Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham

In this episode, I (trauma-therapist, supervisor, Self care coach and author, Eve Menezes Cunningham) share how I transformed (and continue working with it) my inner critic using my rescue cats and better understanding of how trauma and ADHD affect the brain as inspiration. From 21 years of helping others, I reveal some simple shifts that have really helped.

✨ Key takeaways:

• Replace harsh self-talk with gentle "Evie Cat" (well, your equivalent) moments

• Remember, you're not stupid - you just have ADHD or trauma! Challenge that internalised ableism!!!

• Progress over purrfection, always

• Find people who've "harvested their own shame" for support

Whether you're navigating ADHD, trauma, or just being human, this episode offers practical tools for treating yourself with the compassion you, just like everybody else, deserve.

#SelfCompassion #ADHD #TraumaHealing #MentalHealth #SelfCare #InnerCritic #Therapy #Mindfulness #FeelBetterEveryDay

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the Self (for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself) and self-care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas through the lens of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework to help you:

• Feel. Regulate your nervous system, work with your energy and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love. Accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal. Collective care to turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large

Thanks for watching.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get an exclusive deeper dive (these include bonus interviews, EFT Tap Alongs, yoga poses, breath practices, journal prompts and more) each week.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work. If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham @rescuecattitude @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS

(0:21) Introduction to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast

(1:33) A Mistaken Date and Self-compassion

(3:15) ADHD and Challenging Internalised Labels

(4:36) The Feel. Love. Heal. Framework

(5:03) Feel: Kinder Self-talk and Emotional Release

(8:05) Love: Radical Self-acceptance and Rest

(9:36) Heal: Co-regulation and Compassion for Others

(12:03) Closing Reflections and Resources

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

That make you feel like you have to DO in order to be worthy. You're already worthy. You're already lovable. You're already brilliant. And the more you love yourself, the more compassion you have for yourself, the more you will be able to connect with your resourcefulness, the more you'll be able to create, connect with your creativity.

Hi, you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm your host and producer Eve Menezes Cunningham. For 21 years next week, I've been running Feel Better Every Day (previously under different names, but for the past nearly 10 years, I don't know the exact years, but) Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes Cunningham (aka selfcarecoaching.net): Self care coaching, trauma-informed therapies and clinical supervision.

I'm also an author and columnist and I love sharing in these episodes. And today's is an unexpected one. My hair's still wet from swimming, but I hadn’t thought I'd be recording today. I was up late last night editing an extended episode for my 21st business birthday around lessons I've learnt in the hope that it will help you learn faster.

I've spent decades, for my own healing and in professional practice, so by sharing these things, the intention is that you don't have to do things the hard way like I did.

Speaking of the hard way, it got to about one o'clock in the morning and I suddenly realised my business birthday is the 9th of September, not the 2nd of September. So I'm way ahead having done so much editing on next week's episode, but I had nothing for today!

Obviously my immediate thought was, “Evie Cat!” But that alone is such huge progress because I would have spent most of my life beating myself up. For more about Evie Cat and using cats to help you feline better every day, working with Polyvagal Theory, you can go to selfcarecoaching.net/feline and listen to the cat episodes of the podcast.

But that, seriously, is one of the quickest things to do. Talk to yourself more gently. Yes, I was annoyed that it was late at night. Yes, I felt stupid. Yes, I thought I worked so hard to navigate dates and times and all the rest of it, and there I was. I'd missed a week.

I very quickly, because of my years and years and years of practice, reminded myself, OK, it's done, I can do another tomorrow. And in Ellyce Fulmore's words, “You're not stupid, you just have ADHD.”

I've read so much about ADHD and listened to so many podcasts and audiobooks and done additional trainings the past good few years now, pre-diagnosis and post. Ellyce Fulmore's book, Keeping Finance Personal, is really gorgeous, and throughout it, she has these little statements like, “You're not bad with money, you just have ADHD”, or “You're not ____, you just have ADHD.”

It's connecting with all those internalised, ableist, “You're lazy, you're stupid, you're all of this” that we've just taken for granted. Even with the work I'm doing, even with compassion being core to all of it, it's a challenge when you make a silly mistake.

The other day, I got my arm caught in the car door, because rather than putting it in the normal way, I put it in... Anyway, I'm constantly being ridiculous, and over the years, I've learnt to be kinder to myself as I do it, so I'm hoping that this episode (Hello, Rainbow!) will help you be kinder to yourself and recognise that whatever mistakes you're making, whatever you're finding challenging, you're not stupid, you just have ADHD, or you just have trauma, and that's absolutely fine.

Both impact executive functioning, and you can put supports in place, and I'm hoping that this episode will help you do that. I'm going to start with the feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. Framework.

I've said a bit about some of what I do in terms of the kinder self-talk, the more soothing self-talk, but I want you to encourage yourself to do whatever helps you. For me, Rainbow coming here right now, she is what helped me internalise that more friendly self-talk. Because when she came from the shelter, I wanted her to feel as safe, as secure, as loved as possible, and I had already learnt about Polyvagal Theory.

She's nearly 14, and wow, yes, through the trauma-informed yoga training, and talking to her more kindly, it really integrated my talking to myself more kindly. So, again, in the past, it would have been an immediate, “For f***'s sake, but now it's like , “Evie Cat…” And it's still not like, “Woo-hoo! Evie Cat!” but it's a gentler version. Progress, not purrfection, always.

Think for yourself who you might imagine talking to. Internalise that for yourself. You might have a gorgeous rescue cat or four, well, technically two, I just still feed the every day. You might have a baby, you might have a lizard, you might have donkeys next door, whatever your situation. Think about a puppy, think about any creature who you know you would not be subjecting to the kind of way in which you talk to yourself.

Notice how that feels, and also don't force it, don't force the gentleness. I knew last night that I could quickly record, I have loads and loads of ideas. Yes, I'd missed a week in my yearly plan, because this is the first year I've planned content, but I wasn't worried about creating a shorter podcast episode. I knew I could do it.

If I'd been more worried, if I'd been more stressed, if I'd been more anxious, I could have screamed, or stamped, or done some strong yoga, or push-ups, or jogging on the spot, or gone for a bike ride in the middle of the night, or whatever it might have been. Because it's so important to move the painful emotions out of your body.

Improv massively helped me years ago. I wrote about in the book. You might have classes near you, there might be classes online. Just recognising that life is messy, and the more you can play with it, the more you can learn that Yes And… approach that is the basis of so much improvisation, the easier you can pivot.

And it's actually not a big deal. It's not stopping me doing anything today, just before lunch, doing a quick recording straight out the swimming pool. Moving to the Love part of the Feel. Love. Heal. Framework, accept your whole self.

Accept the part of yourself that feels so stupid, that feels so inadequate, that has internalised ableism, when you don't want to have (internally or externally) any kind of ism. The part of you that is exhausted, the part of you that keeps repeating certain behaviours that aren't in your best interest.

Let yourself rest, build in more time to rest, build in more time to sleep than you think you'll need. Look after yourself, build in space to just be, to not have demands on yourself, to not have to perform, to not have to be doing all the things that make you feel like you have to do in order to be worthy.

You're already worthy, you're already lovable, you're already brilliant and the more you love yourself, the more compassion you have for yourself, the more you will be able to connect with your resourcefulness, the more you'll be able to create, connect with your creativity, your playfulness and enjoy life.

Feeling joy, feeling positive emotions, it's helping with nervous system regulation and it's helping you then be a positive force for improving your life, your loved one's lives and the world around you.

Which is how we move into the Heal section of the Feel. Love. Heal. Framework. Co-regulate. Recognise you might often be there for other people. Think about the people who can be there for you.

Even in the middle of the night. I was able to send a message to my partner, kind of like Doh! but in a friendly way to myself. And I knew that he would not be shaming me, like empathising and being friendly. There are other loved ones who I adore and who would have been like, “Oh Eve! Why do you keep doing this?”

Basically the voices I internalised as a small child. I adore them but I've spent my adult life healing from them. As Brené Brown talks about with shame and vulnerability, it's really important to talk to people, to shine a light on it and it's really important to discern who you're talking to.

If I were to have spoken to someone who didn't understand, I'd have felt worse rather than just like, yeah it's fine, I'll sort it tomorrow. You need to find people who have harvested their own shame, their own. We're all human, we'll have areas we feel better about and worse about.

But think when you need to heal, when you need that support or when you're helping someone else. If someone is coming to you feeling ridonkulous about whatever it is they've done, feeling stupid and if you're feeling triggered by what they're saying and if you're kind of noticing you're having to bite your tongue and not agree with them, give them a hug or kindly let them know that you haven't dealt with all of your stuff around this. They might want to go into a deeper conversation with someone else around it. There's no shame in knowing our limitations. The more you have that compassion for yourself, the more you can extend it to others and vice versa.

We can have compassion for others so, so easily, especially with justice sensitivity. And we can learn from that, like I did with the cats, to extend some of that to myself. And my life has transformed in these past 21 years and certainly in the last decade.

Sending enormous love to you wherever you are, whatever you're feeling, welcoming all the emotions rather than toxic positivity telling yourself, “I shouldn't feel stupid.” If you feel stupid, give yourself a hug, connect with that painful, painful realisation that there's a part of you that feels stupid!

Try the self-care ideas I've shared here. Let me know how you're getting on. I love hearing from you.

You can email me or connect through the comments and if you would like to subscribe you can do so.

We're going to have a deeper dive on this in the Sole to Soul Circle tomorrow, so if you are interested you can find out how to join via selfcarecoaching.net and you can access all the episodes through the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com as well as wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube or whatever app you like.

If you subscribe through any of them or follow or to my newsletter you can then get additional information but you might just like to dip in and out and it's whatever's going to be best for you.

I hope you have a gorgeous week ahead. In the show notes you'll find full transcripts and links and other resources that includes the book Self Care, nope, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and there are loads of free resources on the website as well as information about the Sole to Soul Circle and more.

That's selfcarecoaching.net and if you use the search bar you can basically type in anything or go under specialisms to find things specific to for example sleep or ADHD or trauma or menopause or whatever it might be if that's one of my specialisms.

Sending enormous love again and I look forward to sharing the extended episode for my 21st business birthday (which is almost done thanks to my mistake so woohoo!) and have a brilliant week.

Lots of love.

You were NEVER too much.

In episode 73 of Feel Better Every Day Podcast, trauma therapist, author, producer and host Eve Menezes Cunningham shares some of her decades-long journey of Inner Child work.

You’ll learn:

• Why children with ADHD internalise significantly more criticism and shame

• How to identify different Inner Child parts / subpersonalities (playful, creative, curious, wounded)

• Eve's recent breakthrough with crisps about feeling "too much" from babyhood and how childhood coping mechanisms shaped her adult patterns

• Gentle approaches to Inner Child work that won't overwhelm you

• The Feel...Love...Heal framework for Inner Child work

You were never "too much". You were, like all babies, children and adults across this wondrous world we live in, a miraculous child deserving of love and understanding.

Whether you're new to Inner Child work or revisiting it with fresh perspective, this episode offers trauma-informed, ADHD-friendly guidance for healing those tender parts of yourself.

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel... connect with and honour your lifeforce (charge, prana, chi etc), regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love... accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal... collective care to turn what hurts your heart into action to help heal yourself, your family, organisations, communities and the world at large

Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each week.

RESOURCES

• Episode 65 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast

• 365 Ways to Feel Better book

• the Sole to Soul Circle for deeper exploration

Connect with Eve:

🌐 thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com

📧 selfcarecoaching.net

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work.

If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments: YouTube @evemenezescunningham Substack @evemc Bluesky @eveimc TikTok @evemenezescunningham Insta @evemenezescunningham @rescuecattitude @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

CHAPTERS

(0:00 - 0:19) Opening: Responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe

(0:20 - 2:15) Introduction to the podcast and resources

(2:15 - 4:08) Episode focus: working with Inner Children

(4:08 - 6:30) ADHD, trauma, and the impact on Inner Children

(6:30 - 8:45) Using photos to represent different Inner Children

(8:45 - 11:10) Different types of Inner Children: playful, curious, wounded, needy

(11:10 - 12:47) Gentle approach and sharing experiences with Inner Child work

(12:48 - 15:50) Personal story: childhood photos and self-loathing v healing

(15:50 - 19:30) Reflections on childhood eating, parental limitations and self-compassion

(19:30 - 23:10) Accepting joyful and wounded parts of yourself

(23:10 - 26:00) Love phase of Feel… Love… Heal…: connecting with Inner Children through journalling and objects

(26:00 - 29:10) Heal phase: noticing and supporting Inner Children in yourself and others

(29:10 - 32:47) Closing reflections: revisiting Inner Children, self-compassion, and encouragement for continued work

FULL TRANSCRIPT

You're taking responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe. You as the adult have survived and this can be transformational and a lot can come up.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.

To help you create a life you don't need to retreat from and feel better every day. You can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com and you can also access information about the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and all the free resources at selfcarecoaching.net as well as ways in which, if you're interested, each Wednesday the Sole to Soul Circle members get an email and exclusive content which goes into a deeper dive around that week's podcast theme.

