This week, we’re making Polyvagal Theory even simpler with the help of Rainbow MagnifiCat and your own beloved animals.

I developed Cattitude (aka Cat Coaching and Feline Better Every Day) after adopting Rainbow MagnifiCat from the rescue cat shelter in 2013 and realising how attending to her nervous system, practising what I had learned about Polyvagal Theory and other trauma-informed therapies was helping me (and later clients and groups).

With ADHD and/or trauma histories, your extra sensitive nervous system can be a gift when you treat your whole self with compassion.

In this week’s episode, this simple but effective practise, adapted from Deb Dana’s Befriending your Hierarchy exercise (from her book, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection, Norton) is a wonderful way to build on what you’ve started from last week’s dopamenu episode (and deeper dives in the Sole to Soul Circle).

It really works. Simple Cattitude.

Am really looking forward to hearing how you get on with it.

le grá,

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Rainbow is part of my branding so I do probably have a disproportionate number of clients and supervisees who love cats but it works with any kind of creature and it just I love seeing people's faces change as they embody that sense of care for themselves that they've already been giving to their cats or dogs or toddlers or others they love. I love seeing the way people light up and I love that kind of eventual recognition that of course they deserve, of course YOU deserve the same compassion and tenderness and care.

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 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.

Hi, welcome to episode 48 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. For today's episode I want you to grab a piece of paper and a pen and get ready to improve or even transform any issue that you've been struggling with just by befriending your nervous system more.

We're taking inspiration from cats to work with Polyvagal Theory in a really simple but fun and effective way. I started the whole Cattitude element of my work years and years ago after I brought Rainbow Magnificat back from the cat shelter in 2013. I'd learned about Polyvagal Theory doing my yoga therapy for mental health training and, as I realised how Rainbow was helping me embody it, I created Feline Better Every Day and cat coaching.

So much of what I have done with Rainbow and now with Meadbh, and Teri Crews Cat and Angel Houdini, helps my nervous system as well as seeing the enormous improvements with them. Angel now lets me hold him and purrs at me! And then looks at me and remembers, oh no, he's feral and runs away. But there's something transformational about talking to ourselves as if we were a beloved cat, kitten, puppy, toddler, someone, another mammal.

I often say lizard as well, I know they're not mammals, but find something that you love. I'm going to slow down and I'm going to read from the script because there's so much I want to include, I don't normally use a script.

But basically we humans have very similar nervous systems to cats and by thinking in terms of cat coaching or Cattitude or Feline Better Every Day, it hopefully takes some of the jargon away and makes it less scary. Because all of this is common sense.

Stephen Porges has done a phenomenal work and Deb Dana is making it more accessible and so many other people are taking Polyvagal Theory and running with it. But the reminder is that you deserve the care, kindness, curiosity, tenderness and compassion that you'd give a beloved cat, kitten, toddler, puppy, etc. So you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net/feline.

For now, just imagine cutting yourself some slack and think about something that is a stressor in your life, whatever it is you're feeling. All of us can benefit from paying more attention to our nervous systems and instead of trying to suppress all that wisdom, instead of trying to override it to really pay attention.

Especially for people with trauma histories or ADHD with more sensitive nervous systems, we've grown up often being told we're too sensitive, there's something wrong with us, why are we so dramatic?

I still get it now. I'm 49 and loved ones mean well, but they will tell me to not get sad about things but I've learnt to honour my nervous system. And that's absolutely fine. But growing up, it can be really confusing. And when you're younger, so it's really remembering as adults, or at any age, if you're younger watching this, you have a right to honour your nervous system.

And there's no need to be talked out of knowing what you're feeling. And you're not too much no matter what you're feeling. So this practice is adapted from the lovely Deb Dana book, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection.

It's the Befriending the Hierarchy exercise. But I'm using Feline Better Every Day terminology, Cattitude terminology, to help you think more easily than thinking in terms of ventral vagal wellness, or sympathetic nervous system, or a lot of the things I talk about a lot, but for this, or dorsal vagal. So Deb Dana is wonderful.

Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory changed my life. And I used to have anxiety dreams about the terminology. But it is so gorgeous.

If you are interested, and you go to that Feline Better Every Day page on my website, I'm linking some resources there for you as well. Check out Deb Dana's work as well. And also there are many interviews with the fantabulous Stephen Porges online.

You don't need to freak yourself out with heaviness but it's such a beneficial framework. And I'm hoping that the inspiration from my rescue cats will help you.

Even after all these years, more than two decades of integrating different therapies, and a decade of using more than a decade of using Rainbow Magnificat to support some clients as well as myself. And I love it when clients and I mean, I used to have Rainbow as part of my branding, so I do probably have a disproportionate number of clients and supervisees who love cats, but you can use any kind of creature. And I love seeing people's faces change as they embody that sense of care for themselves that they've already been giving to their cats or dogs or toddlers or others they love.

I love seeing the way people light up. And I love that kind of eventual recognition that of course, they deserve of course, you deserve the same compassion and tenderness and care. It's a transformative I know for me, I've had years of therapy as part of my training.

I'd had coaching, I'd been doing all these things on myself. But it was when I started working with Rainbow's nervous system, when I brought her back from the shelter, and she was terrified. And me softening my tone of voice for her using Polyvagal Theory knowledge to keep me doing it.

And it softened my own tone of voice towards myself. So even now, if I like drop something and break it, like thinking, ‘Oh, I love this glass, I've had it for 20 years’ CRASH. In the past, it would mean like, ‘Oh,’ I'm giving myself a hard time. Whereas now it's just like, ‘It's OK, Evei Cat’ cleaning it up and just honouring the disappointment, but not making it worse by my reaction to it.

You might want to paws this recording as you think about something in your life that is challenging for you right now. Whatever it is, large, small, I'm not going to stress you out by having you pick something at a certain level, just an issue that you're ready to transform, and get that paper and pen. So draw a line through the paper length ways.

Through the middle. And then write the issue you want to improve. I haven't written an issue, but on that middle bit there, if you're watching this rather than listening to it, and then draw three columns going down and another column at the top.

So you've got Purr! Hiss! and Freeze. So Purr is the first one, and that corresponds to the ventral state that we're going for. That real sense of embodied wellbeing. That ventral vagal wellness. And I'm not going to go too much into that right now.

Just write down Purr! at the top, write down Hiss! in the middle, and that's for the stress, sympathetic activation, but not only the excited, energised, motivated, sympathetic like we need all of it. We need that motivation. We need sympathetic activation for the nervous system.

There's a lot about encouraging more parasympathetic activity, which is great in this 24-7 society we live in, but sympathetic activation definitely has its place. All of these ways of being have their place. There's no right or wrong.

It's just helping you befriend your nervous system and get to know your hierarchy. And I hope that this helps. In the third column, write Freeze. That's the dorsal vagal. So it's the hybrid of the parasympathetic and sympathetic, because there has to be some sympathetic activity in order to not be completely collapsed, some vagal tone.

But at the same time, there's an enormous sense of overwhelm. And it's not the most pleasant, and especially with trauma and with ADHD, you might feel it.

This is about getting to know your nervous system. And this is about working with it and recognising even when you feel completely overwhelmed, you have choice, you have options. So once you have drawn those lines, start thinking. Just because I was just talking about it, think about a time when you felt completely overwhelmed, a time where you felt just like you were just sitting down or lying down, unable to do the thing you'd intended to do or wanted to do, or thinking about doing, you're just in that state of it's too much.

As you even think about it now, notice what you're aware of in your body, notice how you're feeling, notice any thoughts, notice any emotions that crop up, any shame, any guilt, any palpitations, anything at all, any heaviness, any lightness, just any temperature, just make a note of it.

This is about befriending yourself, knowing that there's rich, rich, rich, rich information here for you. So just think even as you write about it, as you think about it now, where in your body do you feel that sense of freeze most strongly? How do you know, like what's your posture like? You might want to embody it for a moment, lie down, sit down, connect with that sense of sometimes hopelessness. It's okay, I’m not going to leave you there.

Okay, so you may want to paws and keep writing, but to carry on, thinking about when you're more in Hiss! mode, so the pictures I'm choosing, they're the cats yawning, but it looks like they're roaring, but they're not.

Thinking for yourself, how do you know that your sympathetic nervous system has been activated, that you're in stress response? What is the tell tail (geddit?) sign for you? How do you know, do you have any kind of chronic condition that flares up? Does your stomach let you know, like do you need to get to the loo quickly? Do you flush? Do you like kind of get very hot or very cold? Like how do you know that you're stressed out and it goes beyond that positive eustress and into more distress?  

What are the thoughts, emotions and somatic sensations that you're aware of here? Just again, using your body as information, so maybe pawsing this recording and making a note of as many Hiss! symptoms as you can think of.

And when you're ready, coming on to the Purr! So imagining yourself in embodied well-being mode, ventral vagal wellness. How do you feel when you're in Purr! mode? I've noticed even just mentioning it, I've gone all soft and floaty and relaxed.

Who are you with as you think about yourself in Purr! mode? We co-regulate, we heal in company, but it has to be company we feel safe, welcome and can thrive with. What are you doing? Where are you? Where in your body do you feel the sense of embodied well-being, this sense of purr most strongly? When might you make more time for it and how more space for it? Again, paws this recording and write down as many symptoms of purring in your body as you can. So different times of day or night and different places, different people, different activities, really make this as easy to refer back to.

 Last week we were talking about dopamenus. Add these things to your dopamenu.

So this is where we're moving to the bottom part of the piece of paper and encouraging you to think of what can you do more of in your life, how can you give yourself more time and space to do the things that put you into Purr! mode more often? And then going back to the Hiss! category, when you're stressed, what can you do to support yourself? What can you do to honour that hiss and maybe speak up, maybe get someone to help advocate for yourself, maybe vent with someone else against the co-regulation so important, maybe take time out, maybe give yourself some space to recognise, ‘OK! I'm in Hiss! mode, I'm going to pull the duvet over my head and regroup and let myself be a human and honour my nervous system!’

There are so many things it could be and we're going to be going into this in more detail with the Half Moon and Full Moon memberships, but for now, paws the recording and just list everything you can think of that could help you.

Exercise is a wonderful way to get it out of the body, swimming is my medicine, honestly, or sometimes a bike ride, sometimes a brisk walk, yoga for sure, but swimming for sure is where I begin to feel human again.

Moving then back to Freeze and thinking what might help you when you're in that mode, feeling at collapse almost, maybe you've actually experienced it, maybe you can imagine it, maybe you're afraid of it, but that sense of overwhelm for your allostatic load, the stress has been too much and it's just too much. ‘Enough! I quit!’ So thinking to yourself what might help you when you're feeling that overwrought, that burnt out, that gone.

You might not believe that anything might help you, but if you were to imagine what might help you and even include superheroes, include magic, include whatever might help you. Write it down and you can, by getting to know these things, you can begin to put plans in place so that you can actually have supports in place when you need them most.

