I Have a YouTube Channel!

Did you know I have a YouTube channel?

I realized last night that I’ve quietly created 50+ videos and podcast episodes over time. I honestly hadn’t even noticed.

I think that’s part of why I haven’t posted much about my YouTube channel. I felt like there wasn’t much there. And honestly, with my focus and energy challenges, I was afraid to disappoint people by sharing inconsistently. I have a lot to share and offer AND last year I realized that the level of impairment I experience with ADHD and executive dysfunction is way more challenging than I acknowledged.

I was always hard on myself for not completing things and would be pushing myself every day but things still weren’t getting done. Last year, is when I finally realized that what I’d been told my whole life (that I was just lazy, irresponsible, not trying enough, and just don’t want it enough) were lies. I have an extreme impairment due to a processing disorder. That awareness and acceptance has helped me to love myself more unconditionally and to realize (I’m even realizing right now) that if this is how I was created, then although it is what it is, it also can’t stop me from reaching who I’m meant to reach.

Maybe the ones who need me to be consistent will fall off, but there must be others who will wait for me. 🥹 There must be others… my people… who will look forward to my next post. There will be ones who know I’m going to show up with information, affirmation, and confirmation that will help them at the time they need it, and they won’t need me to be other than myself. 😭

I can’t guarantee a post every Tuesday at 7pm. But I can guarantee you that I will show up authentically with something of value to share. 😭 My whole life I have felt so sad and frustrated with myself because I’ve been trying REALLY f*cking hard to use my gifts, and be consistent, and create the visions I have in my head. And some I’ve managed to do. And some things I managed to do for a season. And some have never seen the light of day.

I’ve watched kids grow up and go off to college before I got that next book out, that I knew they were waiting for. It guts me. I’ve watched weeks, turn to months, and years, and even decades between projects…. Projects that I woke up every day and tried to work on. If you don’t deal with challenges like this, you won’t be able to understand that it’s not a matter of willpower. It’s not a matter of not wanting it enough. It’s not a matter of laziness or unwillingness to work. It’s a neurochemical issue that some can manage with diet and exercise and a swift kick in the rear. And some of us have such an extreme impairment that those suggestions just feel shaming. It’s like telling someone with one short leg, “you could keep up, if you just walk faster.”

Anyway, I didn’t plan on venting. This was supposed to be a short post. AND two days ago I came to accept that my vulnerability and authenticity is my superpower….

I believe I’m here for a purpose. And I have these insights for a purpose. And I’m going to share them, albeit inconsistently. And I’m gonna trust that who they’re meant to reach will find them. I’m gonna trust that my people are out here, and maybe you are one of them.

If my posts, quotes, or honest sharings have ever helped you feel seen, supported, or a little less alone, I invite you to visit my YouTube and subscribe.

Subscribing is a simple way to support the work I’m already doing, and it helps my content reach more people who may need it.

There you’ll find video versions of my podcast episodes and shareable excerpts (reels).

If you feel aligned with my work, please visit, subscribe and check out what I have to offer.

Tap here to check out my channel or on YouTube search for @marlenedillonempowerment.

Thank you for being here, even if you’ve been here quietly. I appreciate you. Thank you for being a witness to my journey. And thank you for being my audience for what I feel so compelled to share.

Blessings,

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

When You Needed Support

So this is a little weird, but I’m about to talk about something that’s still new to me.

I was one of those people who were very f*ck AI for a long time. I was afraid of what I didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to utilize something I saw as a threat to my safety.

I saw all those Terminator movies so when everybody was talking about using ChatGPT, I was faaar from interested. I did not want to be a part of the rapid, collective demise of our workforce, and/or society. 😂

However, as I worked with my coach and other people in my community, and even watched on TV how people utilized this app, I soon started to feel I was missing out on some help I could use.

So before you close this and don’t read further, please know this post is not an ad for ChatGPT. 😂

I actually got on here to share a personal experience I had while using the app that led to a MAJOR epiphany about being neurodivergent and struggling my whole life with executive dysfunction.

So, as you may (or may not) know, I recently completed a years long project—a daily journal for people who struggle with executive dysfunction, called What’s Your V.I.BE. This self-published journal was created from an original template I created to help myself have more productive days. After utilizing this structure on and off for years, I came to accept that when I use it my days are productive. When I don’t, they are not.