Today's episode, episode 73, is about working with our Inner Children. Especially with trauma and ADHD, Inner Child work can be painful. I know I've been going through a bunch of old photos and I ended up going with this as my main one to work with.

A child of the ‘70s, early ‘80s, in the Circle I'll be going into more depth and sharing some of the ways in which I'm working with photos myself and ways in which members can. It's powerful transformational work. You may well have already done some.

This podcast episode is to help you recognise that again with trauma, with ADHD, I can't remember the exact number (ADHD brain) but children growing up with ADHD, because we get things wrong, because we're called careless and told we should be trying harder, it's an enormous amount more criticism that we've internalised than our counterparts who are more neurotypical.

And that has an impact on our Inner Children. We grow up with a lot of shame.

With trauma recovery there's an enormous amount of shame where we were too little to save ourselves, but we still internalise it.

Inner Child work and be transformative and joyful and also really painful. That picture I chose, I hadn't remembered it but I was actually looking for a different picture which I remembered from when I started my Inner Child work more consciously coming up two decades ago and finding a picture of myself at age five or six on a bike in the 1970s/1980s on the cul-de-sac I lived on at the time.

When I saw it the other day it was like, “Oh what a sweet little kid!” Because I've done so much Inner Child work.

Whereas back then, I was filled with loathing and disgust for her! Like why hadn't she done more to like save herself?

If, when I'm saying to you, “You might want to find a photo to represent these different Inner Children for yourself” I'm talking to you not as a one-to-one trauma therapist but through a podcast.

I don't know who you are, I don't know where in the world you are and I am trusting you to look after yourself and your Inner Children rather than going too deep and finding it more painful than anything needs to be.

Again with trauma, with ADHD, we're used to pain, we're used to things being hard.

Inner Child work can be delightful. It can be gentle. It can be so healing but in that not overwhelming cathartic way.

Thinking about your different Inner Children, maybe find a picture to represent your Playful Inner Child. (See episode 65, too)

Your Creative Inner Child (before you, like for all of us, creating for the pure joy of it, whether it's painting or drawing or singing or playing music or whatever, games, like whatever it might have been before it suddenly became about being good at whatever you were doing).

That Curious Inner Child. You might still have that curiosity or it might have been conditioned out of you at an early age if your parents were fearful about you getting into trouble and hurting yourself.

That Wounded Inner Child. That Needy Inner Child. That Inner Child that feels Too Much, that feels not worthy, that feels unlovable.

There are going to be joyful elements, Joyful Inner Child subpersonalities, joyful Inner Children.

And also ones that you can't currently sit with.

For the Feel… part of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, notice how you felt as I've said this so far.

Make a note of some of your Inner Children (or one, like I'm saying “some of”. ADHD brain. I generally have a list of about 60 of anything) and be open to finding a photo to represent that (or those) Inner Child(ren).

Feel free to share them with me!

I'd love to see them, tag me on my social media, the links are in the show notes. If photos feel too much. Like I mentioned, I had a terrible experience the first time I tried doing this with mine, I was just overcome with self-loathing. I used a ragdoll, I was encouraged to get a ragdoll to represent Little Me and I did some healing with that using some crystals. Some energy work around it.

Again I'll be going into more of this in the Circle tomorrow, but just take that step, just think about that Inner Child. Know that even if you grew up believing that you were too much, you weren't.

I had a real epiphany a few weeks ago and this is, I'm nearly 50, I've been working on my Inner Children for DECADES and there's always new levels of healing to come up. I was in a situation where I was on an island. An island off Ireland. And I was worried about not having food. My basic need for food not being met.

I was feeling really frustrated both with the restaurants that I'd been in touch with in advance (and then being told I couldn't even have peas with my chips, because yes the peas were vegan, but they were only available with the fish and obviously that's not vegan).

With the pepper allergy as well, that feeling. I was very much feeling unsafe. And like I was too much. I made the connection that when I went vegetarian when I was like 11, 12 my mum was working, my dad was working, I was (I didn't know it, I had) ADHD and I was very particular about what I would eat.

I didn't like vegetables and my parents kind of threw up their hands and gave up on me and I would basically have a packet of bourbons for lunch or a Feast ice cream or an iced bun. I just ate terribly for years and years and years. And then when I went back to eating meat for a few months when I was 17, 18, I had a massive growth spurt.

A few weeks ago, I made this connection when I was kind of thinking, “Oh, I don't even have any crisps to eat” and it was like, “Oh my God/dess! Yeah! Crisps were safe!!!!!”

So all these years where I've eaten more crisps, not so much recently but I'd often have like six packets of crisps for dinner. I’d think, “I'm not hungry enough to eat a meal, I'll just have a packet of crisps” and then that would become another and another and another and realising, Wow my parents did their best, I adore them and also they didn't know it was a different time, it was the ‘90s, they didn't know how to accommodate my eating and being vegetarian when not many people were. I don't know if anyone remembers Beanfeast, hideous, but recognising.

Wow, so from pre-verbal, I had internalised the idea, as a baby, that in certain situations when I was needy or when I was wounded I was too much. But where I was happy, where I was like enthusiastic and joyful and that was welcomed. That was like celebrated.

So I have a very enthusiastic nearly 50 year old that has been conditioned. And it's about me now befriending that more wounded, those more wounded parts of myself, the more needy parts of myself, the parts that still sometimes believe that I'm too much, not enough, unlovable, not worthy.

I'm telling you this because I want you to be honest with yourself about the messiness of your own Inner Children.

For the Love… part of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, if it feels okay for you, if it's within your “window of tolerance”, sit with an Inner Child or your Inner Children.

Journal, give them a mental or physical hug, maybe choose a soft toy to connect with, maybe a fabric from a blanket, whatever it might be.

Again, you're taking responsibility for keeping your Inner Child safe. You, as the adult, have survived. And this can be transformational. And a lot can come up. So go really gently with yourself.

And for the Heal… part, think about the kids and adults in your life today. Think about what you notice, what you hypothesise about their Inner Children. Notice the times where perhaps the adults in their lives are human and snap. They don't light up with joy when they see the marvels before them, that every child being miraculous, every human being miraculous.

See if there are ways in which you can help their Inner Children and kids, appropriately obviously.

How can you help? How can you light up for other people? How can you see them in their wholeness, in their full, playful, creative, curious and wounded, needy, too muchness?

Begin to notice those opportunities. As I said there'll be more tomorrow for the deeper dive for the Sole to Soul Circle members and you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net

And I'd love for you to just let me know how you're getting on.

Have you done Inner Child work before? How does it feel now to be revisiting it? Or potentially exploring different Inner Children, ones that you may have neglected in the past or that it's been a while since you acknowledged?

Are you excited? Are you thinking this could be really helpful but like there's a bit of dread?

Honour how you feel, thank you for listening, I'll be sharing more next week and this episode, like all of them so far, has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham.

I really hope that you give yourself some grace and time and patience and care and tenderness and kindness and lots and lots of love for yourself now and your earlier selves. All of them, but particularly whichever Inner Child or Inner Children have sprung up for you as you've been listening to this or pondering this. Have a delightful week and I'll see you next time.

Do You Have High-functioning Co-dependence?

Feeling exhausted despite "having it all together"? You might be trapped in high functioning co-dependence. Especially with trauma and ADHD, we’re so conditioned, from a preverbal age, to ignore our own knowledge, wisdom, wants and needs and prioritise others’. And it’s never too late to step into your power.

In this episode, you’ll:

Stop exhausting yourself trying to be lovable. Remember that you already are worthy. Exactly as you are. You’re totally lovable exactly as you are. You’re enough. You’re not too much and the moment you recognise this, everything gets easier.

Resources mentioned: Terri Cole (Boundary Boss), Kasia Urbaniak (Unbound), Kara Loewentheil (Unf*** Your Brain) Meggan Watterson (Reveal etc) and Gloria Steinem (Revolution from Within etc)

#HighFunctioningCodependence #SelfCare #Boundaries #ADHD #Trauma #WomenEmpowerment

Feel Better Every Day!

Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on. With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel... regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love... accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal... turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large

Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each week.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work. If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack

Eve Menezes Cunningham

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham @rescuecattitude @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS

(0:00 - 1:42) Opening thoughts on exhaustion and high functioning co-dependence

(3:10 - 4:35) Introduction to episode topic and Terri Cole’s definition

(4:35 - 5:21) Kasia Urbaniak and the “good girl” and “independent woman”

(8:12 - 10:03) Shifting attention away from yourself to the aggressor

(13:09 - 15:48) The “smoosh” and losing power in relationships

(20:48 - 23:09) Kara Loewentheil’s “floor fries” metaphor

(33:38 - 34:55) Gloria Steinem’s toilet training and fascism insight

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Also notice the times when you feel exhausted and be honest with yourself about the potential for high functioning co-dependence and is there someone or some area in your life where you're more prone to it, where you feel like you have to do, you have to go along with, you have to, whatever it is, in order to be lovable, in order to be worthy. And just know, even if you have to keep telling yourself, know with every fibre of your being that you already are.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma informed and ADHD friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.

The idea is to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from so you can feel better every day and you can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com. For deeper dives into each episode, including bonus interviews when they're interview episodes, plus access to a rich archive of exclusive material, including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey, you can join the Sole to Soul Circle and there are other resources like the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and lots of book bonus videos on the website selfcarecoaching.net

And lots of other free resources around trauma, ADHD, anxiety, stress, confidence, perimenopause and menopause, self-care for solopreneurs, confidence, I can't remember if I said that, resilience, decolonising yourself, trying to think what I've forgotten, but I've kind of spent a lot of time in the past year or so trying to create more of a library type feel for each of the specialisms to make it much more accessible and easy to use.

I hope you find that helpful and do let me know what you'd like more of and if you have any questions. That's selfcarecoaching.net.

For today's episode, episode 72, we're looking at high functioning co-dependence and it's a term I learnt from the American author and podcast host, Boundary Boss, Terri Cole.

Basically, it also confirms a lot of what Kasia Urbaniak talks about when she talks about the Good Girl and the Independent Woman actually being related. What Terri Cole explains around high functioning co-dependence is you wouldn't think of yourself as a typical codependent person because you're not sitting around weeping and wailing and unable to function.

Instead, you're the one who is doing everything for everyone and you seem like you have it all together, but the point is that you're utterly exhausted because so much of your time and energy and attention is on what other people need.

I thought I'd explore it a little bit today, but am very much encouraging you to check out Terri Cole's work. She does entire courses around this and she has some really lovely podcast episodes and the book. Kasia Urbaniak is another, like I mentioned, the Good Girl and the Independent Woman.

She talks about the Good Girl and how we were all conditioned through thousands of years of patriarchal conditioning, where women condition obviously as well as men, but it's to benefit the patriarchy.

Because if anything bad happened to a girl or a woman, because she was blamed, all the kind of shaming around sexuality and clothing and behaviour and very much conditioned to be a good girl, a marriageable girl. It's only relatively recently that women could have their own money, their own credit cards, their own businesses. That is something that might sound familiar, but it's more likely that you'll be like, “Nope! That's not me! I had lots of choices. I was told I could do whatever I wanted, be whatever I wanted.”

And this is where she starts talking about the Independent Woman. The Independent Woman sounds like a wonderful thing, but the way she describes it, it's basically, we have created a situation where we are independent, we can do what we want, but it has left us unable to accept help and support and also too scared of feeling too bossy.

If you're too much, then it's the “too bossy”. And if you're in Good Girl, it's “too needy”. Kasia used to work as a dominatrix and I've been recommending her work to everyone. She is phenomenal. She also trained for 12 years as a Taoist nun.

She was doing a lot of energy work and set up The Academy to support people in finding their power. She works with women because it's women's conditioning that makes our attention go inward when we're under attack. Whether it's sexual harassment, verbal or in an actual situation like where you're physically in danger or whether it's a boss asking an inappropriate question or a random on the street, whatever it might be.

Kasia explains how we're all conditioned as girls, as women, to be focused on how we are. Our attention defaults to, “What did I do to deserve that?”

Whereas boys are trained to focus on what they do. It's the more active, they're more likely.

She says nine out of 10 times if someone says something inappropriate to a man, it'll be like, “Why would you say that?”

Her recommendation is that you immediately ask a question. So you avoid that default that leads to the freeze response. And you're instead, it could be a, “Why would you think that's okay to ask?” Or it might be something witty. It might, like think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They're doing the reboot and she would not only slay, but she would have some witty repartee with each thing.It might be a situation that you later think, “Oh, I wish I'd said that.”

But Kasia's point is you don't even need to say anything clever or even related. The idea is to take the attention, the unwanted attention off yourself. And immediately put it onto the aggressor. It might be, “What colour are your eyes?” Or “Why are you wearing that tie?” It doesn't matter what it is. The idea is you're not going inwards and vulnerable in those few moments. I really recommend you check out her work. Her book Unbound is about helping women to get over that Good Girl conditioning, that Independent Woman conditioning.

