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Who here looks forward to their birthday each year, only to end up feeling that familiar pang of disappointment? As ADHD moms, balancing high expectations and the reality of motherhood is no easy feat. This episode of The Mother Plus Podcast dives into the unique mix of excitement and frustration many ADHD moms feel around their birthdays. 

Stace asked the Mother Plus community to share personal stories about those birthday letdowns, the reasons behind them, and fresh ideas on how to bring that birthday magic into our everyday lives—no special occasion required.

Together, we’ll discover new ways to feel special without relying on one day to bring all the joy. Ready to create your own everyday moments of celebration?

To join the Rituals Library as a founding member, click here: https://www.motherplusser.com/centered

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

🕯️✨To join us for Rituals Night on Tuesday October 29th at 7 pm Mountain Time, click here ✨🕯️:
https://www.motherplusser.com/rituals-week

ADHD Cliff's Notes:

1. In this solo episode, Steph reads a column she wrote called, "Girl Dinner," and reflect on the motherhood stage of life she is in right now post-divorce, post-oldest goes to college, post-ADHD diagnoses. 
2. Some eras of parenting feel harder than others and we all have ages that feel easier; raising teenagers may be more comfortable for an ADHD mom's brain. 
3. Steph shares the things she has let go of as a mom post-ADHD, and how she is thriving more now that she's accepting her natural strengths and challenges as a neurodivergent mom. 
4. Right now, there is less cooking and more "girl dinner," later bedtimes and bohemian habits—and it feels great to the two ADHD ladies living in the house. 
5. Making peace with the end of the "little kid years" brings a new freedom—being a mom feels more natural, fun, and comfortable than it did before, and part of that may be understanding ADHD motherhood. 
6. The key to thriving as a parent, regardless of what stage your in, lies in understanding yourself, celebrating your superpowers, and working with your challenges with flexibility and self-compassion. 

Steph's Substack post: Girl Dinner

To join the ADHD Moms Club, Click Here.

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

1. We interview mother + artist Christie Russert about how motherhood and ADHD tendencies have impacted her art. 
2. We discuss the impact motherhood has on the ADHD woman's ability to focus on tasks with constant divided attention with children. 
3. Untangling the overwhelm: what is motherhood and what is ADHD? It can be difficult to separate out symptoms that are a result of neurodivergence instead of parenting. 
4. Christie talks about the challenges of being an artist with attention challenges: focusing on completing a task, making decisions, and staying consistent. 
5. How does motherhood impact flow? Writers and artists and creators and performers and athletes live for the feeling of flow, and it's rough when it dries up. 
6. We ponder whether the ADHD brain craves and thrives on "flow states" because of neurotransmitter regulation issues and the dopamine rush we get from creative flow—is that why so many artists, musicians, and writers have ADHD? 
7. "Something's gotta give"—making choices as a creative mom means sacrifice, learning to rein in the idea machine of your brain and let go of things you don't prioritize because of your own values.
8. We talk about alignment: do our values line up with where we are putting our time and energy, and why do we feel frustrated when we aren't getting results with things we actually don't care about? 
9. Seasons of motherhood and art: We talk about the importance of tapping into your intuition to work with and honor the seasons of your life as your daily schedule, needs, and capacity for creating change. 

Meet Christie
Christie Russert is the Chicago based artist behind the illustration brand, Sunshine Canteen. She creates a variety of pieces, from vivid abstract patterns to mixed media collage to landscapes.  Her artwork transports you to a carefree paradise with its vintage-inspired bright colors and positive energy. Christie licenses her illustration work with brands that feature her designs on a variety of products. Find her work online through her website, sunshinecanteen.com

Like what you hear and want to hang out more? Join us in the ADHD Moms Club.

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

Join Stacey as she reveals the morning ritual that changed her ADHD. 
Here's the ADHD Cliff's Notes:

• She’s going to reveal everything she does in her morning ritual 
• The prep the night before is crucial to a successful morning 
• The 4 things that make up her morning ritual
• How she doesn’t let her kids walking in on her deter her from finishing the ritual
• The ripple effect of her morning ritual in other parts of her day

Finally, Steph and Stace invite you to create your own morning ritual with us at...

✨ Rituals Week! ✨

ADHD Moms, we know how chaotic mornings can be. You wake up already behind, feeling scattered, and that morning routine you’ve always wanted? It just doesn’t happen. 😩

But what if you could turn that chaos into calm? 🧘‍♀️ That’s exactly what we’ll be working on during Rituals Week, happening October 23-29. It’s FREE, and it’s designed for the ADHD mom.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Daily rituals to help you ground your mornings and end your days with peace
• EFT tapping sessions, meditations, and journaling practices specifically for ADHD moms
• Practical strategies to reclaim your time and energy (yes, even with ADHD!)

This is your time to prioritize YOU, set boundaries, and create rituals that actually work. 💪 There is really no good reason not to do this.

👉 Sign up here! It’s free. psst. Rituals are better with friends so make sure to bring one!

