In this episode I speak with clinical psychologist and Divergent Life founder, Dr. Emma Offord. We both come from the medical “deficit” based model in the neurodivergent community but through our own lived experiences have focused on a strengths and somatic based approach to this work.

You can watch or read this episode here.

Craving a safe space to reparent yourself with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

The work I've been doing has been getting really curious about: What's really going on at the root? Like, what's causing this?

And that's what's led me to the nervous system…

Which I hear you speaking to a lot. So I would love to hear, how your work is connecting people with understanding their nervous systems?

I feel like the nervous system holds a lot of wisdom for people and a lot of explanation for these things that we call traits or these symptoms that we attribute to, what other people might refer to as disorders.

My understanding, very much like you Melissa, has been focused on putting the pieces of the jigsaw together and in that I found that the nervous system organizes:

* The mind and the body

* The choices you might make

* Your sensory world

* Your relationships

Actually trying to understand why the nervous system is shifting and changing is really crucial, more so than looking at the list of traits associated with the labels. Because looking at the traits is looking at the outcome whereas looking at the nervous system is looking at the cause.

Understanding what's at the root, ultimately breeds more compassion for everybody and then supports us in truly helping this next generation.

Connect with Dr. Emma and Divergent Life

Discover more about your ND self- Neurodivergent Identity Discovery InfoPack

Current Divergent Life Programs

@DivergentLives on Instagram

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I've spoken to quite a bit lately about intellectualizing my feelings as opposed to actually feeling them.

Even though I consider myself pretty in touch with my emotions. I'm sensitive and I feel deeply, there's still this disconnect between my mind and body.

And the more I've been leaning into this nervous system healing work, the more I'm becoming aware of the different states that I've been in. Not just throughout my day, but in whole periods of my life, where I've been predominantly in one state.

There are 1 of 3 states your nervous system could be in and the more I've been consciously aware of these states, the more I’ve been looking back and recognizing periods of time where I've been predominantly in one.

Especially functional freeze during pockets of more traumatic periods of my life.

If you’re stuck in functional freeze… you might be feeling dissociated, on autopilot where your body is there going through the motions, you're still doing all the things, holding your job, taking the kids to and from school, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, but where your mind is not there.

* This isn't a bad thing.

* We're not doing something wrong.

* We can hold so much shame that we're doing something wrong if we're dysregulated or we're in any other state besides ventral.

* And it's just not true.

Our body is literally protecting us. It's trying to keep us safe. And so I feel like:

* The softer, we can be.

* The more curious we can become about these different states.

* The more educated we can become about what our body needs when we're in these different states of the nervous system.

* To bring ourselves out of fight or flight or functional freeze which basically means: anxiety or people pleasing or overwhelm.

In order to bring ourselves out of these states, we need to know the types of tools that our nervous system is going to respond to.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, disassociated, and struggling with procrastination in that functional freeze state, then these are specific tools that are going to support you in getting back into your body. Helping you feel more present, connected and regulated.

Give them a try and let me know what you think.

Guided self-regulation sessions are part of my paid ADHD mom’s community here on Substack. Want to dip your toes into self-regulation? Start with my free post here.

Ready to dive deeper? Join us in this safe space where neurodivergent moms raising neurodivergent kids learn to self-regulate and reparent themselves in community.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

Read or watch this episode here

Abbey Rae Wilson is not only a good friend but an incredible Human Design Guide. We met at Danny Morel’s event, Awaken, a few weeks ago and we immediately connected over our mutual love of Human Design (in addition to her being a Manifesting Generator- the people I gravitate towards most. More on that in this episode.)

I’ve found when you're aware of your Human Design, you can connect and know people more deeply, which is why I immediately felt connected to Abbey.

Our community is primarily ADHDers, and there's just so much shame around feeling like we're always “doing it wrong.”

There's that feeling of “we don't fit in the box” or there's this good “right” way to do it that we’re not.