What I found incredibly helpful, and how it links with this episode around co-dependence is high functioning co-dependence. To me, the Independent Woman is very much what Terri Cole is talking about.

Got it all sorted. Don't need any help. Can I take that bag for you? Nope, I'm fine. I've got it.

Can I pay for you for whatever? Nope, it's all good. I don't need anyone to pay for me.

Can I hold a door open for you? Nope.

She talks about what she calls the smoosh. When she talks about Dom or Sub, obviously that's BDSM but it has applications in all our lives because our lives are all about power dynamics, all our relationships. But in the dungeon, it's more exaggerated.

Some people will talk about masculine energy, feminine energy, the feminine being more receptive, the masculine being more... I can't think of the word right now, but just thinking in terms of when you're able to be clear in what you want, when you're able to allow yourself to know what you know and want what you want and to express it clearly, whether you're coming from a dominating energy and you're just demanding what you want, but in a way in which others want to give it to you, or whether you're coming from the submissive.

And again, we have connotations around all of it. You might think, “Oh, I don't like that” but you might translate it for masculine, feminine if that feels good for you or whatever. Just notice how you feel. Notice what comes up for you when you think about saying, “I need this.”

This is where we get into trouble, and I really recognise this myself in my relationships, my whole life. I've been changing it, I've been healing it, and they're much, much better. But where I find myself in trouble is what she calls the smoosh.

It's where I don't want to be too needy, and I don't want to be too bossy. I'm messing, in terms of the Taoist work she's done, with the energies. The clean energies mean being clear about what you want, that kind of owning it. Being clear and able to accept what others want to give you when you want it. She talks about the smoosh, where you're in neither, and you're taking away the power from both.

For example, I grew up loathing the idea of any kind of princessy behaviour. Any kind of entitled… “I can open my own doors, thank you very much,” or anything like that. Whereas what I've learned from listening to her, is actually, why not let ourselves receive? Why not let ourselves enjoy all the good life has to offer when we want it, and when it's freely given? Why not allow ourselves to have that vulnerability when appropriate, and to really connect with it in ourselves and others?

And she's talking about the power in that, inherent in it when you don't deny it, but also the power in terms of knowing what you want, and giving yourself permission, giving others permission. She talks about giving a role, giving others a role in your life. When you ask for someone to step up, it might go against all the Independent Woman conditioning.

I realise that I'm talking… I normally, I want all my work to be freely available to people of all genders, but this is specifically for people who've been raised female. Kasia wants to work with men, but she's found through her experiments, her laboratory, she's talking about for women.

I hope this resonates, but it will also hopefully resonate for other people as well. Notice how you feel when you know you want something, or if you've been so conditioned out of what you want.

How it feels to give yourself permission to know what you know, and want what you want, and to not have that codependent fear of not being lovable, not being worthy, not being acceptable, not being powerful enough, being too powerful. It gets, you can totally understand why it gets so smooshy.

I'd love for you to think about how you feel listening to this so far, and to think about whether you ever push help, support your needs being met in ways that feel good for everyone involved, away.

Because you're not taking full ownership of your power, you're giving your power away, and you're also not allowing yourself to need. We’re all humans, men, women, non-binary, we all need to give, we all need to receive.

When Kasia talks about dominance, and she's very much talking about the exchange of energy, so the attention out and the attention in, the talking, the listening, that it's such a powerful, I really encourage you to listen to some of her work, read some of her work, if it resonates.

And in this week's Circle deeper dive, there'll be a recording, so self-study, and Self-study with the uppercase S, because you're really going inward, so you can use it at your own pace.

It will be available in the exclusive membership area of the Substack, but we'll be having a deeper dive into helping you find out what you want, even if you've had decades and decades of conditioning to not only not ask for what you want, but not even to acknowledge to yourself what you want.

There is so much power, and it makes me laugh, because my work has been all around this, like self-care and all, for decades now. And it's one of the questions I ask all new clients, “What do you want?” And I sometimes say it's harder than some of the ones around like suicidal ideation or trauma and all the others, because so many people, they just don't know.

But you DO know when you give yourself permission to know. And this is where I encourage embodied journalling, where you record yourself, and you, I'm realising I've moved into the Feel part of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework without identifying that.

You might record just audio, or you might record video. I recommend video, so you can see yourself. Notice how it feels to allow your stream of consciousness, say some of the things you want.

I'm challenging myself, because I turned 50 in November, and I started a list a few weeks ago of 50 things that I want. Some of them are, I want to have finished the weeding around the house. I want to have the, like, kind of garden the area more. Other things, like I wanted to get a new kitchen tap, because there was a drip. Some of them are going to be just as exciting as that. Things around the house, or things with the car.

Other things are going to be deeper. Other things are going to be more pleasurable. Other things, I'm just going to let myself see what comes up, but the idea of giving myself permission to want 50 things. Some of them I can do for myself. Some things I'll be asking loved ones, or I'll be, like, kind of needing professional support with, or whatever it might be.

But let yourself want what you want, and I want to also ask you to notice how it feels to imagine asking someone to help you get what you want. And this is where the smoosh can occur, in Kasia's terms, because it's like, “Oh, I shouldn't want it, or they're busy” or whatever.

What I found really helpful is, she talks quite harshly, but I also really recognise it in so many of the heteronormative couples that I know, and some of those whom I've worked with: Where the woman is so used to doing everything, she basically trains the man to be what Kasia calls a couch potato, or a worm.

He goes in on himself, he loses his sense of self-worth, and often then has an affair, and it's like, “Why would you do that?” I'm thinking of all the female Oscar winners who have then been cheated on, and it's that kind of, no one's fault, this is purely about unspoken power dynamics. But her point is that when we allow people to step up, when we allow people to help us get what we want, we're also helping them. They're gaining a role in our lives. This is good for everyone.

And of course, if they don't, then that's information. You recognise you were not wrong to ask, but you get to think, “No, I'm going to…”

And this is where I want to move on to Kara Loewentheil, and she does the Unfuck Your Brain podcast. And there was something, I can't remember what episode it was, and I've told hundreds of people about this concept of floor fries. So the idea of, like, when we're feeling codependent, so we might not look it, but we're feeling like our worth hinges on someone else's treatment of us, rather than us having that inherent, we're all part of the

For Black Cat Appreciation Day this week, we explore how we "other" creatures like sharks and black cats - and how this mirrors the parts of ourselves we reject. Join the Sole to Soul Circle for a live (online) deeper dive into your own shadow on Monday 18th August

🖤 Join Eve Menezes Cunningham as she dives into shadow work using the Feel...Love...Heal framework. Inspired by Netflix's "Shark Whisperer" and her own rescue cats (especially Rainbow MagnifiCat), Eve explores how embracing our whole selves (including the parts we've labelled as "monstrous") can transform our relationships and create a more compassionate world.

✨ You'll learn:

* How projection keeps us from seeing our full humanity

* Why we fear powerful parts of ourselves

* Gentle approaches to shadow work and self-acceptance

* How loving our rejected parts heals our connections with others

🔗 Join the Sole to Soul Circle for deeper shadow work exploration

🔗 Find more resources at selfcarecoaching.net

Next week: High Functioning Co-dependence (Episode 72)

#shadowwork #SelfCare #TraumaInformed #ADHDFriendly #Podcast #SelfAcceptance #feelbettereveryday

This episode features special guest appearances from Mighty Meadbh, Eve's rescue cat 🐱

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on. With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel... regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love... accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal... turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large

Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each week.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at

https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work. If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham (and @rescuecattitude and @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast)

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS / CATPURRS

(0:00 – 0:58) Black cat cameo and podcast intro

(0:59 – 11:02) Sharks, shadow work and misunderstood creatures

(11:02 – 11:31) Healing through acceptance

(11:33 – 13:20) Leaving the world better than you found it

(13:20 – 15:18) Shadow work and embracing our power

(15:19 – 16:34) Rescue cats, love, and letting it expand

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Like Marianne Williamson talked about… [pop Marianne Williamson into the Search on my site to read my interview with her]. I think I have a cat behind me. I do, I have a cat right next to me. It's not a black cat, it's Mighty Meadbh, little wondercat. She was the feral mammy who, oh bless her, she's gorgeous. And I othered her, when she appeared in the garden, she was terrorising Rainbow. I didn't know she had all the kittens at the time, but she kept turning up and I was like, oh my god, I can't have any more cats. And then there were 11 cats and I had to deal with them.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to episode 71 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday, I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.

Ideally, to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from. You can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com and for deeper dives into each week's theme, you can join the Sole to Soul Circle. As well as bonus interviews and practices, there are live circles online and instant access to the whole Love Your Whole Self chakra journey.

You might also find the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, helpful. And other resources available at selfcarecoaching.net.

Today's episode, in honour of Black Cat Appreciation Day this week, I was hoping to have a little cameo from Rainbow, but we're going to be talking about sharks, those misunderstood monsters.

I recently watched Shark Whisperer on Netflix. If you haven't seen it, I recommend at least giving it a go. I would not have thought it was my kind of programme / documentary at all and I absolutely adored it. Someone close to me really pushed recommending it and I'm so glad I did.

It follows Ocean Ramsey as she uses her long history with sharks. From the time she was growing up in Hawaii she wasn't scared. She swims with them and does an enormous amount of work trying to save them from the real monsters on the planet, the humans.

Sorry, I don't mean to be down on humans.

There are many, many amazing humans, but the point of Black Cat Appreciation Day is that a lot of people malign paw, beautiful black cats as unlucky, as bad somehow, as not photogenic enough. They brought in this day to help rescues place more black cats.

Rainbow Magnificat (obviously every day is Rainbow Appreciation Day here) changed my life.

Sharks changed Ocean Ramsey's life. The power of connecting with her own energy as she works with theirs and also what she's had to do in life… I'm so happy she found her partner who's equally in love with sharks.

For the purpose of this episode, we're not going to be diving with sharks. We're not even going to be swimming with sharks. I've also been watching, what is it? Shark: Celebrity Infested Waters, which again, is aiming to bring awareness.

I wish they'd shown more around what they were doing to support contestants with their anxiety and fears. It could be quite educational in that regard as well, but the sharks are amazing.

We call sharks monsters. I don't, but a lot of people hate sharks. They won't swim in the ocean. They're scared because we've been taught to fear them. They've been othered.

Unfortunately, we live in a time where many, many, many groups of people and individuals are othered for things they have no control over. The more we own our whole shadows, the more we can bring about a more peaceful way of life for all who come into contact with us by not projecting our fears and our monstrous parts onto others.

Start by asking yourself, have you ever really, really, really not liked someone?

And it might be like absolutely loads of people you really don’t like, or it might be, “Oh, I'm not supposed to dislike people.”

The more we can work with the parts of ourselves that don't like someone and own those parts we're projecting out onto them back in ourselves, we can create beautiful friendships. We can really transform things.

But if we just let ourselves dismiss politicians, people, like entire groups of people as completely monstrous, we're dehumanising ourselves. We're all complex. We're all worthy of love and safety and shelter and all good things.

I want you to think about how you feel about addressing your shadow. As we move into the feel, part of the Feel... Love... Heal... framework, do you consider black cats to be bad luck? Do you consider sharks to be monsters?

Think of something you dislike or someone you dislike or even hate and just ask yourself how it feels to contemplate the possibility that what you hate within them or what you dislike or what you fear in them is within yourself.

We're going to be doing a deeper dive into shadow work on Monday the 18th for Sole to Soul Circle members.

You can join if you're not already a member at evemc.substack.com. It's just eight euros a month and you can leave anytime. And you have that instant access.

But because of the nature of shadow work, it's an RSVP circle and I'm very much encouraging live attendance for Monday the 18th of August at 6.30pm to 7pm so that there's no recording.

It's a sensitive issue and I want people to feel really safe. Think about how that feels for you.

Are you scared of shadow work? Are you scared to look within yourself and think about what it might be within you?

It's not all, like, scary stuff. It's not all, like, unlucky stuff. It's not. Sometimes, like, Marianne Williamson talked about… [pop Marianne Williamson into the Search on my site to read my interview with her] I think I have a cat behind me. I do. I have a cat right next to me.

It's not a black cat. It's Mighty Meadbh, little wondercat. She was the feral mammy who, oh bless her, she's gorgeous.

And I was othering her. When she appeared in the garden, she was terrorising Rainbow. I didn't know she had all the kittens at the time, but she kept turning up and I was like, oh my god, I can't have any more cats. And then there were 11 cats and I had to deal with them.

But think about for the love part of the Feel... Love... Heal... framework. Sorry, she's acting like I'm a tree. She's kind of cutting into my leg there. So professional.

Thinking about the Love part of the Feel... Love... Heal... framework and how you, how it might feel to even begin to imagine accepting the parts of yourself, the part of yourself that you struggle to accept, that you might be projecting into others or that you know you have done in the past.

If you've seen Moana, I've got a couple blog posts about it. If you go to selfcarecoaching.net and just search Moana, Moana 2. I don't think I'm giving away spoilers to share that she's a delightful animation character with an enormous heart.