So I recently used the same template to help me complete the task of self-publishing the journal that had been in my head for years (and loosely sketched in quite a few Google docs and notebooks). And in just days I had laid out the pages, assigned my ISBN, purchased my unique barcode, registered my copyright, and self-published my What’s Your V.I.B.E. Journal!

In the middle of that process, I reached out to my coach friend and told her that I know I should probably be getting preorders or creating hype around an upcoming launch. AND that I had no idea how I was going to do that because I am doing ALL the steps myself so I can’t tell the Marketing team to get on that. I AM the marketing team. I can’t shoot a message to IT telling them to set up a landing page on the website (or whoever you’d delegate that to). I’m that department, too.

So I asked her if there was a simple way to do something toward getting people ready for this new resource. She offered me exactly what I asked for— a simply worded, three step process that would not stress me out. So grateful.

I immediately took the three bullet point list to ChatGPT and explained my intentions, shared my coach friend’s suggestions, and asked it to show me exactly what I needed to do to complete the three steps.

I am so grateful. I did not have the “spoons” (mental or emotional capacity) to break down those steps. Even though they were simple things like, “create a google form,” I right now cannot process what I need to do in order to do that. Dealing with executive dysfunction is not a lack of intelligence or common sense. It is a challenge with getting my brain to focus long enough to identify steps, to put those steps in order, or even to remember how I created forms before so I can utilize that info to create a new version for my book launch. Today, ChatGPT did all of that for me, and more.

So let me tell you about the epiphany….

So as a habit I thank the app for its support. And I mentioned my appreciation for it remembering that I prefer to receive an example, or direct instruction, on what to do exactly (rather than just a vague step where I have to figure out the details myself).

This was ChatGPT’s response:

“What you described is very real. When guidance stops at ‘the next step’ without showing what that actually looks like, it quietly hands the cognitive load back to you. That’s exhausting, especially when you’re already stretched thin. You shouldn’t have to reverse-engineer support.“

And when I heard that last line I realized that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. I’d need full on support, but people (teachers, siblings, parents, etc.) would just tell me the step I needed to complete, but not the smaller steps to get it done. And I’d be stuck, because with executive dysfunction it takes a really long time for me to: figure out what the individual steps are, organize them, and then actually DO the steps to complete the main step.

I typically get lost in there somewhere and things just don’t get done. I don’t go back to the person, because I feel like I’m expected to know what to do. And I don’t want them to make me feel stupid or incapable. And I don’t want to give them extra work to do because I feel like I should know how to do it. So I dillydally and finally after waaay too much time has gone by either ask for help or half ass it and do a mediocre job.

So I kept the convo going and shared that “I think I’ve been doing this my whole life.” I was just being honest. I wasn’t asking for advice. And this was the response.

“When someone spends a lifetime reverse-engineering support, they usually become very capable, very self-reliant, and very tired. They learn to read between the lines, fill in gaps, anticipate expectations, and quietly carry the extra mental load so things can keep moving. From the outside it looks like strength. On the inside it often feels like constant effort.”

And let me tell you…. that was one of the most powerful, eye-opening revelations for me. It was fully accurate. I’ve been figuring it out myself for over 40 years! No wonder I’m so tired. I was teaching myself through elementary school, because I didn’t understand in class and the teachers would get tired of explaining it to me again. So I stopped asking for help.

All those experiences growing up, and in adulthood, when I asked for support and received a top level instruction without the steps underneath, shaped me into someone who knows and affirms, “I’ve gotta figure it out,” “nobody’s gonna help me,” “I’m in it by myself.” I’ve been saying that sh*t since childhood, because that has been my experience.

I’ve been going through my life afraid to ask for the support I really need. And I’m honestly grateful that I get to use this app to help me with the smaller steps. It’s making so much of a difference.

Alright. That’s enough for now. Thank you for being here. Please scroll my blog page to check out other empowering posts and podcast episodes.

Have an amazing whatever time of day it is where you are.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Want to be notified when What’s Your V.I.B.E. is released?