Listing everything, even if it feels unrealistic, even if it feels magical, even if it feels like you don't deserve it, because unfortunately that can be part of how so many of us have grown up that you might know what would help but you don't feel you deserve it. I used to pass out the whole time at school, from 10 to my teens and it used to be so embarrassing but I had no confidence and I was painfully shy and I'd feel myself going and I'd just pass out because I was too shy to draw attention to myself by taking a seat and putting my head below my heart like the doctors told me to.

I didn't understand that it was to do with the blood flow, the circulation, so now if I begin to feel that way I can stand on my tiptoes as I inhale, exhale as I release the heels to the ground and repeat as needed. That begins to get the blood pumping, the circulation going again and now I'd have no problem.

I'd be more scared now (all the times I passed out and hit my head as a kid!) but I was absolutely mortified. And even though I knew that this really basic thing would help, I didn't do it for myself.

It might be that just thinking about the things that you deprive yourself, that you deny yourself, that might help even if you don't fully believe them.

So you have now your notifications from your body when you're in Purr! When you're in Hiss! When you're in Freeze! And you also have some ideas that you might want to add to your dopamenu to help you get more into Purr! mode, enjoy life more, know that joy is your birthright.

Think of a relaxed happy cat, at peace with the world, just knowing that it deserves to be adored and cared for and loved.

Just like you do.

Remember, maybe you have included pets in your Purr! mode and maybe pets help you when you're stressed as well (if your energy isn't freaking them out). Spend a few minutes journaling about these ideas and then go back to last week's episode around the dopamenu and add some of these insights from today to your dopamenu and let me know how you get on. I love hearing from you.

As I mentioned there's bonus material for the Half Moon members (that's the free subscribers at evemc.substack.com) of the Sole to Soul Circle. We're going to be going into more detail with this helping you find imagining a cat, how it always knows the most comfortable spot, how to find that sun puddle. So I'm going to encourage you and those Half Moon members to find sun puddles in different areas of your life.

And then for the Full Moon and Supermoon members, supporting your nervous system and by exploring ways to work with your stress, that positive stress. So if you imagine a toddler, no one needs to tell the toddler to crawl or to walk unless there's been really severe abuse or neglect. That toddler knows how to thrive.

Even with like it's phenomenal what people come through, it's phenomenal how huge the capacity to heal is. But you think about toddlers, how they want to walk, they want to crawl, they want to toddle.

They're not like oh I'm not graceful enough, I keep falling over, all these things.

This drive is within all of us to be whole and to grow and we do fall metaphorically as well as physically sometimes as we expand our comfort areas, our comfort zones. But we're going to go into more of that for the Full Moon and Supermoon members of the Sole to Soul Circle. So they're the paid members, that's from eight euros a month and you can cancel anytime but hopefully you'll find it helpful and not want to.

And you can of course upgrade at evemc.substack.com.

Let me know how you get on, let me know how you found this. Is this something you've applied to your life already? How do you feel at the idea of Purr! and Hiss! and Freeze? Like hopefully it's a shorthand that will work for you. If it doesn't, I encourage you to think about your own.

You know yourself best. Thank you so much for listening. Next week we're exploring sleep and I look forward to sharing more then.

But I really appreciate your time and your comments and your questions and I wish you many, many, many moments of purry pawfection. And remember with all of this, it's a matter of progress, not purrfection. And I have a gazillion other ridiculous cat puns, but I will spare you for now. 

Have a wonderful week. 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...

Inspired by Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD (and building on 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) this week, we're exploring a super simple way to increase the odds of you treating yourself WAY better in those spare moments, minutes and hours...

WATCH HERE

FULL TRANSCRIPT

What I'm talking about here with the dopamine, they've not been measured in terms of how much they increase dopamine production. It's quite a subjective idea. You're thinking about the things that help you feel better, the things that are going to motivate you, the things that are going to reward you.

And the only thing that I can kind of say is science backed is the yoga nidra which studies have shown boost dopamine by up to 70%, which is amazing. Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham. 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 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.

Welcome to Episode 47 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Thank you for joining me. And today, we're still working with the idea of sending as much love to your whole self, especially your body, as possible.

And we're working with a really simple way in which you can do more things that help you feel better. When I wrote 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, it was a way to encourage people to trust in their inner wisdom and have so many ideas in one place. They could ask to be guided and open it at random and choose one of the tools.

And if it appealed, great. And if not, they could open it at random again, as well as going by the days of the year or by the index. It's a thorough index.

And before that, and I still do this with clients, encouraging them to potentially have a jar, maybe using colour coded PostIt notes for the amount of time that different self-care activities are likely to take and different levels of energy involved and other variable resources. So you can, at a whim, just kind of dip your hand in, ask to be guided to something that's going to suit you in that moment. And again, it's your choice.

If you choose something that doesn't appeal, you put it back in. And if it does, then brilliant. It helps take all the decision making out of the process every time when you might have suddenly a spare five minutes or a spare hour or a spare afternoon.

And it helps to get those, ‘Yes, I deserve this time, this space, this treat, something that's going to help me feel better’ easily accessible. So I was delighted to come across Jessica McCabe, author of How to ADHD, her dopamenu. Basically, she's created an entire menu for herself and shows readers and people who follow her channel how to do it.

She worked as a server alongside building up her YouTube channel so it kind of makes sense that she would do it. But I just love the image of a menu.

And she talks about having entrees and starters, side dishes, your main courses, your desserts. And once you've got it, making it as visually appealing as you possibly can, having it somewhere where you're going to see it often. And it's like, yeah, I have half an hour there, or I have an hour, or I'm going to carve out two hours or even five minutes.

You don't have to constantly be deciding and thinking from scratch, because we all forget what helps us. And that's part of the reason why I have it all in one place. And she says that's why she started her YouTube channel, to have all her research about ADHD in one place.

For dopamine, dopamine is very important in terms of ADHD. You can read some about it in the book, but you can also easily research it. What I'm talking about here with the dopamenu, they've not been measured in terms of how much they increase dopamine production, it's quite a subjective idea, you're thinking about the things that help you feel better, the things that are going to motivate you, the things that are going to reward you.

And the only thing that I can kind of say is science backed is the yoga nidra, which studies have shown boost dopamine by up to 70%, which is amazing. So you could have a short one like for a side dish, a 10 minute yoga nidra. And I'm going to be including a short yoga nidra for the Full Moon and Super Moon members.

There are lots of longer ones and shorter ones available through my selfcarecoaching.net site and through my YouTube channel and podcast. And obviously the Sole to Soul Circle membership at evemc.substack.com

So you can check lots out for free. But this idea of just taking 10 minutes and it having an impact for hours or half an hour or 20 minutes, it's the same activity.

And you could do the same with movement, you could have as an entree, you could have taking a stretch, just checking in with your body, asking yourself, how do you want to move in this moment and allowing yourself to do that.

A side dish might be a short yoga practice or a mini dance break. A main course for me would be a proper yoga practice and a longer yoga nidra, a swim. A swim always restores me. After the swim or being in the sea, there’s the dessert of getting into the sauna when that's around sometimes and watching an entire episode of something in one go or curling up with a good book without a time limit on how long I can read it for or going to the cinema, seeing an entire film. Sometimes that can feel quite torturous, but it's also really brilliant. A side dish might be 10 minutes of an episode in between doing something, just thinking, ‘Right, I'm going to finish such and such and then I'll reward myself with just 10 minutes’ and that can be really lovely.

Desserts might be things that you know you don't want to overindulge on, but that give you a real boost and they're going to be different for every person. So as I mentioned, there's going to be the bonus content for the Half Moon subscribers. For free subscribers is a special, unique, short yoga nidra and for the Full Moon and Super Moon subscribers this week, it's an opportunity to share with me, I'm really excited about this, share with me your ideas for YOUR dopamenu and if you want to show me what you're creating or what you've created I'd love to see it.

Do check out Jessica McCabe: She is phenomenal. I'd heard an interview with her ages ago and it's only recently that I've started listening to the book and it's again, as I go down this ADHD rabbit hole, the number of ADHD books I've listened to where I'm almost, well I am crying as well as laughing out loud and almost punching the air as I'm driving along like, ‘Yes! Oh my god, I thought it was just me,’ but her approach is so delightful. I'm sure you will love it and learn something from it.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode and learnt from this. I hope you give yourself permission to connect with what feels good for you and that you create as haphazard or as beautiful and sparkly a dopamenu as works for you at this time. You might do it in stages too. An starter version of your dopamenu might be jot down ‘make dopamenu’ or ‘begin creating dopamenu.’

A side dish might be a very rough draft, a main course might be giving yourself, I don't know, half an hour, an hour to really think about and they're going to be journal prompts for the members, what you want to be including and the dessert might be the decorating it and making it look all pretty and deciding where in your home you're going to put it.

We might have it in a mobile version as well so you can keep it with you when you're out and about and you can always find something that is going to help you feel better and that is going to work with your energy levels, with your mood, with your resources at any given time.

Thank you for listening, thank you for watching and please rate, review, subscribe, follow, share, comment whatever feels good for you and I look forward to sharing more next week. CHANGE: WE’RE TAKING INSPO FROM RESCUE CATS AND WORKING WITH THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

If you subscribe you're less likely to miss it. I will of course be sharing it across my platforms but thanks for listening again and this episode like all of them is produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and I hope you have a delightful week and really notice the things that help you feel good, things that help you feel better, the things where even though you're not literally measuring the dopamine production. You are getting a subjective sense of what really nourishes you, what helps you feel better and you can add that in the appropriate place to your dopamine you. Thanks again.

‘It's the abundance of diversity. It's not about tolerating. It's about welcoming…’

Much as I adored Moana, I think I loved Moana 2 even more. And with the current threats to #DEI (Diversity Equality and Inclusivity) in America, it feels like an especially good time to remind everyone that immigration (yes, I’m biased as a daughter and granddaughter of immigrants and now immigrant myself) is A GOOD THING.

I hope you enjoy this week’s episode and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and the film. If you’d like to read some of the older Sofa Session posts where I take inspiration from other fictional, animated and historic characters as well as current affairs, you can READ MORE HERE

le grá (with love),

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

It's the abundance of diversity. It's not about tolerating. It's about welcoming…

It's about appreciating. It's about supporting. So that is one of my favourite themes and self-care lessons from Moana 2.

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 €8 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 46 of the Feel Better Every Day podcast.

And while I've done many, many blog posts where I've either written open letters to fictional characters or shared self-care coaching lessons from various films and TV programmes, things that are going on in the news, this is the first podcast I'm doing along those lines.

And it's 10 self-care lessons from Moana 2. So it does include some spoilers, but hopefully in the Greek Chorus kind of way, or Brechtian approach, so it won't actually spoil it.

It's such a lovely film, I don't think anything could spoil it.

But what I'm sharing is so vague, it's not going to ruin any plot lines. But I hope it will encourage you to watch the film, enjoy the film and take inspiration from the film like I have.

#1 Know who you are

Moana repeats, ‘I am Moana.’ And even me, I'm not Moana, but even just saying that I kind of sat up straighter. And I'm 49 years old, but I will admit there have been a few challenging times since I saw Moana 2, where I've stood up straighter and said, ‘I am Evie.’

Try it, whatever your age, just ground, check that the feet are fully on the ground. If they don't reach, put something below them, like maybe a cushion, maybe a bolster, maybe a few cushions. Sit up straight, stand up straight.

