Dear neurokin,

I recently took part in a local community panel discussion about making sense of neurodiversity. It was part of a series called Livewell; a safe space for people to explore complex topics about what it takes to live well.

As always, I was delighted to be invited to take part and then ridiculously (autistically?) nervous when it came to the actual speaking part.

I prepared a couple of pages of notes that I never again referred to, some parts of what I’d scripted were never even mentioned. Of course, those pieces of paper gave me some comfort.

Whilst I started out the panel discussion feeling a bit nervous, I noticed something major had shifted in me by the end of it.

I had a fire in my belly about what we’re really asking for in seeking acceptance of being neurodivergent.

On my panel tonight..

I was sitting between two women on the panel who have been hugely influential in giving my family a language of understanding.

Not a label.

An explanation of what neurodiversity meant for each of us.

To the left of me was the Inclusion lead from my children’s junior school. Her name is Sam and her title of INCCO (Inclusion Co-Ordinator) is no accident. Deliberately choosing her function to be titled Inclusion and not Special Education Needs is what makes her stand apart from so many within the education system.

Everything she put in place for our eldest child, as he anxiously explored what it might mean for him to autistic, had him and his needs at the centre of it.

He played chess with the deputy head, Mr Ringland, every lunchtime, because that was where he felt safest. Mr Ringland cultivated his love of The Simpsons and Geo Politics.

Every time the Local Authority refused to provide our autistic child funding for the support he needed, to navigate his huge mainstream Primary school and soon Secondary education settings, Sam picked me up ‘off the floor’. Often I was a sobbing wreck. She encouraged and supported me to go on. To continue to fight for the support he so obviously needed.

Sadly, Sam and Mr Ringland have both left Education now. There’s little time or resource for children’s needs to be placed at the centre of decisions made in education.

I suspect they both grew weary of these realities and the rigidity of an education system that gate keeping politicians refuse to adapt to modern living.

To the right of me was Dr Kat. We first met Dr Kat, Clinical Physiologist, on a Zoom call during the first COVID lockdown. Gently she helped us to understand what was causing our child such distress that he was regularly banging his head with his hands, biting his own hand, struggling with intrusive thoughts and prone to running away in crowded spaces.

I feel lucky that we had access to these two professionals in education and health systems. Without them, our child would not have a deep knowledge of or be accepting of his Autism. He would not be thriving, as he is now, in secondary education.

Because, we were lucky and these people are sadly rare finds within our education and health systems.

How neurodivergent identification helps us to live well

Whilst I assume most of you reading this are exploring your own neurodivergent identify, some of you may be reading this to support family or a friend who is neurodivergent.

Maybe you’re an advocate or ally for us neurokin? If so, thank you.

I want to briefly emphasise here how life changing it is to have access to information that helps you to understand and adapt to your neurological difference:

• What it is that makes you different in how

  • you experience the world through your senses

  • you communicate and engage with others

• How this affects your nervous system

  • what makes you energetically/emotionally dysregulated

  • understanding what helps you to regulate your energy and emotions

  • understanding that pushing beyond your limits can cause repeated burnout

• How neurodivergence may be linked to physical conditions that affect you

  • chronic fatigue

  • hyper mobility

  • chronic pain

  • gastrointestinal issues

  • autoimmune disesases

  • dysautonomia (POTS)

  • hormone related conditions (PMDD) (PCOS)

But, are too many people being diagnosed??

Dr Kat gave an excellent explanation of neurodiversity and the paradigm shift away from pathological to neurodiversity model.

We then had a lively panel discussion about stigma and challenges of living as a neurodivergent human.

Then it was opened up to questions from the audience.

We were repeatedly asked if too many people are being diagnosed and it started to rile me.

When the microphone was passed to me I let the fire in my belly do the talking:

Or do we only deserve to live well if it won’t require investment in us or adaptions to rigid systems?

As we are in yet another month of Autism Acceptance I think this is the question we should be asking:

Do we all have the right to live well?

• To have adaptions made to the places we learn and work so that these environments do not damage our health.

