What one thing might help you feel even a little bit better?

There are lots of self-care ideas in this week's podcast.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch here

le grá,

Evei

Full transcript

Everything I do, I’m a mental health professional, I attend to my own mental health on a daily basis…

Hi, you're listening to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and I'm here to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from by taking better care of yourself.

And your Self with that uppercase S: that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself. I'm sharing trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas each Tuesday.

For deeper dives into each theme, including additional content from my guests, you can join the Sole to Soul Circle.

Some tech issues meant I almost didn’t get an episode out this week but I hope you find this sign post episode, where I flag previous episodes that might be most helpful (while, being a mental health professional and someone who prioritises my own, ALL are relevant) is helpful.

Episode 44 some of my own mental health journey.

Episode 2 with Rebecca Seal, best-selling author of Be Bad, Better. So comforting re the systems that create unrealistic stress and expectations.

Episode 3 with Caroline Shola Arewa, Opening to Spirit author on the importance of rest.

Episode 13 with researcher, CBT psychotherapist and yoga therapist Veena Ugargol talking compassion.

Episode 14 with former Psychologies Editor, The Big Leap author and Heart Leap Facilitator Suzy Walker talks about big leaps helping her survive her toughest times.

Episode 15 with Gill Fennings on self-care for our mental and emotional health being even more essential as therapists and supervisors.

Episode 16 with Dr Dina Glouberman on The Joy of Burnout and using our imaginations for good.

Episode 21 with Leonie Dawson not only befriending but utterly adoring her whole self (while honouring her sensitive nervous system and building a multimillion creative, heart led business)

Episode 22 with ND therapist and supervisor Chris Oxborrow recognising not only what you need but knowing that you deserve it. Ooof.

Episode 25 with Louise Lucas (formerly Brown) on spiky profiles, accepting her right to HAVE needs and honouring her neurodivergence.

Episodes 27 and more with psychotherapist and my Vice-Chair on IACP's Editorial Committee, Jayne Leonard. On cooking as self-care, celebrating our neurodivergent (50), sending love to our ADHD brains (45) and coming soon, supporting gut health and mental health (60)

Episode 31 with Jane Travis on setting time boundaries ourselves and the importance of pleasure for our mental health.

Episode 36 dealing with global shock and my reflections on self-care for despair.

Episode 39 on working with the nervous system to counter the endless stress by activating the Relaxation Response

Episode 40 on setting intentions around what you WANT.

Episode 41 with Lisa Woodruff on how externalising our thoughts and organising them can (it's working for me!) reduce overwhelm and support better mental health.

Episode 47 on creating your own Dopamenu to work with your ADHD brain.

Episode 48 on Cattitude and polyvagal informed approaches for trauma recovery and VAST/ ADHD.

Episode 49 on the importance of sleep for good mental health (and 33 ways to sleep better)

Episode 53 on VAST / ADHD terms that could change your life. Some are transforming mine as I am up the self- compassion.

Episode 56 on loving your inner Smelly Cat and 57 with Margaret O’Connor on the ways in which this pro natal society others women without children.

I hope you enjoy them and that you'll prioritise your own mental health this week.

Thank you for listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. For deeper dives into each episode and theme and bonus interviews with my guests, as well as access to the complete archive, which includes the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey, you can join the Sole to Soul Circle. And you might also enjoy the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

You can find out more about all my resources, free, paid for, whatever suits you, at selfcarecoaching.net and evemc.substack.com. And of course, I'd love, if you haven't already, for you to subscribe, rate, comment, review, send me an email via thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com, or simply at [email protected].

Have a gorgeous week, and I look forward to sharing more next time.

‘OK, well I'm not going to have children so what do I do with my life? What does life look like? How do I prove myself? How do I validate my existence?’

I so adored talking to Margaret O’Connor and hope you enjoy Episode 57 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast where she explores her journey with self-care and becoming an advocate for the child-free.

And for this week’s deeper dive for the Sole to Soul Circle, I’m delighted to be sharing more with Margaret O’Connor around discerning our energy levels, the impacts different people have on them and some reminders that you get to choose how you respond to the different demands on your time and attention.

Full transcript

What do I do? Like, what is important or who will support me? You know, and there's the fear because you're repeatedly told that you will die alone and you'll regret it and it's the worst thing you'll ever do. So that you, given that you live in a pro natal society, of course, there's a chance you'll have internalised some of those beliefs and it can be really hard to navigate that.

Welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I release new episodes to help you feel better every day. They're trauma-informed and VAST/ADHD friendly, Self with an uppercase S and lowercase s self-care designed ideas to support you in connecting with and taking care of your Self: that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself. To create a life you don't need to retreat from.

I hope you enjoyed this new episode and if you haven't already listened, older episodes at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com or at selfcarecoaching.net or through whatever platform you prefer.

You can also access lots of free resources to find out more about how we might work together at selfcarecoaching.net and through the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and for deeper dives into each podcast episode, there's a bonus interview with my guests where I have guests or into the theme, as well as access to the complete archive, including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey and you can access all of that by joining the Sole to Soul Circle.

That's S-O-L-E for the sole of your feet. It's a fully embodied approach and soul S-O-U-L, it's a transpersonal approach. It's very holistic and you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net and evemc.substack.com. So thanks again for listening and I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Welcome to episode 57 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm delighted to be joined by Margaret O'Connor, who I only met recently at the IACP (Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) conference the other week. She was one of the guest speakers and it was a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, so gorgeous presentation on the expectations around motherhood and not motherhood.

The permission to be mediocre and child-free was permission I didn't know I needed to hear but it was like, of course. There's so much and I'd love for you to say a little bit about what you're working on about your work, how you got into it and the pro natal society and if I'm asking too many questions all at once!

I'll keep talking so interrupt me if I go too far. Thank you so much for having me, it's lovely to be here and speak with you.

I am a counsellor and psychotherapist. I am based in Limerick in Ireland. I work in private practice and some kind of general counselling and then specifically with a service called Are Kids For Me which is aimed at people who are not sure if they want to have children or not. Or people who have decided not to have children and are kind of navigating that decision. So it is niche which is fine. As well I work with a counselling college so I'm involved in training with people who are training to become counsellors and psychotherapists.

I suppose my own reason for getting into that specific kind of work is because I am child-free by choice. I suppose just to distinguish a little bit you know that's a positive choice that's something that I have wanted to make and obviously that's very different from someone who is not able to have children and that's not their choice. I just want to distinguish that.

But yeah and I suppose you know for me it even feels a bit strange to call it a decision because it's just something I've simply never wanted to do. I have never had that urge or when I was looking at my life or making decisions about what I was going to do it's never something that appealed to me or that I saw in my future.

As I talked about a little bit at the conference I suppose it did move between being an abstract choice around something that may or may not happen you know far off in the future.

And then it became a very tangible choice of like, ‘Oh OK. You know do I actually mean this? You know do I’ll follow through on this?’ when I was about 29. Yeah, I just said didn't really foresee anything changing and as I said I'm 42 and nothing has changed you know my view on that has stayed the same.

So kind of adapting to life of thinking, OK, well I'm not going to have children so what do I do with my life? What does life look like? How do I prove myself? How do I validate my existence? What do I do with all my free time and money? You know, all that stuff.

But it was it was hard navigating that and I suppose that's why. I was in my therapy training at the time. Anyways, I would have been involved in therapy and as I said didn't find it the most supportive place at the time. That really encouraged me to offer you know the specific service to people because I think it's really important. If we skip on to the pro natalism word which is really important.

Pro natalism is the belief that birth is good. It's pro-birth. Which, as I'm always very quick to say, is fine. I'm not saying I'm anti-birth. The problem is we need people and we have more than enough people.

We're not into killing anyone!

But the impact I guess of pro natalism, if you're living in a pro natalist society, which we all do, basically this is what happens.

If a you can't have children or you don't want to have children because really it's such a pervasive. The impact of it is so pervasive. We see it in the majority of religions. Based around the idea that it is good to reproduce and have children.

Government policies, economic policies are around you know family friendly. And that family, I'm air quoting here, family being parents. And you know so when everything is designed with the assumption that a) you want to b) you will c) you can have children what happens when you don't or you can't come under that?

That's why it's hard to navigate that decision if you're unsure. It can be why it's hard to commit to that decision even if you're quite sure because there is this this real divide I suppose or split I'd almost say.

You know, we have so many representations of what parenthood looks like. This is what family, again family with children, looks like. You know there are pathways to follow. There's so little representation and so little positive representation of what life looks like if you're not doing that that it can feel like a void. It can feel like, ‘Well, what do I do like? What is important or who will support me?’ You know and there's the fear because you're repeatedly told that you will die alone and you'll regret it and it's the worst thing ever.

Given that you live in a pro natal society, of course there's a chance you'll have internalised some of those beliefs. And it can be really hard to navigate that. I've gone off now on a mad tangent. I suppose it's just right to put that in put that in context is that it's very, very pervasive and it can be really challenging in lots of way for people. And it can evoke a lot of anxiety or a lot of uncertainty for people.

I do believe, you know, very passionately that it's important to be aware of this. To provide supportive objective spaces where people can address their concerns. As I said there's lots of people who want to have children who are also anxious about it because it's huge. And lots of unforeseen aspects can be part of it. So allowing people to address those concerns, to address their ambivalence if they're unsure or they feel like they're changing their mind, and indeed for people who do not want to choose that.

And we know from statistics like there are more people choosing not to have children. There's a large portion of the society, you know it's around one in four, one in five women now in in Europe and America who won't have children for a combination of choice and not. When you think about that, one in four or one in five people, that's a lot.

Absolutely.

That's not even counting the men who don't get counted, well who never get asked.

Absolutely.

Yeah, so there's a lot of people and, at the moment, they're not being seen. They're literally not being counted and they're not being represented. And that can be so isolating and so stigmatising. So yeah, I'm passionate about it. I'm raising awareness around it and about.

You know, hopefully trying to provide some support for people in that situation. Which is wonderful. I mean I'm postmenopausal now and I remember I did my work experience when I was about 13 I think at a preschool. And I flip-flopped between, ‘I love kids!’ and ‘I'm never having kids!’, ‘I love kids!’ ‘I'm never…’ and because I didn't know the word pro natalism until your session, but because of the pressure, but then… I'm postmenopausal but I had endometriosis. Diagnosed in my 20s so that kind of awareness but your talk was so healing for me.

Just thinking, like I kept waiting for, ‘Is there going to be some day where I'm in floods of tears that I never…?’ and it's all this kind of pressure. My partner has six children but it's a really interesting. Like when you think about the culture and especially Irish Catholic and so many religions where there is that pressure. But I'd love to know how it impacts your self-care and your uppercase Self care and could you tell me a bit about your ideal and actual self-care? Like in the morning? Later on? In the evening?

OK. Getting into the nitty-gritty. Just to reference this, it was like that quote, you know about the right to be mediocre. I must cite my source. So that's from a book by Caroline Magennis it's called Harpy [A Manifesto for Childfree Women] and it came out last year an amazing book. Really, really recommend it. She's an Irish author who wrote about this topic and it's about specifically women who are childfree and she talks a lot about self-care.

I think yeah that I mean there's so much in that sentence actually. Talk about the expectation that's so unspoken. And yes, it weighs so heavy because when you hear something like that, it's like, ‘Oh my goodness! How much does that drive people?’

I do think we're moving away from that. Within the child-free community there's much more acceptance of or even, you know, trying to help people understand like there doesn't have to be this huge reason why you don't want children. Or there doesn't have to be a huge traumatic reason. Because most people think like what is wrong with you that you don't want this? But there are just people who don't want to have kids. That it. Full stop.

Because it's just something you don't want at all or you don't want enough.

Gorgeous. I'm sorry to interrupt but I remember you saying something like you'd never go up to a family and say, ‘What made you have two?’ or like ‘Why did you have the second?’ It's just so rude and intrusive!

Yes! Yes, it's perceived that way and yet I'm sure anyone listening, if you're in that situation, if you say you don't want children, you are asked why. People want a reason and an explanation to justify yourself. Like for some reason that's okay. So first of all, that’s OK. There doesn't have to be this like huge reason. And also, that you are you're not making up for anything. You know it's often seen as like other achievements are like a consolation or a justification. You know, OK, I didn't have children but you know I've done this amazing thing or that amazing thing or whatever it is. That I think there's definitely an effort to try and move away from that but it's really hard.

And I suppose to me that connects like the biggest thing I would see in my client work and in training. It's really interesting as well like we know. And I always I love this. Like, as therapists, it's our job to look after ourselves. It's written in our code of ethics: You are professionally negligent if you aren’t. Like I'm like this is amazing, amazing job like you have to do this and you know I was talking about that with students or whatever but like the blocks. Like how hard it is. And the beliefs that get in the way. I just think this is such a huge or can be such a huge block to people. Like because you don't have children for whatever reason you still deserve self-care. You know, I mean, it sounds such a stupid thing to say we also still need to say it.

You know it's not that well. Because this is the thing that that kind of seeps in. It's like, ‘Oh well, I'm not tired enough’ or ‘I'm not, you know, I haven't…’

Well I don't feel like I have more time anyway but that's what I'm thinking. I can only imagine how people with kids manage because I'm perpetually exhausted and not knowing how I navigate just me!

Same. Like I don't genuine, my God, so much respect! But you know that it's OK that you still deserve, you don't have to justify through this busyness or what you're doing. That self-care is still necessary. But it can be much easier to say than to do. So I would recommend um Caroline's book to unpack that a little bit.

My own self-care, OK.

Well ideal: if you had all the time and energy and money and everything in the world what would you like to do?