There's a scene in it where there's this dangerous island and everyone fears and loathes this island. She recognises that the island was traumatised and needs love and healing. She has such a big heart, she is able to help that island heal and turn into this bountiful, beauteous, fertile, gorgeous land.

I'm not suggesting anyone does this in any way, shape or form to endanger themselves. I'm not talking about diving with sharks, swimming with sharks, anything like that. If you're in a situation, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries are always essential.

But being open to the humanity in the person, it's helping you also be open to your whole humanity. Notice if it's possible. If you think about what you're potentially rejecting in yourself, can you be with this part of yourself?

I don't want to go into too much detail in this open podcast. As I said, I'll be going into more depth with shadow work in the Circle on Monday evening. But if it feels good for you, I'm trusting you to know yourself best. This can be quite deep work, this can be quite scary and powerful. It can also be really gentle and delightful. If it feels good for you, think about a part of yourself that you have rejected, that you have considered monstrous or unlucky or whatever it is, unphotogenic, whatever it is.

Just notice how it feels to send that part of you some love, some compassion, some acceptance.

And it might be, “Yep, I can imagine doing that. I might even go back to a few weeks ago and dig out that Metta meditation for the unloved parts or the parts that are harder to love, and for Sole to Soul Circle members.”

But you don't need to do that. You can just send some love. It might be from a distance, or you might really connect with this part and embrace it.

Notice what feels good for you. Let yourself be. You don't have to change anything, just see how it feels to love, see how it feels to accept.

To move on to the Heal part of the Feel... Love... Heal... framework, ask yourself, what kind of world do you want to live in?

We're all connected. We're all equal. We happen to be born in places where we're luckier than others or to families or parents. There are all sorts of different types of privilege. But can you imagine how much better things would be for everyone if all creatures, ourselves included, owned our shadows?

It might be that you love sharks or black cats or whatever creatures. It might be that you work with groups of people who are typically misrepresented and demonised, all sorts of unkind ways of working.

I want to leave you with a quote from Juan [Shark Whisperer], I'm afraid I didn't catch his last name, his mother Marlou West had told him. He was Ocean Ramsey's photographer. He came across her because he was photographing in the ocean surfers and what have you. And then they got together.

He talked about his mother always saying to, “Try to leave the world a little better than you found it.”

Thinking for yourself, what can you do?

It might be advocating for something that scares you like sharks or anything else, black cats, whatever.

What will you do to make things a little better for yourself, your family, your loved ones, your community, your organisations? What can you do?

And what will you give yourself permission to do, even if perhaps like sharks or black cats, it scares you a little.

If you were to imagine that you could, I love the Gloria Steinem quote about acting as if everything you do matters because it might. What kind of difference do you want to make? And how can you? That's another shadow part you might want to come back to. It's not all the scary stuff.

It's not all the shameful stuff. It's not all the things that we think aren't nice. It's often the powerful parts. It's often the fear. I got distracted by the cat, didn't I? I was saying about the Marianne Williamson.

And the our deepest fear is not that way. I've forgotten. I interviewed her ages ago, but it's gorgeous. But it is that powerful beyond measure, that fear of your own power. That's an important part of shadow work, too.

Just like the shark and the cat and all creatures have their vulnerabilities, have their powers, we are the same. We want to welcome the whole emotional landscape. We want to welcome our whole selves, love our whole selves, have more compassion for ourselves and others, and create a bit more ease in this wonderful world we get to live in.

So next week, we're going to be exploring high functioning codependence. I hope you'll join us for that (episode 72).

In the meantime, thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already, and you would like to, feel free to rate, review, comment, subscribe, share with someone who might enjoy this episode. Thank you again for listening.

This episode was produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. And she's back! Rainbow, of course, Black Cat Week is nowhere to be seen. But look, little Meadbh! Little gorgeous, gorgeous Meadbh. She's, oh my god, they're so gorgeous. This morning, feeding Angel and Teri Crews Cat, they're still the ferals outside. They come inside occasionally. But Angel goes for all the other cats, unfortunately. He was a runt. And Meadbh here kept him alive by feeding him as one of her own little kittens.

When I went from one to 11 overnight, as I got to know them, it was like, there were just so many cats. And it was like, why are there sometimes five kittens and sometimes six? It turns out Angel was from a different litter. But he has forgotten that his mammy, or his surrogate mammy, who helped keep him alive. And he'll terrorise her as well.

But with me, like this morning, like normally he lets me pick him up after like nearly two years in the shed when I've put the food down. But this morning, he let me pick him up right outside the house. And he just kind of goes, all like purr and rubs noses with me. And you just think, they are rescue cats, all creatures, sharks. Just think about something you love that other people don't.

Let that love expand for you. Let yourself know love is never wrong. And protect yourself, like have healthy boundaries, but enjoy the good, the healing, the connections, all of it, and have an amazing week.

🐱 What if the secret to better self-care was as simple as being more cat?

In this special International Cat Day episode of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, Eve Menezes Cunningham shares how her rescue cat, Rainbow MagnifiCat transformed not just her life, but her entire approach to trauma-informed self-care and nervous system healing.

Whether you love cats or just need permission to prioritise what feels good, this episode will help you reconnect with your innate wisdom and give yourself more of the curiosity, love and care you deserve.

You'll discover:

• Some of the connections between Polyvagal Theory and Feline Better Every Day
• How speaking gently to your cat can heal your inner critic
• The "Purr! Hiss! Freeze!" method for mapping your nervous system states
• How cats can help humans improve self-worth and boundary setting
• Practical ways to find ventral vagal (Purr!) moments of safety and connection
• How to break free from conditioning that works against your natural instincts

Purrfect for you if:

✓ You struggle with harsh self-talk or inner criticism

✓ You're interested in trauma-informed, ADHD-friendly self-care

✓ You want to understand your nervous system better

✓ You're ready to embrace your authentic self (like cats do naturally!)

✓ You love cats and want to learn from their unapologetic confidence

Eve has been using rescue cats to help people befriend their nervous systems for over 13 years. In this episode, she shares how imagining yourself as a beloved cat can help you heal your nervous system.

Key takeaways:

• Cats know their worth without needing external validation
• Gentle tone of voice impacts how safe we feel (with ourselves and others)
• Micro-moments of feeling good build up to heal your nervous system
• You can map your own nervous system

Feel Better Every Day!

Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on. With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel... regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

• Love... accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

• Heal... turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large.

Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each week.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack https://evemc.substack.com and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work. If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say "Hi" and share your questions or comments: YouTube @evemenezescunningham Substack @evemc Bluesky @eveimc TikTok @evemenezescunningham Insta @evemenezescunningham Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

If you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPT-PURRS

(0:00 - 1:26) Talking kindly to cats (and ourselves)

(1:27 - 5:19) Introducing the episode and Be More Cat

(5:20 - 9:18) Map your nervous system with your equivalent of Purr! Hiss! Freeze!

(9:18 - 13:17) Conditioning, connection and ventral vagal moments

(13:18 - 14:29) Bringing that glorious cat energy into the world

(14:29 - 16:57) Media training your nervous system and self-expression

(16:58 - 17:26) Final thoughts and next week’s episode for Black Cat Appreciation Day: SHARKS!

RESOURCES

• Full show notes and exclusive content: https://selfcarecoaching.net/blog  
• Deeper dive content: Join the Sole to Soul Circle https://evemc.substack.com
• Book: "365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing"
• More on cats and the nervous system (including Purr! Hiss! Freeze! and Smelly Cat episodes) at https://selfcarecoaching.net/feline

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

#BeMoreCat #TraumaInformed #SelfCare #PolyvagalTheory #NervousSystem #ADHD #RescueCats #SelfCompassion #Mindfulness #Healing #PurrHissFreeze

Be More Cat, Trauma Informed, Self Care, Polyvagal Theory, Nervous System, ADHD, Rescue Cats, Self Compassion, Mindfulness, Healing, Purr! Hiss! Freeze!

In this Episode 69, I share my unfiltered daily video diaries from the first 8 days starting ADHD medication (Tyvense 30mg, then 40mg).

After getting diagnosed in August 2024 and waiting months due to required cardiology tests, I finally began this journey during a particularly stressful time (seriously sick loved one).

I share:

• Day-by-day honest experiences, including the "cheating at life" feeling on day
• Practical challenges like figuring out breakfast and protein timing
• Wins: You know, the little things like leaving the house without forgetting anything, tackling months of bookkeeping without tears
• The grief and wonder of experiencing what a "normal" brain feels like
• Tips for breakfast solutions and managing expectations
• How it affected my yoga nidra and physical yoga practices and meditation and
• Why proper rest matters for the medication to work

This isn't medical advice. It's my lived experience, shared to help demystify the process for others considering ADHD medication. Everyone's journey is different, but I hope this helps you feel more informed and less alone.

Next week: How cats can help make everything better (it's International Cat Day!)

RESOURCES

• The Feel Better Every Day Podcast

• Sole to Soul Circle (bonus content & deeper dives)

• Book: 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing

Always consult your healthcare provider about medication decisions. This is purely my personal experience.

Some relevant posts: https://selfcarecoaching.net/2023/07/31/happy-lughnasadh/ https://selfcarecoaching.net/2019/08/01/happy-lughnasadh-what-are-you-harvesting/ https://selfcarecoaching.net/2025/01/07/2025-is-so-last-week-how-do-you-hope-to-be-living-and-feeling-this-time-next-year/ https://selfcarecoaching.net/2025/02/04/some-self-compassion-around-my-own-journey-with-mental-health-issues/

Feel Better Every Day!

Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel… (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)

• Love… (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and

• Heal… (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)

Thanks for watching or listening. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say “Hi” and share your questions or comments:

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

DISCLAIMER The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

Chapters and timestamps

(0:00 – 2:06) Intro – self-care, Sole to Soul Circle, book, and podcast overview

(2:07 – 2:50) ADHD and creativity – not feeling ashamed of doing many things

(2:52 – 6:29) Starting ADHD medication – nervousness and high hopes

(6:30 – 10:05) Day one reflections – “cheating at life” and immediate impact

(12:33 – 16:41) Accounting wins – numbers, memory and streamlining admin

(16:42 – 16:57) Breakfast – ADHD morning routine challenges

(19:06 – 25:00) Systems, euphoria and grief – realising how hard it’s been

(27:36 – 27:50) Catching up on months of financial admin

(27:51 – 28:07) Feeling the effects wear off

(28:08 – 28:38) Yoga, cats and less weirdness on day two

(28:39 – 29:06) Working on a Saturday and feeling fine

(29:07 – 29:26) Clarifying this is my personal experience

(29:27 – 30:18) Day three: an early start and protein first thing

(30:38 – 31:11) Chips, vegetables and concern about the drive home

(31:12 – 31:39) Medication and navigating very little sleep

(31:40 – 32:07) Reflecting on the impact and feeling grateful

(33:31 – 33:55) Realising how much time I’ve wasted

(33:56 – 34:18) Psychiatrist advice and overscheduling ADHD brains

(34:19 – 34:47) Looking forward to Monday and letting go of tasks

(34:48 – 36:02) Yoga nidra: appreciating stillness, not rushing

(36:03 – 36:42) Day four: I am not a squirrel!

(36:43 – 37:25) Oat milkshake breakfasts and fridge temperature issues

(37:26 – 38:22) Appetite, body image and cultural pressures

(40:27 – 41:04) A new stillness at the end of yoga nidra

(41:05 – 41:48) Day five: oat milkshake breakfast and smooth transitions

(43:06 – 43:33) Hunger, timing and realising it is working

(43:34 – 43:57) Committing to sleep and amplifying self-care

(43:58 – 44:37) Day six: late start, no clients and writing struggles

(44:38 – 45:09) Yoga nidra still helps, with or without medication

(45:10 – 45:34) Loved ones noticing improvement

(45:35 – 46:08) Day seven: sea swimming and breakfast adjustments

(46:09 – 46:30) Medication working better with proper food

(46:31 – 46:55) Day eight: higher dose and feeling the difference

(46:56 – 47:24) Prioritising proper rest and feeling grateful

(47:25 – 47:50) Breakfast rebellion and experimenting with protein

(47:51 – 48:24) Wrapping up: encouragement and medical caveats

(48:25 – 49:00) Bonus content for Sole to Soul Circle members

(49:01 – 54:04) Next week: how cats make everything better

FULL TRANSCRIPT

And again, I was thinking maybe it's not working, but I know the importance of breakfast now. So I had a protein bar with the tablet, first thing.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham, and you're listening to episode 69 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Every Tuesday, I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self, that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, most brilliant, joyful, miraculous part of yourself.

The idea is to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from. And you can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com.

For deeper dives into each week's theme, you can join the Sole to Soul Circle for bonus interviews, practices and rituals, plus access to a rich archive, including the Love Your Whole Self Chakra Journey.

And you can also find out more in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing. And I have lots of other resources on the website, selfcarecoaching.net. In today's episode, it's a bit of a different episode to normal. I did a bit of a video diary a few weeks ago when I started my ADHD medication.