• To have access to healthcare to holistically understand the co-occurring health conditions that affect the way our minds and bodies operate.

• To be recognised as disabled by our health conditions.

• To have the right to adapt our lives to our neurodivergent biorhythms in order to live well.

Or should we all be forced into complying with the standard issue model of what is deemed to be a majority human?

Of course, you know my answer to that!

Here’s some other questions I have about why there’s so much backlash about the increase in neurodivergent identification and diagnosis:

• Why do we need to repeatedly justify that we all deserve to live well? (yes, I know cost… but what else is it really about?)

• Why are those of us who need adjustments and support to live well stigmatised and villainised?

• Will there ever be a tipping point where we do actually live by a neurodiversity paradigm that simply accepts, allows and adapts for us all being different?

One final thought to leave you with:

Thanks for reading.

We all deserve to live well.

Andrea x

P.s As ever, my favourite bit in all of this is hearing your thoughts.

Leave a comment

Dear neurokin,

Another article inspired by a song. A song I’d heard before and sung the wrong lyrics to.

When I saw the lyric sheet in the last term of choir ‘I don’t know this one’ I told my Alto 1 buddy.

I did know the song, just not that it was called Pelican by the Maccabee’s.

As I sang it throughout the term it became more and more relevant to my life.

The song, if you don’t know it, follows the arc of life. It starts with the lyrics ‘So soon we, so soon we’re too old to carry’ (not ‘so sue me’ as I’d previously been singing!)

‘One thing’s for sure, we’re all getting older… before you know it, parent a parent’

At the end of last year both of my parents were undergoing treatment for cancer.

Neurokin, I officially became part of what’s known as The Sandwich Generation. covers a lot about the distinction between generations. The bad news is that Gen X are being massively squeezed in our ‘sandwich years’ and millennials will find these things even more challenging:

• Rising costs for care

  • parenting young adults , who are often unable to afford their own housing.

  • caring for elderly relatives with long term complex health conditions for longer periods of time

  • huge rising costs for education - in the UK university tuition fees have risen by 200%

  • residential care in the UK for elderly parents has risen 48% in the last 15 years

• Our mid life is lasting longer - for 20 years between the ages of 40 - 60.

It’s not the financial cost that I’m here to write about today.

I’m here to share my observations, learnings and what I’m noticing about the shifting dynamic of my relationship with my family and their unrecognised neurodivergence.

For of course, neurodivergence is genetic.

Living in the phase beyond neurodivergent discovery means that we can see the patterns of neurodivergence far and wide. Often in our own families with relatives who do not want to be ‘labelled’ as neurodivergent for fear of how they will be perceived.

As this is an article that is much more personal in what I share, the rest of it is behind a paywall.

Read more

Dear neurokin,

It seems that illuminating your self-esteem, as being the foundation of loving your neurodivergence and living in rhythmic alignment with it, has struck a chord.

Thanks for sharing your comments in the last article, redeem your esteem.

Figuratively speaking, it seems self esteem has long been considered the little sister of the much more …

Read more

Dear neurokin,

Always, without fail, when I help coaching clients to make visible the characteristics, energy and driving force of their ‘people pleasing’ self sabotage, soft and saccharine is the essence that is identified. It’s the common thread of how we perceive ‘people pleasers.’

Maybe we all see people pleasing as a weakness? Consider those who display strong people pleasing traits as weak?

• to be malleable, soft, tender

• a push over

• someone who is easy to control.

But what if we’ve got this all wrong?

What if the people pleaser is the controller of the situation and the people in it? What if your people pleaser is controlling you?

In this article we’ll explore who’s controlling who here? We’ll look at what can drive us to people please in the first place, when people pleasing tips into a trauma response and how undiscovered neurodivergence in our families shapes us.

And in the context of neurodivergence:

Recent research indicates neurodivergent adults are disproportionately likely to engage in people pleasing, masking, or camouflaging behaviours to fit social expectations or avoid rejection—especially those with ADHD and autism

How can people pleasing go beyond an anxiety response?