What I would like to do? That is a big question. I think live somewhere sunny! The first one which is probably achievable but there hasn't been at the moment. You know, to me, I was thinking about this a little bit today. To me it's actually, they're they are small things to me. Having a day where I don't have to set an alarm or where I'm not like tied to a schedule. Because you know when you work as a therapist you're very time bound.

Yeah, that's a real luxury. It's such a just a pressure off to kind of go, ‘I can get up whenever’ and you know it's not that I'll be in bed all day. And actually to get up and like stay in my pyjamas. I know that sounds so basic but to not have to, ‘Oh my God, I have to have a shower and have to get ready and have to be here.’ Just that luxury of not having to do anything is just divine.

I love that. I kind of hate myself almost for saying this but movement and exercise have become a really important.

We’re mammals! We need to move.

And I never I was and I am not a sporty person and never was but in the last three four years it has become something I actually really value. So I do I try to go for a walk most days. I do like exercise and like weight lifting. One of those who’s gotten into that. And I love it. I like the feeling of it and it's around feeling strong.

It's around like realising what my body is capable of and seeing that progress and it's very hard to think when you're lifting heavy things so it's fantastic. Really shuts the brain off. That's become actually a really important part. I've gone back or try to get back into swimming, something I did as a child but was never very comfortable with.

I'm doing some lessons on that and trying to do that weekly because again it's very hard to think about anything else when you're swimming. It's so immersive. Then yeah I suppose I do and I struggle with this a little bit is because I am quite an introverted person so I really have to manage my social interactions.

Sometimes, there are days I'm just like I can't. Can't. You know. I need quiet and need to recharge. But then of course there's other times where it's great to meet people and be social. I sometimes find it a bit difficult just to manage if there's a busy time, there's a nice things on and like they're lovely to go to in theory but, ideally, I can't do more than one social occasion in a weekend. Which sounds really weird but yeah, there's a there's a fine line for me around that.

What else? I'm very, I don't know what the word is, but like anything with heat. Like, wrap me in a blanket. Put me in a sauna. Anything where I just kind of get to like wrap up cosy and be warm. It's just amazing. So again living in Ireland does you know give you lots of opportunities to need to do that.

Podcasts I've gotten into. I love reading and I had to kind of re-jig that a little bit because I was I was reading a lot for work and they weren't relaxing. So I kind of had to shove that to one side and get back into fiction which I'm really pleased about. And then it said podcast and then I'd have different like I'll have like work-related ones but I'll also just have very silly ones or not very taxing ones. And that's actually something I find quite important . Like things that are relaxing to my brain so whether they're like shows I've watched before or things that don't require like much intellectual effort to piece those in as well. Like it's OK to have that downtime and again give yourself permission. Like it's OK. Like some ways that's just relaxing or fun. That's just silly. Yeah, I think it's very important so it's a little bit of a mix and match I would say.

So what would be the essential if you could only do some of that?

Well again now, I'm a very basic person as well. So in terms of sleep and food, I have such a narrow window on both things. Sleep and food are essential regularly and you know it's sufficient. I think actually at this point it's probably the movement.

I was saying to you you know I was a bit sick there last week and I'm out of routine I. I notice it now like I've if there's a week where I'm not literally like not getting outside because I work from home or I'm not kind of just getting enough of that I definitely notice it so that's interesting like that was not a thing for me 10 years ago uh or even five so that's new. And that downtime. I need that half a day or a day ideally where I can kind of potter around and do my little jobs whatever they are, around the house.

Just to not feel under pressure that I have to be somewhere doing something but that's really important.

Yeah. That's wonderful. And if you could go back in time to your Inner Child at any age or Younger You any adult age, what love, compassion, wisdom anything else would you like to share with her?

Do you know I think it is actually around the introvert thing. It took it was until I did my counselling training that I really realised what that was. And it was okay. It wasn't just like a personality defect and that really was like game changer. Like, ‘Oh, this is just how some people function’ you know. But it's okay. So that was so important. And yeah, as I said I was in my mid-20s when I figured that out so if I'd known that earlier that was probably would have been helpful.

And just to be more compassionate around that and also maybe that piece where I would like have a bit more fun. You know we can all be very serious sometimes. So you have to watch the cat video or you know whatever works for you and that works for me.

And you know that's OK too!

Absolutely. Well thank you so much! And we'll be sharing a bonus video with you for the Sole to Soul Circle but can you tell people where they can find you online? Both your...

Bealtaine is a festival of fertility, love and lust and this year, we're braving the parts of ourselves we find hardest to love...

Full transcript

Thinking again about who you love but this time bringing it more to yourself and thinking about all the different parts of yourself and the parts of yourself you find it easier to love and harder to love.

What parts do you appreciate about yourself and what parts do you find more challenging if love feels too strong? And I want you, if you're familiar with Friends, to remember Phoebe's famous song about that poor smelly, smelly cat. Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, what are they feeding you? Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, it's not your fault. They won't take you to the vet, you're probably not their favourite pet. Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, it's not your fault.

Welcome to episode 56 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Thanks for joining me. I'm your host and producer Eve Menezes Cunningham and this week we're celebrating the Irish Celtic Festival of Bealtaine, also known as Beltane. It's a festival, part of the Celtic Wheel of the Year, of fertility, love and lust.

And for the purposes of this week's podcast and the Sole to Soul Circle membership, we're focusing on love.

The love we have for ourselves and for others can, of course, be really challenging with trauma histories and with ADHD and with rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD). It can be really challenging to feel love and really easy to feel rejection.

The more we can have that awareness around our styles of interpreting the world, the stories we're telling ourselves about what actions mean and being able to love ourselves enough to speak up for ourselves and love our loved ones enough to speak with as much love as possible but expressing our needs and wants.

It can all be really fraught and tense and also so joyful and it's such a lovely time of year with the lambs and the leaves and the flowers and the growth in all directions, that sense of thinking about what you love and the way your love life is, whether you're single, whether you're attached, how you would like it to be, thinking about your ideal love relationships, your ideal in terms of how much time you would be able to spend with your loved ones, thinking about what you already value in terms of your love life and others in your life you love and who love you.

And also using it as an opportunity to do a bit of a love audit and think about where things might be missing, where you can amp up that self-love.

Inner child work is always really powerful, really needed because the more we attend to those wounded parts of ourselves, the less likely we are to project them outwards, the more able we are to hold ourselves and therefore to communicate in a more loving, compassionate way. So lots to be thinking about.

I hope you've got a diary or pen and paper ready so you can pause things, make notes, maybe pause the episode, come back to it.

Starting by thinking about all the things and all the people we love. Maybe pause here and just make a note of all the things you love, things you love to do, things like inanimate things, other things, parts of the world like places, people, animals, whatever springs to mind when you think about what do you love, just let yourself make a list of all the things you love.

We're going to come back to it later and I'm going to remind you again that like all the episodes, this offering is to help you gently explore ways in which you can amp up the love for yourself and for your higher case S Self and for others.

Thinking again about who you love, but this time bringing it more to yourself and thinking about all the different parts of yourself and the parts of yourself you find it easier to love and harder to love.

What parts do you appreciate about yourself and what parts do you find more challenging if love feels too strong? And I want you, if you're familiar with Friends, to remember Phoebe's famous song about that poor smelly, smelly cat. Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, what are they feeding you? Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, it's not your fault. They won't take you to the vet, you're probably not their favourite pet. Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, it's not your fault.

I do a lot of work around Cattitude and Feline Better Every Day and working with polyvagal informed approaches to trauma recovery and VAST / ADHD and recently was talking to someone about doing some CPD for them. And I pitched Smelly Cat! Because the more we love those smelly parts of ourselves, the parts we feel are completely unlovable, mangy, maybe flea-ridden…

All those parts need our love. If that cat were taken to the vet, given a good clean, given an enormous, maybe at a distance – It might be feral – hug. But time and patience and understanding and the commitment to getting to know those smelly, smelly, smelly cats, that cat could become a beautiful magnificat, a wondrous creature. Like most cats in terms of knowing how worthy it is of love and adoration and freedom and safety and all the things all us mammals are worthy of.

When you think of your own inner Smelly Cat or when you think of the Smelly Cats in your life, the people you struggle to love, but most likely the parts of yourself that you struggle with that you just want to kind of ignore and pretend they're not there, potentially worse, you might hurt yourself, you might.

But if you were to imagine the potential for healing with those smelly parts of yourself, those Smelly Cat parts of yourself…

And that brings us then to the kind of love that therapists have for our clients. I never know if I'm pronouncing it right rightly or wrongly, agape or agape, but it's that kind of essence of love and in person-centred counselling, it's known as unconditional positive regard.

You're not, obviously, going to breach any boundaries, but there is that love for your clients in terms of what they're bringing, for your supervisees in terms of what they're bringing. And that in psychosynthesis we have the archetypes of Love and the Will.

Will is really important in terms of making changes, sustaining changes, and there are different types of will. There's the ‘transpersonal will’, the ‘good will’, thinking of the greater good, and there's ‘skillful will’ where we adapt our approaches accordingly, and there's ‘strong will’ where we just kind of plough through, get things done.

But Love is just as strong, just as important as Will. It is more to do with acceptance, with support, and thinking for yourself, like how can you show those Smelly Cat parts of yourself more love?

How can you hold them when you think about the people in your life that you've identified, the ones who are easy to love, the ones that are more challenging to love, if you were to imagine having more patience with them, more understanding for them, more giving yourself and others more grace?

That's what it's all about. And knowing that you and everyone else is worthy of that, and not trying to expect yourself to be like some sort of saint where you only feel love and light, we're humans, we annoy each other.

It's completely normal and natural, but by recognising what is getting churned up, what's getting stirred up, what's coming up for healing, and by attending to it, we can then really use our relationships with the parts of ourselves as well as with others, both loved ones and the people we find more challenging, to help us grow, to help us evolve, to help us develop.

Thinking in terms of the Love archetype, and maybe whether you, and again you might want to make some notes in your journal, your piece of paper, you might want to think maybe the Will archetype is stronger in you? Maybe you're really great at getting things done, at go, go, go, at like figuring out how to make the impossible possible, and maybe it's very much like giving into that ‘good will’? Thinking for the highest good for all concerned, and maybe even surrendering to ‘transpersonal will’?

But we still need that Love energy. Thinking for yourself, with yourself, with a Smelly Cat part of yourself, and maybe more than one part is coming up for healing now, and maybe if you have children, or you have other like kind of young people in your life, or anyone in your life, thinking about how can you be more accepting of those parts of yourself, and of others, without trying to change anything.

I'm laughing now, because this is my work, this is, this has been my work for a really long time now, and I had a little bit of a meltdown at the weekend, at time of filming, where we were on our way back, driving from Cork to Westport. And I am highly allergic to peppers, anaphylaxis, and I am vegan, so no animal products, and we'd stopped at a service station with, I don't know, five, six concession stands.

And I could not get anything that was edible, let alone anything that I wanted to eat, and all I needed to see were the ingredients, like were there peppers? Bell peppers, okay, I can't have that. Instead, people kept pointing me to allergen lists, and bell peppers aren't one of the big 14, so they're not on their lists.

I felt like the smelliest Smelly Cat in the universe, and I'm 49 years old. I've been doing this work on myself for so long, but I felt so vulnerable. I felt like I'd never be able to eat again. I was hungry, I kept it together, but later on that evening, when I got home, I got really upset about it.

And I realised I really needed to attend to that kind of baby toddler part of myself that had felt too much for the adults around me. Not all the time, but at times, I think that had got very churned up. I was able to talk to my partner about it, I can talk to friends about it, but it's still with the allergy, with the being vegan, it's something that gets triggered in me when I go out to eat. Even when I've given the information in advance, and they've assured me it won't be a problem, and then it's like, oh, it's got cream in it, or oh, it's got butter in it, or oh, all these things that aren't vegan. Or worse, peppers. And so I had to really work hard to love that part of myself that didn't cause a scene, but wasn't as gracious as I normally like to be.

I normally like to be, thank you so much, that's amazing, whereas it was just like, ‘OK, can I please have the base of a pizza with some tomato sauce then?’, ‘Would you like cheese with that?’ ‘No thank you, cheese is not vegan.’

They didn't have vegan cheese, and it just felt like with all, and I think Marianne Williamson talks about everything being a call for love, when we think about bad behaviour, when we think about the times we act out, or others act out, and if we're able to see what's behind it, it's just that:

Am I lovable? Am I too much? Am I enough? Am I…?

It's really easy to love, and to help others heal, and to help ourselves heal, but we have to not only start with ourselves, but to help others when they can't do it for themselves, it's not that old, ‘Oh you can't love others, or you can't let love in until you love yourself,’ because that way, so many people would never love.

We do love and heal in connection. We co-regulate. But it is all connected, and when you notice yourself feeling cranky, when you notice yourself feeling frustrated, when you notice yourself not being at your best, if again you were to attach that Smelly Cat love, and know underneath the smelliest of cats is the most adorable divine feline.

You have that within yourself as well. How can you attend to those smelly parts? How can you, I'll get off the Smelly Cat analogy at some point, but not today. How can you just know that you are worthy? How can you know, how can you believe in every fibre of your being, that you are deserving? And that you deserve good food? That you deserve care in other areas of your life, in other types of work? In other places you visit?

All sorts of things, like there are so many people who, especially now, in so many things in 2025, where you'd think we had gone past all the hate, all the maligning of already marginalised communities, and just show them the love that they and everyone else deserve.

Thinking for yourself, this Bealtaine and beyond, how can you show yourself more love? How can you show others more love? How can you accept more love? How can you know, even when you feel at your smelliest, that you are worthy and deserving of others’ love?

And it might be that you let them attend to your smelly parts, and that you begin to think, oh, OK, if you haven't already watched Penelope, and if it's still on Netflix when you’re watching or listening to this, please watch it.

