Mindful Mondays with Ashley Dupuy

Fine. Stressed. Overwhelmed.

We use these words every day, but they can conceal far more than they reveal. Anger and disappointment may feel remarkably similar in the body, yet one may point towards perceived injustice while the other emerges from an unmet expectation. If we cannot recognise the difference, we may reach for entirely the wrong response.

In this episode, Ashley begins a new season of Mindful Mondays devoted to exploring the inner toolkit: the many psychological ideas, modalities and practices that can help us understand and support ourselves more deeply.

Drawing on the work of Yale psychologist and emotional-intelligence researcher Dr Marc Brackett, Ashley explores what emotional intelligence actually means - not permanent calmness, relentless positivity or talking about our feelings all day, but learning to recognise, understand and respond wisely to the information our emotions carry.

Through her Aware, Allow, Align framework, she considers emotional granularity, affect labelling and the space between feeling and action. What changes when we stop treating anxiety as an intruder? How can allowing a feeling differ from handing it control? And how might alignment help us move from automatic reaction towards a more conscious response?

Ashley also brings essential Neurodivergent Nuance to alexithymia, masking, overload and delayed emotional processing - because sometimes the body knows that something is happening long before the words arrive.

The episode closes with a traditional Yoga Nidra for emotional grounding, inviting you to move awareness through the body, cultivate the witness and meet whatever is present with a little more compassion and choice.

Practise with Ashley on Insight Timer:
https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

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Visit Ashley’s website:
https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

Support the show

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, we continue our exploration of the senses by turning toward two of the most emotional and memory-soaked senses we have: smell and taste.

For many neurodivergent nervous systems, these senses are anything but minor. A single smell can transport you straight back into childhood. A single bite of food can soothe your nervous system - or overwhelm it in seconds. Smell and taste are deeply wired into emotion, memory, reward, safety, and threat.

In this episode, Ashley explores:

* Why smell is so powerfully linked to memory and emotion
* How taste and scent can become tools for comfort and regulation
* Why strong smells, food textures, and certain flavours can feel overwhelming or even traumatic
* Safe foods, sensory aversions, migraines, and food obsession through a nervous system lens
* Synesthesia, sensory wisdom, and the metaphorical meaning of taste and smell
* How to build gentle flexibility without forcing or retraumatising yourself

The episode closes with a guided imaginal practice to help you explore smell, taste, memory, and sensory safety at your own pace.

This is an invitation to understand your sensory profile more deeply - not with judgment, but with curiosity, compassion, and respect for the way your nervous system is wired.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

This week marks the beginning of a new chapter in Mindful Mondays - and in Ashley’s wider body of work.

Inspired by her upcoming book, From Mask to Map, this episode begins a new series exploring what happens when we spend years organising ourselves around fitting in, coping, pleasing, performing, and overriding our own inner knowing - and what it looks like to begin finding our way home to something more honest.

In this deeply personal opening episode, Ashley shares the medical journey that has unfolded in her own life over recent weeks, and how it has brought so many familiar themes into sharp focus: masking, over-efforting, self-abandonment, late diagnosis, discernment, and the painful work of learning to trust the body when it has been telling the truth all along.

This episode explores:

* the cost of disconnecting from lived experience
* how masking shows up not just socially, but medically and emotionally
* the difference between effort and alignment
* why the body often knows long before the mind can name it
* and how self-trust begins to return when we stop treating the body like the enemy

The episode also includes a guided Yoga Nidra practice focused on cultivating trust, softening into inner knowing, and reconnecting with the quiet map and compass within.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

In this week’s Mindful Mondays, we continue the From Mask to Map series by exploring a question that sits at the heart of so many neurodivergent lives:

What is the difference between masking, performing, modeling behaviour, and learning soft skills?

From the outside, these things can look almost identical. But inwardly, those same behaviours can come from very different places - and that distinction matters deeply.

In this episode, Ashley explores:

* masking as a nervous system adaptation for safety and belonging
* why masking can become so normal that it disappears into the baseline
* the emotional and somatic cost of prolonged self-erasure
* performing as approval-seeking rather than true self-expression
* modeling behaviour as a way of calling forward qualities that already live within you
* soft skills as tools for connection, rather than disguises for disappearance
* movement and dance as powerful forms of gentle unmasking

This episode is an invitation to ask a life-changing question:

Am I using this skill to express more of who I am…or to disappear?