What takes people pleasing from:

• a fear of rejection or a need for validation

• a need to prioritise the needs, wants, or approval of others

• it being a priority over your own well-being

To it being a trauma response?

And how can ancestral trauma and undiscovered neurodivergence in our birth families create trauma in us?

Trauma or selflessness?

The societal gender bias and capitalism is inbuilt with the assumptions that females will put others needs ahead of their own. That women will prioritise ‘caregiving’, anticipate the needs of others and comply with the inferred rule that the ‘emotional labour’ is on you girls!

Dare to speak up about your own needs? You’ll feel the wrath of shaming with painful labels, cruelly dished out for non compliance.

What’s the cost to us, in doing it all and putting others ahead of ourselves at all times? Our self esteem, health and wellbeing.

People pleasing tips into trauma when it shifts from gender bias for social conformity or genuine kindness into a deeply ingrained coping mechanism—specifically known as the 'fawn' response’—used to ensure safety and avoid conflict as a survival strategy.

The shadow side of people pleasing

I was recently reminded of the shadow side of my own resentful people pleasing ways. Over the years I’ve taken on the role as the only person who packs for family travel.

I tell myself it’s easier for me to do it all.

I have a system.

With my obsession for the weather forecast app, I make sure that everyone has the right clothes for all weather, sunscreen etc etc.

I wasn’t even going on this holiday, but I still couldn’t let go of packing for others.

Of course, other people in my home are capable of packing. They will not do it how I do, they might do it better and they might forget items.

In a moment of reflection I realised that I leave no room for others to learn from any errors or for mistakes to be accepted.

I am also putting ridiculous pressure on myself to remember everything for everyone else. Which I complain about regularly:

I continue to put myself in a position where I control the outcome and spend needless energy ‘pleasing' others.

“Hello, perfectionist and controller, c’mon in to this self sabotage party!”

Who are you really doing this for?

Take a moment to ask yourself:

Are you giving your time and energy to help others who really need help? or are you taking responsibility for everything because you can’t let go of it being done another way?

1. What activities could other people in your life take on?

2. What’s the key driver for you doing things to please others? Is there an element of control or perfectionism at play?

3. What is the worst thing that will happen if someone else takes on responsibility and mistakes are made?

The dark side of people pleasing - trauma

I recently wrote about how trauma therapy has helped me to unravel another layer to understand myself more deeply. You can read about it here

It was in this personal learning that I started to understand a more complex part of people pleasing; trauma.

Trauma; your experience of emotional distress that exceeds your capacity to emotionally process it can lead us to internalise events that might have compromised our own safety. We carry these memories of trauma in our bodies.

Read more

Dear neurokin,

For this week’s article I’m trying something new. I’m incorporating the audio of the guided coaching sessions that I normally do into the whole article.

As well as sending you this article in written word, I am creating an audio recording of the whole thing, coaching questions and all, so that you can take it on a walk with you, or simply put on your headphones and take it to the most comfortable chair in your home and sit and ponder as I talk to you.

Sometimes we need to create space away from our screens to shift something in us.

Whatever way works best for you, do grab some paper and a pen or something that you want to record your thoughts and actions on.

However, or wherever, this pondering takes place I want to invite you to ponder this topic of valuing your unique neurodivergent talents more deeply, really connecting with what this means for you.

Because, this stuff; Self Belief it’s really fundamental to you taking better care of yourself and really valuing your own strengths and yes, lets say it and believe it;

Your neurodivergent genius qualities

Why we’re focusing on valuing your neurodivergent talent and contribution

This topic was inspired by the energetic shift I can feel, which I experienced at an event in London ✨ N⚡️D Leaders: A Celebration of Neurodivergent Excellence✨ by The Future is ND

LEARN

Last week led a brilliant LEARN session

• providing her own lived insight in what drove her to start believing in her own neurodivergent genius and to find another way to simplify her work

• She shared a way for you to have peace and profit in your business - work that’s

  • aligned to what you love

  • to protect your nervous system and you from repeated burnout

  • how this can bring you the financial abundance you want

I will reference some of what Hannah shared in this GROW article and I urge you to invest some time in listening or watching the whole session.