And so for me, Human Design has been this permission giving resource of “oh wait, that's not actually real. There is no right. We're not actually all supposed to be doing it the same way.”

That’s why I'm so excited to have this conversation with Abbey because it's such a reassuring resource, not only to better understand yourself, but then to live your life in more aligned ways that just flow easier and that validate your own experience.

All of this wisdom is so valuable and affirming to understand ourselves in this way. And it gives us this template to start moving through life in this new way that gets to feel better, easier, and softer on ourselves because it's all by design.

Connect with Abbey

Free Human Design Mini-Reading

Human Design Parenting Resources

Dive Deeper in a 1:1 with Abbey

Follow Abbey on Instagram

Check out her website to learn more

P.S. Craving a safe space to reparent yourself with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

It all started with this conversation I was having with a friend the other day. She’s really been struggling with the emotions that come up in her parenting, the way that she responds in those moments and the shame she'll then feel about her response. Really wanting to do it perfectly.

I just found what she was sharing so relatable to my own path as a mom. Which means it's likely relatable to a lot of us.

There’s no such thing as perfect parenting

So often as moms, we have this desire, whether we're fully conscious of it or not, to never fail our kids.

* To do things perfectly.

* To do it right.

* To do all the things for our kids that our parents didn't do for us.

And it can be easy to think, I'm never going to make those mistakes my parents made. But what I've found is, we have our whole new slew of mistakes that we make.

Sometimes we are unconsciously passing the same things down, but sometimes we're reacting to new situations from our wounded childhood parts.

And so, until we're fully integrated and whole with all the different parts of us that have trauma in our bodies.

* It's normal to make mistakes.

* It's normal to hurt our kids.

It hurts me to say those words. It feels like an oxymoron, like that should not happen.

The idea of hurting my kids is so uncomfortable that it's like physically painful.

And I think that this is common amongst mothers.

So, when this comes up, how do we meet that discomfort? What do we do with that?

Read and comment with the article here.

P.S. Craving a safe space to reparent yourself with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

I've been really drawn to ADHD as a trauma response lately. That’s why I’m excited I got to pick Britt Piper’s brain about this idea of complex trauma as something that often coincides with neurodivergence.

So, how do we meet the needs of these wounded parts of ourselves, when as a culture, we've been taught: talk therapy is the answer?

As someone who's been in talk therapy for most of my life, I've found that there's parts of it that are so valuable in understanding myself. But then I have this tendency to get stuck overanalyzing my trauma. I know why all of this is happening, but there's this disconnect between my mind and my body.

That's how I landed on Britt's work. The somatic space feels like this bridge that we're not all receiving access to.

The body informs the mind, the mind informs the body, and it's just two different pieces of the exact same puzzle.

I think that we're finally at a moment in the healing space where people realize the mainstream is missing half the conversation, which has been so focused on mindset, cognition, and talk therapy.

So often there's this warring conversation of you're either body based or you're focusing on the mind. And what I really aim to do is to help people recognize that they need to work both.

So, that’s what we're trying to do. Is allow ourselves to be with the experience of the body rather than out of it.

This is what really made the difference for me, the combination of body based healing with therapy.

Healing is not a blanket approach. It's going to look so different for everyone, but I do think having a combination between bottom up and top down approaches can be most beneficial.

It changes your patterns, but it also creates greater resilience within your system.

Connect with Britt

Free Trauma Healing Mini-Course

The Body First Healing Program

Instagram

P.S. Craving a safe space to reparent yourself with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

I just got back from a three-day retreat in Palm Springs, with Danny Morel. He does these events called Awaken.

And I will tell you, it opened up my heart and my capacity to be with a lot of things in a new way.

That amongst a lot of work I've been doing internally to: 

* befriend 

* heal 

* and better understand my nervous system. 

Now I'm finally at this place of:

* Let me be.

* Let me feel.

* Let me embody. 