It was one of my favourite films for decades, and I re-watched it recently, and it definitely stands up. Again, the key is self-love. I don't want to give much more away but let me know how you get on, I love hearing from you.

And for Sole to Soul Circle members, your deeper dive bonus content this week will be a simple ritual you can do to heal your hurting heart, both over Bealtaine and throughout the coming year.

It's really a symbolic healing, and it's really powerful, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you.

And this episode, like all episodes so far, has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham. Thank you very much for listening, I love sharing these with you, I love hearing from you, and you can, if you haven't already, rate, review, subscribe, share, comment, like, if you think of anyone who would benefit from this content, please send them a link, or tell them where they can find it on Spotify, Apple, everywhere else, Substack, and YouTube.

And I just really want to know what is that smelliest, smelliest, Smelly Cat part of yourself? You can email me, eve at selfcarecoaching.net, or you can comment on any of the platforms that I'm sharing this on. If you were to think what does that Inner Smelly Cat need? Just keep asking yourself, what does that Smelly Cat need? It might need a bit of a bath, it might need some fresh air, it might need some sunshine, it might need some time in the company of other cats, it might need sleep, I mean, my goodness, sleep always makes me better company, it might need food, but knowing that you and everyone else are worthy of love, and I hope that with this time of year, having such wonderful, loving energy, that you can afford that to yourself and others in your life.

With that, am sending enormous love to you and yours, and I look forward to sharing more next week!

Would you like to add to your self-care toolkit by managing life's stresses with more compassion for yourself and others? This new episode is for you.

Full transcript

We can internalise shame about not handling the situation with more grace, and even when it is extreme pressure. Stress can be a good thing. Think about a coal turning into a diamond, or think about a toddler, no one is yelling at that toddler, ‘Toddle! Walk!’ There's that inherent drive within all of us that we want to grow, we want to evolve, we want to learn, we want to develop. And when we're under a good stress, that eustress, that is what's happening, but where it's more distress, as in not de-stressing, but di-stress, it can be really damaging for not just the nervous system, but inflammation conditions and immunity.

Welcome to episode 55 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

I'm your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham, and every Tuesday there's a new episode to help with trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly Self and self-care ideas to help you connect with that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, and miraculous part of yourself, and to create a life you don't need to retreat from.

This week we're looking at Stress Awareness Month. As I was reflecting on stress awareness (if you would like to, you can access loads of free resources at selfcarecoaching.net/home/ stress, and they'll support you with stress, helping you understand more about it. There's also a lot in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, and of course other podcast episodes), I realised that while it's one of my areas of expertise for over two decades, it's especially important for sensitive nervous systems when we're dealing with VAST, also known as ADHD, and trauma recovery.

And there's room for improvement in my own life, even now, and there's, I think we just live in stressful times, it's a completely normal thing.

I realised a few days ago… I'm a BACP media spokesperson, and they'd asked me to contribute some self-care advice for young people navigating stress at work, and as I was writing my answers, advising young people, I was thinking, ‘49 Year Old Me is benefiting from this advice, too!’ Because one of the work projects I'm involved with has been very stressful for a very long time.

As always, I am and remain my first client, and when I realised I was talking to myself as well, it's like, ‘Of course!’ And it makes sense when I think about the ADHD, when I think about the trauma history, when I think about being an immigrant myself, when I think about being the daughter of immigrants, being the granddaughter of immigrants: We can know in our bones that something is too much pressure for someone, anyone else, but somehow when it's us, we can internalise shame about not handling the situation with more grace, and even when it is extreme pressure.

Stress can be a good thing. Think about a coal turning into a diamond, or think about a toddler, no one is yelling at that toddler, ‘Toddle! Walk!’ There's that inherent drive within all of us that we want to grow, we want to evolve, we want to learn, we want to develop. And when we're under a good stress, that eustress, that is what's happening, but where it's more distress, as in not de-stressing, but di-stress, it can be really damaging for not just the nervous system, but inflammation conditions and immunity.

I've got the tail end of a cold, and it's like really funny, because I was thinking to myself, ‘My immunity is great! Because I'm taking really good care of myself!’ And then I came down with this bug. But it is another sign of stress. The body takes too much, and then it goes into needing that time for recovery.

We know from Polyvagal Theory that we're wired to thrive when we feel safe, welcome, and loved. Asking yourself if there’s any situation in your life, or any relationship as it stands, where you don't feel safe, welcome, and loved. And ask yourself what might you do to improve things, or if you might need to exit the situation.

It's also, as I just said, about remembering that stress itself is not bad, there are the different types of stress. We talked a bit about eustress. We talked about distress. With eustress, you think about going to the gym, you think about the muscles actually breaking down before they come back stronger. We grow through working out.

And we sometimes forget that we always have a choice, but when we're in that kind of distress situation, we can feel powerless, we can feel helpless, we can feel burnt out, underappreciated, undervalued, and not good enough.

One thing I'm doing, as part of on an ongoing basis to reduce stress in my life, while also attempting to follow Marie Forleo's advice about simplifying to amplify. I've changed up the membership a bit. So it's still the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, and I've changed the title of my Substack to Feel Better Every Day, more in line with my overall practice, which has been Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes Cunningham for years, and years, and years, and years.

Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes. Also known as selfcarecoaching.net. But I've complicated things, because I've been working with the lunar phases and the Celtic Wheel of the Year for decades, I thought it would be really simple and easy to have things aligned for the different levels of membership.

But thinking about it, that's been a bit complicated, so I'm simply going to have the podcast remaining Feel Better Every Day, and then free subscribers will get bonus content and special offers, sorry about this cold, I'm talking a bit strangely. And then the Sole to Soul Circle will be the third option which you can upgrade for so it will no longer be a Full Moon or Super Moon membership, it will be just the Sole to Soul Circle.

With that, it's that Sole to Soul Circle, fully embodied from the soles of the feet, transpersonal approach, so it's to the soul, get it, soul, S-O-L-E to soul, S-O-U-L, and it's an approach to trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly, self and self-care.

This week, the deeper dive content for Sole to Soul Circle members will include a video with some stress-reducing yoga poses and an energy technique that's hilariously simple but really effective. It really amps up that self-empathy and it really grounds and empowers the person.

I’m looking forward to sharing that soon. And, of course, there's access to the exclusive membership benefits area, including the entire Love Your WHOLE Self chakra journey.

We know that yoga is especially good for stress, and Dr Chris Streeter found many, many years ago in a study, that just attending a one-hour class creates GABA, which is a naturally occurring, it's mimicked in drugs like Xanax to help calm the system, but it occurs naturally in the body through yoga. It's one of those things that we know again through working with the vagus nerve, there are so many things we can do with our body, with our breaths, to change our physiology, change the way we feel.

For example, Forward Folds help us come into deeper contact with our bodies in the present moment. We have that stretch reflex at the back of the legs which can help us, especially with ADHD, feel more stimulated in the pose. And there's more to focus the attention on, as well as connecting with the breath, having that deeper breath, that slightly longer exhalation or your Ujjayi breathing, whatever feels best for you.

When we use the Forward Folds with the relaxation response, and you can listen to the podcast episode about that if you'd like, it can be especially helpful.

Lion pose is one of the ones I'll be sharing in the Sole to Soul Circle. It's a great way to roar away any stresses and strains, and it's really about never underestimating the power of even acknowledging your current situation.

Once you've acknowledged it, even to yourself, you can empower yourself to improve it. And that's one of the reasons EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques including tapping) can be especially helpful, because EFT can help us move from sympathetic activation of the autonomic nervous system, the ‘stress response’, to the parasympathetic activation, the ‘rest / digest response’.

We're coming into our body, we're tapping on certain points around the face and upper body, and like yoga, like anything that grounds us, that feels soothing, there are so many things we can do and we forget.

I'm hoping that this episode is going to remind you of things that are already in your toolkit as well. But today, or any time it's helpful for you to revisit this, think about any situation that's stressing you out, and as we do this EFT Tap Along, your words are going to resonate more than mine, so use mine as a guide, but trust yourself and trust your own inner wisdom.

We're working with that stressed part of yourself, and that stressed part of you is really ready to be heard, because it's sick of you ignoring it, it's sick of you taking on more and more as if you're somehow to blame for the circumstances you found yourself in, and if you just somehow hustle harder, work harder, it will all be okay.

It's like, ‘No, you need a break, you need, like the stress symptoms are trying to tell you something, we're not machines, we're not superhuman, really pay attention.’

So start by asking yourself where you would rate your current feeling of stress.

With EFT, (Emotional Freedom Techniques, including tapping) part of the reason they can be so effective is that we can release tension. If you think about a toddler who falls over, gets a hug from its carer, and is happily gurgling and laughing and playing again the next moment, babies are brilliant at moving emotions through the system, through the body, and not getting stuck in it.

But the older we get, we learn to not move as freely as we would like, we're having to sit still at school, or we're having to do all sorts of things that go against our body's innate wisdom. And I'm not saying that that's entirely a terrible thing, because we have to be socialised to a certain degree, but even doing this work over the decades I've been doing it, it goes too far, it goes way too far.

So many people are suffering way more than they need to be suffering, by not doing the little things that can be done each day, or each moment, to ease that stress and enhance that comfort.

The tapping helps to move the energy. It might come out through laughing, it might come out through shaking, it might come out through yawning or farting or burping, or sometimes we get bored as we're tapping away and wander off, it's just the energy has shifted.

To help us recognise that, ‘Actually, yeah, I was feeling really bad about this particular thing, really stressed out, and now I can't even remember what I was worried about, I can't remember what I was thinking’ before we start tapping, it's really helpful to rate your current level of stress.

If you were to think of a scale between minus 10 being terrible, and plus 10 being amazing, and 0 being neutral, ask yourself where you are on that scale right now when you think about this stressful situation.

We're going to start with the side of the hand for the setup statement. We're going to start with, ‘Even though I feel so stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself. Even though I'm feeling so stressed out, I choose to soothe and support myself.’

‘Even though I'm feeling really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself.’

The tapping points are the inside of the eyebrow, outside of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, under the lip, under the mouth, the thymus, like using the palm of the hand on the thymus and tapping the collarbone. That, just on its own, can be a really comforting thing.

And then under the arm, so if you imagine the side of a bra, whether you're wearing one or not, the top of the head. So you've done that, even though I'm feeling so stressed. And again, with the setup statement, the idea of doing it around whatever it is you're feeling, whether it's an emotional thing you want freedom from or a physical thing.

It used to always be. ‘I deeply and completely love and accept myself’. ‘Even though [whatever it is], I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

‘Even though [whatever it is] I choose to soothe and support myself’ can be more accessible for a lot of people, because we live in a world where unfortunately many of us have been taught to not love ourselves. And it can take a lot of healing, a lot of work to reconnect with that inherent worthiness, that inherent being lovable.

So we're going to do it again: ‘Even though I'm really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself. Even though I'm really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself.

Even though I'm really stressed out, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

And if you feel tearful, know that that's completely normal. Just be gentle with yourself.

I hate feeling so stressed out inside of the eyebrow. I hate feeling completely overwhelmed so much of the time outside of the eye. This is not sustainable under the eye.

I can't keep going like this under the nose. I'm scared of what's going to happen if I stop under the mouth. I can't keep going on like this.

Collarbone. I don't know how to get off this treadmill under the arm. It's too much stress.

And then back to the inside of the eyebrow. I feel like I'm somehow not being good enough outside of the eye. Like if I was somehow more efficient and productive, I wouldn't be feeling this stressed.

Under the eye. Like it's me that's the problem. It's me.

I am the problem. It's me. Under the nose.

Even though I know that's not true. Under the mouth. There's that part of me that feels like I'm not good enough.

And the collarbone. And that's stressing me out too. Under the arm.

And I don't know who to ask without giving my power away. I want things to change top of the head. But it feels vulnerable asking for help and support.

So taking a big breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. And noticing for yourself where that number is. It may have got worse as we've tapped on some of the more challenging aspects of how you might be feeling.

Or it may have moved in the other direction. Or it may not have moved at all. But just make a note of your new number.

And feel free to message me to let me know what it was, what it is, what it's going to become. And for the purposes of this tap along, we're going to, I'm going to encourage you to pause the recording and keep tapping on other issues that have come up for you. Trust yourself.

Let yourself make noises. Let yourself swear. Let yourself just get the stress out of your system and tap it away.

We're working with acupressure points. The ends of the meridians. It's amazingly effective.

You can do it through a duvet. You can do it through an enormous winter coat. I often tap mentally while I'm swimming.

It's so much to do with intention. But it's a really powerful tool, which I hope you're already feeling the benefits from. And we're going to then close this with around where we connect with a more positive element.

So again, your words are going to resonate more than mine. But because I'm doing this for people, I don't know your specific situation. Change it where it doesn't resonate for you and use what works in terms of what does.

I am looking forward to letting go of all of this stress. I'm looking forward to feeling calmer, more relaxed. I deserve to feel calm.

I deserve to relax. I deserve rest. I deserve downtime.

I deserve to not feel anxious about rest and downtime. I deserve to have fun. I deserve time to daydream.

I deserve to be forgiven for making mistakes. To not take all the stress onto myself. To recognise that everything is collaborative.

That it's safe to ask for help, even when it feels unnatural. And it's safe to assert myself and set boundaries. I deserve to feel relaxed.

I deserve to assert myself. I deserve to notice what's the information coming back at me. There will be some people who don't like the boundaries I'm setting.

There will be some people who try to shame me for asserting myself. That's still not my problem. That's not my issue.

That's them not liking me putting down the stress that I've been carrying for them. I deserve to release that stress. I deserve to focus on what feels good to focus on.