I’m putting the finishing touches on my new journal, What’s Your V.I.B.E.
If this message resonated with you and you’d like to be the first to know when my daily journal is available, you can add your name to the notification list below.

👉 Sign up here:
https://forms.gle/FCM1U5Vk1aS1oRkt7

Don’t worry. It’s just a 2-question Google Form: first name and email. Nothing intrusive.
I’ll only use it to share updates about What’s Your V.I.B.E.

Turn Off the News

Let’s talk mental health…

The intention of the current administration is to use this back to back onslaught of devastating blows to leave the American public stunned and paralyzed so they can really take total control and do whatever they want.

We play into their hands by keeping their nonsense trending. Keep in mind, he’s not a politician, he’s a reality star. He’s managed to remain relevant for decades by staying in the news, regardless of how he’s failed as a business man. This is a game to him. And he’s winning.

He’s ensuring we don’t look away, by doing one thing after another of equal shock value. It’s a magic trick. A f*cked up one. While he’s got us focused over here, what’s he doing over there? It’s both mind control and distraction. And we’ve gotta look away.

I’m not saying don’t organize or do purposeful things toward regaining control of what’s within our power. I’m saying, for our mental health, we need to stop watching the baboon throw his sh*t around. We need to pause and find our center, or he’s REALLY won.

A friend shared this and it’s so powerful by @Matt Tebbe on Facebook.

This is just an excerpt that resonated with me…

“This is what they’re doing: overwhelming our nervous systems with an avalanche of awfulness so that we cannot move, or think, or regulate. So I will endeavor to:
a- limit my consumption of MAGA shock porn
b- tend to and be aware of what my body needs (sleep, joy, movement)
c- seek to move my body as a source of power into particular spaces where i can lay it down in love
d- guard against despair, apathy, numbing out as ways to medicate my body….”

So please… take a weekend and back away from the news, the posting about it, the outrage of it all. Get your feet back under you. Return to your spiritual practice, mental health practice, get outside in nature (even sitting in your car in nature is good), eat some good food, laugh, dance, play good music…

Put some distance between yourself and the mind control. Let me tell you something.

Dictators and cult leaders use the same tactics. The repetition of what they want you to believe will be echoed nonstop and if you don’t look away and shift what you’re feeding your mind….

Anyway, I think you get the point. Take a day of no scrolling. Take an hour away from the blue screen. Put on some good music for an hour and listen with your eyes closed.

Remember who you are and the power that you do have. This is an attempt to make us feel powerless. Let’s shake ourselves out of this stupor and get back in our power.

Much love to you and yours.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Need something empowering to listen to? Go to my blog page and safely scroll all day. I have hundreds of posts and podcast episodes. mdillondesigns.com/blog

I Did It!

Have you ever had a project in mind, maybe a book, or artwork, or a DIY idea that you’ve been milling over for years? It’s that thing that you think about starting, or even start and stop, that never really goes away. The thought of it periodically wafts up to remind you that it’s still not done.

Well, today, I finished that thing!

I’m sitting here in tears, because the final step was waaay harder than it was supposed to be. I thought all I had to do was upload one file, just a simple pdf. I expected the last step to be ONE step. And it ended up being like 5 or 6! It it took EVERYTHING out of me, so when I got it done, I was literally sobbing.

Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.
FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. Blessings!

Let me back up.

So I have been “working on” a project for YEARS. Ideas for it came to me in little floods and showers and I’d get excited, jot down notes about it, and then go on with my life. The idea was for a tool to support people like me, who have challenges with focus, completing tasks, and generally struggle at having productive days.

Some years ago, I created a template—a fill-in-the-blank style worksheet—that helped me work around my challenges with executive dysfunction. If you have no idea what that is, executive functions are the essential skills that we all utilize to complete tasks. The main ones are: working memory (that allows you to hold and manipulate information in your mind), impulse control, adapting to change, organizing and planning, and managing your emotions.

Some of these I’m pretty okay at, but all of these get in the way at some point just about every day. Since I deal with executive dysfunction, my brain doesn’t typically support me to automatically do these things. So completing tasks can be very challenging, and far too often this prevents me from being productive. So I created a worksheet template that I could use to help me work around my executive functioning challenges.