And this is why I've been bringing you guys a lot of strategies with emotional regulation like my NEW toolkit freebie to help you keep track and stay organized with the different high payoff tools for your nervous system.

Having strategies that ground me into my body, connect my body to my mind.  

As people with ADHD, many of us have complex trauma. We struggle with emotional regulation and we're highly sensitive. We feel things really deeply and so no wonder we try to run away from our feelings…. Cause it hurts. It's intense. We've been told it’s too much.

So it makes so much sense why we’d be running from it, hiding from it, looking for ways to suppress. But I think that there comes a point in our life where we're desperately longing to feel.

I'm starting to create more space in my nervous system to be with myself. I'm starting to create more space around those moments where I’m dysregulated or triggered.

Tearing all of those things off to just be with yourself is very vulnerable. But I really want you to think of it as this entry point into creating enough space to be in your body. To be with whatever's there. To stop running from it. And to not judge it. 

Mothers are the root. So healing our own nervous systems as primary caregivers, as mothers, as women who, I'm just going to say it, the vast majority of us have complex trauma- especially if we're neurodivergent. 

Ultimately, allows us to hold space so we can co-regulate and support our kids.

That is empowerment. We are in control. We create our realities. We create our experiences. It always comes back to us. 

I would love to hear if you have any thoughts, feelings, or if you can relate over on Substack? 

The nervous system needs us to baby step into these things. So stay tuned for these episodes where we'll dive deeper into it all.

Watch or read the episode here.

Join our community for ADHD Moms here.

P.S. Looking for support in reparenting yourself? I’m here for you. Click here to learn more about my 1:1 packages.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I chat with Amanda Diekman, the author of Low Demand Parenting. If you've ever felt exhausted by the daily demands of parenting—especially if you're raising a neurodivergent child—this episode is for you!

What you'll learn in this episode:

• What Low Demand Parenting is and why it’s a game-changer for neurodivergent kids
• The connection between Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), ADHD, and high-masking autism
• Why traditional parenting strategies often fail kids with high demand sensitivity
• How dropping non-essential demands can actually help kids (and parents) thrive
• The difference between fake dropping demands vs. truly creating a supportive environment
• Why reparenting yourself as a neurodivergent mom is just as important as supporting your kids
• How to balance your own needs as a parent while meeting your child's needs without burnout

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Get the first chapter of Amanda's book: Low Demand Parenting here for free

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode, I share a big shift in my work—focusing on supporting moms of neurodivergent kids. While I started out wanting to help educators, I’ve realized that the biggest impact comes from empowering moms first. When we have the tools, support, and space to care for ourselves, it changes everything for our kids.

I’m also introducing my ADHD Mom Support Group on Substack, a space for moms to connect, feel seen, and get the support they deserve. If this speaks to you, I’d love for you to join me!

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode, I explore the connection between trauma, self-sabotage, and the limiting beliefs we carry from childhood. Drawing from the work of Dr. Gabor Maté and Susan Bohm, I discuss how trauma isn’t just about what happened to us, but what we made it mean about ourselves. I reflect on how these unhealed wounds shape our decisions and keep us stuck in patterns of self-doubt and people-pleasing. As cycle breakers, we have the opportunity to heal ourselves and future generations by recognizing these patterns, reparenting ourselves with compassion, and shifting into conscious living.

Read on Substack: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/p/were-the-cycle-breakers

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode, I break down the connection between our nervous system, emotions, and daily actions as ADHDers. Understanding how to create safety in our bodies when we feel triggered or disregulated is essential for emotional regulation and overall well-being. Since no two nervous systems are the same, I share practical ways to identify high-payoff tools that work for you and how to build a personalized regulation toolkit.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• How do we apply nervous system regulation tools in daily life?
• Why do different strategies work for different people?
• How can we create a personalized toolkit for emotional regulation?

Read on Substack: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/publish/post/145089819

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate