I was volunteering at a silent retreat this week. Working in the kitchen allowed for some conversation but also a lot of silence and peaceful contemplation. At brunch today the retreat ended and silence was lifted. It took less than an hour for me to become so overstimulated that I had to retreat myself! I'd been getting up at 4am to prepare breakfast & coffee and lying down for a nap at 10am after clean up was done. Brunch was served at 9 so my schedule was off as was everyone else's on the kitchen team. I'm sure that contributed. After I went back to nap a friend wanted to talk about her retreat experience. This helped me to realize once I am overstimulated by sound I cannot carry on a conversation until I have rested and reset. What makes you overstimulated the fastest? How do you overcome it and reset?

I'm a great cook if I do say so myself. I'm not much of a recipe follower. I mostly cook by smell. Yesterday I decided to boil an egg. I put it in a pot of water & turned on the stove. The phone rang so I took the call. Then after a couple of minutes I got off the phone and started surfing skool. I decided to work on my summit stuff so I went upstairs. Then I smelled something burning. Damm! I forgot my egg. Figuring the pot boiled dry I rushed down the stairs. The house was full of smoke. Wtf? The egg wasn't on that long! I get into the kitchen and discovered the egg wasn't on at all. I turned on the wrong burner. Yup cooking with ADHD can be lots of fun. As long as the phone doesn't ring.