The episode also includes a deeply immersive guided practice, Keeping the Wisdom, Releasing the Disguise, helping you reconnect with the parts of you that adapted, the parts that learned, and the integrated self now ready to carry wisdom without self-erasure.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley continues the From Mask to Map series with an exploration of taking things literally - and why this familiar neurodivergent trait deserves far more nuance, compassion, and understanding.

Ashley introduces the idea of "Neurodivergent Nuance": the missing translation layer that helps us understand why everyday advice, social rituals, reassurance, and cultural shorthand can land very differently in a precise nervous system.

Through personal stories - from childhood swimming tests and tonsil surgery, to hip replacement recovery, eye contact, greetings, and the hidden meanings behind common phrases - this episode explores what happens when vague language is received with unusual sincerity.

You’ll hear about:

* why “try your hardest” can become a full-body command
* how reassurance can feel destabilising when taken as a concrete prediction
* why “how are you?” is often a social ritual rather than a literal question
* the neurodivergent nuance of eye contact, advice culture, and reading between the lines
* how literal thinking can be both difficult and deeply beautiful
* why needing clearer language is not a flaw

This episode also includes a Yoga Nidra practice exploring the body as both literal and symbolic - and a guided image of the bridge between words and meaning.

A gentle reminder that you are not the error in the translation. You are learning how to read the world in a language that includes you.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley continues the From Mask to Map series by exploring the neurodivergent nuance of Mel Robbins’ Let Them theory - a powerful idea rooted in acceptance, non-attachment, and the release of control.

At its best, Let Them invites us to stop exhausting ourselves by trying to manage other people’s choices, opinions, priorities, and reactions. But for neurodivergent people, especially those with histories of masking, fawning, burnout, chronic illness, trauma, or self-abandonment, advice like this needs careful translation.

Ashley explores how Let Them connects with mindfulness, Buddhism, Radical Acceptance, and her emerging framework: Aware > Allow > Align.

You’ll hear how acceptance becomes safer and more embodied when we learn to:

* become aware of what is happening externally and internally
* allow reality, emotions, body signals, and nervous system responses to be recognised
* align with values, boundaries, safety, dignity, and self-trust

This episode looks at why “acceptance” can sometimes be misunderstood as approval, passivity, or tolerance of harm - and how neurodivergent nuance helps us see reality clearly without abandoning ourselves.

The episode closes with a simple mindfulness labelling meditation, using the breath and gentle noticing to practise Aware > Allow > Align in real time.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

Advice culture is filled with memorable instructions: do the hard thing, get comfortable being uncomfortable, follow your passion, try your hardest, live a life of service, and remember: no pain, no gain.

Each phrase carries potential wisdom. Each one also carries assumptions about the body, nervous system, health, capacity, and circumstances of the person receiving it.

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley continues the From Mask to Map series by exploring the neurodivergent nuance of advice culture and asking a vital question:

Is this resistance, or is this a warning signal?

Through the metaphor of the moulting lobster, personal stories of chronic over-functioning, and examples drawn from fitness, creativity, service, work, and personal growth, Ashley explores how motivational advice can support courage in one context and encourage self-override in another.

This episode considers:

* how healthy discomfort can build confidence and capacity
* why agency and choice matter when stretching a comfort zone
* the risks of interpreting “no pain, no gain” too literally
* why maximum effort is rarely the same as wise effort
* how following your passion can become another form of over-functioning
* the Buddhist principle of Right Effort
* how Aware, Allow, Align can help you translate advice through the reality of your own nervous system

The episode closes with Breathing the Inner Map, a gentle imaginal breathing journey inspired by the work of yoga nidra teacher Ally Boothroyd. The practice uses breath, sensation, imagery, and awareness to deepen your connection with the body’s subtle language and strengthen your capacity for discernment.

Because advice becomes wisdom when it is placed in relationship with reality.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

Why can we know exactly what we need to do, genuinely want to do it, and still feel unable to begin?

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley explores the shame-heavy labels of procrastination and laziness, alongside the qualities our culture tends to praise: motivation, willpower, discipline and commitment.

Rather than treating difficulty beginning as a character flaw, Ashley asks a more useful question:

What is getting in the way?