My time, my money, my energy, my effort. Can I imagine how free I'm going to feel? How much fun I'm going to have? How good I'm going to feel? I like even thinking about letting go of a lot of this stress. And I don't have to overdo it.

I don't have to clear it all in one go. I don't have to change my entire life. I don't have to quit everything.

I don't have to have all the challenging conversations. Just this tapping I'm doing on myself. Just the journaling I'm going to do afterwards.

It's all getting to know what is stressing me out. What do I want to do about it? And what could I do about it even if I don't want to do those things? I deserve to feel wonderful. So another big breath in through your nose, out through the mouth.

So I encourage you to pause this. Make some notes. Let me know how you're getting on.

I hope you found it helpful. I love hearing how you're getting on. And if you think that the changes I've made or I'm making to the Sole to Soul Circle sound less stressful to you, I'd love to hear!

I also hope that you will go to the website selfcarecoaching.net and check out the book, the Circle, the other free resources for stress and other episodes. And you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net. And if you haven't already and you would like to, please share, subscribe, rate, review, comment. Let me know what you want more of.

Let me know what you're going to do from this episode to take better care of yourself and create a life you don't need to retreat from.

Have a gorgeous week. And for Sole to Soul Circle members, you'll be getting your yoga poses and that energy technique.

And if you are a subscriber to Feel Better Every Day on Substack, again, you can find out all that information on selfcarecoaching.net or evemc.substack.com. You'll be getting some journal prompts as well to help you go a bit deeper. And yeah, recognise that stress like everything else is simply information and it's up to you what you do with it. But I can tell you from experience that when we empower ourselves to speak up for ourselves and make the changes we know we need to make, it's a matter of progress, not perfection.

It gets easier with practice. But I mean, when we're in a stressed state, we're not at our most resourceful.

With all these practices, you do them, it becomes easier, it becomes more a part of your daily life.

But you're still going to get tripped up. We're living in a really, really like interesting times. There's an enormous amount of suffering.

There's an enormous amount of pain. Give yourself a break. Sending enormous love and looking forward to connecting with you again next week.

It was such a joy to interview my own herbal medicine magician for this episode. I cannot overstate how much Colleen has helped me over the years and hope this episode helps you…

Full transcript

Food is there to be enjoyed. We're very blessed to have an abundance of food around us and you know what? Like yeah, a bit more gratitude that we're lucky that we can have whatever we want whenever we want really and that we're being nourished and nurtured and not to be having the negative dialogue around food. There's a lot of negative dialogue around...

Hi I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so challenging at times. I really appreciate you tuning in.

If you want a deeper dive you'll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to The Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month and you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Hi Colleen, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome you to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Thank you, I'm delighted to be here, really happy to be chatting to you today.

You're one of the first people I thought of when I had the idea to do it but um I'm so glad I followed up because you hadn't got my email!

I'm so glad you did too because you don't always get emails and sometimes things can go missing so it's a good lesson for me actually as well to touch back with somebody if they haven't you know responded to something that you're keen on so yeah so good on you.

And also you've been such an enormous support, you are part of my self-care basically, you and Yvonne with the acupuncture. I don't know what I'd do without you both and so I'm delighted on a personal level that more people will get to hear what you do.

So I started working with you three or four years ago where?

It was, it was about four years ago now I think and yeah it was great. You were coming in very eager to learn and I think I remember your excitement of learning some concepts around your blood sugar balance and how you could control and manage your energy levels, your lifestyle and overall your outlook and brain fog you were coming in with as well.

A lot of what a naturopath does is teaching and educating and trying not to be too preachy because nobody's perfect as we'll discuss today but I think it's a, it really allows for a compliancy when you understand why you're taking something or why I'm advising you to do something.

I think in my experience over the years in practice and even as a lecturer as well you have to, you have to give a bit of the ‘why’ and then people because ultimately what this medicine is all about is empowering you to take the reins in your own health care.

It's very much an empowerment medicine and you know so that comes with a little bit of that education as well.

And I remember how you were telling me to imagine the plant magic, the plant medicine working its magic moving through me and how because I've been sober since 2001 I could like feel it in my elbow and my knee. And I was talking to a herbal medicine friend in the UK and I was like it's amazing she said to imagine this… and she was like, ‘Evei, that's the alcohol’ so kind of feeling that but just I really appreciated your yeah and your I didn't feel judged.

My work is all about self-care and I was confessing to you about like my crisps for dinner every night and all the rest of it and you're like that's contributing as well as perimenopause and I didn't know but ADHD with brain fog.

And yeah well this is it for such complex creatures. I think you know what it’s like. It's very interesting today and I see this a lot with the students as well and people being ashamed of their of their food choices and shame should never be around food. My God, like I mean that's what's got this problem today where the weight loss industry is how many billions of dollars worth you know to the economy? And you know we're set up for failure and we're not listening to our own body cues and it has to come from acceptance as well if it's going to be lasting.

And the other side of that coin is as well sometimes I feel like we need to pull ourselves out and have a look at the greater picture in the world and, my God, like food is there to be enjoyed. We're very blessed to have an abundance of food around us and you know what like yeah a bit more gratitude that we're lucky that we can have whatever we want whenever we want really and um that we're yeah we're being nourished and nurtured and not to be having the negative dialogue around food. There's a lot of negative dialogue around food.

Oh my God, January is a big time for that as well and um after Christmas so yeah it's about nurturing a healthier relationship with food as well.

And I think you know you did um really benefit from that as well you know not being not beating yourself up for having crisps but knowing how to talk about food um in a in a kinder way.

And yeah, what we what we tell ourselves is really important yeah and I think because I did have a lot of shame because self-care is such a huge part of my work and because what you were telling me is very basic nutritional advice.

I was in my 40s already but I remember studying a bit of nutrition with the yoga therapy training like in my 30s and learning how important it was as children and teenagers. I used to even write about nutrition for the UK national press and I'd kind of dismiss it for myself like, ‘Oh yeah, but it's too late for me.’ And working with you it's like, no it's really not too late.

This morning I added chia seeds and flax seeds to my mixed fruit and vegan yogurt (the plain one I no longer have the sugar one for breakfast) but these things like, I keep, I'm kind of overemphasising this a bit because I have been working in this area for so long and I want people who might be listening or watching to realise that probably food stuff for me is the least natural in terms of what I've integrated into my own self-care.

And some of what you were telling me back then, I understood it at some level but it felt like the kind of thing that aliens might do: like to chop fruit and have granola and seeds and vegan yogurt for breakfast. It's like yeah, but that's not really me.

Whereas I do now have that like three or four times a week!

Yeah, great, yeah it's a habit isn't it? It becomes a new you. Know it's a skill and it's a habit and it is exactly that it is self-care. It's nurturing yourself and putting in lovely vital plant food into your body. Yeah that's key for your inner vitality.

Yeah. I really want to hear about your ideal and actual daily self-care so I imagine some of it will be around food and plants but whatever feels…

I always have I'm here in my clinic at the moment and you know it's great for me when I'm in clinic here, I probably drink more herbal tea when I'm in the clinic so I make up a big pot and I have that big go and I always share a cup of tea with whoever's coming in to see me and I end up drinking quite a bit of herbal tea over the day.

Then when I'm in here myself and I always like I think that brings me into the zone and it's hydrating as well. So yeah, there's a lovely there's a lovely I don't know what the word I'm looking for is but there's a there's an ally feeling almost. When you have these herbs and they're here they're here to support us on so many different levels.

I think herbal medicine is so special. We know it works on the physical and that's what you know where people will tangibly come to herbal medicine initially it's because it'll do this for that you take this for that.

But we know and when you're taking herbs for a while you can see that works much deeper and herbs work very much on the emotional and spiritual levels as well so I find that it brings me, in certain terms, will bring me into a more calm and a parasympathetic state.

And so that's really important for me when I'm working as well. That's an ideal thing that you do manage pretty much every day but more so when you're in clinic and you have it in your environment prompting you. Exactly, yeah exactly, yeah. And what else would I do when you know when I'm when I'm on track and my schedule is a little bit you know better? Better run… it hasn't been well, it's been very busy for a few different reasons for the last couple of months and I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I'd like but I do like to get a gym session in in the morning if I can.

Because if it runs away after that, I tend to be quite busy in the evenings either doing online classes or with my two teenage boys and things can just go awry after that. So I find if I don't get it in in the morning then it can it can slip away from me. And I know how I feel when I've got that regular routine in so I'm missing that at the moment. And I know this week was a bit of a write-off because I I've other things to do but next week for me, I'm going to be back on track.

And when you say going to the gym again it's that kind of thing that people imagine it has to be something really high intensity or something really like heavy or whatever it might be what feels like an ideal workout and what feels like a good actual workout. Like if you were to have a spectrum for you getting to the gym and you're doing some or all of it?

Yeah, I like you know I do like weights and my body you know responds well to that. I like feeling strong and because I'm a woman in my mid-40s now, you know this is what I preach as well.

It's very much, you know, weight bearing exercise is really important for our bone density and also for our muscles. You know we want to have good muscle. We want to build good muscle in our body. So yeah, that's important for me.

The weights and I enjoy it. I like weights. I've been trying to do the pull-ups a bit more. I'm challenging myself not enough but you know the pull-up bar where you're like…

Yeah, oh my God I know it exists there's no way on earth I could pull myself up…

I think I'm going to give it more of an emphasis this year because I'd love to I'd love to be able to do that. You know but like you know you're putting different body weights and different people can pull themselves on those bars I'd like to give that a go I'd like to challenge. Yeah, I'd love to be able to do that a bit easier and not be absolutely aching for two days afterwards.

Yeah, there's the one at one of the pools in town. My shoulder is healing much better and I've been kind of doing push-ups on. They have like kind of jacuzzi jets but in my imagination I'm doing that full on. But as it heals, I don't want to make it worse but that's brilliant.

What about later in the day and evening and winding down?

Yeah, so you know it's not been, that's probably not been great for me over the last while because I've been doing an online course with a bunch in the States so I've been on a bit later some evenings. And also, my kids play rugby so I'm out so I try and I always try and work my day around getting home and having dinner together when the boys come home from school. So that's kind of like a good fulcrum point for me in the day. Where I'll always have home-cooked dinner we'll have dinner together.

That's the best time for all of us to eat together and then after that it can get quite busy again. So yeah, I find that can be quite taxing on me sometimes because I'm driving around a lot in the evening and you know juggling quite a bit.

But if I can get your ideal…

Yeah, if I could get out for a walk you know in the evening as well, that's ideal for me. And if I have a chance to you know wind down with a book in the evening time um or do a meditation. Or I listen to some astrology or I work on my astrology course that I'm doing. That for me would be ideal, if I had more time for that.

Yeah and because I know how compassionate you are with me and presumably with your other clients and others, right now, how compassionate are you being with yourself around your ideal and your actual self-care?

Yeah, look it, I'm in a very building, growth phase of my work at the moment as well so I'm I'm doing a lot of planning in the background. I'm building a new online hybrid course and I know at the moment I'm doing a lot extra and it's, you know it's, I need my sleep so I'll definitely get into bed now you know for me 11 o'clock is really good. I don't leave it past midnight I know we talked about that a lot.

And yeah, you know I know it's really important for me. Sleep. Sleep helps me through the busyness. And water and herbal teas, like just making sure I'm hydrated. And um and maybe some fasting in in between as well. That can help me as well, just to kind of clear.

It clears the head, it clears it clears the busyness because it's an interesting one. I find fasting can actually really help when I'm that you know that much on the go it kind of clears space and it just allows it allows for a little bit more clarity and calmness. Actually calm. Yeah, I strive to be calm. I'm not always calm at home in the evenings but I strive for that.

Well you have a busy life! I was gonna ask about your like ideal and actual self with an uppercase Self for that more like transpersonal spiritual element. You mentioned like meditation and astrology. Do you want to say a little more about that?

Well, I've always I've always had a deep interest in, I suppose, I don't know, esoteric medicine, would you call it? You know I went to India when I was 22 and I was in Thailand when I was about 20 and I started to learn yoga then.

Like that was back in 1999 around that time I think we went to Thailand and so that opened up my eyes to, Wow, oh my God! I remember doing yoga on an open platform up high in the jungle with trees around us and then we'd have like a bowl of porridge with loads of different I always remember the ginger and the cloves and all of that lovely flavour and the porridge and I can remember that so clearly. And I always I always felt connected. That there was a lot more, there was a lot more to our physical beings here. You know, our spirit. Our ancestors. And yeah, we're here for a purpose this lifetime but there's so much more outside of us. And your soul journey after you know, when you pass away and what happens after that.

I was always really intrigued with all of that and so I'd have a very deep faith in that and I think that that's really kept me kept me happy, I suppose. And centred and content in my own company for a lot of a lot of my life. Yeah, it's something that I can lean back into and I do incorporate in every day really, in some way shape or form. Yeah.

And I was gonna ask what love and care and advice you'd be sending to a Younger You but it sounds like it's coming in both directions. Like 20 Year Old You and 22 Year Old You helped set you up good habits. But is there any love advice and care you'd like to send back?

Yeah, I suppose I was I was very unorthodox when I was that age. Like I didn't kind of follow through the trajectory of, I did go to college but then I went traveling and I kind of like I really did follow my own flow. And maybe I was always feeling a little bit, back in the back of my head, I might have felt a bit guilty about that.

That maybe I should have gone and, you know, done that or you know, got into you know buying property here when I was younger and all of that kind of thing. But I actually have no regrets on that. I don't, yeah, just, oh my God, enjoy. Enjoy the fun. Enjoy the travel. Enjoy because we're here for such a short time.

And yeah, you know those early years, I'm so glad that I went traveling. I'm so glad that I had all those lovely experiences. And all the different countries I worked in. All the different people I've met has all had to form where I'm at today.