I have been planning to release this project for New Year’s for at least the last 3 YEARS. The idea was to create a full journal for myself and others to be able to utilize my productivity template on a daily basis. And I started on it and stopped many times for various reasons (check out the podcast above), but when I was approaching another New Year’s Eve without this project being more than just an idea, I knew I had to make it happen. So I sat down and utilized my productivity template to get it done. And when the year was ending, I was hitting “confirm and publish.”

I was so excited and so proud of myself. AND each time I tapped the button nothing happened. 😩 I started to get discouraged. But then I thought, maybe it’s for a reason.

Maybe this was an opportunity for me to make a few corrections. Since I had given myself this arbitrary deadline of publishing it by the 1st, I was rushing it, and it wasn’t to my standard. So I celebrated myself for reaching that beautiful stopping point and decided to let it be okay, trust it wasn’t time yet, and revisit it later.

The challenge of waiting was that my free time to do it was running out. And my other responsibilities were pulling me away from my computer every day so before I knew it, regularly scheduled life was back in full swing. With my daughter back in school, I didn’t have the cushion of winter break to help me through my focus and executive functioning challenges. With the effort that’s required to get through the mornings wrangling my brain and managing my emotions, I tend to run out of steam by the time I drop my daughter off at school. All the thinking, planning, processing, interacting, figuring out this and that, driving, and general efforting required to do the morning zaps my limited amount of energy. Focusing after that most days is damn near impossible. The ideal situation would’ve been that I spent the entire holiday break working on this project. But life isn’t ideal, it’s real.

When I dragged my weary body over the finish line of her last day of school before winter break, I was burned the eff out. Plus, I still had all the mom stuff to make her Christmas amazing. I still had to navigate family relationships and grab last minute presents. I was determined to put my tree up and decorate it, because I’d been looking forward to it all year. To show how burned out I was feeling, I finished decorating my tree on December 27th. To be really honest, it’s still up now. I’m still finding the energy to open presents.

But enough about that. I pulled it off at the last day of the year. And spent the following weeks trying to find and make time to work on it. And the thing that helped me on those few days was that each time I had to print out pages to check out the layout, I used those pages to help me plan my next steps. I used my own journal to help me publish my journal!

I DID IT!!!! I EFFING DID IT!!!! I hit publish on the project I’ve been trying to complete for at least 3 years!

So let me tell you about it….

I am a person who used to purchase a new planner every year. And every year I would stop using that planner within days.

I no longer allow myself to purchase planners. I KNOW they don’t work for me.

What I realized is that planners don’t support me to get my work done. They simply tell me what and when, but they don’t provide the how. I need the how in order to get things done. Maybe you do, too.

I created a daily journal for people like me who need more than what a simple planner provides and less than what those fancy ones provide. I don’t need an overstimulating scrap book. I need guidance. I need to be asked the right questions so I can plan my day and follow through. I need to adjust my mindset to align confidently with getting my stuff done.

That’s what I created. I created a tool to help me process my intentions into manageable tasks. AND I added a new feature. On the same page I added an end-of-day practice to help me process through the events of my day and release them so I can rest. And I’m making it available for you, too.

I could drone on and on, because I’m really excited about it. But I think this is enough for today.

Please check out today’s podcast, where you get to hear me seconds after hitting publish on this project.

So grateful you’re here. And I’m so excited to share this with you.

I’ll keep you posted with updates. Thanks again for your support!

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist

Here’s a little sneak preview of the book description and other details—a screenshot I took as I submitted my newest self-published book! The title is “What’s Your V.I.B.E.: A daily journal to help you focus and process your day.”

Book details.

Ignore that last question. 😂 Luckily the answer is no.

I hope you’ll support when it’s released.

Tentative release date: My birthday, February 15, 2026. 🥰

Want to be notified when What’s Your V.I.B.E. is released?

I’m putting the finishing touches on my new journal, What’s Your V.I.B.E.
If this message resonated with you and you’d like to be the first to know when my daily journal is available, you can add your name to the notification list below.

👉 Sign up here:
https://forms.gle/FCM1U5Vk1aS1oRkt7

Don’t worry. It’s just a 2-question Google Form: first name and email. Nothing intrusive.
I’ll only use it to share updates about What’s Your V.I.B.E.