Today is Lughnasadh and it's a Celtic Wheel of the Year celebration of harvest. And harvest is my word for 2025. And it's been really interesting with the ADHD medication. The first day I felt like I was cheating at life because it felt so much easier. It's not that straightforward, obviously. And I'm including daily diaries of my first eight days on it.

Lugh was a multi-talented God. He was a poet, a warrior and a craftsperson. He did it all and he did it all excellently. With ADHD, we want to be able to harness our creativity and not feel ashamed of being able to do lots of things. I hope you find this episode helpful.

It's very much not telling you what you should or shouldn't be doing. It's purely sharing my own lived experience of my first nine days on the medication. And I'm recording this before I see the psychiatrist to review it again. I hope you find it helpful.

If you haven't already subscribed, please do so. It really helps. Let me know if you have any questions or any other comments.

So this is my ADHD medication saga continued, but actually about to start the medication. I picked up the prescription today and I start tomorrow morning. And life is very stressful right now. My dad, was taken to hospital in an ambulance six days ago.

I'm trying to think, like, there's no point saying Friday or whatever because I don't know if I'll share this or when. But yeah, anyway, my work is all about everyone knowing what's right for them. But apparently, the medication will help navigate everything.

So I have high hopes and we shall see. I will start on it in the morning.

DAY 1

So today is the day I've been waiting for since August 2024 when I got my diagnosis and the psychiatrist talked about how the ADHD medication could work and should work, in her opinion.

I can't quite believe it, but I get to try it this morning. And I'm saying I get to try it because I am scared. I'm not used to medication working for me.

The endometriosis pain relief never, ever, ever worked. And so like things like antihistamines or things like that, I'm like, “Oh, it's a miracle.” So I do have high hopes and I'm going to have breakfast and I am going to potentially transform my life by taking a pill rather than working so hard at self-care like I have for decades. To feel better.

Not to say I'll stop doing all the self-care, but it feels potentially transformative and miraculous. And as you can tell, Rainbow Magnificat is just as excited as I am.

It's 8.35pm on day one of my 30mg on the Tyvense ADHD medication. I recorded a few short videos this morning and I'm going to record at least one daily update for at least a week, I think, with the intention of sharing it as a podcast episode, because if you're anything like me, you might be a bit scared and I want to help demystify as much as I can.

So some learnings from day one. First of all, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness.

I had no idea even when the psychiatrist was telling me about the impact. I couldn't properly imagine it. And even when I was benefiting this morning, I was still telling myself maybe it's a placebo effect, even like, I think the placebo effect is wonderful.

But it was like, no, it can't be like, I feel like I'm cheating. I feel like I'm cheating at life. It was the most bizarre feeling and I could immediately feel like, not immediately, but like within an hour or so, I could feel, when I had a concussion in 2023, beginning of 2023, up until the August, if I ever did things, I felt my brain, I felt like I could feel my bruised brain.

And it was a lot of the time up until the April, this had happened in the January. But I never felt that before consciously, maybe when I was much younger, maybe when I was drinking. But today with the medication, I was really conscious of feeling my brain, but it wasn't unpleasant. It wasn't like the concussion. I'm really selling it here. It's not like a concussion, but I could feel it. It's the weirdest thing. I could especially feel it behind my eyes.

And yeah, I left the house in one go. I went for a swim before visiting my parents. My dad had been in hospital and he discharged himself against medical advice yesterday so it's been a really stressful time, but he is thankfully doing well. But I had a gorgeous swim. I was at things in the morning that normally take a lot longer. I am still behind on all my bookkeeping. I've been running my own business for over 20 years. I have my UK accounts as well as my Irish accounts. And it just takes me, I'm not great with numbers. I have that dyscalculia. I can feel like crying and regularly do feel like crying, just putting bank statements into date order or receipts into date order. And I have a crate now that I kind of put everything in.

And my intention is that I weekly kind of clear it, but it's built up again. Life has been really hectic. So it was like a month and a half's worth of updating Xero, the accounting software that I started using last year. In order to do that, my phone, I'd got an upgrade on my phone since last doing this. My Bank of Ireland authentication wasn't working. So I had to ring the Bank of Ireland business online.

The last time I had to do that, I could have wept. In fact, I did weep because it was so frustrating trying to get through to anyone. I went into the branch because I got this strange, strange letter. The person in the branch, I found I was on hold, but I did it like, I guess, body doubling around people. But I just thought this, all the call centres, I used to work in a call centre. I know how overworked they all are.

But it's so frustrating when you're just trying to talk to a human. And in the end, back then, however many months ago, I handed my phone to one of the humans who worked there, and he was struggling as well to get things rectified.

So this morning, all of this was going through my head. And I'm thinking, “Oh, my God, the whole day is going to be gone. And I need to swim. I need to see my parents. And I've got loads of sessions. So I thought all that but before I knew it, I'd just picked up the phone and rung. So that is very different. That is incredibly different.

The woman was really helpful. And I got the new authentication. I apologised a couple of times. I'm sorry, I'm not great with numbers. And in the past, I'd have been really shame spiralling, because I'm really conscious that all the numbers, and I kind of joke about, “Oh, my goodness, I don't know how hackers do it. I can't get into my own accounts.”

But she got it set up. I got onto my Xero. It authenticated. And I was able to do my Bank of Ireland accounts and my UK Smile accounts. For the Smile account, it doesn't automatically go into the software. I have to periodically, so I was doing like a month and a half's worth today, go in and copy and paste transactions into a spreadsheet.

Are you losing the will to live listening to this? It's a different spreadsheet to the template that Xero need. It's the kind of thing, and I remember, again, with the concussion, just looking from one side of the screen to the other, it was like, I deleted thousands and thousands of documents a few weeks ago when I was trying to optimise my laptop and life. And one of the documents was an almost 20-year-old document.

I'd had my whole business life, nearly 21 years, although it can't be that, because I lost my computer a few years into the business and started again.

But many, many years, like a long, long time. I had checklists, I had passwords, I had templates, I had all sorts of things, phone numbers, contacts, all sorts of things. And I just lost it. I was really hoping today that I would be able to remember having done the Xero thing a few times and not have to go in. What I should actually do is create a new template for that. I was able to do it. I did it in an amazingly short sense of time. And it didn't feel as upsetting as it normally does. Because with numbers, I normally, it's funny, I make my living with words. I'm a writer and all. But I really struggle with numbers.

And even remembering like four digits or six digits from a security code to then put into the other device, it really normally makes my head hurt. But using that this morning as a kind of a test, I guess, for the medication and it really did help.

And I can't remember, it's worn off now, don't know if you can tell, but I can't remember if I told you that I left the house in one go, but I left the house in one go!

Normally, I get to the car or I get to my bike. Sometimes on my bike, I'll cycle halfway down the lane, like it's a mile long before you get onto the main road. And it'll be like, “Oh, I forgot my helmet or forgot my high vis.”

Go home, get it before going onto the busy road. Or I'll get into the car and I'll be like, “Oh, I've forgotten…” whatever it is.

And today I got into the car and I drove to the pool and it was like, “Oh my god, I didn't have to go back for anything! I hope I've got my swimsuit.” And I did. I had everything I needed for the pool. I had everything I needed to see my parents. And I thought that's utterly incredible.

Oh my god, that's completely on its own worth the 80 euros a month for the prescription once I fill out the Drug Payment Scheme form to get it capped at that.

So that was amazing.

A thing I found challenging was having breakfast. I felt evil ignoring the cats who wanted my attention. I normally get out of bed and feed them straight away and do some yoga, like brush my teeth, not necessarily in that order.

I'd normally feed the cats, brush my teeth, do some yoga. When I feed the cats, I'd normally put on the kettle and make like a hot lemon, ginger and maple syrup hot drink and a rosemary tea for later.

I know I need a lot of time to get started in the morning. So I don't have appointments first, first thing, and make sure I have enough time before that. But this morning, it's...

Feeling suicidal? Worried about someone you love? This episode, inspired by an interview I did for BACP, explores how to navigate life's darkest moments with compassion and practical support.

It covers:

• A recent NHS survey finding that 1 in 4 people have felt suicidal (and why it's likely more)

• How working with your body can help lift you out of despair

• What to say (and not say) when someone is struggling

• Creating a world worth living in - for yourself and others

If you're struggling right now, please remember you deserve help. You deserve joy. You deserve to not just stay alive but to thrive.

This is episode 68 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast - trauma-informed and VAST/ADHD-friendly Self and self-care to help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from.

💜 You matter. Your life matters. You're not alone.

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel Better (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)

• Be Better (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and

• Do Better (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)

Thanks for watching.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS

(0:02 – 1:13) Introduction to the episode and podcast

(1:14 – 2:32) Suicidal thoughts are more common than you think

(2:33 – 4:00) Personal experience with suicidal thoughts

(4:01 – 5:18) Systemic factors and lack of support

(5:19 – 6:38) Why “just talk to someone” isn’t always easy

(6:39 – 7:32) You are worthy of help and support

(7:33 – 8:44) Simple physical actions to shift your state

(10:15 – 11:33) Acceptance and sitting with painful emotions

(12:46 – 13:56) Let yourself dream of something better

(13:57 – 15:10) Noticing everyday acts of kindness

(15:11 – 16:14) Being part of a solution without pressure

(16:15 – 17:24) Journaling and energetic support practices

(17:25 – 18:18) Suicide in stories and lived experiences

(18:19 – 18:54) Encouragement

RESOURCES

• Samaritans helpline Samaritans.org/ireland

• Pieta House (Ireland) pieta.ie

• textaboutit.ie/suicide

• Mood lifting and heart-opening yoga poses at selfcarecoaching.net/book

• Join the Sole to Soul Circle: evemc.substack.com

Crisis Support: If you're having suicidal thoughts, please reach out immediately to your local emergency services, GP or crisis helpline.

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to episode 68 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from.

You can find out more at the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com and you can get deeper dives by joining the Sole to Soul Circle as well as bonus interviews, practices, rituals and access to a rich archive including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey.

You can also access resources via the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas and all the book bonus videos and whether you have the book or not and lots of other resources at selfcarecoaching.net.

Today's episode was inspired by an interview I recently did for BACP's website and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

They were exploring some of the NHS's recent findings around mental health to coincide with the launch of their 10-year plan and one in four people have reported feeling suicidal at some point over their lifetime.

Unfortunately from my experience and from like my lived experience and my professional experience this feels like under-reporting and there's so much going on in the world that has so many people stretched so thin not to mention, I don't want to list all the things that might make you feel worse, feel better every day, but unfortunately way too many people do feel suicidal and have felt suicidal.

Myself, I used to feel suicidal a lot throughout my childhood and teens and into my 20s but because I tried when I was 14 and thankfully I didn't succeed I'm always grateful for that because long before I learned how to teach mindfulness it gave me that visceral experience of being grateful that my actions hadn't been irreversible and now with what I understand about trauma recovery and ADHD and impulsivity who would have thought it would take until nearly 50 to find out I was impulsive but thinking it used to really scare me growing up. How it could feel so desperate and like it was the only way out and I was so lucky in many, many ways. I had a good life in many, many ways but that was a default well-worn neural pathway loop that I would regularly go down and it terrified me that something done so quickly could be it forever.

And I don't know what the answer is because there aren't enough resources for the people who I was going to say have the courage to seek support. Everyone has courage. It's not just about seeking support. It can be heartbreaking to hear about people who have gone to their GPs and been turned away and it takes so much to reach out, I always feel terrible when I can't help someone who is reaching out wanting me to work with them one-to-one because I'm in private practice I can't work with everyone who gets in touch with me.

I really wish that in Ireland and in the UK we had better safety nets in place, better supports to refer people on to, but at the same time I think that there is awareness. I think what they're saying they plan to do in terms of additional resources it's moving hopefully in the right direction but thinking like there's never really any exploration of systemic causes and how people feel about for example the climate catastrophe about what's going on in the world and how that can exacerbate feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

And I guess for the Feel… element of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, it's too easy to say, “Talk to someone! Reach out! Let someone know you're suffering!” Because when you're suffering like that, that's the last thing you want to do.

It can feel utterly impossible to voice it. It can feel melodramatic. It can feel not enough. It can feel terrifying and like fear of rejection. There are all sorts of things that can get in the way and there aren't enough supports in place. There is in Ireland there's Pieta House. You can reach out there. There are the Samaritans in most places.

But people need to know that they are WORTHY. People need to know that however you're feeling, you deserve help. And unfortunately, when we're feeling like that, we don't believe that we deserve help. We feel like we're too much. We feel like we're too much trouble and there's no point and it's never going to change.

For the Feel… element of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, today, this is nowhere near enough but I would firstly advise you to reach out. Co-regulate. Talk to a human who you trust and if you have someone you know in real life wonderful and really know that they would much rather hear from you and be able to help you than to find out later that you were struggling and couldn't for whatever reason reach out to them. And if you don't have someone you know, use one of the organisations or find a therapist.

I'm so aware so many people can help you but if the first person you try or the first few people you try can't take you on that doesn't mean that NO one can. You deserve all the care and support available. You deserve way more than what's available. So number one reach out talk to your GP. Go to A&E. Use one of the helplines. Know that you are worthy.