‘I am… [whatever your name is].’ Notice how you feel in your body. Notice, yeah, you might feel silly, but also connect with who you are and know that who you are is worthy, is lovable, is good enough, is enough, is not too much.

#2 Recognise that there is always another way

So I also have a theory that Moana has ADHD, based on a theory that people with ADHD moved further from Africa as humans evolved, because the ADHD people in hunter-gatherer societies were needed in terms of scoping out newness, scoping out new ways of being. And Moana, of course, being an explorer, very much did that for her people. So lesson number two from Moana 2 is to recognise that there is always another way.

Whatever's going on for you, however stuck you may be feeling, however impossible the odds stacked against you may feel. And I realise I'm regularly taking inspiration from fictional characters, and in this case an animated character. But it's true, there's always another way.

So think about your situation and look at it from different perspectives. If you are into yoga, you might want to play with one or two poses. Just seeing the room you're normally in from those different perspectives can help.

Or even if you're not, you may want to lie on the ground or sit in a different chair. Look for that other way. Don't give up on what you want or what you're working towards.

#3 Immigration rocks

Number three, and my favourite theme from this film, because unfortunately we live in times where this is such an unusual message to be getting, immigration rocks.

From the very beginning, she's begging to find others. She knows that there must be others out there, and this is a spoiler for the ending, but others do arrive and they are welcomed with open arms because her people recognise that their people all have unique talents and gifts that will complement and will add to what they all can.

It's the abundance of diversity. It's not about tolerating. It's about welcoming.

It's about appreciating. It's about supporting. That is one of my favourite themes and self-care lessons from Moana too.

#4 Being of service and kindness

In everything she does, she's so open-hearted and she's strong. She's adventurous. She's powerful and she's always looking out for the greater good. She's not being selfish. She's being of service.

She's being kind to herself as well as to others. So again, notice in your own life, think of ways in which you might be able to do that for yourself.

#5 Even really, really, REALLY annoying people have gifts

Oh my God, I don't know how she managed on that boat with all those irritable people. But she did. (And again, Evie, it's a cartoon. It's an animation.) But it's worth remembering that we all have so much more in common than we do. Those irritations can be overcome.

And it might be a matter of whether it's your partner, whether it's a friendship, whether it's some colleagues at work, whether whoever it is, if you're in community with someone or people who are annoying you, remember, again, changing your perspective, maybe focusing on their gifts, focusing on what unique talents they bring and how you can support them in bringing more of that out and helping them also focus on the greater good. So you will get out of the nitty gritty grr of it all and keep that focus on what you can accomplish when you work together. This is not about staying in abusive, intolerable situations.

It's about those icky, irritating situations. Hopefully you're not trapped on a boat with people who are being really annoying.

#6 Hurt people hurt people

Another theme, number six, is about there being another misunderstood villain. It was something I loved from the first movie and it's something that I love here as well. The fact that basically, whether it's something you're doing yourself or whether it's something you're facing in the world, it can be helpful to recognise that hurt people hurt people. So I'm not again saying… definitely don't be staying in abusive situations.

Set those boundaries, assert yourself, make yourself safe and do it with love. Do it with compassion for yourself and for others involved, recognising that hurt people hurt people. It's a cliche, but it's true.

And the more we can work with our own pain, the less likely we are to project it out. The more likely we are to be able to hold space to help others heal.

#7 Keep the faith and trust the process

So number seven, keeping the faith and trusting the process.

Moana never gave up on finding other people. And every time she had that awful, awful, awful but funny chicken play a prank on her, she was gracious, much more gracious than I would have been. Again, this is partly why I think she might have ADHD.

I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not able to diagnose. And again, she's a fictional character. But I kind of loved how she kept forgetting that the chicken kept doing this and each time she'd fall for it. But she kept the faith. She kept hoping to make contact with others. She didn't give up on it. She didn't think, ‘No one but the chicken is ever going to respond.’

#8 Value what you have to offer

And eventually other humans did respond. So number eight, again, valuing other people's skills and valuing your own skills. Thinking about what you bring to the table and not underestimating it.

Not giving away your bone marrow to be of service too much, but valuing what you bring and giving in that wholehearted way. You're not depleting yourself. You are challenging yourself when needed, but it's all done with grace and with ease and you're looking after yourself through it all.

When I say with grace and with ease, I don't mean to put pressure on yourself to be like a fictional animated character. I just mean to give yourself grace. Let yourself go as easy as possible as you can as you navigate life's challenges.

Again, here, Metta [a Loving Kindness meditation] really helps me.

#9 Transitional objects are not just for babies

Number nine, doesn't matter how old we are, transitional objects can help. They're not just from babies and toddlers.

So they might be a kinaesthetic anchor, something you hold. It might be a crystal. It might be a toy. It might be… Moana used shells that her little sister gave her and she would hold that for courage. She would wear it around her neck. It's something, whatever you're facing, think of something that you can literally hold onto to remind yourself that you're not alone.

And even when you feel you're alone...

#10 Intergenerational healing

So that leads us nicely into number 10, which is remembering that you're not alone to connect with your ancestors in a loving way, to work towards that intergenerational healing of intergenerational trauma. Even if you've had challenging relationships with your more immediate ancestors, and even if you know nothing about that, if you've been adopted or other reasons why you might not know anything about your ancestors.

Imagine yourself supported by a long line of people whose DNA you have within you. You are whoever you are and you carry a part of them. Imagine their pride in all you're accomplishing and all you're dreaming of and let yourself feel that support.

For the deeper dive for Full Moon and Super Moon members this week, we're going to do the Dragon's Tail exercise again to help you really connect with that and embody it and move around with that sense of connection. You might remember it from the Lisa Woodruff episode a few weeks ago, and also it's in the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

And you can do part of it without, so you can easily join the Sole to Soul Circle if you want to, but you can simply sit and think about where you came from, even if you don't know where you came from and where you come from.

Think about your own life, think about all you've overcome, all the challenges you've faced, all the things that didn't kill you, that might have, as Jessica Jones says, made you stranger, and as Nietzsche said, might have hopefully made you stronger, but recognising that it's time to honour that. To really embody all you've come from, all you've come through, as well as who you have come from. And just notice, again, in your body, how you feel as you think about your parents, if you know your parents and what they went through, your grandparents, maybe some people might be lucky enough to have known their great-grandparents. Think about some of their journeys, some of the stories you know about them.

Moana came from wayfaring people, but that was a few generations before they became landlocked. She reconnected with that in the first film, and she was able to be more fully herself and she was able to save her people. Again, fictional, cartoon, I know, but thinking about what you carry within you and trusting your dreams, trusting your goals, trusting your visions, trusting your impulses, not necessarily acting impulsively, but honouring that what you want is there for a reason, what you crave. 

Go see it and let me know what you think

And I hope you enjoy the film if you haven't already seen it. If you have already seen it, let me know what you think. And if you're watching it again, or you are watching it for the first time, again, let me know what you think. And if I missed any lessons you would like to add.

Thank you for listening. Next week, we’re making self care more accessible to everyone by working with the idea of a dopamenu. So creating a way in which you can access something, even when you don't have energy or when you have a lot of time or a little time. It's about helping to make those decisions much easier and I can't wait to share it with you.

If you'd like to get it straight to your inbox, do subscribe or follow via your favourite podcasting app or YouTube or the Substack through the Sole to Soul Circle. And if you are a member of the Sole to Soul Circle, look out for your bonus content tomorrow and Thursday for your deeper dive and more.

With special guest Jayne Leonard

WATCH HERE

Does the idea of loving your whole self (including your ADHD brain and/or traumatised parts) feel impossible? You’re not alone. In this episode, I welcome my vegan and ADHD friend Jayne Leonard of Vive Counselling back. Our conversation includes shock that we’ve both found it easier to accept ourselves since a psychiatrist gave us permission! Even though this is our WORK. You too may be surprised at how much better your life feels when you amp up that self care, self love, self compassion and self understanding. Even by a tiny bit. It all adds up.

Thanks for listening or watching. I really appreciate it. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by becoming a Half Moon member of the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

This week, the Half Moon bonus has some ideas for visual and kinaesthetic ‘anchors’ to keep you focused (sorry, I know I hate that word but they really do help). And the Full Moon and Super Moon deeper dive is to help you discern between what’s right for Now You and Future You and all the other Yous…

FIND ME ON SOCIALS

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and let me know what questions or comments you have:

YouTube @evemenezescunningham

Substack @evemc

Bluesky @eveimc

TikTok @evemenezescunningham

Insta @evemenezescunningham

Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay

I’d also appreciate you leaving a review and/or rating this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed. Your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

OTHER WAYS TO WORK WITH ME

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

·       All the free resources I share across my platforms and the growing library of self care ideas and practises at selfcarecoaching.net

·       You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (evemc.substack.com) and get bonus content designed to enhance each podcast episode. Half Moon members (free subscribers) get self care ideas to support balance and harmony and Full Moon and Super Moon members (paid subscribers) get more self paced self care recordings to help you support your nervous system and whole Self as you expand your comfort zone to shine even brighter.

·      If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose an amount HERE

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

TRANSCRIPT 

maybe I don't need the reason. Maybe I just need to say, well, I am how I am regardless of whatever it is.

And I'm just gonna allow that. And I do have two small kids and I say, well, they do all these things. And I still say, oh aren't they lovely? They're great. That bit maybe wasn't great, but they're lovely. They're great. So it's trying to do that then for myself.

I love it.

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. Sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

So welcome again, Jayne Leonard. Thank you so much for joining me for these ADHD chats around some of the themes we're focusing on. We're both late diagnosed, both diagnosed 2024.

And today you're joining me to talk about for Valentine's Day, self-love, self-compassion, thinking about whatever your relationship status, how the more loving and accepting and compassionate we can be with our whole selves, the more we can offer that to our partners, our loved ones, children, if you have them, strangers, whatever it might be. So welcome, thanks for joining me again.

Thanks, thanks for having me.

So what would you say you struggle with and find easier about self-compassion and self-acceptance? I know you spoke in the previous episode about acceptance, radical acceptance. Would you like to say a little about that?

Yeah, I think sometimes it can be really, really easy. Sometimes it can be so easy and then other times it's just a little more difficult.

I definitely think getting, even realising I had ADHD, which was years ago and I only got diagnosed last year because I said, you know what? I might try some medication, but otherwise I was fairly confident I had it myself. But definitely realising that has made the acceptance even easier. Like just getting that understanding of myself.

Oh, this is why I do what I do. It's not actually because there's something wrong with me or I'm weird. It's because I have this brain and this brain works like this.

And so I wish I had kind of been able to practice that before, but that's a learning I've taken since. And I kind of say now, look, maybe I don't need the reason. Maybe I just need to say, well, I am how I am regardless of whatever it is.

And I'm just gonna allow that. And I do have two small kids and I say, well, they do all these things. And I still say, oh, aren't they lovely? They're great.

That bit maybe wasn't great, but they're lovely. They're great. So it's trying to do that then for myself.

