many times in my life that people said, "Oh, why didn't, why did you do that?" And it's like, "Do you know my trauma history? Do you know what I've been through? Do you know my childhood? Do you know every single interaction that I had with life made it that I just didn't have the capacity to do better? I would have done anything not to do that." Unfortunately, with the tools that I had at that moment, I could not do better. I'm alive and it's always an opportunity to try new things, to take experiment, to take risks, they quote-unquote make mistakes. Of course, I'm a human being, but I really work on not defining my success based on things that I do or don't do. 

JULIE: Mordy, for someone who's listening who is still stuck in that place of shame or perfectionism, maybe still trying to earn their worth doing. What would you most want them to hear? 

MORDY: People are essentially they're stuck. That's really what a lot of people are dealing with for whatever the reason, ADHD, shame, addiction, OCD, trauma, whatever it is. Ultimately, people for the most part feel like they're not doing enough. Right? You have some people that are overachievers. They thought you're doing too much, but day-today most people like, I want to do more. I want to move. I want to… I'm going give you a suggestion that's again practical, simple, but unfortunately most people will never do it because it's the simplest thing. And that's one of the challenges I faced. It's getting back to if I told them I have to go to Duiwasta for a month-long retreat, people probably open to that. Wow, I'm going to do that. That's amazing. That's exciting. If I tell them that they need to, you know, do a silent yoga meditation for a week, they probably would do that because it makes sense to them. If people want to shift their mindset, if they want to shift their bodies, if they want to start realizing that they don't have to be perfect, what they need to start doing is starting to dance more, to put on music and learn to start moving. This is who I am. This is how I show up. I can move my hand like this. Even if somebody thinks that's pathetic, I can move my hand like that. I can move my body. And we start learning this is who I am. This is how I show up. I'm not being embarrassed of my body. I don't have to be embarrassed for who I am. And just like in dancing, there's no time to think about the last step that I took. Was that the perfect or right step? I had no time to think about that because I'm on to the next one. And by the time I did that, I'm on for the next one. And dancing is really just about moving. And it doesn't have to be fast. It doesn't have to be slow. It's an invitation just to start trusting your body. What do I need? Right? And there's one thing that I would do if I had the capacity to. I just because of my ADHD, I don't have the capacity to, you know, do the logistics. But if I could do one thing with my life, I would go around the world and teach people how to dance, how to move in a way that's not connected to choreography. It's not connected to perfectionism. It's how am I feeling right now? Some days I'm going to dance large. Some days I'm going to dance small. Some days I might not move at all because I don't want to dance. But really practicing and embodying movement, being in touch with your body, and really accepting not being perfect. That would have been my message. Not what you expected, I'm sure. 

JULIE: Not what I expected, but I'm so glad you shared that. I love it. Well, I might just need to go and dance some more this morning after my breakfast has settled. Mordy, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your lived experiences as a therapist and with so much knowledge and alternative perspectives on a whole bunch of things. I love it. I really appreciate your time and in chatting and sharing those insights with our listeners. Thank you. 

MORDY: Thank you so much for having me. It was just such a delight and I'm grateful for the work that you're doing. Thank you.

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Julie Legg

Host
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Jel Legg

Co-host
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Mordy Gottlieb

Guest