Know that you deserve not just to live but you deserve a joy-filled life. A life filled with purpose and meaning and all good things. This might sound ridiculous but if you are struggling to reach out to someone, you can use your body and your breath to give you even the tiniest of boosts.

I'm not saying that a yoga pose is going to save your life but it can be a way to get out of those ruminating suicidal thoughts, coming into a pose like Sphinx or Warrior II or Triangle or something that's open. Bridge, Little Bridge pose, Wheel anything that's open-hearted.

Anything that's expansive. It's going to help lift your mood using the vagus nerve: 80% of the signals go up from the body to the brain and then cascade down. You’ve probably heard me talk many, many times about calming the nervous system. In this case we're talking about lifting it but in an empowering way so there are videos that you can access through selfcarecoaching.net/book if you'd like to explore some of those heart opening expansive poses that might help you feel better.

But even if you're able to just move in a slightly different way, I know this sounds like, “I feel suicidal and you're suggesting YOGA?”

It might sound obnoxious. It might sound offensive and we really can change our physiology, we can change our lives by moving differently. Give it a try.

But most importantly, we move into the Love… element and the acceptance element. And it's not about accepting that you're never going to feel better. It's not about accepting terrible things. It's about accepting that, right now, you're feeling really low. Or perhaps a loved one is feeling really low. And it's really hard to deal with.

Just working with the Love archetype in psychosynthesis terms, so that really nourishing, supportive acceptance. That not trying to change anything, that just allowing yourself to sit with your feelings. Allowing yourself to not be rushing to regulate (if it's bearable enough).

Or if someone is talking to you, making sure that you're able to be a container for them and letting them talk rather than trying to interrupt and tell them it's all going to be OK when they don't believe it's going to be OK. Connect with that Love archetype and know that while life can be incredibly painful it can also be incredibly joyful.

The more we work with the full emotional landscape, yes there'll be terrible times but also so many amazing times. It might feel like a bit of a fairy tale to ever imagine feeling like you will feel worthy and lovable and deserving of the supports you need. Even if they feel too big. Know that help is out there. Know that better days are ahead for you. Just notice how you feel when you stop fighting how you're feeling.

Definitely not acting on it, but just accept the fact, just for a moment, that you feel so bad, you’re having thoughts that could end your life. Recognising how painful that is. And ask yourself, “What would a person who loved themselves do?” or “What would a person who didn't hate themselves do?” And begin to act in those ways.

But if you're lucky enough to have people around you but even if you are lucky enough I mean some people don't have support systems some people do have support systems and it can still feel like they're a million miles away even if they're in the same house so it's really giving yourself as much grace and as much love and as much support and acceptance as possible.

That will help the feelings to dissolve to shift. You'll begin to recognise your resources and that things are temporary. Everything is temporary.

And we move into the Heal… element. I know for me this was probably what helped me the most when I was much younger: It was my potentially grandiose hopes of what I could potentially do to help make the world a better place if I could get through not wanting to be alive so much of the time.

I want you to think for yourself, what kind of world would make your heart sing? When you look around, when you watch the news, when you feel your heart sink the whole time, when it feels like despair, when it feels like just so depressing and so overwhelming let yourself imagine improvements.

Let yourself imagine utopias, let yourself imagine things going well things healing. And oddly I’ve been back and forth to the hospital every day the past several days [at time of recording].

A loved one’s in hospital and it's really kind of reminded me of what I tell people the whole time: We see on the news all the really depressing horror stories but most people are really caring. Most people are generous and kind, in spite of their suffering, in spite of their struggles. They'll hold doors open for people. There's so much kindness and so much grace around.

If you were to imagine a future version of yourself, healed and whole and contributing not only to an amazing life for yourself but for loved ones, for your communities, for your organisations and for the world at large.

What energises you? Not in an, “Oh” some hopeless sort of way, but in a beginning to create a bit of a spark. In terms of you would like to really be part of. That solution. The last thing I want to do is overwhelm you.

You're having suicidal thoughts and now I'm saying, “Save the world! Help save the world!” But let yourself be moved by what's naturally and organically happening for you rather than trying to not watch the news or trying to deny things that are upsetting you.

Open your heart to the world in a grounded and protected way. Think about the kinds of solutions that would make your heart sing. Singing for joy. Let yourself dream a life for yourself and for your communities and for the world that empowers you. And that potentially keeps you going through tough times.

In the Circle, we're going to be exploring some of the ways in which we can support other people and also exploring a bit more. It's something I ask every new client: If they've ever thought about suicide. And it's something, like these findings show, way more people than you might have thought have thought about it. Have seriously considered it. So in the Circle, we're going to be talking about that some more. You can join at evemc.substack.com and you can find lots of resources at selfcarecoaching.net to ground this episode.

I’d love if you can take a few moments to grab your journal or just a pen paper. You can use loo roll and biro and flush it down the loo safely if you don't want anyone reading it. Or burn it safely. But let yourself connect if you have the bandwidth now. If you have the headspace now. If it's practical for you today.

You don't want to go really deep and then have to function joyfully and not be there but when you get a chance, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe right now, let yourself connect with some of your heaviest times.

Some of the times where you felt most hopeless and helpless and overwhelmed. Send some love back to yourself, Younger You. And if there are people in your life who you're worried about now, spend a bit of time sending them love energetically. You can use one of the Metta meditations (you can use the search tool on my website. There are plenty there. Or you can Google. There are many by other people as well but give yourself a moment or a few minutes to recognise that so many people are suffering and it actually doesn't take much to help create a ripple effect that could potentially save a life.

I was talking to someone recently about a film that was marketed as a rom-com where a woman saved a man's life. I think it was a bridge in Dublin. He was going to jump off and she forced him to stay with her until he felt better. Like she was basically appointing herself to keep him alive and it was like, “Oh my god/dess. If someone is determined there's nothing anyone can do. And the idea of having that kind of responsibility and that guilt. I always think of Jamie Raskin, the American politician who led the second impeachment of Donald Trump. His son had sadly died by suicide on New Year's Eve six days before the insurrection. And Jamie Raskin wrote this beautiful book Unthinkable honouring his son's amazing sounding life and ongoing struggles with mental health and also talking about what was happening with the country that he loved (and of course things have got so much worse there since he wrote it but I'm a barrel of laughs, aren't I? Am a ray of sunshine! But it's a beautiful meditation on a loved one's experience of his son's suicide and more).

Think about what would help you most in this moment. And think about who you would like to talk to and how you would like to talk to them. And even if you're not able to actually do it, give yourself permission to imagine it.

Let me know how you're doing. You can email me. You can comment on any of my platforms wherever you're seeing this.

And thank you for...

I started this podcast to show the gulf between self-care professionals' ideal and actual self-care.

When life hits you with unexpected challenges, how do you maintain your wellbeing? In this episode of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, trauma-informed therapist Eve Menezes Cunningham shares practical strategies for creating an emergency self-care plan using emojis - perfect for those with ADHD and trauma backgrounds.

Drawing from real-life experience during a family crisis, Eve breaks down her Feel-Love-Heal framework into manageable emergency practices:

✨ FEEL: Active self-care that regulates your nervous system (even when time is limited)

💝 LOVE: Self-compassion practices and giving yourself grace during tough times

🌱 HEAL: Finding meaning and potential growth, even in crisis

Key takeaways include paring down your self-care routine to essentials, maintaining flexibility in your schedule and creating visual emoji reminders for when your executive functioning is even more compromised than the usual trauma recovery and ADHD brain challenges.

If you’re navigating difficult times or wanting to prepare an emergency self-care toolkit for the future, I hope you’ll find this useful. Feel free to share with someone who might benefit.

🎧 More resources at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com 📚 Book: "365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing"

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel Better (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)

• Be Better (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and

• Do Better (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)

Thanks for watching/listening.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS

(0:02 – 0:55) Introduction to the podcast and episode

(0:56 – 1:46) Why emergency self-care matters

(1:47 – 2:48) ADHD, trauma and crisis mode focus

(2:49 – 3:45) Navigating uncertainty with self-care

(3:46 – 4:28) Executive function struggles in emergencies

(4:29 – 5:50) The power of short practices

(9:31 – 10:32) Letting go of non-essentials and pressure

(10:33 – 11:12) Self-talk and nervous system care

(11:13 – 11:53) Being human and allowing emotion

(11:54 – 12:33) Thinking ahead with compassion

(12:34 – 12:54) Closing thoughts and next episode preview

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.

This is episode 67 and the idea is that it will help you create a life you don't need to retreat from. You can find out more about the podcast at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com. You can also get deeper dives by joining the Sole to Soul Circle for bonus interviews, practices, rituals and access to a rich archive including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey.

You can also find out more about the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, I forgot the title of my own book there, and other resources at selfcarecoaching.net.

And today's episode is basically… I started this podcast thinking that there's a huge gulf between what we as self-care professionals know we want to be doing in an ideal world and what we actually do.

Today, it's World Emoji Day and I'm going to have you use emojis to create an emergency self-care plan for yourself for trauma and ADHD.

I have a loved one in hospital at the moment (at time of recording) which means that things are different to my normal life. I've massively pared back on my normal daily self-care but I've also really focused on it. I know that I'm no good to anyone if I'm not taking care of myself.

Especially with trauma and ADHD we can be really good in a crisis. I think, on the Friday when we had to call the ambulance it was just very, very focused. We don't have to worry about different priorities, it's just like OK. The emergency takes all the focus.

Then, as things progress there's more to navigate. We get more and more tired, potentially, if we're not taking good care of ourselves.

There are always going to be things that are out of your control but I want you to think about how you navigate uncertainty and how you navigate emergencies and what you can do whether you're dealing with a tough time now or whether you want to put something in place as an emergency self-care kit. It's really important.

I really noticed my executive functions worsen. Things like paying for the hospital parking ticket and putting it in the specific pocket in my bag so that I wouldn't lose it and of course losing it. And then I couldn't even turn the steering wheel on the car, I couldn't get the key in the car and I even wondered is this my car because it had been so full-on had I accidentally got into someone else's car. No. I'd locked the steering wheel but I'd never done that before. It's just having lots of extra patience with yourself when you're dealing with it.

I'm skipping ahead a bit because it's really about you thinking about what you want to have in place for any emergencies that you might think of. And it's not like you have to think, I'm not encouraging you to ruminate or catastrophise or anything like that, just thinking I've been asking all my guests what is your ideal self-care, your ideal daily practices and weekly and what would be your essentials. If you're ill, if you're travelling, if there's some sort of emergency.

Feel better…

For the Feel better part, it's very much about regulation, it's very much about the active self-care. I've been swimming practically every day and I swam twice yesterday (at time of recording) because I knew I'm far better for other people if I'm at my best, if I'm peaceful, if I'm calm.

And to be honest the second heated pool swim was on the way back from the hospital because I didn't know how I was going to have the energy to stand up in the shower at home.

The idea of going for a heated pool swim and then sitting in the steam room and then having a luxurious shower there is nicer than my shower at home. I thought, I'll do that and then just five, ten minutes of swimming, really lovely, that's me. Think about for yourself, think about what is your essential. I'm also thinking my daily yoga nidras. They're essential for me.

I'm about to start ADHD medication (have started! More to follow in Episode 69!) but I've been using the daily yoga nidras now for I think more than two years. It's really essential for me but today, it's like so much to do, not going to have time for one of the longer ones that I've got accustomed to.

I did a shorter one and it was amazing and it's like so often we think, “Oh but if I can't do the full practice, the full thing, what's the point?” Doing one or two yoga poses, that's enough. It's not ideal but it's enough.

Deleting everything that's not essential from my diary for the next few days. I've been fortunate enough to be able to really be present in sessions and I've not had to cancel clients but there are other things, like some of the writing work that I'm doing, it just has to wait, my brain isn't there right now.

Thinking about your own workload, how can you have enough flexibility where possible, where you can just take pressure off yourself and delete, delete, delete?

Think for yourself in terms of what helps you in terms of your own regular self-care practices and how you might pare them down in an emergency.

Love…

Then, thinking about the Love part, where it's about acceptance and it's about self-talk and allowing yourself to just be and allowing yourself to pull a duvet over your head which of course is less possible often in case of emergency but it's not impossible.

You might feel that it's impossible, you might feel that you just don't have the time but if you honour your nervous system and if you give yourself a break it will help.

For me it is, I know I always go on about water but sitting underwater is like an emotional duvet for me, just like and obviously I'm not breathing underwater. But thinking, like just getting those stress hormones out of the body… but for you, let yourself be still if possible, let yourself cry, let yourself have the big feelings, let yourself be messy, let yourself be the human that you are.

And the more you give yourself grace, the more you're able to talk with compassion to yourself, the more your loved ones will benefit as well. The more the people around you rather than you being under so much pressure that you're potentially a bit of a nightmare to be around (which I know I would be if I didn't actively do all these things on a daily basis even when they're pared down).

Heal…

Difficult conversations as well, letting yourself be a human and moving into the Heal practice.