I love it. And that tone of voice with Polyvagal Theory, it's so important. I regularly encourage people to talk to themselves like they would with a beloved cat or child or puppy or lizard or whatever, because we're generally more accepting. But I completely agree. Up until the day I had the diagnosis, I still, part of me thought I was wasting everyone's time.

I'd worked with so many clients who'd gone through the process and so many people had told me that I had it. I had a brain scan in like 2013, around I think 2013, 2014. And it showed an abnormality, which when I Googled it correlated with ADHD.

And back then I dismissed it. But then with perimenopause and menopause, it was like, oh yeah, there's definitely. But up until that day, it's like, I'm wasting everyone's time.

I'm wasting, and she's like, yeah, severe ADHD with combined presentation. It's like, oh. So even though I had massively amped up the self-compassion over the decades of doing this work, but then also realising like kind of self-diagnosing in a tentative way, because I'm a trauma therapist.

I'm not a psychiatrist. I can't diagnose. But I remember us talking when we first met.

We’re both vegans. We both thought we had ADHD. We were both going through that journey, but I'm absolutely shocked at how much easier it has been to accept myself since a psychiatrist gave me permission.

Yeah, I know. Isn't it amazing? It is. I had the same experience, even though I knew, oh, I struggle with focus or hyper-focus or whatever else I do.

Once you understand it through that lens, it's like, oh, that's fine, so. But I think, oh, you know what? You actually could have done this for yourself before. So I've really taken that now, and I'm really trying to say, okay, you're doing this, that's okay.

Yeah, a differently wired brain, just a differently wired brain. And like the other day, I was nearly, this sounds ridiculous, but I was nearly crying, surrounded by piles of bank statements and receipts as I was trying to get my bookkeeping for 2024 fully onto the new accounting system. I've never used an accounting system before, and I've been in the process of it since May, end of May.

And I got there last night, but the day before yesterday, my living room was just covered. And I just felt like all I have to do here is put things in date order and add them to an already created spreadsheet. And it was just like every fibre of my being, like, I can't do it, I don't want to.

And it's like, I can do all sorts of other things. And recognising that, holding space for the part of me that really struggles with numbers, and the part of me that's really good at other things, that finds other things easy. And I think the diagnosis has helped me.

Like, I used to feel like I was cheating a lot. Like if something came easy to me, I'd complicate it, I'd make it harder.

Whereas now it's like, no, some things are really hard. Let what's easy be easy. Yes, yeah. And I actually have had a similar conversation with so many other people who have neurodiversity.

It's like, we do almost feel like we're cheating if it's a certain area that's trickier for us. But yet then you see other people who have no problem asking for help. I mean, all these different services exist because no one person can do it all.

So I think that's, yeah, absolutely proud of. Self-love and self-care is recognizing, I can't do it all and I shouldn't have to. I don't have to.

Why am I trying to make things harder for myself? 100%, yeah. Yeah, how can you make life easier? So we're gonna move into the Half Moon Soul to Soul Circle recording for free subscribers. So if you're not already a free subscriber, you can access that through evemc.substack.com. But for now, thank you so much, Jayne, for joining me.

Thank you.

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. 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 evemcsubstack. com. Find out more at selfcarecoaching.net

And 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 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.

‘If you have tried counselling or you've tried therapy and it has made you feel worse, know that you're not alone. That, unfortunately, is quite common, but fortunately there are many, many styles and many, many different people who can help you’

This special extended episode of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast was recorded to support you with any mental health issues you might be struggling with by sharing parts of my own journey.

And a) I forgot to mention an enormous part of my own journey – the house fire that led to my PTSD then CPTSD diagnoses and b) I somehow got the date for Mental Health Awareness Week wrong.

I only shame spiralled for a couple of minutes before laughing at my ADHD brain.

With compassion.

And I decided that because this is SUCH a personal episode, I’d share it now in case I changed my mind by May.

Some content warnings:

·       birth trauma

·       intergenerational trauma

·       racism and colonisation

·       mixed heritage

·       CPTSD

·       Insomnia

·       PTSD

·       misogyny: child sexual abuse and sexual assault

·       self-medication (alcoholism)

·       trichotillomania (hair pulling)

·       suicidal ideation

·       disordered eating

·       Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

·       chronic pain (endometriosis)

·       more trauma and

·       ADHD

I realise again now that I forgot to mention the perimenopausal and menopausal impacts on my mood, sleep, cognitive function, self image, anxiety etc but because of the horrendous endometriosis symptoms for so many decades, am utterly delighted to be post menopausal – that being said, if you’re struggling with perimenopause and/or menopause, DO get the support and help you need and deserve.

Sending so much love to you wherever you are and whatever you’re dealing with.

le grá,

Evei

Transcript

I love diving. I'm a snorkel member of a

sub-aqua club, but I've been going to all the dive lectures and we have a

secondary breathing device for air supply when we're underwater with our buddy.

And it used to be that if they were in trouble running out of air, you would

give them what's called the octopus.

Whereas now you simply raise your hands and

allow them to TAKE that help that is available rather than risk getting in

their way or giving in a way that isn't helpful. So I think when it comes to

mental health awareness, that's really important as well. You know what's right

for you.

It's much more helpful for you to think about,

in an ideal world, what support would be most beneficial for you rather than

anyone, however well-meaning, deciding that you need X, Y and Z. So collective

care is really important.

…

Welcome to this special Mental Health

Awareness Week edition of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast. And very unusually

for me, I have a script. I thought I'd do a bit of time travel and share some

love and compassion with my Inner Children and Younger Mes as I reflect on my

own mental health journey from wishing like from 49 now as a trauma therapist,

as a supervisor, as a coach, using EFT, NLP, all the tools I have in my

toolkit, all the self-care I write about and share with groups and that I adore

and that I still see as essential for me.

It's been really interesting reflecting on my

journey with various aspects of mental health. And I thought by giving some

examples from my own life, it might hopefully help you find some love and

compassion for yourself. And maybe some hope - I'm now the happiest I've ever

been.

I have the tools that help me to navigate

life's challenges. And I'm going to send some of that back to Younger Mes, but

I also hope it will encourage you to get the support that you deserve and can

benefit from. So I won't share everything.

And again, I'm sharing that because part of

trauma recovery and working with befriending ADHD brains is recognising that

sometimes we can share more than we then feel good about. And I remember in my

early 20s going through a stage where I felt like a raw nerve and I felt

constantly like I'd shared too much. I was living in a new to me city in

Cardiff, and it was long before social media. Even the internet wasn't even

really in my day to day.

So I'm just sharing that I'm kind of being

careful with myself, I am going to share a lot. And there are some content

warnings around abuse and suicide. So do look after yourself and maybe listen

to this with extra gentleness.

It will be longer than most of the episodes.

But I'm just wanting to encourage you to get the help you need and deserve if

you need and deserve it. I mean, obviously you deserve it, but if you need it,

if you're feeling in any way, shape or like you could use extra support, you

deserve that extra support.

So make it happen in whatever way is

appropriate for you. I want to share hope. I used to feel broken beyond repair

for as long as I could remember.

I didn't know then about Complex PTSD (Complex

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and developmental trauma. I didn't know about

neurodivergence and ADHD. I just, from my earliest memories, felt like there

was something very wrong with me and that things that were easy for others were

a struggle.

We know from Brené Brown and other research

around vulnerability and shame and healing, it's really important to choose who

we share with. So in your case, it might be a trained therapist or coach or a

loved one who you really trust, but really honouring, like work with your

nervous system, move towards what feels good and away from what doesn't.

Retrain your nervous system if you were raised in a way or conditioned in a way

as an adult that has taken you away from that inherent inner knowing, because you

deserve to feel good and you deserve to heal.

And we are wired to heal in community. We

co-regulate. It helps us recover from trauma.

It helps us recover from tiny things as well

as big things. But it really is about having those right energies around you,

people who are loving and welcoming and supportive and safe, not who are going

to use your vulnerabilities against you. So collective care is another element

that is really important.

The better we are at taking care of ourselves,

the more we can, from a wholehearted place, support others. It's the cliche

around putting your own life mask on. Life mask? Oxygen mask, life jacket,

whatever, on first rather than helping.

I love diving. I'm a snorkel member of a

sub-aqua club, but I've been going to all the dive lectures and we have a

secondary breathing device for air supply when we're underwater with our buddy.

And it used to be that if they were in trouble running out of air, you would

give them what's called the octopus.

Whereas now you simply raise your hands and

allow them to TAKE that help that is available rather than risk getting in

their way or giving in a way that isn't helpful. So I think when it comes to

mental health awareness, that's really important as well. You know what's right

for you.

It's much more helpful for you to think about,

in an ideal world, what support would be most beneficial for you rather than

anyone, however well-meaning, deciding that you need X, Y and Z. So collective

care is really important.

It's wonderful to keep an eye out for our

loved ones and people who are struggling, communities on the other side of the

world who need support and help. And we are all connected, it goes without

saying, but you can only really control yourself.

Honouring that and recognising that will make

you better at the collective care element because you'll be helping others then

from that more grounded, resourceful place where you're able to hear what they

actually need and want rather than potentially making things awkward, if not

worse.

I am wanting to start at the beginning and I'm

also recognising that memory, especially when it comes to complex trauma and

ADHD, all memories are unreliable. There are so many different versions.

One thing I'd like to say up front is some of

this might sound quite miserable. I have reconnected with childhood friends

through social media and I've seen old photos of myself and some of them, yeah,

I do look like there was something very wrong and in others I look filled with

joy. So part of my, in my late 40s, healing journey has been recognising that,

yeah, while there was a lot of bad, there was also good and it's really nice to

be integrating all of that now.

In terms of re-traumatising yourself, it's

really about knowing, like, even when it comes to choosing a therapist, if you

decide to go down that path, my earlier experiences with therapy, when I was,

probably the first time was when I was at university and they had it free

through the Students' Union and I just felt like I was failing my therapist,

that I was doing it all wrong.

Then I had some counselling through an Employee

Assistance Programme in my last office job. And it was revolutionary for me,

but again, I had that real sense of not doing it right and feeling afraid that

I was getting it wrong. That I had to somehow, like, compulsively confess

rather than recognising here was a person who was being paid to actually help

me heal in the best way for me.

Like, this is just so radical and I think the

more I've gone down the ADHD rabbit hole the past few years and getting that

diagnosis myself last year, recognising how Neurodivergence Affirming Therapy

is so important because of that RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Disorder).

I just again want to flag that now because if

you have tried counselling or you've tried therapy and it has made you feel

worse, know that you're not alone. That unfortunately is quite common, but

fortunately there are many, many styles and many, many different people who can

help you.

Experiment, explore and find someone who you

feel safe to bring your whole self to. So I hope that as you listen or watch

this, listen to or watch this, that you will recognise that you are worthy,

you're not too much, you are enough and you are completely lovable, that you

deserve care, you deserve to heal and you deserve support and guidance.

Some of what I might suggest Younger Me could

have done with in terms of support that's coming to me now, with the benefits

of hindsight and decades of working in this field, might appeal to you and it

might prompt other ideas for you where you think, ‘Oh no that doesn't appeal,

but yeah I could really use this and that would help me.’

