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May 12
What happens when the thing you thought wasn’t for you, like meditation, turns out to be exactly what your brain needed?
Kelly Smith is a meditation teacher, yoga instructor, podcast host, and the creator of Mindful in Minutes, which has guided over 23 million meditations to date. Diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, Kelly grew up feeling like she didn’t quite fit anywhere. School was a struggle, friendships were hard, and her self-esteem took a major hit. But everything began to shift when, at just 16, she discovered yoga and mindfulness as a way to support her mom through breast cancer and to reconnect with herself.
In this episode, Kelly and Tracy talk about why traditional meditation advice often fails ADHD women and what actually works instead. Kelly shares her unique approach to building a sustainable meditation practice that doesn’t require perfection or stillness. Sometimes it just takes a few moments of self-awareness to create a real shift. They talk about creative batching, emotional regulation, her color-coded systems, and why walking without your phone might be more powerful than you think.
Whether you’re curious about meditation, skeptical of mindfulness, or simply looking for a way to feel more grounded, this episode offers a fresh and practical take. It’s about finding calm in ways that work with your brain, and creating space to come back to yourself.
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"You start small, a few minutes a day, and over time, you build that focus muscle. You’re not failing when you get distracted. You’re practicing when you come back."
- Kelly Smith
"After eight weeks of meditation, the amygdala shrinks and the prefrontal cortex strengthens. You’re literally changing the parts of the brain tied to fear, anxiety, focus, and memory."
- Kelly Smith
"You don’t have to meditate for 30 minutes. You don’t need to sit a certain way. Just find a voice you like and start with five minutes. That’s enough."
- Kelly Smith
"There’s so much creativity in the ADHD brain. When we slow down even a little, the best parts of us finally have room to come through."
- Kelly Smith
"The world told me yoga wasn’t a real job. But I knew how it made me feel. So, I followed the spark anyway."
- Kelly Smith
"Meditation didn’t silence my thoughts, it taught me how to come home to them. It showed me I didn’t have to fix my brain. I just had to stop fighting it."
- Kelly Smith
- Kelly Smith, a renowned yoga and meditation teacher, shares her experience of being diagnosed with both ADHD and dyslexia in sixth grade, describing how school was a struggle compared to her neurotypical sister.She recalls refusing to learn to read in first grade because it was so difficult, and explains that rather than defiance, her behavior stemmed from low self-esteem and feeling "dumb" when she couldn't grasp concepts that came easily to others.
- Kelly discusses how these early experiences shaped her childhood, feeling different and lonely until she eventually embraced her authentic self in her mid-twenties, which led to finding her true path as a yoga teacher and connecting with people who appreciated her unique qualities.
- Kelly Smith describes how her path to mindfulness began at age 16 when her mother was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, and she learned that visualization and mindfulness techniques could help with her mother's immune system.
- She explains how yoga became her "life raft" during difficult times, leading her to eventually take yoga teacher training after college and open her own studio in a small Missouri town when her husband attended medical school there.
- Kelly reflects on how this unexpected detour became transformative for her career, allowing her to develop her teaching style and build a community, emphasizing how following her passion despite others' skepticism ("you're just going to teach yoga until you can be a doctor's wife?") ultimately led to her success.
[27:00 - 49:39] Meditation for the ADHD Brain
- Kelly Smith explains how meditation helped her debunk myths about her brain, comparing avoiding meditation because you have ADHD to being "too dirty to take a shower," and describing how meditation works like resistance training for the brain.
- She details the neuroscience behind meditation's benefits for ADHD brains, explaining how regular practice causes the amygdala (anxiety center) to shrink while strengthening the prefrontal cortex, creating more capacity to focus and regulate emotions.
- Kelly offers practical advice for ADHD-friendly meditation, suggesting starting with short guided meditations from teachers whose voices resonate with you, color-coding to-do lists to prioritize tasks, and embracing the unique creative insights that neurodivergent minds often experience during mindfulness practice.
- Website: yogaforyouonline.com
- Instagram: yogaforyouonline
- Podcast: Mindfulness in Minutes Meditation
- Youtube: @mindfulinminutes