GROW | Valuing your neurodivergent talent

Let’s start with you.

You’ve only just recently been given access to some vital information about yourself.

You’ve lived up until now not knowing that you connect, communicate and experience the world differently to the majority of people.

For that reason most of us late discovered neurokin carry around messages that our way of doing things is wrong.

Of course it isn’t wrong, it’s just different and there is so much to be celebrated in our alternative ways of being and doing.

This internalised feeling or all the messages we received from others about our different ways being wrong formed the conditioning and self limiting beliefs that we need to untangle ourselves from.

looking more deeply at your conditioned beliefs:

• I’m not good enough

• I’m a failure

• I’m not cut out for self employment

• I always do things wrong

• It’s not safe for me to be ambitious

1. What’s the most damaging conditioned belief that you’re holding onto?

2. Where did that belief come from?

   1. who or what shaped that belief?

Imagine…

3. Standing in your adult shoes today and really looking at that belief Imagine you’re holding the belief in your hands

   1. how much truth is in that belief?

Read more

Do you ever pause to contemplate what you really need in friendships? To consider who in your friendship circles energises you? and makes you feel good every time you see them?

This isn’t something I’d really considered until I’d untangled myself from looking at my life through a neurodivergent lens.

Understanding myself more fully on the other side of late life neurodivergent discovery gave me space to start to be more myself in my friendships.

A lot of people in my life made space for neurodivergent me. Some didn’t and won’t.

That’s ok. Friendships ebb and flow throughout our life’s.

Discovering something that can feel huge about ourselves, later in life, changes who we are, what we want from our life’s and the people in it.

In this article and accompanying guided coaching questions we’ll explore

• How your old blueprints for friendship caused you difficulty

• How embracing your neurodivergence can help you develop the friendship connections you’re longing for

  • Which of your friendships:

    • don’t make you feel good

    • feel energised and free to be you in

  • How you want to show up in your friendships

  • What you’re ready to:

    • let go of

    • welcome into your life

Grab whatever you need to start capturing your thoughts - here come the prompts

1. What’s your earliest memory of heartbreak in friendship?

2. What is it about this memory that made it feel so hard?

3. How did that create patterns that continued in your friendships from that point on?

4. What is it about these friendship patterns that have caused you the most difficulty?

Read more

Dear neurokin,

Let’s take a moment to celebrate; we’ve made it through, what can feel like, the longest and for some, toughest, month of the year.

The days will start being more light filled and soon we’ll see signs of growth all around us, in nature.

In GROW, the final article of each month, we culminate our learning focus by giving you space to reflect and consider what actions you might want to take around the topic of the month.

This month, we’ve been focusing on the topic of YOU! how you learn and giving you space to contemplate how you want to grow.

This article and the accompanying audio, with 15 minutes of guided coaching questions will give you:

• space to pause reflect

• prompts to contemplate how you want to develop

• encouragement to expand and grow into more of neurodivergent you

How have you changed and grown since you discovered your neurodivergence?

• what has been the biggest thing you’ve grappled with?

• what have you learned about yourself that’s had the biggest impact on you?

• what do you love the most about your neurodivergence?

For all of us, late to discovering this hugely significant thing about yourself; a thing that means you experience and connect with the world and the people around you differently from others.

We’ve all had times in our lives that this difference has caused us pain.

Taking a pause, remember and cherish a younger you that was bewilldered by those difficulties.

From this view point that you have today;

Read more

In our final Belong…we are neurokin article of this year, I want to encourage you to create space so that you can reflect on;

• illuminating your strengths - especially the things you take for granted

• what your strengths give you and the world

• space to really acknowledge and celebrate those things: your strengths are both wonderful and unique to you

This article is packed full of thought provoking questions for you to create a new perspective on your strengths and will naturally inspire you to utilise these things, to take action, as we go into 2025.

This month’s learning session is also wrapped up within this GROW article.

I’ve wanted to be in conversation with this month’s guest for a while now.