If you're in Ireland or the UK and you want

to, if my approach appeals, you can fill out the short contact form at

selfcarecoaching.net/contact and we can book a free telephone consultation, no

obligation. I am pretty much at capacity the whole time which is brilliant, but

also I do have some availability, so depending on the kind of time of week that

would be suiting you and also what you'd be wanting support with, I will work

with you if I can because I adore this work and also the more I am feeling better

myself, the more my capacity is expanding. But wherever you are in the UK or in

Ireland, in Ireland check out iacp.ie for the directory of accredited

professionals and counsellors and psychotherapists and in the UK and check out

bacp.co.uk and look for accredited therapists or counsellors. And UKCP are

another organisation for psychotherapy but make sure that you're working with

someone you feel good with, make sure you feel able to talk to them, that you

feel safe with them, that you feel welcome with them, that you feel cherished

might feel like too strong a word, but we're working towards ventral vagal

wellness the whole time, we're working with our nervous systems because we're

mammals and it's really important.

I am going to start with the pre-verbal and I

am going to just apologise to my mammy for being such hard work from before I

was born, so she had a terrible pregnancy with me, lost an enormous amount of

weight, nearly died and then a traumatic birth. I was a forceps baby because I

was breech so it was very traumatic for her and it also had an impact on me and

I was ill a lot as a baby, as a small child, in hospital a lot. I think I'm in

a medical textbook for having a classic case of whooping cough that came with

the spots, so that didn't happen very often so there's a baby picture of me in

some medical textbook apparently.

Being the daughter of immigrants as well, my

mother of Indian origin but born and raised in Kenya, so she was a double

immigrant, my dad from Ireland to London. Looking back, I really wish that they

had lived in a friendlier, more welcoming climate and I know things are bad now

and I know things were bad then and I think it's absurd when we're all human,

we're all connected, none of us where we're born or who to.

But it's something I recognise looking back

would have had an impact on the way they raised me and them not feeling 100%

safe and welcome and cherished in their new home country and them wanting me to

be safe. Potentially some of the criticism was trying to keep me safe in a way

they wish but of course with anything like that and I just wish now, I mean I

wish that racism had never been invented by white people to other people in

order to oppress and plunder and colonise and all the rest of it, that's a

whole other story and yet it is a part of all of our history and we are all

dealing with the need for reparations, we are dealing with the need to make

things right and to heal and we need to address those very long ago traumas as

well as more recent.

I'm mentioning it here just for now, all I do

is I send Metta (Loving Kindness) to groups, I send Metta to myself, I send Metta

to my loved ones, to obviously my parents, sending that loving kindness, may

they be happy and healthy, peaceful and at ease, may they be able to take care

of themselves joyfully, may they possess the courage, wisdom, patience and

determination to manage life's challenges and I know we talked about

Ho'oponopono a few weeks ago:

I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank

you.

That kind of energy clearing, that reminder

that we're all connected and the more we clear our own energy, the more we're

helping at least not make things worse by acting out in rage or upset or hurt

or whatever that might be, so moving on to my earliest memory where I was

around three years old.

I don't have many memories from childhood but

I do remember being burgled coming back from the park and apparently they

didn't take the soap I noticed and my parents were like, they were clearly

people who had even less than we did and we were in Tottenham in London and we

moved after being burgled several times to Essex but I imagine that would have

had an impact on how safe my parents felt as well as me recognising through

money mindset work I've done in like the past decade or so that I grew up with this

sense of it not being safe for me to earn enough or have enough until everyone

on the entire planet had enough because otherwise they might steal it rather

than.

I'm sharing probably possibly too much but

also I just want to share what might be helpful because so much of what we

internalise before we make it conscious and before we take that awareness and

that curiosity and most importantly that compassion to all these beliefs that

are driving us but often without us knowing.

Maybe some of what I'm saying will resonate

for you, maybe some of it will help you and maybe it might make you laugh or

maybe, I don't know, I'm just sharing in case it's helpful. So we moved, that

was my first move when I was three nearly four and my second earliest memory

was, this might sound really inconsequential but it came up when I was

preparing for this, meeting a neighbour who became a friend.

She was a year older than me and she was

confident and she came striding down the front drive when the movers were there.

Now I don't know if it was movers or if we were doing it ourselves but I

remember her asking me my name and me asking her her name and I'd never heard

her name before and I thought oh and she said, ‘That's a weird name’ about Eve

and I remember at like three not yet four censoring myself already having that

sense of it not being okay to express myself and to say I've not heard your

name before either or you've got a weird name too or whatever it might have

been. I just remember that kind of it was okay for her to be a little bit rude

about my name but it wasn't okay for me to do anything that might cause her

upset. So now just sending love to that Little Me.

I think she had a beautiful name I'm not going

to share it now just in case it causes any hurt or upset now but it might be

something again that you resonate with. I changed schools a lot I went to two

different primary schools, three if you count the elementary school in America (we

lived there for a year) and then two different high schools in the UK when we

came back.

There was a lot of changing there was a lot of

kind of reconnecting with old friends, making new friends and feeling like I

didn't have any friends. There were times, I'm smiling now but I remember not

knowing day to day going into school whether my friends would be talking to me

or if they'd have told the whole class to not talk to me which was really

painful because I again didn't know what I'd done wrong.

And looking back I hadn't done anything wrong.

Again with the neurodivergence awareness and with ADHD, it's that understanding

why I was so vulnerable to that and part of why as well as the trauma...

Happy Brigid for 1st February! As well as working with the energies of this special time of year, there’s the potential for therapeutic time travel and giving yourself the gift of silence.

https://youtu.be/8ohlnm6jt6k

As we move into February by honouring the Irish Goddess Brigid and the part of YOU (whatever your gender) that is Divine, as well as working with the seasonal energies of the Celtic Wheel of the Year (renewal! Strength! Energy! Creativity!), we’re also exploring (with embodied journalling prompts) past, present and future. And the power of silence! 

And to thank Half Moon (free subscribers) and Full and Super Moon (paid subscribers) members of the Sole to Soul Circle there’ll be some bonus content winging its way to your inboxes tomorrow (a Past/Present/Future Brigid Oracle Card reading) and a deeper dive on Thursday (preparing for Brigid with a simple self healing ritual – complementary, ALWAYS SEEK APPROPRITATE MEDICAL ADVICE – for your whole household).

Let me know how you get on.

Le grá (with love),

Evei

it's really about hope and light and warmth and bringing it back and cultivating it within yourself, recognising that renewal of your own strength and energy and so it's a lovely time of year. I mean, the whole year is a lovely...

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. Sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 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 this new episode and this new month with the Feel Better Every Day podcast. We're moving into February. I know that it's technically still January, but we're honouring Brigid, the goddess and the saint for Brigid on 1/2/25.

It became a national holiday here in Ireland just last year or the year before, and it just feels appropriate as we move into February content as well as connecting with the goddess or god within you and treating yourself with all the love and care and compassion that you and everyone else deserves.

It's an opportunity to welcome yourself back to your body and to really think in all sorts of ways how would you be treating yourself if you genuinely loved and cared about yourself and always remembered that you are part of the divine.

Brigid, also known as Imbolc, is part of the Celtic Wheel of the Year where we celebrate spring and it's early February, so it always surprises me that we're celebrating spring so early, but it's like those first little shoots of growth, the beginning of the return of the sun and it's really about hope and light and warmth and bringing it back and cultivating it within yourself, recognising that renewal of your own strength and energy and creativity.

It's a lovely time of year, I mean the whole year is a lovely time of year. I'm recording this in January and we've actually got snow outside and it's beginning to melt and seeing those green leaves below it is that sense of Brigid coming in less than a month. But I want you to think for yourself, how would your self care, how would your days be different, what would you be doing differently, how would your environment be different if you knew with every fibre of your being that you are part of the Divine and that you DESERVE exquisite self care and that it doesn't have to be tedious and time-consuming and exhausting, but it can be light and it can be what brings you energy?

You might want to grab a journal, you might want to just sit with it or you might want to do some embodied journaling after listening to this. Embodied journaling, for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with my approach, is recording yourself. You might record yourself on your phone or like video, audio, whatever, but you can pick up a lot of information as you watch back in terms of what lights you up and what do you notice yourself feeling heavier or lighter around.

Following your natural energy, your natural rhythms, your natural cycles is so much more empowering than enduring and forcing yourself and being miserable with it all.

So notice when you think about your own energy being renewed, what pops up for you? Are you like, ‘I don't need it, I'm fine, I'm very energised and all is good’? Or are you feeling like you've been running on empty for ages and does that feel like a fairy tale that it could somehow be renewed?

Ask yourself what might help you feel more renewed, feel more refreshed, feel more energised and let yourself imagine your ideal in terms of if you have all the resources, all the times, all the energy available to you and also what might be actually doable, what might be realistic, what might be one thing or what might be even two things, but create a bit of a spectrum around it, like making it more sustainable for yourself and get curious about it.

Some things that you try, you actually won't need to do them for as long as you might think you need in order to get quite remarkable benefits. And something that's really helping me so far this year, for the past many, many years, I've done an almost annual 24-hour DIY silent retreat where I have no phone, no music, no telly, no washing machine even.

I let myself use the oven and boil the kettle and things like that, but I do my best to be as quiet as silent. I do my best to be telepathic with the cats and I always find it hard going into it around Christmas time, New Year, because we've got more time off and being self-employed, I'm always aware of that.

And I think to myself almost every year, ‘I love that, that was amazing, that was so cleansing, that was so energising, that was so creativity boosting. I'm going to do it every bank holiday or every month!’

And I've never done it at any time other than late January, sorry, late December or very beginning, no, always late December actually. And this year I thought, ‘You know what, Evei? You never do it throughout the year. So rather than tell yourself this all or nothing, like do 24 hours in one go, you got benefits after even an hour just knowing that you had this long stretch of time, you've got in the habit of having your phone on like last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

‘How would it be once a week to give yourself the gift of a 12-hour silent retreat where from before you go to bed until you wake up and then a few hours after that, you have complete silence, no phone, you do your yoga, you do all these things.’

And I can't tell you what a gift it's been.

I'm going to be doing a longer episode around that for December but we're early days but I'm doing it every week so far and it's amazing. So think to yourself, what would be your ideal in terms of what might energise you and what is doable, what is realistic, what is something that you will actually want to gift yourself.

Thinking also in terms of strength, noticing have you been ill, are you recovering from injury, are you simply dealing, like everyone, with a tough few years? It feels like a lot of people, most people are being tested at this time with a lot of resilience building life experiences and challenges both global and personal and like more local.  

So think to yourself about imagining yourself at your most vital, your most strong, your most resilient but not you know resilient like bracing yourself for yet more bad, more challenge, more negativity but imagining that strength like the new shoots of spring, having the courage to spring forth through the snow or through the cold, the baby lambs being born. Now I live in farm country, vegan in farm country and seeing like the baby lambs and there's such vulnerability and tenderness and also such strength and hardiness and connecting with that within yourself.

Noticing also when you feel most creative, when you feel most renewed, when you feel most in your element and safe and explorative and warm and hopeful, it might be that you are working on a new book or a new whatever endeavour it might be but that sense of hope, that sense of energy, that sense of knowing that it's a marathon not a sprint and it will take rewrites or the equivalent in whatever medium you're working in.