Oh, and YES, their will be replays if you can't make the lives.

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

Join Stacey as she explains the mysterious art of EFT. Her mission is to make it as easy and as accessible as possible to you, the ADHD mom. Because it's too good not to use.

Anxiety? Overwhelm? Unclear on where to focus? Feel like you're in a constant state of emergency?
EFT can help.

Here's how this episode is going to go down:
1. Stacey will explain what EFT is, and why it works
2. She will give you the formula for how to lay out an EFT session (for yourself)
3. Make it easy. She will remind you how easy this can be, and if you make it complicated, you won't do it.
4. She will then walk you through an EFT session for anxiety and urgency

If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about how you can bring EFT and rituals into your life, please join us for Rituals Week: The Anti-Challenge for the ADHD Mom. It's totally FREE and it all starts October 23rd - October 29th.

Sign up here:
https://www.motherplusser.com/rituals-week

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

1. This season, we've been been exploring the impact of rituals on the ADHD mom brain. In this Stace and Steph episode, Stace asks Steph to describe her evening ritual practice.
2. "My evening ritual began as a survival technique." As Steph has been immersed in an intense, stressful season—divorce, ADHD diagnoses for the whole house, kid going to college—she explains the grounding impact her evening ritual has had on her nervous system. 
3. Steph describes her practice of "neurotic self-care:" If it isn't a little frenetic and calculated right now, it's not going to happen. Motherhood is not a season of "accidental self care," and as our daily needs and rhythms fluctuate, we prioritize some choices at the expense of others. 
4. Steph talks about some of the more tedious aspects of her self care, including micromanaging her daily tasks, using time blocks, and staying organized so she has space to relax—give your "tomorrow self" the gift of knowing that your "today self" has things under control.
5.  Even when part of your ritual is "boring," like planning or getting organized, you can make it feel luxurious by setting a sensory stage: bedtime playlist, candles, and incense can go a long way to help your nervous system unwind. 
6. Steph shares her "quadrant journal magic," where she tracks what she did for her: body / spirit-heart / career-purpose / home. Stace comes up with the mind-blowing terminology: "To-DONE list." 
7. The quadrant journal helps Steph to: stay balanced over days and weeks; be mindful throughout the day; stay accountable with her choices, and celebrate her victories with a sense of pride. 
8. Steph shares her magic formula for evening rituals: bedtime playlist, candles, incense; make the "to-do list" and the "to-done" list, meditate, read, and fall asleep to a guided yoga nidra recording. 

To Download your evening ritual checklist, click HERE.

To become a founding member of Centered: The ADHD Rituals Library, visit motherplusser.com/centered

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

1. We meet health and nutrition coach Lauren Carpenter, and she shares how her own childhood health issues—we discuss how powerful it is to make changes during adulthood that will also impact our own children and ripple outward. 
2. Food is medicine: We discuss the inextricable link between our physical health and our mental and emotional health, and the role food can play in how we feel. 
3. Lauren talks us through the gut-brain connection, and we discuss the role food plays in being the literal fuel that keeps us together when we are falling apart. 
4. As women with ADHD, our neurotransmitter regulation is challenging, and Lauren shares with us how exercise can calm hyperactivity, improve focus, assist with emotional regulation, and improve sleep.
5. Strength training is medicine for the brain, and can reduce cortisol, helps regulate blood sugar, and regulates hormones. The best part? Even a small amount can help. 
6. Lauren gives us tips to make fitness feel more doable: it doesn't need to be the intense cardio that we grew up with, a little can go a long way, and try it for 5 minutes, and if you don't like it, you can stop (most of the time, we'll choose to keep going!). 
7. Processed food, protein, fasting, liquid breakfast, caffeine, and blood sugar: Lauren tell us everything we need to know. Spoiler alert: protein is our best friend for building muscle, which helps our brain. 
8. Overwhelmed? Lauren gives us a basic Crash Course so you know where to begin and shares easy, do-able, middle ground habits to help us feel better. 

About Lauren:
Lauren is a mother of 3 + health and wellness coach, and an extremely passionate sports nutrition specialist. Her mission? To empower women to become the CEO of their own health.

With expertise in whole-food focused nutrition, progressive overload strength training, and mindset development, she guides her clients through personalized programs to teach them how to fuel themselves properly so they can build muscle, increase their energy and feel good in their body.

When she's not coaching, you can find her on adventures with her kids, traveling and exploring the Colorado mountains, or trying new recipes in her kitchen.

Lauren's website: https://www.laurencarpenterwellness.com/

Lauren's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellololohealth/

Join The ADHD Mom's Club: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/KZpq8vb8CBVucRc1/?mibextid=K35XfP

Join our Body Doubling Session on 9/30 at 10 AM MST: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87618928552 

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

Join Stacey in this mini solo episode as she reveals all the ways she shrinks herself as a people-pleasing, ADHD/RSD woman:

• With her husband 
• In asking questions
• With her voice, and any noise she makes (anybody else familiar with accidental breath-holding?)
• With compliments
• With her kids

She shares these, and then asks you to share them with yourself. If we can start identifying the ways in which we shrink, we can become more self-aware of them, and make steps to stop the cycle.