On a grey August day, as I waited on a soulless modern train platform, a burst of colour and energy came out of my phone screen.

It came from a post that Claire from Neuro by Nature posted, one of her first, talking about her alternative way of working with clients; not your typical therapist.

So much of what she said resonated; but mostly her unique strengths and pride in her alternative way of living and working resonated and inspired.

As I contemplated how I could create an interactive learning experience for you about your strengths, without the challenge of gathering a group of people in one place at one time, Claire popped into my mind.

Because if anyone can help you to illuminate your strengths, particularly those that come from your wonderful alternatively wired brain - to help you to embrace your neurodivergence, it’s Claire.

I came away from this conversation feeling energised and inspired.

I think you will too.

Here’s just a few of the tips Claire shared with us in this conversation

• Stop thinking typically! If you want to eat desert before dinner - do it!

• If things don’t work as you wanted or expected them to start your own version of V.A.T - Value Added Thinking. Consider what you can take away from each experience.

• Don’t undersell your strengths - utilise them for you.

If you have any questions for Claire after watching this conversation you can contact her here

Contact Clare from Neuro by Nature

Identifying your strengths

So often, we neurokin take for granted our strengths because our natural ways are not always valued, or welcomed in environments where alternative thinking is considered inconvenient.

Our natural curiosity and ability to see the patterns and connection in things comes with ease.

This strength, that comes with ease, can mean we have to have to find and use energy in taming our questions or insights to be more palatable to those hell bent on maintaining status quo.

My first request of you, to illuminate your strengths, is:

Read more

In choosing this month’s topic of Healing; from late life neurodivergent discovery - recovering a new sense of self, I failed to consider the very difficult barrier there would be for me in writing about healing.

I hadn’t considered how tricky it would be for me to write about this topic whilst witnessing suffering.

We’re all witnessing unbearable suffering of other humans in our world.

For me, living alongside someone with a chronic health condition is a bit heartbreaking; I wish it wasn’t so. I

had to write about this at the very start of the month before I create space for learning in this topic.

In the end I decided I wouldn’t publish the article. Whilst I live alongside it, it’s not my story to tell.

The article ended:

Once I’d written down the difficulty and pain, it took me to some interesting and unexpected places in my own learning.

I hope it has done the same for you in your learning and growth about your own healing.

What we’ve been exploring and learning in the topic of Healing for Belong…we are neurokin

EXPLORE in this month’s article I highlighted three positive and hopeful responses to cruel stigmatisation and inaccuracy about the benefits we receive because we’re autistic!

LEARN we had such an insightful session in making space to heal with this months’s neurokin practitioner Laine Redpath from The Good Body Space.

Laine helps us to:

• identify your pain parts - what triggered you to activate your own internal alarm system?

• create detachment and space to notice your pain, anxiety, fatigue with curiosity

  “Let go of the need to find out or focus on what’s wrong…”

• how to create your own agency.

  • building a relationship with yourself

  • not seek external answers or validation

  • you’re in charge of how you show up

You can watch the LEARN session here:

What will help you to heal and recover a new sense of self?

Here are five things that will help you

1. It all starts with letting go of never ending endings!

For once we’ve let go, other memories or understanding surfaces for us to explore.

Grieving the old; stories, beliefs and desire to fit in.

A lot of our healing and acceptance of our difference - our neurodivergence - comes from letting go of:

• stories and expectations you’ve been carrying around

• letting go of limiting beliefs

• images of yourself

  • the person you were before you knew you are neurodivergent

  • who you should be

  • had to be to survive

  • wanted so desperately to be, but you really aren’t - that’s a really tricky one to acknowledge and let go of.

Read more

Today I was in conversation with Laine Redpath from The Good Body Space who led this month’s learning experience for us as we continue to focus on the topic of Healing.

I learned a huge amount from being alongside Laine in this conversation and I got to enjoy a couple of meditations that allowed me to understand…

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Dear neurokin,

Throughout October I’ve been focusing on the topic of neurodivergent masking.