Even using your life as a creative project because you being alive is recognising you get to design your life in whatever way you choose and allowing yourself to connect with that creativity and to connect with your inner strength, your energy and move towards the environment that feels good for you.

So making tweaks in your home, changing behaviours that get in the way of you feeling creative and fulfilled and building more in, again recognising there's a spectrum with all of this.

Getting curious about it, just really noticing if you believed that you were part of the Divine, you know you are part of nature, you can't help but look around and yes there's a lot of sorrow and there is also a lot of magic, a lot of miracles. If you let yourself remember that we are part of nature and that all that is magical about the new growth, about the spring, about the renewal, about the strengthening, it's all possible and happening within yourself as well.

How can you make space for that? How can you honour what's naturally happening within you and cultivate it and attend to it with tenderness and with care and with kindness and with the awe that you and the world deserve?

Maybe thinking also to, we're going to go in the Half Moon bonus content into a Brigid Oracle Card reading for free subscribers, so if you want to join you can do that at evemc.substack.com but thinking of your own past, present and future.

Thinking about how a time or several times or your life might have been different if you had never forgotten what you were born knowing, that you are Divine, that you are part of the divine and that you deserve love, being cherished, being safe.

You may have ADHD, you may have survived trauma, you may have had many many challenges but you are still so so worthy and so like what would it be like to send some love, to send some acceptance, to send some tools back to Baby You? Child You? Teenage You? different times of your life with that real renewed push of energy and strength and creativity around your own recovery, your own healing, your own personal growth.

I love hearing from you so do comment, message, get in touch through the website thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com or you can listen at the feelbettereverydaypodcast.ie

And I look forward to sharing more with Half Moon and the deeper dive for the Full Moon and Super Moon members of the Sole to Soul Circle but I really encourage you whether you do that or not to connect, oh for the Full Moon members we're going to be going through some simple rituals you can do yourself to honour the time of year, the seasonal energies of Brigid in a few days.

So pay attention to your energy, notice what feels good, notice what doesn't, give yourself permission to go with your strengths, to go with your creativity and let me know how you get on.

I love hearing from you, I really appreciate you listening.

This episode like all episodes so far has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and you can listen via your favourite platform so if you subscribe there you're less likely to miss future episodes and also watching on YouTube if you prefer to do that.

I love hearing from you so do rate, review, comment, like, subscribe, whatever feels good for you but most of all whatever the weather's right now, know that spring is coming, know that it's always worth hoping, it's always worth planning for better and taking those steps that you're in control of with so much being out of your control that is likely to bring you the outcomes and the life that you want and deserve to be living.

So thanks again for listening and I will see you next week.

If you are a Half Moon member or Full or Super Moon member of the Sole to Soul Circle, you'll be getting your bonus material recordings tomorrow and the day after, and you can subscribe for free or a small monthly or annual amount at evemc.substack.com

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and all the episodes you've listened to of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I love sharing them with you and I also love to hear from you. So let me know your comments, your questions and please rate, review, share, comment, like, subscribe, whatever you feel like doing.

This episode was produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and next week I'll be sharing some of my personal journey with mental health issues including trauma recovery, ADHD, anxiety, depression, CPTSD and various childhood memories that were good and bad and just looking back. As we talk so often about mental health awareness, I thought I'd share some of my reflections with compassion.

It's a longer than usual episode, but I hope that it will empower you to seek the support that you need and deserve, or for you to be better able to support loved ones.

I’m delighted to welcome Jayne Leonard of Vive Counselling back. We’re talking about self care with ADHD and connecting with that most empowered, deserving part of ourselves in order to be of service.

You might remember Jayne from Episode 28 where she helped me reframe cooking from chore to self care.

Today, we’re diving into another self care idea from my book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-Care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing

Both Jayne and I were diagnosed with ADHD in 2024 and while this conversation may be especially relatable for other late diagnosed ADHD adults, the ideas can benefit anyone.

And Half Moon (free subscribers) and Full and Super Moon members of the Sole to Soul Circle will be receiving bonus content and deeper dives on Wednesday and Thursday.

SUBSCRIBE OR UPGRADE HERE

This year, I’ve deepened my connection to my Inner Queen, which has helped me better understand and embrace how my brain works.

Connecting with my Inner Queen helps standing tall and moving towards what I want in life.

It’s not about being above anyone else but about drawing strength to be of service. Jayne shared her connection with her ‘boss self’, inspired by her four-year-old’s natural comfort and ease in her own power.

We discussed how societal messages, particularly for women and girls, can make empowerment seem like ‘being bossy’.

Jayne highlighted the mindset shift involved in stepping into power. Whether presenting to a group or having a client conversation, she notes how being in her empowered state changes everything.

It’s a reminder that confidence can be part of self and Self care, especially for those of us with ADHD who’ve internalised messages of being ‘too much’.

Jayne and I discussed the importance of respect, both for others and ourselves. Respect isn’t about hierarchy; it’s about recognising the inherent worth in everyone—including yourself. For those of us who felt silenced or different growing up, reclaiming our voice and self-respect is a radical act of empowerment.

le grá (with love),

Evei

diva like, or you're getting that you’re being bossy. Bossy was a word I heard a lot.

You know, but really it's just, I'm actually just making my voice heard. I'm actually just meeting my needs.

And that's not to say you're trampling on anyone else's needs, but you're

absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

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. Sign up to the Sole to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Do you ever feel like you're being too much and you either consciously or maybe unconsciously, like a default, disempower yourself? If so, this episode, where I have the lovely Jayne Leonard joining me again, is about connecting with your Inner Queen or Inner King, and I hope that you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you so much for joining me again, Jayne.

Thank you for having me.

So Jayne has become a friend. We met through the Irish Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy Editorial Committee, and she's brilliant. You might have heard her Episode 28 on cooking as self-care.

And today we thought we would talk about one of the self-care ideas in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better, Self-Care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, around connecting with your Inner King and Queen. And basically, both of us have ADHD. We were both diagnosed in 2024.

And it's been such a steep learning curve for me. Jayne has helped me enormously. And I thought maybe us talking around some of the self-care concepts I'm sharing might help you, whether you have ADHD or not.

So today, we're talking about the idea of that inner sovereignty, and especially with ADHD. I know myself, I'm 49 now. And I've been connecting with my Inner Queen for many years on and off, but especially this year, as the greater understanding I have, the greater awareness I have around how my brain works, is helping me be less dismissive of many, many things I do.

I still laugh at myself very much. But I also empower myself much more. And thinking also in terms of neurodivergence, and social justice, and a sense of fairness, and all these things that have always been really important to me.

Like even when I say Inner Queen, I mean that part of yourself, that sovereign, that part of you, that whatever it is you want in life, you can stand tall, you can move towards it. Politically, I'm more of a democratic socialist, like I don't think anyone is above anyone else.

But when I connect with that kind of queen energy, and just thinking, like last night, I can stay up late and get my bookkeeping sorted, even though I'm scared of numbers, I can do these things.

So I wanted to just have a bit of a chat with Jayne around this idea, and how we both resource ourselves and empower ourselves with ADHD and in general.

So yeah, so when you when you say Inner King or Queen, at first, I said, Oh my gosh, what is this? I don't understand. But when I thought about it, I absolutely know what you mean.

I just call it a different name. I think I kind of see it as almost me being my full adult empowered self versus maybe my, my child self a little bit, a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more hesitant. And lately, I think I've been calling it kind of more like I'm stepping into my boss self, because my four year old, she puts her two hands on her hips and says, I'm the boss.

And it just kind of pictures when I look at her, that's kind of how I feel when I step into kind of my full power. I love that so much, empowered by a four year old, because it is that connection that she still has, and hopefully will keep that so many of us lose as we get socialised.

So we, we get disconnected from that inner power. So, yeah, I think we start to see it as almost a bad thing at times. And I'm not sure if that's more in women and girls than it is. Yeah.

And but it's definitely almost a sense of, you know, oh, you're getting a bit like diva-like, or you're getting a bit bossy.

Bossy was a word I heard a lot. You know, but really, it's just, I'm actually just making my voice heard. I'm actually just meeting my needs. And that's not to say you're trampling on anyone else's needs, but you're...

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's what I really liked when I first came across the idea of an Inner Queen, it being the leadership to serve, rather than to corrupt, or to like, kind of take, but very much drawing on your strength and resources to be of service from a wholehearted way.

And that has to start with self care and self love. So knowing that you're worthy. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, a queen expects to be cared for. So we do, we have to care for ourselves. And yeah, that's, but even stepping into that power is in itself an act of self care.

Absolutely. Like, when you know you need to speak up for yourself, or do, like, even thinking, like, I was thinking today, I've had for the past however many months since I read James Clear's Atomic Habits, when I say when I read, since I read most of James Clear's Atomic Habits, and I wrote in chalk on some of my internal doors, and I wrote on the side of my medicine cabinet, WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU REALLY LOVED YOURSELF? DO THAT. Because it just felt, and that to me is connecting with that Inner Queen energy, like kind of whether it comes to lighting candles before a bath, or eating something nourishing, as opposed to something fast, or like a gazillion choices we make.

His point is, it's those daily habits, those tiny habits, each habit, each action, each behaviour, we're voting for the kind of person we want to become. So again, connecting with that kind of queen or king energy, helping you recognise the power, helping us all recognise the power we have with the tiniest of decisions. Yeah, and I think actually when you say recognising, that's part of it for me, is that I can still be doing the same thing. So I might be giving a presentation, or just having a conversation with the client, but it's that state of mind that determines where I am.

So sometimes I can be doing it and second guessing myself, because I'm in my child state, or whatever. But then when I actually step into my full power, I realise, oh no, I actually am doing a good enough job, you know. But I think it's that mindset of, well you shouldn't be too confident, or you shouldn't be too sure of yourself.

And I suppose that was a lot of messages you get, especially when you've ADHD, you get that a lot, those messages a lot as a kid.

Yeah, and I'm thinking when I was growing up, like especially by my late teens, early 20s, where I kind of became more aware of stuff. My role models were people like Alice Walker and Gloria Steinem, and much older women who seemed very much in their power, but in a real amazing activist kind of way.

Whereas now I have much younger role models like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, and like Greta [Thunberg], I've forgotten her last name. But so many young girls and women, and boys and men, and people of all genders, but being their whole selves. But I think especially with younger women and girls, because I remember being so socialised, to not be bossy.

I was an older sister

I am an older sister as well, and I was a terrible older sister, my poor little brother. But the idea, it's not valued those same qualities in the same way. And yet the older I get, the more I recognise, it's like there was something about respect the other day on a meme, and how if you see respect as something that people owe you, as you an authority, as opposed to just that everyone deserves respect, then you expect someone else to respect you as an authority before you'll even respect them as a human, as a person.

And it's like, oh my god, that explains so much about what's going on. Everyone deserves respect. Everyone has that power.

I think with the internet, there's a lot of bad stuff, but also more and more people finding their voices. And I'm ADHD ConvoCoaster stuff. Have you heard that meme? No.