It might be that the most you can think about in terms of post-traumatic growth or using that heightened care for social justice that you might have with ADHD, it might be for your nearest and dearest.

Or it might be even thinking for the future at some point when you've processed what it is that you're dealing with.

For some people, it can be really beneficial. I know for me it's really beneficial to think even like kind of it might sound a bit morbid but thinking at a certain point in the future I might do more grief work, I might do more to support like kind of there's so much that I love the trauma work, I love the ADHD work but at a certain point maybe like that just sounds really morbid but being there for loved ones, helping me think beyond me, helping me think beyond the person involved…

I'm not putting pressure on myself like everyone's like look after yourself but I already do. I know that I have to, I know that my brain won't let me, my heart won't let me, my body won't let me if I don't.

I mean I've been working in self-care for 20 plus years but thinking if it helps motivate you to take better care of yourself, think about how whatever the emergency you're facing might potentially, I'm being so careful here because the last thing I want to do is put anyone under additional pressure when you're already in a crisis situation but for some people, myself included, it can be motivational and empowering to think at some point, it's like Nora Ephron used to say, “Everything is a copy”.

She wrote When Harry Met Sally and like a gazillion other things but her parents were screenwriters. She was a writer and the idea of turning that pain into words, it just helps us move through it, it helps us process so thinking in your own life whether, like don't think too hard, just be open to the possibility that at a deeper level at some point what you're navigating now can potentially help others but let yourself be, love where you are, like kind of give yourself all the love, all the compassion and do all the things that help you in the meantime.

Sole to Soul Circle…

For the Sole to Soul Circle members this week: There's going to be a shorter emergency yoga nidra for those times where you think, “I just don't have time but I need something!” so a very short one.

But it will help you keep your word to yourself in terms of taking that care of your whole self.

Thank you for listening or watching, thank you for sharing, subscribing, commenting, engaging, I love your emails, I love hearing from you and I would love to encourage you to ground this episode by thinking of World Emoji Day and thinking about what you've identified as you've been listening in terms of the self-care practices that support you and the soothing self-talk and the self-acceptance and self-love and the allowing yourself to be with all the emotions, messy, angry, all of it and also the heal element where the potential for post-traumatic growth, the potential for helping others, your loved ones, your family, your community, potentially the world at large.

Let yourself choose some emojis. Make it fun, get past the conscious mind a little bit and give yourself a code in case you forget what they are. I would love, if you want to share your emojis, self-care plans, so maybe one if you want to narrow it down, you can have as many as you want but maybe choose one for the Feel better, so where it's the active self-care and one for the Love where it's you giving yourself grace, you're talking kindly to yourself, you're allowing yourself to just be and have the big emotions or be numb or whatever it is you need to be and the Heal when you imagine the future. Have a bit of fun with it if you have the chance and let me know how you get on.

I look forward to sharing more next week, this episode like all of them has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and wishing you a wonderful week.

Does even the thought of money trigger an instant stress response?

In this episode, bestselling author and certified trauma of money coach Keris Fox she shares how to transform your relationship with money by rewriting your money story. She explains why so many women believe they're "bad with money" and offers practical steps to befriend your finances.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

• Why knowing your exact financial position reduces anxiety

• Simple daily self-care practices that help money management feel better

• How to recognise and soothe your nervous system around money triggers

• The importance of checking in with your body before making financial decisions

Whether you struggle with money trauma, avoid checking your bank account or want to move from scarcity to abundance, this episode offers gentle, trauma-informed and VAST/ADHD-friendly approaches to building a healthier relationship with money.

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel Better (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)

• Be Better (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and

• Do Better (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)

Thanks for watching or listening.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and share your questions or comments:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD/VAST-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself (and your Self with that uppercase S for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself).

I do this to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from, and you can find out more at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com. Today's episode, I'm delighted to welcome my friend Keris Fox.

She used to be Keris Stainton and she's a best-selling author and she has been running the Ladybird Purse over on Substack for years now, helping women at midlife, myself included, to transform our relationship with money. She is now a certified trauma of money coach and I cannot wait to share our episode.

Welcome Keris Fox, formerly Stainton. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

Ah, it's such a pleasure. It's so funny because we've only started, like it's in the last few years, we've become, I was going to say real life friends, but we've still never actually met in person. We regularly connect online, but I've known you coming up, what, 15 years online, at more of a distance? Possibly even more than that, I think, yeah.

Well, when did you write, I remember you writing your first book. I remember you getting-

That's 15 years ago this year. Yeah.

But I was on like Journobiz before the book came out, so probably even before that, yeah.

Yeah. And now I'm delighted to have you on the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, talking about the trauma of money. Would you like to say a little bit about what you're working on and how people can find you?

Yeah, the trauma of money. Talking about the trauma of money. I want to talk about the joy of money as well.

I love trauma work because it's all about recovery and it's about the joy, the growth. Yeah, through the trauma to get to the joy.

Exactly that, yeah. Well, I'm actually working on, I did Trauma of Money coach training earlier this year, so I am trauma of money certified. Yeah. I'm putting together various programs to do with that, which what I wanted to do when I started trying to put something together, I realised that a lot of the trauma of money stuff is kind of fits in with narrative, with storytelling.

Because I'm a novelist as well, I thought the two of them go together quite well. I've been combining the rewriting your money story and your next chapter. I'm putting all of that together and it feels like I've got all of this information now and I'm kind of whittling it down.

In the meantime, before I've actually got that put together, I've got my Ladybird Purse money Substack that I've been writing for three and a half years. So every Monday there's an interview with a woman about money and also my own kind of money misadventures. I've started calling it, although I'm not sure that's strictly true anymore.

And yeah, I have another Substack, which is my author Substack, which is called Happy Endings. And yes, I have two books out at the minute, one nonfiction, which is the Harry Styles Effect.

Yeah, I'm holding up the Harry Styles Effect for people who are listening rather than watching with joy, because this is the book Keris was born to write, basically, and it's just delightful.

That's so nice of you. It's like a fandom memoir. So it's not just about Harry Styles, it's about me and fandom and music. And it's also like a celebration of Harry Styles.

And then I've just had a novel came out last week, which is under pseudonym, Olivia Harvey. And that's like a new adult sort of sexy rom-com inspired by Below Deck. Stealth, what did somebody call it? Stealth, stealth, stealth sauciness, I think the review said, or stealthily saucy, something like that.

Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

Did I say that's called Rock the Boat, that one? Sorry.

No, you didn't. Thank you.

People can find out about your books at kerisfox.com. Many, many, many books. So for today's episode, we're talking about how to get through the trauma of money to the joy of money.

And I know for me, since I started reading Keris's Ladybird Purse, and I've been interviewed a couple times for it, and it's really made me reassess my own trauma around money.

And with my recent ADHD diagnosis, the dyscalculia, and like, it's like I do regular money dates and all. But I often feel like crying, just sorting out bank statements, I've got my UK bank statements, I've got my Irish ones, I've got the business, I've got the personal, it's all, and it's just putting them in date order makes me want to cry. And, and recognising, okay, my brain really does not thrive with numbers.

And having the confidence at nearly 50 to say to someone at the bank, or say to someone around, like, I'm really not great with numbers that I got a new accountant who it feels much better with. I've gone on to Xero, but your, your misadventures, as you call them, and your interviews, it's really helped me confront some of my… I'd done money mindset work before I'd done like, kind of my money story, and like, my earliest memory being burgled when we lived in Tottenham, like all of that.

But there's something so lovely reading people who love money, and reading people who still struggle with money, but also, I think, with women at midlife. What would you say the biggest problem people have around money?

Oh, wow. Well, I think with women, it is thinking that, that we're bad with money. I think that's like, it seems to be the first thing that often when I approach women to interview, the first thing they say is, “Oh, no, I'm terrible at money, or I'm rubbish with money, or I don't have any, I wouldn't have anything to say.” And I always think on the one hand, I can't imagine a man ever saying I don't have anything to say on any subject. But also, I think it's that women, you know, I mean, I don't even really know, at this point, what bad with money means. I think it's not, you know, for years, I thought I was bad with money. And it was that I didn't have enough money a lot of the time.

Or I was in a relationship where, you know, we had our money pooled, and that caused its own issues. And, and I think I interviewed Glynis McNicol, I think, what day is it today? Tuesday, Tuesday, yesterday, an interview went up with Glynis McNicol. And she said, she's an amazing writer. And she pointed out, you know, it's only relatively recently, it's only within our, my lifetime, certainly, that women have really had access to our own money. So it's not surprising that, you know, we're still learning, there's still this element of scarcity, because, you know, until women couldn't have credit cards in their name until I think 1974. I'm not sure if that's only in America. And also, you know, the bank accounts and had to give up the job when they got married, couldn't get a mortgage alone. You know, there was still until fairly recently, and it might still happen. I don't know, because I got divorced.

But, you know, I can remember booking a holiday, and I did all of the booking, I paid for it with, you know, a card in my own name, I put myself down first in all of the booking. And when the paperwork came out, lead passenger was my husband. So, you know, this kind of society, and structural issues that are still massively impacting more than I think we realise.

So I think it's not that we are bad with money. I think it's that, you know, we're finding our feet with it. Yeah, exactly.

Finding our feet is a good way to put it. So how like in terms of feeling better around money, the things we can do the regulatory stuff, what would be your top tip or tips?

Well, my first thing is always to know exactly what your position is. I always feel better if I know exactly how much money I've got.

And I know what's coming in and what's going out. So I did, you know, like a lot of people, you know, would not open bills, not check my bank account, just not think about it and hope for the best kind of thing. Whereas now I'm kind of upset. I love checking my bank account every morning. I quite often like this morning, I woke up at three, the cat came and jumped on my headboard and woke me up at three. So I went to the loo, of course. And when I came back, I did like all my kind of morning checks. And I always check my bank account to make sure there's no surprises, because that used to be a thing that would so often be the case that there would be surprise money would come out and then I'd be in trouble. So now I always know. And I have, you know, I know. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure about how banks are. My bank's amazing for being able to put money in pots and for instant payments, cut shelf instantly. I'm not sure if all banks do that now. My old bank definitely didn't used to. Yeah. But I'd recommend a bank where payments, payments show up instantly. So you're not waiting three days and then you get a surprise, which is tricky.

Definitely, as painful as it can be to see what you don't have sometimes, how much debt you've got, how much you're earning, even to look at your earnings and find out that your earnings don't cover your outgoings. Yeah, it's painful and it's difficult, but it's just so much better to know. I think it's so much better to know.

And like you said, Eve, when you said, you know, even look, even putting the bank statements in order is difficult. Obviously, I understand for everybody, it's not going to be that easy, but you can get somebody to help you. You're not necessarily an accountant.

You can find a friend if you know somebody that you don't mind knowing your financial business. I spoke to a friend once who literally I said to her, I'd love to interview you for the newsletter. And she literally was like, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. Completely freaked out. Yeah. I know some people can't deal with it and don't want to deal with it. Yeah. So find somebody who can help you because it's just it's just takes so much of the stress away if you do know what your position is. Yeah, that's brilliant.

And I know I've gone on to Xero in the past year. So my UK business account and my Irish business account, I can reconcile it all as we go. And it's just so much easier than everything stacking up and me having to do. I still use the spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets for other things. There's something about the numbers and the way they scramble a bit, but it had never occurred to me. So I could even ask a friend to come over and just do something else in the room like that kind of body doubling idea.

Yeah, I'm going to start doing that on Zoom through Substack actually, just to kind of go through, you know, money admin, because I love the idea. I love the concept of money dates.

I love sitting down and going through it all. And, you know, to make it nice to put music on and to have. Soothing your nervous system and making sure. So that moves us into the be better portion, where it's basically you're absolutely fine. You don't have to change a thing. It's all good.

The self-soothing. What kind of things would you recommend people do to relax around money and to accept their whole selves around it?

Well, a big thing for me for ages was, I think, because I always felt like I didn't have enough money and I would get to a point where I'd kind of think, “Oh, you know, well, I've got debts and I haven't got enough. So, you know, screw it. I'm just going to buy whatever.” And then. Obviously, that would make it worse.

It made me maybe feel better in that instant, dopamine, but that didn't help anything. And I'm really just kind of taking the time to check in with myself physically to feel, you know, if it wouldn't even be necessarily stress about something, I wouldn't feel stressed. I'd feel excited sometimes.

But any sort of heightened emotion was like, don't buy it when you're feeling like that. Breathe or just to check in with myself and think, how am I feeling before I kind of click that buy button? And it doesn't always work now sometimes, especially books. I'll just be like, I'm allowed to buy books.

I'm an author. To just to kind of have that physical check in and get used to how it feels in your body. I've only really recently, and you know so much more about this than I do about I'm like regulation and vulnerability.

I did a I did a podcast, I think, a while ago with Claire Venus, who also is on Substack. And after we talked for like an hour and afterwards, I felt kind of all, you know, and I was perfectly, you know, I didn't feel upset or stressed or anything. I just felt kind of hyper. And I was like, you know, on my phone, scrolling, whatever, doing, you know, probably went and got a coffee and a bunch of biscuits or something. And then saw Claire on Substack and put on Substack notes, “Did a Zoom this morning. I've got a vulnerability hangover. So I've taken myself off to the beach to just sit and look out at the waves.” And I was like, “Oh, that's a much better way of dealing with it than shoving chocolate digestives into my mouth. I might try that!”