And that given me the drive and the belief that I can you, know, my own business and work for myself and help other people and be of service to other people. And that's, you know you know, I think I got a lot of that belief from having all those different experiences when I was young.

So yeah, just to enjoy it. Enjoy it.

Well thank you so, so much.

And we'll be sharing more for the Half Moon members and Full Moon members in the separate videos. For now, I just really appreciate you joining me. Where can people find you? Like do you want to say, I'm going to have details in the show notes, but what would you like to plug now?

My website is herbalhealthcare.ie and if you google Colleen Kennedy you'll find me. I'm also on Facebook and I'm on Instagram. Again my Instagram handle is @colleenherbnut but I might be changing that soon too. But herb nut, nut for nutrition.

I thought it was brilliant. Yeah I love it so maybe I'll leave it then. But that's my Instagram and then Facebook is I've built a personal profile which I'm using more for work now as well Colleen Kennedy and then Colleen Kennedy Herbal Healthcare.

Well thanks again!

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I want to help as many people as possible with trauma histories and/or ADHD learn how to help yourself to connect with your Self with that uppercase that highest wisest truest wildest most joyful brilliant miraculous part of yourself and to become more fully embodied at peace and at ease in your own skin so to help me do this if you can think of someone who might benefit please share it and if you haven't already and would like to you can subscribe comment rate review and this episode like all of them so far has been produced by me your host Eve Menezes Cunningham thanks again for listening and if you'd like more on this week's theme you can subscribe as a free subscriber or paid member of The Sole to Soul Circle at evemc.substack.com find out more at selfcarecoaching.net.

Each week Half Moon members, that's the free subscribers, get some bonus content to support balance and harmony. It's a bit of a deeper dive into the podcast theme. And then the following day, Full Moon and Supermoon members get additional deep dives into helping themselves shine. By really supporting, really soothing, really working well with your nervous system so that you feel safe enough to expand your comfort zone and do the things that you already know to do perhaps. But just supporting yourself and taking those steps let me know if any of that is of interest and I hope you have a gorgeous day.

Including 4 new letters that may become as familiar to you as ADHD as Drs Hallowell and Ratey’s potentially less stigmatising VAST model (Variable Attention Stimulus Trait) becomes better known…

Which of these 25 terms resonate most for you?

Which ADHD (or VAST) terms had you hoped to see included?

Comment or reply to let me know for a future episode.

le grá (with love),

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

I remember part of the training involved the recognition, both through our own practice and through working with others, that often if, for example, someone is working with anxiety and they start practicing mindfulness, it's not uncommon for them to report feeling more anxious. In reality, they've normally been experiencing those physiological symptoms and the mindfulness practice makes it more conscious and helps us get better at making choices that alleviate the anxiety. Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of your Self, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care, which we all know can be so challenging at times. I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to The Sole to Soul Circle.

You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month and you can also find more ideas in the book. 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing. Welcome to episode 53 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

Today we're deconstructing some of the jargon around ADHD. It's not quite an A-Z, but there's a lot there and I'm smiling because I remember I used to feel completely overwhelmed by all the jargon and over the past few years some of it still makes me laugh because it's not very intuitive and other bits are completely of course. When I learned to practice and teach mindfulness well over a decade ago, I remember part of the training involved the recognition both through our own practice and through working with others, that often if for example someone is working with anxiety and they start practicing mindfulness, it's not uncommon for them to report feeling more anxious.

In reality they've normally been experiencing those physiological symptoms and the mindfulness practice makes it more conscious and helps us get better at making choices that alleviate the anxiety and that help us regulate and help us make changes to our lives. Similarly with the ADHD jargon, I'm never a fan of jargon, but I have felt like it's been learning a new language the past few years and some of it is so helpful when I realise it's not just me. I do occasional newsletters called ‘Is This Me or ADHD?’ because I think like so many people with the diagnosis, whether it's self-diagnosis or official, it can be like well tick tick tick tick tick, I feel really like, ‘Yep this is all me’, but I thought they were personality traits.

So understanding that they're traits and symptoms and then also recognising that ADHD presents differently in different people obviously, so getting a sense of which ones feel most resonant for you and finding ways to support yourself through it. I just sneezed, I hope I don't need to edit that out, I tried to pause it in time.

We're going to start with ADHD burnout and it's different to regular burnout but it can be a real problem. I know that I'm constantly amending my schedule in order to minimise it because even now more than 20 years into being my own boss, being in the really fortunate position to be able to control my own schedule, I will still do too much, I'll hyperfocus, that's coming later and then I'll be fit for nothing for days.

It's really useful as with everything to notice for yourself when you feel it, what helps you when you're in it, what helps you recover more quickly, what helps you prevent it, the more awareness you have the easier it will get for you to actually prevent this endless cycle by building in more rest, taking more off your plate. Progress not perfection as with everything but it's a practice and just even recognising that you're potentially more prone to it can help you recognise that you are worthy of the extra supports and accommodations in your own life and if you're your own boss or if you're working for someone else, really advocating for yourself and knowing you're worth it.

The second term is convocoaster which is not a clinical term but it's for when we go off on a bit of a conversational rollercoaster. The people who know and love us might be patient and wait knowing that we will come back eventually.

I remember my housemates when I was at Bangor University in the ‘90s talking about me being a bit like a runaway train and that if they kind of hung on I would get back to the point eventually. I had no idea about ADHD back then but being patient with yourself, being patient with loved ones, recognising okay there is a point and you will get back to it and also supporting yourself if you're in a meeting or if you're in a situation where you want to be as focused as possible and making brief notes for yourself.

Number three, we've got Glimmers, a term coined by the delightful Deb Dana who has helped make Polyvagal Theory accessible to more people. We're all so familiar with triggers and how something that others might not notice can have a pretty debilitating effect on the nervous system. Glimmers are their opposite.

It might be the way the light looks on a puddle, it might be the way it can be all kinds of tiny things, larger things but getting to know your glimmers and creating an environment for yourself, creating a schedule for yourself where you are likely to experience as many glimmers as possible is going to contribute to your ventral vagal wellness and overall wellbeing.

It's a wonderful way to help alleviate some of the suffering and to really enjoy the way things look or feel or taste or smell or sound, just let yourself feel glimmery and set playlists for yourself, really enjoy it, really indulge yourself as much as possible.

Number four is moving on to hyperfocus and for Half Moon members (that's the free subscribers, you can subscribe at evemc.substack.com or selfcarecoaching.net) you'll be getting an email newsletter with a video around hyperfocus and how you can support balance and harmony in your life by working with your own hyperfocus a bit better. Hyperfocus is one of the many reasons why ADHD as a name is not loved by so many. I'll get on to that later but we don't have a problem focusing when we're interested in something. When something grabs us, we often have difficulty unfocusing. So often, people ignore bodily sensations like hunger or thirst or needing the loo or sleep or whatever it might be. Becoming aware of your areas of hyperfocus, becoming aware of your energy levels, of your interests, of the things that need to be done and finding ways as much as possible to make it work for you.

Like I said I'll go into this in more detail for tomorrow's bonus content, the deeper dive, but you can just think for yourself, when did you last hyperfocus? Was it a joyful hyperfocus? Was it a stressful hyperfocus?

It can actually be really enjoyable building time in to go down random rabbit holes, something you may never have heard of and all of a sudden it's the most fascinating thing in the world and we live in an information age and it's very easy to research and find out more and it's I think really helpful to recognise the joy in that and put supports in place and also to recognise the things that you perhaps need to be doing. I've recently completed a massive revamp of my website and it's taken a year and a half because I initially hyperfocused and then I got distracted by lots of other things and I wanted to complete it but there was a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

It's an enormous site and I was creating a library and my virtual assistant helped a lot but it just took a really long time and then in the last few weeks recognising I was near the end, I let myself go into hyperfocus.

I scheduled days in where I could work. I didn't have sessions those days and working around the clock but in a planned way. I'm not advocating working on the clock, it's something I'm still working on myself but in this instance it was such a joy to get it done and then I built in some time off afterwards.

Know that you're going to get hooked into things, knowing that certain things are going to produce more dopamine and you're just going to get really enthusiastic about them rather than beating yourself up for the way your brain works. Work with it as much as possible.

Moving on to impulsivity (number five), it makes me laugh that I didn't realise that I was impulsive until I got my diagnosis (combined). Once I realised it, I realised of course I am. I can remember going back decades, certain things I did. A couple years ago I leaped onto a conveyor belt at an airport because I thought that my luggage was being taken away without it being labelled.

It was the middle of the night in Norway, it had been a stressful few days, my uncle was dying and there were no humans around. I saw my suitcase disappearing and I just leaped onto the conveyor belt like a thing possessed. I'm surprised I didn't fall and hurt myself.

Suddenly there were loads of humans around and they were telling me off because I shouldn't have done that but it's that kind of impulsivity. I guess not everyone does that and I can think of so many examples through my life where I’ve been like. ‘Well obviously you had to do whatever’ and other people are like, ‘No, you really didn't.’ So like I said with the mindfulness earlier, knowing that I have this tendency towards impulsivity, my life has changed.

I'm still waiting to hear from the doctor if I'm able to take the ADHD medication. I've had the cardiology report, things are looking promising but just knowing I'm impulsive helps me attend to that impulsive part of myself. My spending has improved, my eating has improved, my time management has improved, all sorts of things have improved just by recognising that impulsive part of me needs to be attended to and loved and cherished and enjoyed when appropriate. But it cannot drive my life. It just cannot be in the driving seat. So recognising it's a thing is definitely helping that awareness, that consciousness and I hope it does for you too.

Moving then to inattentive (number 6), again I didn't really know that not everyone did this but I did know that I often gave the impression of listening really well and not taking anything in. And because I now understand more about my brain, I'm better able to own it and be honest. I think because my dad was a teacher when I was growing up, I kind of grew up pretending to pay attention and at school and all the rest of it but in my head I was all sorts of other places.

I was recently in B&Q and I asked where the loo was. The kind person said it is do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do and I was like, ‘Magic. Thank you so much!’ and then I immediately said, ‘Would you mind repeating that please? I said magic as if I understood it and I was nodding as if I understood it but I have no idea what you just said!’

And because I'm 49 now and because I feel safe now, I can own it. She laughed and she was so sweet and she showed me where it was and I found it. It was brilliant but I thought I can't tell you how much of my life I pretended to nod along and understand things that were just whoosh.

I think also being Indian Irish, I recently had an experience… not recently actually, it was over 10 years ago. I was in Italy at a psychosynthesis conference and some people think I look Italian or Spanish and I realised that when I was doing my normal nodding along. They were talking Italian at this conference in Florence and people were then talking to me and they thought I could understand and it was like, ‘Oh my god! I really can't!’

I'm not sharing a How To Do Things here, I'm just sharing how more awareness is helping me in hopes that it will help you.

Giving yourself anchors that help you when you're inattentive so you don't go down a rumination (number 8) pathway but you instead have nice happy places you can visit in your mind. Ways in which you can use that time to do something that works for you. I feel like I'm being naughty suggesting that! But it’s so helpful.

Moving on to justice sensitivity (number 9). Again, I didn't understand how other people seemed to function when certain things were going on in the world. I’d burst into tears reading the newspaper before I learned how to practice Metta and send loving kindness to all involved. I remember all sorts of situations which I'm actually not going to name now because I don't want to upset anyone. There's so much going on in the world now. There has been for such a long time but I didn't understand how other people functioned when I just felt just broken by something going on so far away. Understanding that justice sensitivity again is a symptom, is a trait, helps me recognise, ‘OK. It's just my differently wired brain.’ What can I do, not to fix the problem (because even though my name's Eve I'm not responsible for the whole world this is something I keep reminding myself of) but what is within my power what is within my capabilities and my time available and my energy levels and my desire to help.

We so often think we have to do all the things whereas just doing something in that direction can help alleviate some of that intense pain that accompanies daily life a lot of the time. There is so much injustice in the world and it's not about turning a blind eye it's about honouring your strengths and capabilities and energy and harnessing it so that you can potentially make much more of a difference without hurting yourself. Without burning out. Without feeling utter despair.

Moving then to misophonia (number 10) and I didn't realise there's so much I had no idea about. That actual pain that accompanies certain sounds. Again, I thought everyone had it and I didn't understand how they'd be able to focus on whatever other people were saying rather than, ‘OH MY GOD!’ But also thinking about adults in my life when I was a child.

Certain things they'd pick up on and certain things that they would criticise me for, well meaning potentially but painful to experience. Recognising they probably had misophonia and it was painful to hear whatever.

With all of this, I think there's a grieving not just for ourselves with late diagnosis ADHD but also if we then recognise symptoms in the adults in our lives and think not only how different our childhoods might have been and younger adulthoods if we had known about ourselves but how different, how much less intergenerational trauma there might be had they known. And had they had the support that they needed and deserved and that could have made them better in their roles as adults in our lives.

So we then move to neuroaffirming (number 11), which I hope you're familiar with. You want to, if you're working with anyone one-to-one, make sure they're neuroaffirmative rather than pathologising you, recognising a strengths-based approach and really working with your delightfully differently wired brain.

And doing the same for yourself, not dismissing yourself, not beating yourself up about things you can't change, but working with the gifts and the strengths that come with it as well.

PDA (number twelve) makes me laugh. The pathological demand avoidance. I used to hear the whole time as a child, as a teenager, that I was, I mean, I was, I can't remember exactly what I heard because I was kind of inattentive tuning it out, but I remember a lot of being told off about not doing what adults wanted me to do. And as an adult now, as a 49 year old, I still have to be careful with myself.