I’ve learned a lot that I will be sharing here with you; Understanding the driving force for masking, understanding how your masking traits can show up in camouflaging and compensating and becoming aware of the harm it’s inflicting on your mental and physical wellbeing.

This article includes a guided Coaching session for you to delve deeper into what all of this means for you and how you can be more tuned into your own needs.

I don’t want to be autistic

Sometimes I want a break from autism.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t different.

I had some heartbreaking realisations over the last couple of months. I was forced to deeply reflect after I got myself into burnout again this Summer.

I hadn’t realised I had been continuing to mask my autism - from myself!

Here’s some things I found myself thinking and saying when I started to explore why I was in burnout, yet again.

Of course, I don’t want to change my neurotype. There are many things I love about what neurodivergence gives me.

Covering up and trying your best to hide your neurodivergence or doubling down, pushing yourself to breaking point, to compensate for your neurodivergence, is a huge part of the unravelling that comes when you make a late life neurodivergent discovery.

That unravelling, looking at your life through a neurodivergent lens, can come with huge amounts of shame, grief and at times anger.

• all that energy you’ve had to use up to cover up something that you didn’t even fully understand yourself.

• you had no access to information to understand your neuro type and adapt to living your neurodivergent life, no guidance about what’s required for you take good care of your mind, body and spirit

In a word “ Rejection”

When I invited neurokin women into a conversation about masking on instagram I was so uplifted by the insightful and generous honesty in the conversations that took place. Here’s some of the insight that was shared:

• terrified of being found out

• to avoid people thinking I’m rude/unfriendly/weird/boring

• to avoid being vulnerable or seen as weak

It’s a bitter pill to swallow; the internal dialogue we have and the stories we unconsciously carry play the biggest part in expending huge amounts of energy to show up in the world in ways we think will protect us.

We mask our neurodivergence to protect ourselves and yet it can cause us huge amounts of harm.

Read more

Dear neurokin,

This week I share with you how raw reactions can lead to your most transformative growth.

I’ll share my experience and ask you some questions, for you to pause and reflect on your own raw reactions and where you need to adapt to your own neurodivergence.

“Are you having a book launch?”

“Can I come to your book launch?”

Two questions I was…

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Just for you, is the conversation that took place at my book launch on 18th July 2024 for This is Who I Am…The Autistic Woman’s Creative Guide to Belonging

In it I share:

• My driving force for writing this book

• The turning point in my life that led me to explore my neurodivergence

• A reading of an…

Read more

Dear neurokin,

Flipping a phrase I often hear in yoga; lessons learned with ease and grace, this week I have finally realised that I have pushed myself into the early stages of burnout over this summer.

I have…

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To accompany this weeks Grow article here are some Coaching questions for you to explore to help you identify what’s getting in your way to protect your energy and prevent burnout.

Dear neurokin,

I’m umming and ahing about what to write in this week’s GROW article for you.

Do I play it …

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When you’re in overwhelm or you’re recovering from a clash of emotionally dysregulated humans here’s a guided mediation that can help you to Let Go.

May you be free from pain and sorrow

May you be at peace

Jack Kornfield

Read more

Dear neurokin,

This is not the article I’d planned to write this week.

Truth be told, at the start of this week, I didn’t feel much like writing anything at all.

Here in the UK, there has been the most horrific eruption of violence on our streets over the last week.

I have found this week to be utterly heartbreaking…devastating. Is it b…

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As I countdown the days, in single digits now, to Publication day, Thursday 18th July 2024, of my first book This is Who I Am…The Autistic Woman’s Creative Guide to Belonging I've been reflecting on my lessons learned in pursuit of turning an idea into this actual book!

Like all big dreams, it takes vision and courage, to keep pushing through barriers.

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Introducing our neurokin Guest Writer Bam Hyland

In an excited exchange, in a quiet corner of instagram, Bam and I plotted

“I’d love to write something for you sometime” she said

“oh yesssss Bam! I would ❤️ that” said I “Do you have something in mind?”

“What comes to mind instantly for me, personally, is the gift of creativity I’ve been granted by being neu…

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