And now I've become, I went to a party last week in London. And the next day, it's just I just felt weird. It's the nervous system. It's that sympathetic activation and the allowing it to settle, to come back. And that's the thing, in the past, I never would have realised. In the past, after the party, I would have thought, “Why did I have that third glass of wine? Why did I say this? Who was I saying that to? What was I, why was I even talking about this?” And instead of beating myself up all day, I just thought, “Oh, it's the vulnerability hangover.”

I can just relax. So I think with money, that's the same, you know, it's the same thing. You check, you feel that heightened emotion with just opening, you can open in your banking app. And one thing actually I used to do years ago, and I don't need to do it now, because like I said, I really love opening the app in the morning, was I would kind of try to get myself, you know, like hype myself up before even opening the app. There used to be a thing years ago where you could write a cheque for yourself.

Yeah.

And you could like write a cheque for, you know, a million dollars or whatever. Law of Attraction. And so I would go and, yeah, I would go and look at that cheque and feel the excitement and then open my banking app with the sense of excitement instead of the sense of dread.

But now I have that sense of excitement, even though, you know, I'm very, very far away from a million dollars.

But it's befriending your bank account. It's befriending your bank account.

Exactly. Yeah. I love it.

In terms of the do better element and how us moving through the trauma of money to the joy of money and how that can help us turn what hurts our heart into action and like help make our world and the world a better place. No pressure.

No. And now as well.

Oh, my God. I know.

But now more than ever, we need to turn all that despair into action and hope. And what would you say around that?

I mean, I've been trying to donate more to like community funds and mutual aid rather than charities. And I really just I don't have like a set. I mean, I have a couple of charities that I donate to. One is the Loveland Foundation, which is for black women and girls. I can't remember the woman's name, Rachel, somebody. Yeah, I can't remember. And...

You're never too old to play. And your brain will thank you.

In this episode, I share why play isn't just for children and how reconnecting with your playful side can be transformative for ADHD brains and trauma survivors.

From my dolphin encounter to pretending to be dolphins on the harbour with a friend, I explore how silliness and joy can heal.

This episode includes:

✨ Why our brains learn so well through play (and how to do it deliberately)

✨ Permission to be 'foolish' and silly, even as an adult

✨ How play creates safety and co-regulation with others

✨ Simple ways to start playing when you feel 'too serious' or don't have energy

✨ The ripple effect your playfulness has on everyone around

✨ You're never 'too old' or 'too serious' to play

If this resonates, please subscribe, share with someone who needs more play in their life and let me know in the comments: How will you add more play to your week?

About

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

Feel… regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from

Love… accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and

Heal… turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large.

Thanks for listening or watching.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

Want to work with me?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

Want to connect on socials?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and tell me what you want to ask or say:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

Chapters

(0:02 - 0:30) Introduction to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast

(0:30 - 1:06) How we learn so well through play

(1:07 - 16:22) We're never too old to play. And dolphins

Resources

- Episode 7 with Nick Williams on play as a business benefit

- Sole to Soul Circle membership for bonus content

- Book: 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing

Disclaimer

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for listening. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

Full transcript

I did not expect to see dolphins. A pod of them came over to us so we were back to the harbour. Someone else said go out there at 11 o'clock! Dolphins! 

And they came over to the boat and they were swimming under the boat and they were leaping through the air and they were being their magnificent miraculous amazing joyful healing transformative selves and I couldn't get over it.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself. To help you feel better every day and create a life you don't need to retreat from.

You can find out more at the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com or selfcarecoaching.net. 

Today we're looking at the power of play and the strongest way in which we remember things is through trauma. We're very, very present during traumatic experiences, so those memories go really deep. 

The second best way to learn is through play, which is obviously way more enjoyable and you get to choose what you learn.

So you might feel that you can't remember how to play, you're too old to play, you never knew how to play and I thought I'd explore some ways in which you can have more fun with today's episode.

And you might also enjoy episode 7 with Nick Williams, the author of The Work You Were Born to Do and many, many other books. 

He's talking about how play has become so important to him in terms of helping business leaders do their best thinking and being creative. But ultimately play is restorative, it's fun, it's healing.

We play with others, we co-regulate it's never too old to learn. As George Eliot said, it's never too late to be who you might have been. So even if you feel like it's silly, if you're open to the idea of remembering how to play, like you might have kids, you might play all the time, you might kind of get into their fantasy worlds and have adventures and do all sorts of things or you might be the way I used to be, very, very, very serious and play is just so beneficial if you can turn what you're learning like kind of as a student in any area into a playful approach like through music or anything like that.

It's far easier to remember but also just for your own wellbeing, just for your own happiness and your own joy. 

Lots of things take effort, so in terms of the feel better element of my work, the regulation, the working with the will in psychosynthesis terms, the things we actively do. 

For example for me, I have my first ever hobby as an adult having joined the Roscommon Sub Aqua Club a couple years ago nearly now and I did not expect to be joining or doing anything like that and I regularly question my life choices with 5.30am starts and I'm not a morning person and often dives get cancelled.

I'm still a snorkel member because we're on the west coast of Ireland and the weather ... but I know without a shadow of a doubt that while I was already playing in the water with my sea swims and my pool swims and my underwater handstands, learning to snorkel has changed my life. It's incredible and to see the seaweed let alone the crabs and the fish and the dolphins that I got to see a few weeks ago out on the boat, never experienced anything like it.

I wanted to anchor that sensation of awe and wonder and I realised that the dolphins I would never have seen had I not kind of encouraged myself quite sternly, I'm not going to say forced myself, but to get back on the boat after I'd got so seasick previously. 

I'm not the most elegant person getting on and off of boats like walking along, I nearly broke my toe getting onto a yoga mat to teach a class a few weeks ago. I'm not the most graceful person so other people seem to leap on and off more easily, other people seem to get seasick less but I thought, 'Nope, it's a nice day. I'm going to go out there and I'm just going to see what it's like. And then, when I upgrade to dive member I'll be able to get the most out of the experience.' 

I did not expect to see dolphins. A pod of them came over to us so we were back to the harbour. Someone else said go out there at 11 o'clock! Dolphins! 

And they came over to the boat and they were swimming under the boat and they were leaping through the air and they were being their magnificent miraculous amazing joyful healing transformative selves and I couldn't get over it.

Had I not done the thing, like I couldn't have predicted dolphins, I did say that before we went out on the boat I did ask hopefully will we see dolphins and I think people felt a bit sorry for me.

And then they all felt really jealous of me because I was the only one with the driver who saw them close up.

They were all on shore after their dive so you have to be willing sometimes with play to put yourself out of comfort zone.

For example, the sea swims that are quite playful for me.

But almost as fun as the dolphins was then being on shore with one of my friends in the dive club and miming the dolphins now we're both nearly 50. She's 50 I'm nearly 50 and she was like, 'Oh god I'm like stuck with you now and you're going to be on and on and on about the dolphins until they come back aren't you?' 

I was like, 'No no no no' I was like so obsessed with the dolphins. And she said, 'Go on then. Tell me about the dolphins.' 

So I was like, 'OK. You pretend to be me on the boat over there. You're on the boat over there and I'll show you where they were.' 

I just meant like in terms of distance but she pretended to be she was leaping around all excitedly. Taking the piss, pretending to be me with the dolphins.

So I then pretended to be a dolphin. So on the harbour in north Mayo, jumping around.

And it was almost as joyous as actually seeing the dolphins.

It was so much fun. It was so silly. There was no one else around but I thought that silliness that joy that exuberance that enthusiasm.

Especially with trauma histories. I was not a happy child. I was a miserable child so much of the time and I feel more joyful now.

Connecting with my Inner Child and all the healing I've done. And it's never too late. You're never too old. You can think back to what you might have liked to have done as a child or what you enjoyed doing as a child and use that as a starting point.

And I'm aware a lot of the examples I've given, like you might play a sport and the time as a child I do remember having fun was when we lived in America for a year and there were loads of kids in the neighbourhood and we'd play like impromptu little games of baseball out in the street and did a lot of gymnastics hanging upside down from the broken swing set in the garden with my next door neighbour and just like that was playful but I don't remember anything like that in London or Essex.

But it's never too late. It's never too late at all. And if you are thinking you don't have the energy to play or to go on boats that you're or whatever it might be for you let yourself BE better.

Have that acceptance, have that love for yourself like working with the Love archetype in psychosynthesis. 

Accept where you are right now. I used to be there. I know what it's like if someone had said to me play more I'd be like, 'F*** off!' because it can feel really painful to see other people enjoying themselves and having a great time when you're in so much pain and just barely getting by.

So just let yourself be if you're in that BE better, Love... phase of my framework. 

Not to think about what you have to do or what you should be doing or anything like that but let yourself to maybe even imagine what play might look like for you at some point in the future.

Know that how you're feeling right now, there's no need to argue with reality you're perfectly fine you're you're doing amazingly. It might be that you pull the duvet over your head and imagine making a duvet fort. Or imagine. Reading can be playful. Watching a film. With games. 

There are so many different ways. But if it feels too hard, know that that's normal and know that the more safety you can create, the more at ease you can feel.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where everyone has safety and clean water, food, shelter, all of it. 

If we were all safe, welcome and loved, everyone would be able to thrive. 

Everyone would be able to play. 

Everyone would be able to activate that most creative high vibe way of living.

When you're not there, don't beat yourself up about it. Notice little ways in which you might play with your food like kind of make silly faces I often with mashed potato and beans and vegan sausages make a silly face or just little things that might make you smile. Little things. But experiment. 

Do what feels good for you. And think about the impact of your remembering how to play on others. 

For the Do better, Heal... phase thinking about the impact if you have children. If you have small children, older children might be embarrassed but let them. 

Think of the impact on your wider family, on your organisation, your community, the world at large. The more playful you can be, I don't mean inappropriately playful I don't mean annoying other people I don't mean like banter that is like calling banter where it's really hurtful or jokes at other people's expense or anything like that.

But I do mean the more playful you are the more relaxed you are it has a ripple effect. I remember hundreds of years ago, a hen weekend for a friend's hen and we were in Cambridge on the river and we went punting and I'd not really heard of it before. 

Oh my God/dess, I keep talking about boats today! That's weird! 

It was one of those kind of gondola things and they had this guy who was really relaxed. 

Someone in our group encouraged him to put on ridiculous ears that were for the bride or I can't remember what they were but, without any hesitation, he just took them and put them on. He looked utterly ridiculous and I just thought, 'Wow'. Because back then, I was like kind of deep in my misery and I'd gone along but it felt like a bit of a chore. I was not a kind of hen person, fun person at all and I'd been sober for a while but not long enough to feel comfortable with other people drinking and the way I am now. 

I was going through the motions. And I remember this glimmer of hope just seeing this guy effortlessly taking this thing and putting it on his head. 

Making everyone smile and play is transformative. Think about what's coming up for you as you ponder play or as you make time for play and again. 

50 nearly, 50 year old me might sound really like, 'Oh my God/dess, I can't schedule play' but schedule time where you can give yourself permission to think about what feels good.

Whether it's, it might be going to the park. I recently went to a local park where they had a children's zip wire thing and I'm scared of heights. But this was a children's park. 

This was not for adults. I was in my late 40s and my partner encouraged me to have a go. And you would think that I was over the Grand Canyon. I was absolutely terrified and utterly delighted.

It was the most hilarious thing. It was muddy. I think I fell off or he fell. Luckily, not high.

The more we can give ourselves permission to be foolish to be silly, to do what feels fun... it's a very present moment thing. And it helps us connect with ourselves. It helps us connect with others notice what comes up for you. 

Give yourself permission to play. Know that it will be good for others in your life and potentially the world at large. 

If you are a member of the Sole to Soul Circle your deeper dive tomorrow will include bonus content around this with some ways to explore more opportunities to play in your life.

And if you're not already a member and would like to be, you can join anytime. It's as little as eight euros a month and you get immediate access to the rich archive of exclusive content and that includes the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey.

You can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net or evemc.substack.com and you might also enjoy the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

You can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net/book or find it at your local library, bookshop or online.

And you can also Subscribe. So wherever you're listening or watching this, if you want to Subscribe or Follow, that would be wonderful leave a review if that feels good and share with someone who might benefit.

But most of all give yourself permission to have whatever reaction you have to the idea of being playful.

Recognise that it can be amazing. Recognise that it can be painful so just being gentle with yourself. But it is a really transformative skill to learn.

Oh my God/dess. It sounds like I'm sucking the joy out of play. Learn to play and transform your life! Nothing like that, just let yourself have fun. Let yourself be. Let yourself do the things you used to enjoy if there are things you used to enjoy and they've become less playful they've become less fun, explore ways in which you can take the pressure off and enjoy them more.

Look after yourself. Have a lovely week and I look forward to sharing more next time.