If I want myself to do something that I know is good for me, I have to really be gentle and I have to kind of approach it like an adult might in terms of giving a small child vegetables and kind of sneak them in because the pathological demand avoidance is high. And it just makes me laugh now and I can own it and I no longer let it sabotage me. It's like, ‘OK, I need to attend to that part of me that really doesn't want to be told what to do even by myself!’

Working with yourself again and reminding yourself you're not forcing yourself to do anything, but something might help, see how it goes, play with it, have fun.

Then we move on to the painful rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) (number thirteen), which is incredibly painful. I also want to flag that everyone experiences rejection as painful, but with the rejection sensitivity dysphoria, it can feel especially like, ‘How to recover?’ but it's not an excuse to make your feelings more important than anyone else's. Obviously they need to be to you, but it's not fair to expect other people to put their needs and wants below because it's about recognising and having empathy for yourself and also for others, for ourselves and for others.

We might feel things more acutely, but again, when you say that, when I say that, I don't know how someone else actually experiences it. They might be feeling it much more deeply than I realised from their reaction, because they might be used to getting on regardless while dying on the inside. But rejection sensitivity dysphoria is incredibly painful. One of the things that helped me was becoming a writer, where I basically had to deal with so much rejection.

It didn't desensitise me to it, but it did teach me very early on that the best thing to do was to take action. I'm in a position right now where I'm waiting to hear back from a few different situations and teenage me would have languished and stressed and ruminated and all the rest of it. But when I became a professional writer, I just learned to get on with it.

It doesn't mean that I don't feel it. I still go through far too much of my life thinking that people don't like me or hate me or I've done something wrong or I mean, it's much, much better than it was, but it is a painful way to be. And it's very recently that I realised that not everyone goes through life like that!

Be gentle with yourself and use the pain you feel to be gentle with others as well and to be sensitive about the way you reject others.

Moving on to revenge bedtime procrastination (number fourteen), I know we covered this in the sleep issue and also in the second episode with Rebecca Seal (and later I think with the Chris Oxborrow and Louise Lucas episodes). Notice when you're staying up late and you don't want to be, notice again that potential PDA. That, ‘Don't tell me when to go to bed!’

Ask yourself what benefits you're getting. Often it is that kind of quiet time, that peaceful time. See if you can make changes in your schedule so you can get those needs met, but in a way that doesn't leave you feeling exhausted so much of the time. Log your...

This April Fools Day, we’re exploring ways in which our ADHD brains keep us fooling ourselves

And how awareness and compassion really help…

How about you?

Le grá (with love),

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

For me, if I don't have something to read, I feel quite anxious. I don't want to be anywhere where I could be reading and I'm not reading, but also I don't know what mood I'm going to be in at that time, so I tend to bring like different journals and magazines as well as maybe a memoir and maybe a novel. And this might be just for one night, but I'm, especially now I can drive so I'm not lugging it all on the train, and like my brother has used a Kindle since they were invented and I know so many people use like Kindles or similar and I'm just like, ‘What if it ran out? What if it broke?’ I can't, I need to know, I've got stuff to read.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so challenging at times.

I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive you'll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Thanks for joining me again, Jayne Leonard, I really appreciate it.

Thanks Eve, thanks for having me.

We're celebrating April Fools today and talking about, especially with ADHD, how we fool ourselves, how we delude ourselves.

I'm looking back through 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and I just looked at the April Fools Day entry and it’s what we're talking about today:

Are you fooling yourself?

How can we really get honest in a compassionate and curious way about what we're doing and whether that serves us in terms of what we want to be doing and where we want to be going?

I'm just laughing that I was talking about deluding myself that yumyums were a healthy breakfast. We're talking also about how like we delude ourselves in terms of, do you want to say some of the things you delude yourself about? Some of the things you fool yourself about?

Yeah, the biggest thing I think I delude myself about is how much I can get done in a time period and I just think, so time is as we know like a really tricky concept for people with ADHD anyway, we just, yeah we struggle with it. But I think also I don't take into account maybe where I am in the whole, am I in the hyperfocus mode where I can get loads done or am I kind of on the comedown from that or am I in the burnout zone.

So it has been, yeah, it's been kind of a journey to figure that out and it's still definitely tricky. Like I sent you a photo when I was in Kerry, in November was it, I sent you a photo of about six books I brought and I was only there for four days and I also had a load of work to do and stuff but this was like, it's almost like the fantasy of, absolutely, the fantasy of oh and I could and I could get that stuff done if I sat and read.

But I also have all this other stuff to do. But it's like my brain compartmentalises like you want to get this done so just focus on this and get this done and it doesn't look at the other compartments that also need to be done.

Yeah I think that's the biggest thing I delude myself about. I love that about reading and I no longer call them to be read piles, they're like COULD be read piles because I don't want that pressure.

For me, if I don't have something to read, I feel quite anxious and it feels like I don't want to be anywhere where I could be reading and I'm not reading but also I don't know what mood I'm going to be in at that time.

I tend to bring like different journals and magazines as well as maybe a memoir and maybe a novel and this might be just for one night but I'm, especially now I can drive so I'm not lugging it all on the train. My brother has used a Kindle since they were invented and I know so many people use like Kindles or similar and I'm just like what if it ran out? What if it broke? I can't, I need to know, I've got stuff to read.

I think packing is like one of the hardest things for people with ADHD because you don't know what, you know, you're so used to something not catching your attention, your focus that you saw it.

It's like you have to have 50 different things in the bag just in case. Which is going to give me the dopamine now?

Thinking like in terms of music, the learning to drive has been hilarious. I drive, my partner lives, it’s an hour and 45 minutes to drive there. I'll have some grapes and peeled clementines on the seat next to me which I've learned over time to do.

Initially it's like, well there's nowhere really safe to stop to drink on the way so it's about having something you can just gently but I need to listen to an audiobook because if it's a podcast it might have ad breaks that I don't like. They are too jarring. Even if I have my liked music on shuffle they sometimes insert their recommendations and it's like or even if it's something I've liked, I'm not in the mood for it in that moment.

I've learned to stop fooling myself that I can be more laid back and I can't do radio at this stage at all but I think knowing I'm still new to driving I have to be really gentle with myself and it's like nope I have a really long podcast episode and then I can pull over to change it and this is a podcast that doesn't have ads. Or an audiobook. That's the safest thing and again predictable.

In terms of fooling yourself, we've talked about how much we think we can get done. We're going to talk a bit more in the Half Moon and Full Moon recordings so if you're not already a subscriber you can join at evemc.substack.com

Even though it's really, hard like I've always been really early, like I was at JFK airport nine hours before a flight from NYC. Same in Spain. I was so terrified that I would get distracted and wander off and miss my flight so I didn't realise that was ADHD until I did.

It's that knowing, OK, we know that we don't have a natural relationship to time. But we also know that time is not actually like time. Clocks were only invented a few hundred years ago. It's a social construct in a way you never thought about.

Like people with dyslexic brains, apparently it depends on the part of the world you're from because reading wasn't a natural thing that like all humans were born known to do. It evolved. We learn how to do it and depending on where you are in the world, you read from right to left or you read in other ways so it depends.

I think yeah we can fool ourselves but we can also be gentle with ourselves and think okay how can I make it how can I feel less foolish around it? I still love the over scheduling myself but by blocking out big parts of my desk diary, I know that that time is not available also for the do do do do do.

I think I also fool myself in that I like I think, ‘Oh, OK, I can pack this. I'll just survive with this little bag. I'll book my flight or whatever and I'll have this little bag and then I come to pack and I go, ‘Oh my god, no, I need to put everything in here!’ Yeah I fool myself a lot.

It's actually a lot around time. Now that we're talking about it, I'm realising it's actually almost all about time. I was talking to someone else actually who fools themselves around and this is not on purpose but again there's probably a time element. They would only cherry pick the last two instances of something so they might have had an interaction with a mother-in-law or something and they might say, ‘You know she's actually really awful to me’ but the 10 times before that it wouldn't have been like that. But it's again, I think the time and our memories.

Yeah, like if you've got a cold and you can't imagine ever being able to breathe easily again or if you're physically cold and you can't ever imagine being hot again or the other way around. So recognising that what we're feeling in that moment isn't everything true of everything, yeah.

The ability to zoom out is huge.

Do join us in the Half Moon and or Full Moon Circles and thank you so much for joining. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Feel |Better Every Day Podcast.

I want to help as many people as possible with trauma histories and or ADHD learn how to help yourself to connect with your Self with that uppercase S: that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself. To become more fully embodied at peace and at ease in your own skin.

To help me do this, if you can think of someone who might benefit, please share it. And if you haven't already and would like to, you can subscribe, comment, rate, review. And this episode like all of them so far has been produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham.

Thanks again for listening. And if you'd like more on this week's theme you can subscribe as a free subscriber or paid member of the Sole to Soul Circle at evemc.substack.com

Find out more at selfcarecoaching.net

Each week, Half Moon members, that's the free subscribers, get some bonus content to support balance and harmony so it's a bit of a deeper dive into the podcast theme.

And then the following day, Full Moon and Supermoon members get additional deep dives into helping themselves shine by really supporting, really soothing, really working well with your nervous system so that you feel safe enough to expand your comfort zone. To do the things that you already know to do by just supporting you and taking those steps.

Let me know if any of that is of interest and I hope you have a gorgeous day.

There’s something magical about simply slowing down enough to notice all the beauty around us.

This week, I’ve changed my schedule to actually make time to do all the things I ‘should’ be doing and ‘need’ to do in the garden and field.

We’ve made a proper start on the deadhedge I’ve been planning since before even moving to Ireland and I cannot believe how happy it’s made me. I’ve been taking my breakfast outside and eating it while looking at this pile of branches and sticks.

It’s the little things…

Today and everyday, what teeny tiny thing might you start doing in order to connect with the day’s energies and the earth itself?

le grá (with love),

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

took us more and more away from our own bodies and more and more away from the earth that our ancient ancestors and some people still now recognise is our life support system. So this is not to get all depressing about the climate emergency and all of that but instead to remind you that you are part of nature, you are part of the divine, you are part of the earth.

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

I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so challenging at times. I really appreciate you tuning in.

If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting bonus content each week if you sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month and you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Welcome to episode 51 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Ot was Earth Hour on Saturday and it always feels like a shame to limit our connection with the earth to one hour or one day a year when we have that earthing, supportive, nourishing energy to draw on 24-7.

We are so lucky. It's a gorgeous, beautiful planet and wherever you are right now, you can begin to connect with that support, that energy that we were disconnected from like hundreds of years ago as colonisation took us more and more away from our own bodies and more and more away from the earth that our ancient ancestors and some people still now recognise as our life support system.

This is not to get all depressing about the climate emergency and all of that, but instead to remind you that you are part of nature, you are part of the divine, you are part of the earth and you can anytime, anywhere remind yourself that you are safe, you are held, you are protected and I want to encourage you to do that right now.

Wherever you are, if it's safe to go into a mini meditation, so not if you're driving but you can still listen if you're driving, it's not going to put you to sleep or anything, but pressing into whatever it is you're sitting or standing on.

If you're walking, you might continue to walk or you might pause for a moment, just press into the soles of the feet, feel the air around you.

Press into everything that is making contact with the earth through what you're sitting on. You can do this on an aeroplane, up in the sky, you can still ground yourself using intention, using your imagination. Noticing how it feels to really connect with the boundary of whatever it is you're sitting or standing or lying on and if it feels good, imagine that you've got roots going from the soles of your feet and any other part of the body that's touching the bed or what you're sitting on, going deep, deep, deep into the heart of the earth.

Letting yourself feel that earth's nourishing supportive energy as you breathe in, imagining breathing in that nourishing supporting earth in grounding energy from the heart of the earth, up through your imaginary roots and up into your body, up through the feet, through the legs, up to the lower lungs and back out again.

You can imagine yourself just breathing this nourishing supportive energy in and out, connecting with each breath.

If you want to go a little bit further, you can imagine releasing energies that no longer serve you and with each exhalation, letting them flow out down through those imaginary roots into the earth, knowing that energy is energy and it can all be recycled for the benefit of the planet. It doesn't help anyone for you to stay stuck.

Maybe pausing this and staying with this for a few moments if that feels good for you and if it also feels good for you, grabbing your journal, grounding your experience by writing about it, making a few notes.

It might be that you've got time to explore right now or it might be that you want to write a few notes and revisit it later. Writing can be really grounding, especially writing by hand.

Noticing where you are in any given moment can be really grounding. We are so busy, we're so delighted with our devices and we can get quite disconnected from the present moment.

Just taking a time moment every now and then to pause, look around you if you're walking, if you're listening to something.

You don't have to do a full-on mindful walk but just notice every few minutes or so or every half hour a degree that feels good for you, that's going to feel indulgent and enjoyable, not punitive like, ‘Put that phone down!’ or whatever it might be.

Other things that can be really grounding are to prepare food like batch cooking, making soup, if you peel potatoes, peeling potatoes, putting laundry away, sweeping the floor, anything that's helping you work with that base chakra energy. So you can go back to evemc.substack.com or the blog at selfcarecoaching.net and look at the chakra journey from last year, 2024 if you're listening to this later, and go back over the base chakra episodes and that has many many ideas.

Notice how you feel when perhaps you've been away or you've been really busy. The washing has piled up and the washing up has piled up, you haven't like kind of the simplest things like changing the bedding and sweeping the floors or vacuuming or cooking is such a nourishing lovely thing, especially if you're using vegetables, if you're using things to genuinely nourish yourself.

Really, really grounding, you're telling yourself you're worthy, you're honoring the fuel you're putting into yourself and it also it's something that humans have to do, we have to eat for fuel so we have to cook, we have to eat either way so you can really use what you're eating, what you're cooking. Even how you're cleaning, how you're tidying, how you're getting stuff organised and sorting through your finances can be really grounding. It can help you even if you're not happy with your finances.