What is your experience with shrinking?
Please share your thoughts with us at [email protected]

Interested in contributing to our ADHD Moms course? Please fill out our survey to give your input: https://forms.gle/kGvEyvhe7mqDzyT7A

ADHD Moment incoming.. 
Stacey totally forgot to tell you that our next body doubling session is next Monday. Join us in the ADHD Moms Club.
**JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT BODY DOUBLING SESSION ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23RD! **
If you haven't joined ADHD Moms Club yet, it's free and easy...
https://www.motherplusser.com/offers/vuz3iqfT/checkout 

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

Cliff's Notes Version:

1. We welcome Dr. Christine Li, Procrastination Coach, back to the Mother Plus Podcast to tackle the topic of clutter and its impact on the ADHD woman. 
2. It's always about much than the actual clutter—Dr. Li reminds us that we are all different and it's about accepting ourselves without judgment or shame and figuring out what helps us as individuals find more ease and productivity. 
3. We want our home—and our "energy home"—to feel more hospitable for ourselves. Clutter reminds us of the things that make us feel bad about ourselves, which is why we often procrastinate dealing with it—which often backfires!
4. Stace and Steph share their morning and evening rituals with Dr. Li and get her input on how to incorporate decluttering routines into daily rituals. 
5. Dr. Li emphasizes the impact of changing our mindset and the stories we tell ourselves—it requires some flexibility and experimentation. "Less convincing and more believing." 
6. Slow, steady progress is key. Envision your goals, track your progress, and celebrate the small steps. 
7. How to stop the cycle: consider the engineering of your home and reimagine the functionality of each space, and think about how you may be replenishing the clutter by not limiting your consumption. 
8. The power of a "challenge": when we break the mindset wall, join in community, and take on clutter—which could bring a sense of shame or dread—and make it fun, we're going to be more successful. Dr. Li shares her free 5-day challenge that beings Monday, 9/16. 

Join the Re-Energize Your Home 5-Day Challenge, hosted by psychologist and Procrastination Coach, Dr. Christine Li, from September 16-22. This challenge will be your solution to finally gaining control over your space and reclaiming your energy.

What You’ll Get from This FREE Challenge:

• Daily Inspiration & Guidance: Engage with Dr. Christine Li in a private Facebook group and on Zoom, where she will walk you through the steps to declutter your home and mind.
• Powerful Strategies: Learn proven techniques to release the physical clutter that’s been a thorn in your side, and open up space for more energy, confidence, and clarity.
• Supportive Community: Connect with like-minded individuals who are on the same journey to a more organized and fulfilling life.

👉 Register for the Challenge Now! https://procrastinationcoach.com/mother

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome to Season 4 of the Mother Plus Podcast! We are BEYOND excited to kick off this new phase of our show and our motherhoods. ADHD, meds, overwhelm, kid's diagnosis, and the rituals that keep us sane -- we have SO much to talk about. 

Here's a quick recap of episode 121:

• Stace and Steph recap the summer with a highlight (and lowlight) reel, ADHD updates, and our feelings on the switch from summer to fall. 
• We chronicle the origin of the podcast and how it has evolved since 2021, including a preview of what this season's episodes will look like. 
• Stace shares how she stayed sane with self-care practices during a summer with her kids and without ADHD meds; a return to her morning ritual was a lifesaver. 
• Steph talks about how her daughters' summer ADHD diagnoses impacted her emotionally and how it's served as a brand new lens for the household and a measurement of when to try harder and when to let go of a low priority task. 
• Rituals to bookend your day: While Stace depends on her grounding morning rituals, Steph looks forward to her evening practice of unwinding, journaling, and planning to keep her calm and grounded. 
• We talk about the fact that taking care of yourself with grounding rituals is NON-NEGOTIABLE. When you are an overwhelmed ADHD mom, keeping yourself grounded is essential, not optional. 
• We share the new direction of our 4th season—while we still remain our imperfect Stace and Steph selves, we want to help give you some tools and strategies to feel better in your busy lives and ADHD brains. 
• As we remember and honor the different versions of our "podcast selves," we are excited to move from last season's "season of discovery" into a new season where we try our hardest to help you understand and protect yourself and thrive in a world that maybe wasn't designed for you, and most importantly, help you remember who you are!

WHERE TO FIND US NOW

Connect with Stacey

• 🎧 The Next Phase Podcast —  
• on Apple & Spotify 
• 📸 Instagram: @stacehutson

Connect with Steph

• 🎧 The Peri-Normal Podcast
  on Apple and Spotify
• ✍️ The Reclamation Era
  on Substack
• 📝 MidCircle
  — a writing community for midlife women
• 📸 Instagram: @stephsprenger