Oh yeah, that's just standard ADHD conversation.

No, that's how they go. Yeah.

So, yeah, just the respect stuff, I suppose. That is, it's even back to like the self-respect, just give yourself the respect to have your voice heard. And, you know, because I think a lot of the time we do give, well, I don't know, from my point of view, I would give other people the respect and I would say, oh, they deserve this.

But, you know, it is working extra hard to do that for myself because of maybe a lot of feeling weird or different or strange when I was younger and silencing myself. Yeah. I think you're saying that I went to a VDay conference (VDay.org) in NYC when I first went freelance 2004. So my first ever press conference was with, I got to meet Gloria Steinem but she had to leave but Eve Ensler, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Lesser… It was amazing. We had activists from around the world, but they had a couple of like media titans who I didn't know because I'm not American, but Pat Mitchell and Pat Black.

But in their session, they were talking about how it's really important in every meeting for especially if you're a woman to speak up no matter what it is you say, just like you say, like getting your voice heard. And I think from an early age, I was always good at speaking up, but like my mother would call me the fool, like in the Tarot deck, like that kind of, and I would do it. And I remember when I was an undergrad, it was kind of like I'd say something stupid in a tutorial to empower and embolden my peers to say something sensible.

And it's probably taken until my late 40s to recognise it's all very well speaking up and being silly, but actually speaking up from a more empowered way as well. There's almost like a rescuing there. No, but I love what we've been talking about so far.

And there's going to be a bit of bonus content for free subscribers to the Sole to Soul Circle and then a deeper dive for Full Moon and Super Moon members. So if you're not already a member, you can subscribe for free or as a paid member at evemc.substack.com. But for now, I'd just like to say thank you so much, Jayne. That's been amazing.

Thank you, Eve.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. If you'd like to subscribe and haven't already, you can do so via your favourite podcasting app. I also appreciate all comments and questions. If you've got any suggestions for future episodes, anything you'd like answered, let me know. And this episode, like all episodes, has been produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. Next week we're working with the Irish Goddess Brigid. It's become a bank holiday here in Ireland honouring the Goddess Brigid and St Brigid. So working with the Divine Feminine and some little rituals to support you in working with the seasonal energies.

I hope you have a gorgeous week.

How organising your home and business can revolutionise your life: a conversation with Lisa Woodruff

You can become a Half Moon (free) or Full or Super Moon (paid) member of the Sole to Soul Circle at evemc.substack.com for bonus content and deeper dives into this and other episodes.

If you’ve ever found yourself drowning in clutter, overwhelmed by to-do lists, or unsure how to manage everything on your plate, you’re not alone. Many of us struggle to balance daily tasks, especially when managing ADHD, multiple roles and family demands.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lisa Woodruff, founder of Organize 365, about her journey organising not just her home, but her mind.

Here’s what we discussed about how creating systems can lead to better self-care, greater clarity, and more energy to do the things that matter most.

Discovering the Sunday Basket: a game changer for ADHD and organisation

Lisa and I connected after I came across her Sunday Basket concept on the ADHD for Smart-Ass Women podcast with Tracy Otsuka. As a late diagnosed (48) woman with ADHD, I was intrigued by Lisa’s idea of chunking tasks into manageable pockets and folders. I’d been using index cards and calendars to organise my thoughts, but this method of batching tasks made so much sense.

After hearing Lisa talk about how this system helps to externalise our brains and reduce the clutter in our heads, I realised I was onto something bigger. Lisa’s approach—breaking down tasks into chunks using folders and pockets—has been life-changing for me. I created my own DIY version of the Sunday Basket (I call it my Brain in a Box) since I’m based on the west coast of Ireland, where shipping from North America can be tricky. But even without the physical product, the concept alone has revolutionised how I manage my time, energy, and responsibilities.

Lisa’s story: supporting ADHD and externalising thoughts

As it turns out, Lisa has ADHD too. She recently received an ADHD diagnosis and shared her experience of being overwhelmed by ideas and racing thoughts—something many of us can relate to.

She explained how the Sunday Basket helps her externalise her thoughts so she doesn’t feel as though she’s constantly spinning in circles.

She spoke about the importance of creating systems that allow for clarity—whether through tangible baskets or mental organisation systems. According to Lisa, by having a structure to manage these thoughts, she has been able to avoid the anxiety and sleepless nights that once plagued her. This concept of externalising your brain, whether by writing things down or sorting through organised folders, was a breakthrough for me, and I’m sure it will be for many others.

The role of organisation in Self care and self-actualisation

For Lisa, organisation is much more than just managing your space—it’s a form of self-care. She believes that when we have systems in place to help us manage the overwhelm, we free up energy for other areas of our lives. It’s not just about keeping things tidy; it’s about creating a life that reflects who we truly are and what we want to accomplish.

In our conversation, she emphasised that organisation is also tied to self-actualisation—the idea that we are capable of achieving our highest potential. Lisa spoke about how the systems she’s created allow her to focus on one idea at a time, something she believes is key to achieving success. This idea resonated deeply with me, especially as someone who naturally juggles (and often drops) multiple ideas at once.

Connecting with Self

As we delved deeper into the conversation, Lisa shared a more spiritual perspective on organisation. She spoke about how our energy is intertwined with everything we do—whether it’s our work, relationships, or personal goals. Drawing from her own Christian beliefs and her ongoing pursuit of a PhD, she emphasised the importance of following your energy. For her, that means listening to her intuition and knowing when to push forward and when to take a step back.

She also explained how we as women often give our energy to others—whether it’s our families, communities, or work—and how essential it is to balance that with self-care. When we focus on what truly excites and energises us, we not only take care of ourselves but also contribute more meaningfully to the world around us. It’s about finding a balance that allows us to show up fully for ourselves and for others.

The importance of taking action

During our conversation, Lisa shared an insight that stuck with me: ideas alone are not enough. Action is what brings those ideas to life. She shared how many people get stuck waiting for permission or perfect conditions before taking action. But Lisa urges us to break free from that mindset. She explained how she often reminds her team, ‘We can do whatever we want,’ emphasising that we don’t need permission from anyone to take action on our dreams. This idea of stepping into action, no matter how small the step, is a powerful reminder to stop waiting for the perfect moment and start creating now.

Whether it’s organising your home, pursuing a new career, or even starting a personal project, taking action is the key to bringing your ideas to fruition.

Advice for Younger You

When I asked Lisa what advice she would give to her younger self, she shared a poignant reflection. Lisa recalled how, as a child, she was constantly questioning authority and thinking outside the box. However, if she could go back in time, she would tell herself that she didn’t need as much permission as she thought. We often hold ourselves back, waiting for others to approve or validate our ideas, when in reality, we have the power to create and act on our own terms.

Where to find Lisa Woodruff

If you’re looking for more guidance on organising your home, business, life and mind, Lisa’s resources are wonderful. You can find her on the Organize 365 podcast, or visit her website at organize365.com.

She also shares insights on Instagram under the handle @organize365.

In conclusion, I feel more empowered taking control of my organising systems, not just for a cleaner home, but for a clearer mind and a more focused life. Lisa’s approach to organisation, self-care, and energy has reinforced my commitment of the last couple of years in terms of creating and refining systems and structures that support me in achieving greater peace and success. Whether you're managing ADHD, juggling multiple responsibilities, or simply seeking more clarity in your life, I hope you find this as helpful as I have.

le grá (with love),

Evei

As we embark on a New Year, it's the perfect time to reflect and set intentions for the months ahead. In this episode of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, we explore some powerful techniques to help you use your imagination for GOOD as you work towards co-creating your ideal future.

Take a moment to imagine yourself a year from now, at the beginning of 2026. Picture yourself happy, healthy, and thriving. What does this version of you look like? How do you feel? What have you accomplished? This simple imagery exercise can be a powerful tool in shaping your goals for the year ahead.

Choosing a ‘word of the year’ or using ‘evocative words’ as they’re known in psychosynthesis, can be incredibly impactful. These words act as anchors, helping to focus your mind on your intentions. In yoga nidra, we use 'sankalpas' - positive intentions or resolves that come from the heart - which serve a similar purpose.

Our brains are wired to notice what we focus on thanks to the Reticular Activation System. By consciously choosing what to pay attention to - through intentions, words or imagery - we can effectively 'programme' our minds to seek out opportunities that aligned with our goals and what we WANT v what we don’t want.

It's crucial to give yourself permission to want what you want. Imagining 2025 as your best year ever isn't selfish: It's a step towards creating positive change in your own life and, by extension, the world around you. Remember, your personal wellbeing contributes to global wellbeing.

As we delve deeper into these practices, remember that self-care isn't selfish. By focusing on your personal growth and happiness, you're better equipped to contribute positively to the world around you.

Wishing you a fantabulous 2025 filled with intention, growth (of the things you want more of) and positive change!

le grá,

Evei

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Welcome back to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I'm Eve and I'm sharing today, building on the New Year's Eve-ish episode around your word of the year and going into it a bit more.

If you have the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, you can read more about this self care idea on the 4th of January: It's all about figuring out what you want and how to get it in a really holistic way, bringing in all the different tools I use in my work.

And we're talking about setting intentions, we're thinking about what you'd like to be feeling a year from now, where you'd like to be beginning of 2026, working backwards, using your imagination to think about how to move closer to what you want. I've been recording a lot of episodes today, so I can't remember if this is in the future or in the past, but I'll read out the pages that might be of most interest.

 So, in the book, the 4th of January is very much about setting intentions. The 17th of June is about evocative words, so we dealt with the Word of the Year and beginning to deal with that in the last episode of 2024 (episode 38: Your Vibe for 2025).

And we talk about sankalpas the whole time in yoga nidra, it's that positive intention or resolve and it's referred to several times in the book (see Index). Just thinking about something as simple as the Relaxation Responses we talked about last week (episode 39) and how you can pick one word for three minutes, it might be a word that you carry with you for a year or a month or a week or a day or a lifetime, I've heard about some people who use the same words from childhood before they even learn how to do the Relaxation Response.

Our intention, our thinking about this time next year can be really powerful, so you might want to give yourself a moment to think about this time next year and just let an image form of you really happy and really well and all going good, and just pause this, make a few notes about it.

You might want to think about ‘evocative words’. Roberto Assagioli, who created psychosynthesis, the kind of counselling I do, was very influenced by Eastern philosophy, and it was the sense that what we focus on grows, so people who talk about the Law of Attraction are talking about this the whole time, like where awareness goes, energy flows.

In terms of the way the brain works, the Reticular Activation System is the part of the brain that will see more of what we focus on (you can read more in my Rapport article). It's our natural way of deleting, distorting and generalising because we would literally go insane if we were having to properly process every single sensory input that comes at us the whole time.

So when we're choosing, for example, an intention or a word or a sankalpa, something to help us move towards what we want to move towards, everything we watch, everything we listen to, everything we surround ourselves with, everything we take the time to visualise, to do imagery work around, to use in the Relaxation Response, to use as our sankalpa in a yoga nidra, it's all amplifying it, it's all harnessing the power of the unconscious mind by making what you want this time next year or using any time frame you choose just so much easier.