Being honest with yourself and getting a clear sense of where you actually are as well as deciding where you want to be and making a plan to move towards that. Even looking at where you are now, very very grounding.

Gardening is obviously very grounding and there's all sorts of research about the microbiomes when we have our hands in the soil. Personally, I don't like that but I love being barefoot in the garden. I love being barefoot as often as possible wherever but I don't like my hands getting dirty which is embarrassing to admit but some of you especially with ADHD and other neurodivergence might feel the same.

I still get enormous benefits from grounding even if I'm wearing gardening gloves but there's something so delightful for me, there's the added bonus of feeding the donkeys next door with the safe to feed them weeds and grass and what have you.

Thinking for yourself, like if you like getting your hands dirty, whether you've got space indoors and outdoors for plants just placing your hands on that earth if that feels good for you.

With all of these suggestions, all of these self-care ideas, all of these self-care rituals, do what feels good for you.

You know yourself best but walking barefoot if that feels good for you, again depending on where in the world you are, if it's long grass you need to be careful but on many, many surfaces, on the beach, in the water, it can be wonderful.

I'd love for you to pause this or after you listen to this take some time to make a list of some of the things that help you ground.

With trauma therapy, if you're feeling flooded, anytime if you remember coming back into your body doing an EFT tapping can be very grounding bringing you back into the body. Tensing and releasing the thighs and noticing what's around you.

Some people look at like five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, if there are any smells, if there are any like…

You don't have to make it complicated just letting yourself come out of your head, out of your ruminating mind and into the present moment.

Things like cold water swimming or yoga or being in the steam room or anything that is going to help you connect in your body with your body in a safe friendly you're part of this wonderful wonderful world.

How can you enjoy it more? I always go on about swimming as well as yoga but especially the swimming. As I'm moving through the water I feel most like myself. Hugs with loved ones. Sex. So many normal, everyday easy ways to ground yourself to connect with the earth to send the earth some love.

And you might also want to, as well as drawing on the earth supportive energy, think about how you can potentially leave the earth better than you found it.

Every day if you see litter and it's possible for you to be picking it up doing so maybe carry a bag with you on your walk. And maybe join others too. In Westport, we've got a strong Tidy Towns community (and in many towns around Ireland) but wherever you are there are going to be other people who want to give back to the earth by keeping things out of the streams and oceans.

It's about doing it with an open heart. It's about noticing energy use again with an open heart. Not being critical of yourself and others you share a home with but encouraging everyone to celebrate.

To nourish the earth as we nourish ourselves. And to remember to nourish ourselves more.

If you want to subscribe if you haven't already (to the Sole to Soul Circle) the bonus content this week for Half Moon members will be some embodied journal prompts to help you connect more with the earth's nourishing energy.

And a couple of yoga poses that I'll talk you through. For the Full Moon and Super Moon members we'll be working with some grounding crystals so I hope that you've enjoyed this.

I hope you have a gorgeous week and I look forward to sharing more next week when we'll be looking at ways in which we potentially fool ourselves for April Fools.

Thank you for joining me thank you for listening thank you for listening to this episode of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast I want to help as many people as possible with trauma histories and/or ADHD learn how to help yourself to connect with yourself with that uppercase that highest wisest truest wildest most joyful brilliant miraculous part of yourself and to become more fully embodied at peace and at ease in your own skin.

To help me do this, if you can think of someone who might benefit, please share it. And if you haven't already and would like to you can subscribe, comment, rate, review. This episode like all of them so far has been produced by me your host Eve Menezes Cunningham.

Thanks again for listening and if you'd like more on this week's theme you can subscribe as a free subscriber or paid member of the Sole to Soule Circle at evemc.substack.com and find out more at selfcarecoaching.net. Each week, Half Moon members (that's the free subscribers) get some bonus content to support balance and harmony so it's a bit of a deeper dive into the podcast theme.

And then the following day, Full Moon and Super Moon members get additional deep dives into helping themselves shine by really supporting really soothing really working well with your nervous system. Helping you feel safe enough to expand your comfort zone and do the things that you already know to do perhaps. Supporting you and taking those steps. Let me know if any of that is of interest and I hope you have a gorgeous day.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone – neurodivergent and neurotypical – celebrated our brains and unique ways of seeing and being in the world? If the world were set up to better support ALL of us? If no one was shamed simply for being the way they were?

‘For us late diagnosed ADHDers, there is that mourning and that grief and that loss and that rage around how different entire lives could have been had we known, but also if the world were different and if the world were more set up. Even now, kids struggle having accommodations made for them even though the accommodations would support everyone, not just the neurodivergent children.’

Episode 50 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast

is out a little earlier to help you make the most of the whole week’s worth of

events. You can sign up at https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/events

I hope you enjoy my ADHD chat with the lovely

Jayne Leonard as we talk about what’s helped and is still helping us to befriend

and celebrate our own late diagnosed ADHD brains.

le grá (with love),

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

And yeah, I think just celebrate it, own it,

you know, allow it, accept it. It's not going to change, so you might as well

work with it and, you know, make space for it. Yeah.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to

the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new

trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of

your Self, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and

miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care, which we all know

can be so challenging at times. I really appreciate you tuning in.

If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting

bonus content each week if you sign up to the Soul to Soul Circle. You can do

that for free or from as little as eight euros a month. And you can also find

more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for

Embodied Wellbeing (selfcarecoaching.net/book).

Welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

I've got my vegan, ADHD, late diagnosed friend Jayne Leonard here again.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks, Eve, looking forward to this episode.

So we're talking about the Neurodiversity

Celebration Week, which I did not write about in 365 Ways to Feel Better,

Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, because when I wrote this, even

though I'd had a brain scan that showed an abnormality that correlated with

ADHD, I was years and years away from self-diagnosis, let alone actual

psychiatric diagnosis with ADHD.

But I think the whole world has woken up to

the fact that we are not all the same and it's a good thing and that there's

nothing necessarily wrong with anyone. It's simply about differently wired

brains and about conditions that support us rather than trying to fit round

pegs into square holes, in which case everyone comes out feeling like if you're

not completely normal, like what's normal, that there's something wrong with

you. And I'm thinking it's not that long ago that left-handed children would have

their hands tied behind their back to force them to write with their

non-dominant hand. How sadistic was that?

And I think for us late diagnosed ADHDers,

there is that mourning and that grief and that loss and that rage around how

different entire lives could have been had we known, but also if the world were

different and if the world were more set up. Even now, kids struggle having

accommodations made for them even though the accommodations would support

everyone, not just the neurodivergent children.

We wanted to just share a little bit about the

things we celebrate about our differently wired brains and what we'd like to

see more of for everyone.

Yeah, I love this. I love this topic. It's

definitely something I really do celebrate. I think even before I even thought

I might have ADHD, I used to love this part of me that could hyper-focus and

get so much done and learn so much about a topic. I did really well in certain

areas because of this. I used to call it my superpower and my friends, my

family say you're like superwoman, but I almost like over-identified with that.

So then, you know, the times when you have to

rest or you have the bit of the ADHD burnout, I would really berate myself, you

know. But now I think I've found the balance of I'm celebrating this, but also

recognising I need the downtime as well, the recovery period. Yeah.

Just for those of you who don't know, Jayne is

incredible. Not only is she a busy psychotherapist, she's Vice Chair, my deputy

on the Editorial Committee for the Irish Journal of Counselling and

Psychotherapy (IJCP), and she is doing her PhD. I don't know if you

want to say a tiny bit about your PhD and the amazing study you're a big part

of?

Yeah, well, just very briefly, I suppose, as I

was on your podcast before (episodes 28, 42 and 45) talking about food and

mental health and wellbeing.

So that's kind of the area of my study: How we

can use food to support us to feel better. And not just in terms of the actual

nutrition from the food, but also our relationship with the food, the

relationship it has to our culture, our identity, our social lives and the

social aspect of food. And so, yeah, I'm doing a PhD on that. We'll see how it goes now. We'll see how

incredible I am. I'm only a few months into it. We'll see how the burnout goes.

Well, this is it. I think knowing you as a

friend as well and knowing your schedule and just thinking, oh, my God/dess. And I also know that people hear some of what

I'm doing, which I consider completely normal. And they'll be like, oh, my God/dess,

what are you doing?

I've learned to build in rest. Like in my desk

diary, I've used purple highlighter to like carve out like a long lunch break

as many days as I can for a longer yoga nidra. I've used like pink highlighter to take (most) weekends off because

for so many years I was doing overlapping trainings in different types of

therapies and coaching and so much.

It's that challenge to honour the whole cycle,

not just the hyperfocus, but the burnout, the days where getting dressed just

feels impossible.

Yeah, I even booked a few nights away from

myself, you know, in Kerry last week, just so I could hyperfocus. And then I had the downtime after and it's

just, yeah, I think celebrating it is working with this rather than

expecting yourself to be either really super focused all the time or have it

act like someone who has a neurotypical brain or whatever that is. It's just

allowing it, working with it, like you said.

Yeah. And like when you said acting like

someone who has a neurotypical brain, I think like so many of us, we only know

our own brains. I mean, I grew up being called weird, but mostly in a friendly

way. And I was

happy to identify as a weird, but I think understanding where it's like, life

could have been so different.

But things like around nutrition, I remember

learning a good bit as part of my yoga therapy training, and how important it

was for developing brains. And like, I remember back then, in my 30s, then

thinking, oh, it's too late. I should have been eating better. I was vegetarian from the age of

like 11 or 12 and I didn't like vegetables. And I was pretty much malnourished. I had a growth spurt when I went

back to eating meat for a while at 17! I've been vegan now, since 2017. And I do eat much better but there is still

that strong, kind of like the questions around food were really like, oh, wow,

I really thought that was just me. Whereas now I celebrate the mushing up of my

food. And like,

sorry, loved ones who happen to be with me. But it just tastes so much better

like this.

Yeah, absolutely celebrate the differences,

you know, rather than trying to hide them or trying to change them.

Yeah. Like how important it is with ADHD to

have protein with breakfast. Like before we started our recordings today, wholemeal

toast, peanut butter, little bit of Vego (vegan chocolate spread) and mushed

banana. And it's

like, I spent decades being told by everyone, I should be having proper

breakfast. When I was at school, I might have ice cream for breakfast or

bourbon biscuits. And it's like, don't tell me what to do.

That's defiance. Yeah. Pathological Demand Avoidance.

Yeah. Even from myself! But I think

celebrating is even like saying, ‘Oh, well, that demand avoidance actually

served me in some situations. Yeah. And recognising now like, nope, I'm giving myself that protein

now, like at 49, I hope to have many, many decades to come and I'm doing what I

can to rectify that. And it is never too late, actually.

It's never too late to start eating well or

taking care of yourself or speaking to yourself more kindly or celebrating your

differences or whatever it is.

We're going to talk a bit more about what we

do to celebrate neurodiversity for the Half Moon recording, which if you would

like access to, you can subscribe for free at evemc.substack.com. You'd think

I've said this enough times. You'd think I'd know it off by heart. Well, I do know it off by heart. Compassion.

So hope you can join us there.

Thank you for listening to this so far. Jayne,

anything to add before we move to that?

 I've lots to add, as I always say, I've lots

to add. Yeah, I think just celebrate it, own it, you know, allow it, accept it. It's not going to change. You might as well

work with it and make space for it. Yeah.

Thanks a million. Thanks. If you're a Half

Moon member of the Sole to Soul Circle, trauma- informed and ADHD-friendly Self

care, you'll be getting a special recording where Jayne and I continue our

conversation and talk about the importance of owning the ADHD and any other

things.

How even talking about it reduces the shame we

still often feel around certain traits. I hope you find that helpful. And for Full Moon and Supermoon members,

we go into more depth celebrating our differently wired brains, at least some

of the time, a lot of the time, but we're human. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The

Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I want to help as many people as possible with

trauma histories and/or ADHD learn how to help yourself to connect with your Self,

with that uppercase, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful,

brilliant, miraculous part of yourself and to become more fully embodied at

peace and at ease in your own skin. To help me do this, if you can think of

someone who might benefit, please share it.

And if you haven't already and would like to,

you can subscribe, comment, rate, review. This episode, like all of them so

far, has been produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. Thanks again

for listening.

And if you'd like more on this week's theme,

you can subscribe as a free subscriber or paid member of the Soul to Soul

Circle at evemc.substack.com. Find out more at selfcarecoaching.net. Each week,

Half Moon members, that's the free subscribers, get some bonus content to

support balance and harmony. So it's a bit of a deeper dive into the podcast

theme. And then the following day, Full Moon and Supermoon members get

additional deep dives into helping themselves shine by really supporting,

really soothing, really working well with your nervous system so that you feel

safe enough to expand your comfort zone and do the things that you already know

to do, perhaps, but just supporting you and taking those steps.

Let me know if any of that is of interest, and I hope you have a gorgeous day.

NEXT WEEK: ADHD TERMINOLOGY EXPLAINED

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Soothe your ruminating mind, again, especially with ADHD or trauma histories, getting away from all the catastrophic thinking, the stressful thoughts that are kind of putting you in Stress Response rather than Rest/Digest mode, allowing yourself to have something really easy and accessible to redirect your brain from those ruminating, catastrophising thoughts into something.

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes-Cunningham and welcome to The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care, which we all know can be so challenging at times.

I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting bonus content each week. If you sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle, you can do that for free or from as little as eight euros a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better, Self-Care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing https://selfcarecoaching.net/book

Hi, welcome to episode 49 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. We're celebrating World Sleep Day with lots of holistic tips to experiment with. See what works for you, you know what's best for you. Some of them might appeal, some might not, they're all offerings. I've already recorded half of this and it turned out I didn't record it, so I'm starting again. In my imagination what I'd recorded was golden, so I'm just going to do my best to make it as good as possible.