Through the neurodivergent lens of executive functioning, nervous-system states, identity, unconscious patterns and emotional regulation, this episode explores why intention does not always translate easily into action - even when the task appears simple from the outside.

You’ll hear about:

* the psychological question, “Is it state or trait?”
* why procrastination is often connected to emotional regulation
* how transition difficulties can look like avoidance
* the invisible executive-function demands inside everyday tasks
* functional freeze, hustle culture and the guilt of never truly resting
* why shame creates heavier tasks rather than better motivation
* the difference between knowing what to do and being able to initiate it
* how identity and language can create a bridge towards change
* dopamine, pursuit and the importance of a meaningful first step
* the Buddhist principle of Right Effort and creating the conditions for growth

Ashley also explores why late-identified neurodivergent adults may begin struggling with tasks they once managed through urgency, adrenaline, masking and fear - and why this can represent the exhaustion of an old fuel source rather than a loss of character.

The episode closes with Building the Bridge, a short metaphorical meditation about a traveller learning to cross the distance between intention and action one steady piece at a time.

Because the visible task may take five minutes while the nervous system has spent five hours trying to reach the starting line.

Mindful Mondays is part of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

What happens inside us when pressure rises?

We may become more precise. More agreeable. More determined. More self-reliant. Faster.

In Transactional Analysis, these largely unconscious responses are known as the five drivers:

Be Perfect. Please Others. Try Hard. Be Strong. Hurry Up.

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley explores the five TA drivers through a neurodivergent lens - and explains why they can offer such a powerful way of understanding the different shapes neurodivergent masking can take.

Although the drivers were not originally developed as neurodivergent masking categories, they can help us recognise the automatic performances we reach for in order to feel safe, acceptable, competent or connected.

The mask of getting everything exactly right.

The mask of becoming helpful and easy to receive.

The mask of proving your worth through effort.

The mask of appearing endlessly capable.

The mask of moving quickly enough to stay ahead of criticism, discomfort or collapse.

Ashley explores the strengths within each driver, the cost when it becomes compulsory, and the permissions that can help us regain choice:

The episode also looks at how drivers operate automatically under pressure, how several drivers can combine, and how Ashley’s Aware, Allow, Align framework can help us recognise the mask in real time and bring agency back online.

Through personal stories about perfectionism, cooking, productivity, rushing and unfinished projects, Ashley examines the difference between genuine momentum and unconscious pressure.

The episode closes with The Five Doors of Permission, a guided meditation designed to help each new permission settle beyond intellectual understanding and into the body.

Mindful Mondays is part of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk

What if the difficult person, the repeated pattern, or the weight you keep carrying is not only a burden - but also a teacher?

In this episode of Mindful Mondays, Ashley explores the phrase “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Buddha” - a playful twist on a familiar phrase that emerged from an ordinary pub conversation and opened up a deeper reflection on love, responsibility, meaning, boundaries and the hidden teachings inside life’s challenges..

Drawing on the teachings of Ram Dass, the Buddhist story of the Two Monks at the river, nervous-system regulation, neurodivergent masking and the From Mask to Map framework, this episode asks:

Is this mine to carry, mine to support, or mine to witness?

Ashley explores why relationships and responsibilities can feel especially heavy for neurodivergent people - not only because of the person or situation itself, but because of the interpretive work involved: decoding unspoken expectations, monitoring tone and body language, absorbing emotional atmospheres, replaying conversations, masking while caring, and trying to work out what was meant rather than what was said.

This episode also looks at how challenges can become information rather than evidence of failure. A meltdown, a trigger, a conflict, a repeated pattern or a moment of overwhelm may reveal a boundary, a sensory need, an old role, a place of exhaustion, or a part of ourselves asking for care.

Without spiritualising harm or glorifying suffering, Ashley invites a more nuanced question:

Where is the Buddha in this?

The episode closes with The Path, the Pack and the Teacher, a guided practice for exploring what you are carrying, what may not be yours, and what wisdom might be ready to travel forward with you.

Mindful Mondays is part of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network.

Find more of Ashley’s meditations, Yoga Nidras, nervous-system practices and Bedtime Alchemy sleep stories on Insight Timer:

https://insighttimer.com/AshleyDupuy

Discover more about Ashley’s work:

https://www.integrativeiom.co.uk