So think about what sprang to mind for you.

I'm going to go into more depth with the Half Moon membership of the Sole to Soul Circle, and you can subscribe for free at evemc.substack.com to access this bonus content. And then there'll be another deeper dive video for the Full Moon and Super Moon members of the Sole to Soul Circle and you can again upgrade through evemc.substack.com

And that deeper dive is to help ground what we're talking about further and I love sharing these episodes with you, I really love hearing from you, I appreciate all your shares, likes, comments, questions, emails, rating, review, whatever feels good for you, please do share and let me know if you've got questions.

So happy, Happy New Year still and give yourself permission to want whatever it is that you want. Give yourself permission to imagine 2025 being your best year ever.

There's an enormous amount of suffering in the world, enormous amount of challenges, your suffering does not help anyone else. You're focusing on the kind of world you want to help create, you're focusing on the life you want to create, it's going to help you help others from that more wholehearted way, so the work we're doing around self care is far from selfish.

It can contribute to your personal peace and ultimately to world peace, but give yourself permission to really recognise the power of your intentions and that isn't just for personal goals, that is for global goals as well, so look after yourself and see you again soon.

As we embark on a new year, many of us are seeking ways to improve our wellbeing and reduce stress in our lives. One powerful tool that has stood the test of time is the Relaxation Response, a concept developed by Dr Herbert Benson, a Harvard cardiologist and pioneer in mind-body medicine.

The Relaxation Response is a physical state of deep rest that counteracts the Stress Response that may well feel more familiar in our bodies in these go go go 24/7 times we live in.

The Relaxation Response is a natural antidote to the Fight Flight response, which can be triggered all too often in our busy modern lives. Dr Benson's groundbreaking work, published in his 1975 book The Relaxation Response, remains relevant and potentially life-changing even today.

With up to 90% of doctor's visits attributed to stress-related issues, it's clear that managing stress is crucial for our overall health. Stress can exacerbate chronic conditions, intensify pain, and contribute to a host of physical and mental health problems. By regularly practising the Relaxation Response, we can mitigate some of these effects and promote healing in our bodies.

The beauty of the relaxation response is its simplicity and accessibility. You don't need any special equipment or beliefs to benefit from it. Here's a basic method to get started:

1. Choose a quality you'd like more of in your life (e.g., calm, peace, joy – check out last week’s episode (38) Your Vibe for 2025 to help you choose).

2. Find a comfortable position where you feel supported.

3. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

4. As you breathe in, imagine drawing in the quality you've chosen.

5. As you breathe out, imagine spreading that quality throughout your body.

6. Continue this practice for at least three minutes.

As we start the new year, it's an excellent time to prioritise rest and relaxation in our daily lives. This might mean scheduling regular breaks, practising yoga nidra, or simply giving ourselves permission to do less and be more.

Remember, your to-do list will never be completely finished. Life is inherently messy and busy. By making space for rest and relaxation, we're not falling behind – we're actually setting ourselves up for greater productivity, creativity, and overall wellbeing.

Instead of pushing ourselves to do more this year, why not challenge ourselves to rest more deeply? By consciously activating the Relaxation Response regularly, we can improve our physical health, mental clarity, and emotional balance.

Whether you choose to practise formal meditation, engage in repetitive activities like knitting or running, or simply take a few minutes each day to breathe mindfully, you're giving your body and mind a precious gift.

As we step into 2025, you might make a commitment to yourself to prioritise rest, play, and relaxation. By doing so, we're not just improving our own lives – we're contributing to a calmer, more peaceful world.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year! One that will include deep rest, joyful play, and the transformative power of the Relaxation Response.

Half Moon (free subscribers) and Full Moon and Super Moon (paid subscribers) members of the Sole to Soul Circle will be getting your bonus content tomorrow. JOIN US

le grá,

Evei

TRANSCRIPT

It's not all bad. I mean, stress can be a wonderful thing. We live in exciting times

as well as challenging times, but we want to allow the nervous system to have

that flexibility and it helps us to have that overall flexibility by really

doing the things that calm the nervous system. And this is one gorgeous, gorgeous

way.

Hi,

I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to the Feel Better Every Day

Podcast, Season 2. 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 as a free or paid subscriber to the Sole

to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 a

month.

And you can also find more ideas in the book 365 Ways to Feel Better Self-care

Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Happy New Year. Welcome to Episode 38 (oops - 39) of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I can't believe it's 39 and we're in Season 2 now and we're going weekly.

I hope that you're enjoying them and that also if you're a free subscriber or

paid subscriber, that's Half Moon member or Full Moon or Super Moon member of

the Sole to Soul Circle, that you're enjoying the deeper dive videos as well.

But there's something for everyone, and you don't need any of this to just listen

to your own body, listen to your own soul, listen to your own heart, listen to

your own thoughts, and just ask yourself in any given moment, ‘What do I need

right now? How might I rest, reboot, relax?’

And that being said, I hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, welcoming 2025, wishing you a wondrous New Year and also a ‘new year, new you’ in a very different way. So we're working still with 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and for today's episode

we're going into more depth around the Relaxation Response.

Developed by Dr Herbert Benson, and he, well

it was discovered by Dr Herbert Benson, he was a Harvard cardiologist working

out of the same lab as Dr Walter B Cannon who, decades earlier, had discovered

the Stress Response and fight, flight (later freeze was acknowledged and tend

and befriend and there are different responses to stress).

Dr Herbert Benson wrote a gorgeous book

published in 1975, the year I was born, and it's still radical now, I'm nearly

50. And this is the kind of thing more people need to know about because up to

90% of doctors visits are due to stress.

It's not that it's all in your head but it is

all in our bodies. So much stress then exacerbates whatever chronic conditions

you might have, whatever like pain spots or like you might get migraines, you

might get backache, whatever it might be, it's going to be made worse when

you're tight, when you're tense, when you're under stress.

Dr Herbert Benson was a cardiologist at

Harvard and he went on to create so much around, he was a mind-body medicine

pioneer, lecturing around the world into his 90s and he was studying meditating

monks and also meditating lay people in America.

They were so excited about what they were

experiencing when they were meditating, they wanted him to test what was

happening with their hearts. Because he was at Harvard in the 60s and 70s he

was kind of like, ‘Go away, stop it, you're embarrassing me,’ so he actually

snuck them in at night.

It's such a gorgeous book, The Relaxation

Response, if you want to read it. And he realised that yes, they were really

onto something. I'm going to demonstrate something a bit unusual about one way

to access this with even greater ease for the Full Moon and Super Moon members

of the Sole to Soul Circle, so if you would like to subscribe or upgrade, you

can do that at selfcarecoaching.net or at evemc.substack.com and you can do

this anytime, anywhere.

The more comfortable you are, the more held

you feel by the planet, by the furniture, by whatever, the more deeply you'll

be able to relax.

 He discovered that it took three minutes or

longer to go into what he terms the Relaxation Response, but in this state of

rest, which is a wonderful way to start 2025, and to build deeper rest into

every day for yourself.

We do too much, we try to do too much, we then

beat ourselves up for not getting it all done and it will never all be done.

I'm so looking forward to sharing the Getting Organised episode with you in a

few weeks and my interviews with Lisa Woodruff, who just is an inspiration and

much of that is her reminder that your to-do list will never be done.

While we're alive, life is messy, so it's

really important to schedule in rest, to schedule in space. I changed my life I

think a year and a half ago when I started doing a daily yoga nidra and then

nearly a year ago I started making time on the advice of my acupuncturist to do

a longer yoga nidra every lunchtime. And I still find it challenging. I think I

have to do do-do-do-do-do but I am in that practice. It's an extension of my

yoga practice and sometimes it's more challenging than getting onto the mat and

doing a physical practice because doing is more comfortable than receiving and

just allowing.

So yoga nidra, there's more in the book on

that, there are free resources on the website, there are loads of bespoke

unique resources for the Full Moon and Super Moon members but you can access

loads of free ones at selfcarecoaching.net or through my YouTube channel.

But the point is even that is a meditation in

terms of you doing your best to stay alert and aware and harnessing that state

between sleep and wakefulness. We're going through a lot of different types of

brainwave activity, it's all wonderful but by allowing yourself freestyle rest

you're going to have more fun, you're going to have more time to play, to do

the things you want to do. And the Relaxation Response: it’s a practice, it’s a

meditation and it can be done in as little as three minutes.

So choose a quality you'd like more of in your

life. And while Herbert Benson recognised through his research that people

around the world throughout human history have been naturally entering what he

terms the Relaxation Response as an antidote to the stress response throughout

human history, it was just something when we felt at ease enough, the heart

rate, everything would soften, everything would relax and deep deep healing can

occur under these conditions.

He found a secular way to get the benefits so

you don't have to be praying or meditating, you don't have to believe in

anything, you can simply identify a quality you would like more of and breathe

that quality in and breathe that quality out.

By doing it for three minutes or longer,

you're helping then to activate the parasympathetic branch of the nervous

system, that Rest Digest response. You're helping it all flow more easily,

coming down from the sympathetic activity that's not ALL bad.

I mean stress can be a wonderful thing. We

live in exciting times as well as challenging times but we want to allow the

nervous system to have that flexibility and it helps us to have that overall

flexibility by really doing the things that calm the nervous system and this is

one gorgeous gorgeous way.

I'm looking forward to sharing a yoga pose

that can help you get into it more deeply in the Full Moon members’ deeper dive

video and I'll be talking a bit more about it in the video for Half Moon members

(free subscribers). You can become a Half Moon, Full Moon or Super Moon member

of the Sole to Soul Circle at evemc.substack.com but you don't NEED to do any

of that to give yourself permission to start 2025 differently.

Prioritise that reboot for yourself,

prioritise rest, prioritise play, prioritise fun, give yourself that

spaciousness. If the holiday period has been relaxing and enjoyable and you

want to bring more of that into the new year, brilliant. If it's been hectic

and chaotic and you're looking forward to getting back to work in a bit of

peace, whatever it is you want, give yourself permission to make space for it.

Let me know how you get on, thank you for

listening, watching, liking, subscribing, rating, reviewing, commenting, ask

whatever questions you want and I look forward to sharing more next week. Happy

New Year!

Thank you for listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. If you haven't already

and would like to. I really appreciate your sharing umm, whether it's one with

one person who you think would benefit or on your social media.

If you haven't already subscribed, that will help you if you want to be less

likely to miss future episodes. But they're coming out every Tuesday now so you

can dip in and out as you like. They're available via your favourite podcasting

apps and on YouTube and there are links in my social media. Next week, we're

building on last week's theme around your vibe for 2025 and by doing a deeper

exploration of intentions.

And today, New Year's Eve, is a wonderful day to really think about what you're

ready to let go of, what you're ready to welcome. And I hope that you'll give

yourself some time and space tomorrow, New Year's Day, if you're listening to

this, the day it comes out. To give yourself a taste of all you want to welcome

into 2025 and whatever day of the year you're listening to this on, whatever

year you're listening to this in.

I hope that you will also give yourself some time each day to give yourself a

taste of what matters to you, what you want to prioritise, and be that bit more

intentional about making time for rest because you deserve to recharge.