#1 Set a positive intention around what sleeping well means for you

We often think about what we don't want to feel like, so tired, cranky, exhausted, drained, depleted. Think about what you actually do want. Think about how you want to feel when you wake up, like energised, refreshed, recharged, alert, feeling well, enthusiastic. Make it as vivid as you can for yourself, which leads on to…

#2 Visualising what you want

Worrying is exhausting for our nervous system and it's really easy to do. We get into rumination mode and especially with trauma histories or ADHD, it's really common. So replacing worry with imagining what you want is a discipline. It will get easier and it's the ideal thing to practice when you're trying to get to sleep.

So thinking about what you do want. So it might be a great night's sleep or it might be something you want in your life. It might be a holiday you're looking forward to. It might be something you're looking forward to in your relationship or work or with your home or travel or whatever it might be. Use images. I mean, thinking about counting sheep, you don't have to count sheep.

You can think about something you actively want, put that into images in your brain. That's going to move away from the more language-based thinking, which is more like kind of for the daytime and it encourages sleep, moving into that image-based thought pattern. So win-win. You're more likely to move towards what you actually want and also it will relax you and help you sleep.

#3 Make your self-talk soothing

Even if you feel like you're lying to yourself. Now I don't advocate lying lightly, but in this case I do. Even if you feel like you're going to be shattered tomorrow, imagining that now is not going to help you. And it's going to keep you awake rather than helping you sleep. It's going to inhibit any sense of Rest Digest parasympathetic activity.

Even if you feel like you're lying to yourself, imagine yourself as a beloved puppy, baby, kitten, goat, whatever, something you love and talk kindly to yourself about how no matter how tired you might be, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. This helps calm the amygdala and make sleep more likely.

#4 Relax your breathing

It's something really simple and has an enormous impact. So a deeper breath and a slightly longer exhalation helps to calm the nervous system. You can count if you want to, maybe in for one and out for two or three, or in for two and out for three or four, or simply sense it. If you're like me, numbers are not relaxing. Do what feels good for you, but aim for that deeper breath, that slightly longer exhalation.

You can find more breath practices and more in-depth on this at selfcarecoaching.net forward slash book and go to the book bonus videos. So it helps to remind yourself gently every time you notice that your attention has wandered from the breath and gently bring it back, but with compassion and with a congratulations for noticing.

#5 Make your bedroom as comfortable as you can

Think about your sleeping arrangements and think about yourself seeing them for the first time. We get desensitised to things that might be inhibiting sleep so walk into your bedroom now if you can, or just imagine it. Think, if your priority was amazing sleep, what would you be taking out of the room or at least making less visible?

For some people, you don't have a separate bedroom. I lived in studio flats for years in Cardiff and London. You might be in a bedroom in a shared house. You might have to work from your bedroom.

I started my practice from my bedroom, like I had a little desk at the foot of the bed, so it might be a sleeping area. I lived in teeny tiny studio flats for a really long time. But having some sort of division, whether it's through lighting, whether it's through furnishing, whether it's through colour, but also keeping it as sleep welcoming as possible.

Take a friendly eye rather than a critical eye and ask yourself if your aim were better sleep, what might be most helpful here and how can you do that for yourself?

#6 Experiment with aromatherapy

Aim for quality oils. You don't want any of the toxic scented candles or sprays. And unfortunately we live in a world where a lot of these things that look like they're good for us are actually filled with chemicals that you don't want anywhere near or below. Look into that and experiment with scents that you naturally find relaxing. Lavender has been shown to work for many people, but if you don't like lavender, don't use lavender. Experiment with what works for you. And over time, if you have a blend, work with that. I use a blend of lavender, rose, frankincense and geranium. It's something I've been using for nearly two decades now.

It helps me anchor that sense of being ready for bed. Find a blend that works for you or simply use lavender or any one scent, make it easy for yourself. But you're again helping to use your anchors around you, using your senses to help you recognise it's getting time to wind down, it's time for bed and allowing yourself to relax.

Take your foot off the gas and prepare for a gorgeous night's sleep. So something else you might want to do…

#7 Sleep inducing yoga

I used to teach Sleep Yoga classes every week, for a long time, at the golf and country club I used to teach at in Essex before I moved to Ireland.

#8 Longer yoga nidras

I also want to remind you that while it can increase dopamine, while it can be really yummy and relaxing and also help us make progress towards our goals and working with our sankalpas, it can, especially if you're a bit agitated about not being able to relax with trauma histories or with ADHD, it can feel quite anxiety provoking.

It's about really being friendly with yourself, starting with a shorter yoga nidra perhaps, experimenting with different voices. There are loads you can try on my YouTube channel, it's under my name, Eve Menezes Cunningham, or at selfcarecoaching.net.

I'm going to be sharing a Sleep Yoga abbreviated sequence that you can do on your bed for the Full Moon and Supermoon members as this week's bonus deeper dive. And an EFT tap along for the Half Moon free subscribers. Because these are things you can do on your bed or under the duvet, which just help to soothe the nervous system, help to prepare the body and mind for sleep.

And they're lovely practices, I do some sleep yoga many, many nights. It's just that getting ready and it helps you stay more comfortable, especially kind of post menopause. And if there are any kind of aching joints, the more you can work with your whole body, the easier it is for your mind and your body to relax.

So we touched on yoga nidra already. And I think I've said at selfcarecoaching.net and just type in yoga nidra, or through the Sole to Soul circle, there are bespoke ones for each theme for the Half Moon and for the Full Moon and Supermoon members.

#9 meditate or pray

Something as simple as breathing in and thinking calm and breathing out and thinking calm, or any other quality you choose. Breathing in, breathing out, doing this for three minutes or longer can help elicit the Relaxation Response (Episode 39). I'll link to the Relaxation Response episode in the show notes.

You can also use any kind of familiar and helpful meditation and prayers, whether you pray to God, Goddess, the Universe, Divine Love, Source, whatever works for you, Nature. It's about getting out of your ruminating mind again.

Especially with ADHD or trauma histories. Getting away from all the catastrophic thinking, the stressful thoughts that are kind of putting you in Stress Response rather than Rest Digest mode. Allowing yourself to have something really easy and accessible to redirect your brain from those ruminating, catastrophising thoughts into something more time to let go and let God, Goddess or whatever you believe in.

#10 Tap your sleeplessness away

As I mentioned, there's a tap along, an EFT Tap Along for sleep for Half Moon members (free subscribers). If you're not already and you want to sign up for free, it's at evemc.substack.com. You can also access loads of free EFT Tap Alongs for other things at selfcarecoaching.net/services/EFT

There are also other people who do Tap Alongs and other Emotional Freedom Techniques. There's more to EFT than just the tapping, but tapping is a wonderful place to start. Also, if you're a member of IACP, there’s the three-hour CPD for pretty much anything you can think of wanting to tap around.

It was intense to record and it's EFT for self-care for therapists and counsellors. So if you’re a member, you get that free and you might want to check it out.

#11 If you're really struggling to sleep, get active

This goes contrary to a lot of the advice about avoiding exercise late at night, but especially with ADHD or trauma histories, it can be really stressful lying there and knowing that you're not going to sleep. Getting up, giving yourself permission to do what your body needs, to do what your mind needs and go for a run, do some push-ups, do some sun salutations, go for a bike ride, jog on the spot or whatever feels good for you. Normally it's about winding down for bed, but there are going to be certain nights where some exercise is going to really help you sleep. So use activity to help you in a way that feels friendly for you.

#12 Step away from the bed

When you're lying awake for hours, the bed begins to feel far from comforting. After any kind of length of time that feels good for you, give yourself permission to get up.

You're not a child being sent to bed. You get to do what's right for you. You might want to do some light pottering or whatever feels like a break from trying to get to sleep. Give yourself that break and return to bed when you feel ready.

#13 Do a body scan

There are many online and you can also type body scan into the search tool on selfcarecoaching.net for some from me. Aim for stillness as you notice the most prominent feelings you become aware of as your awareness moves from part to part. For added TLC, you might want to thank each body part as you move up from the toes to the top of the head. This is super simple, just, ‘Thank you toes, thank you feet, thank you ankles, thank you calves, thank you shins…’ and so on. Just moving up, just sending a bit of love, sending a bit of gratitude to the only body you'll ever have.

#14 Notice the sounds and the lights

Notice if there are tweaks you can make to help your body prepare to wind down for sleep. I started dimming light hours before I went to sleep because this really helps me later on. You might have something soothing that you begin to listen to. Experiment, but again you're training the brain to recognise certain sounds and lights and smells. Ah, it's time to wind down. It makes it easier. It's just much, much easier.

#15 Become a sleep detective

Notice all the things that support and hinder sleeping well for you. Log them and examine the logs for patterns. Make tweaks to your behaviour and log the results of those too. Treat it like an enjoyable experiment. We’re all different. Honour YOUR body's wisdom by really listening to clues. What works for me might not work for you. What works for someone else might not.

#16 Avoid caffeine

Prime example, many people avoid caffeine in afternoon, as in after midday. Some people can have a caffeine, a coffee right before bed and it has no impact on their sleep or even calms them down. Caffeine can mimic stimulant medication for some people with ADHD. If you're fine with an espresso right before bed, go for it. Notice your response to caffeine. Notice what is going to support you in better sleep for you.

#17 Avoid raw fruit and vegetables before bed

It makes me laugh a bit that when I was doing my specialist sleep training, oh God, over a decade ago now, I was really like, OK, avoid salad before bed. I didn't use to eat salad at all back then, but it was like salad bad, raw fruit and veg bad. Chocolate absolutely fine.

You might be fine with a salad before bed or you may notice an impact, but the idea is that you want to eat long before you go to bed so that the Rest Digest Response is focused on rest rather than digesting. Raw fruit and vegetables can be harder to digest than something more gentle on your stomach if you are hungry, because equally you don't want to go to bed hungry and then be up because you're hungry. Again, notice, like some people keep a banana by the bed or really easy snacks to have. Have things that support you and your sleep. Get curious about what works for you.

#18 Aim to eat at least two hours before bed

Again, working with your physiology, we know that we're supporting the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system and aiding that Rest Digest Response and therefore sleep. It makes so much sense. Why make life tougher for yourself? And also there are going to be nights where you can't and that's fine. None of this is about being rigid.

It's about noticing the things that really support you and that you want to implement as often as possible and then things that you can get away with, but it's knowing yourself.

#19 See if a warm bath or wearing socks in bed helps

It might sound silly, but body temperature can have an enormous impact on our ability to sleep soundly. Some people need to be cooler, so it might be a matter, especially around menopause and hot flashes, it might be about opening windows. It might be about wearing less, it might be wearing more. Having layers, making life as easy for yourself as possible. You know yourself best and sometimes it might be that you're too hot, but you like that cosy feel. Experiment.

#20 Notice the impact of screen time

Some people really benefit from switching off the TV and all devices hours before bedtime.

Experiment with what works for you and create pre-sleep rituals that support your sleep. Other people fall asleep, especially with neurodivergence, it can be really beneficial to listen to a podcast as you're falling asleep or favourite music or some people audiobooks or old TV shows that don't overstimulate.

It's again, give yourself permission to experiment. These are cues that you might want to play with.

#21 Choose something to read before bed that will be soporific

So something that's sleep inducing. It doesn't matter what it is as long as you enjoy it and it's soothing enough for you to prepare for sleep. In time that genre will become an anchor for aiding sleep.

When I first got over my insomnia in my 20s, I'd been really terrible insomniac from primary school, like the age of six or so, until my 20s and I began reading crime fiction. So like Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Linda Fairstein, really gruesome stuff in some cases. And I'd read a few pages and fall asleep. One day I was reading a bit on the Tube back in London and my eyes got really heavy and I realised I'd anchored crime fiction with sleep.

I read crime fiction before bed every night for over a decade and then all of a sudden it was like, ‘Oh, this is really gruesome!’ and I stopped. I think, looking back, it was helpful for me to have something more engaging for my brain rather than something that might be more stereotypically designed for sleep.

I'm again sharing that just to help you think it might be a memoir, it might be a children's book, it might be a textbook if you're studying, it might be, really experiment with what feels indulgent, what do you want to curl up in bed with and do that, experiment with it.

#22 Journal

It's a wonderful way to take stock of the day and ease into visualising tomorrow or a more distant future that you're working towards. And also for just unloading, unburdening your brain, letting yourself get it out, externalise it and be ready for rest.

#23 List all the things you're grateful for (or even three)

There are so many studies around the benefits of gratitude and it's a lovely habit to get into. It's not about forcing it though, there are going to be nights where you're feeling too angsty to feel any gratitude and be kind to yourself.

But where you are able to, where it becomes habitual, it really is so beneficial and it just feels lovely. You might, if you share a bed with another human (I'm saying that as opposed to cats. They do not talk back to me in that regard. They don't share my gratitude practice, but they are part of my gratitude practice for sure because I'm so grateful for them), if your partner's there or if maybe you have housemates, before you go to bed, you might want to do a gratitude practice together. Energising it, like talking, keeping each other on track, just saying out loud what you're grateful for as well as potentially journaling it. It can all be really affirming and it helps, again, move away from that ruminating mind that's going to prevent sleep more towards happy, pleasant thoughts.

#24 Play with afformations

So not affirmations, afformations are more questioning. So for some people, affirmations can be quite homicide-inducing in terms of not acting on it but feeling a bit homicidal because it's like, I don't believe myself. I would love to say, for example, I sleep with ease and joy.

And if you're chronically sleep-deprived, you might want to stab yourself or someone else for even suggesting such a thing because it's such a hideous...