Burnout, Boundaries and Bandwidth: ADHD-Informed Decision Making and Self-Trust with Anna Mathur
In this week’s episode of The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, Anna Mathur—BACP-accredited psychotherapist and Sunday Times bestselling author, shares her personal and professional insight into how ADHD awareness can transform our approach to life!
Through honest reflections and expert insight, we unpack the grief that can come with a late ADHD diagnosis, the challenges of building self-trust, creating new boundaries and learning what our bandwidth feels like and how burnout can stem from years of masking and overfunctioning.
Together, we share empowering strategies to help listeners move from all-or-nothing thinking to making sustainable, compassionate choices, rooted in self-awareness and nervous system care.
My new book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, is now available, grab your copy here!
What You’ll Learn:
- Why ADHD can make decision-making so overwhelming, and how to rebuild self-trust
- The grief and confusion that can follow a late ADHD diagnosis
- How burnout shows up in ADHD women and why it’s often overlooked
- The tension between the ADHD brain’s creativity and our nervous system’s need for calm
- Shifting from “all or nothing” to making better, kinder choices for yourself
- How to tune into your body’s signals when making decisions
- Communicating your needs and letting go of people-pleasing
- Using tools like a “Good Decision Diary” to grow confidence and clarity
- The power of creative outlets and self-care practices like gardening
Timestamps:
- 03:00 – Understanding ADHD: Personal Journeys and Insights
- 10:34 – Navigating the Grief of ADHD Realisation
- 17:01 – The Hidden Cost of Overfunctioning & Burnout
- 25:24 – Living with an ADHD Brain: Exhaustion & Self-Doubt
- 31:26 – Tuning Into Our Body’s Wisdom for Better Decisions
- 35:24 – Prioritising Self-Care and Communicating Needs
- 44:22 – Creative Outlets and Rebuilding Self-Trust
Whether you're just beginning to explore ADHD or deep in your healing journey, this conversation is a reminder that you’re not alone, and that self-care isn’t selfish, it’s essential.
Join the More Yourself Community - the doors are now open!
More Yourself is a compassionate space for late-diagnosed ADHD women to connect, reflect, and come home to who they really are. Sign up here!
Inside the More Yourself Membership, you’ll be able to:
- Connect with like-minded women who understand you
- Learn from guest experts and practical tools
- Receive compassionate prompts & gentle reminders
- Enjoy voice-note encouragement from Kate
- Join flexible meet-ups and mentoring sessions
- Access on-demand workshops and quarterly guest expert sessions
To join for £26 a month, click here. To join for £286 for a year (a whole month free!), click here.
We’ll also be walking through The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Toolkit together, exploring nervous system regulation, burnout recovery, RSD, joy, hormones, and self-trust, so the book comes alive in a supportive community setting.
Links and Resources:
- Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
- Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
- Visit Anna's website or connect with her on Instagram @annamathur
- Buy Anna's book The Good Decision Diary
Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.
Transcript
Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.
Speaker A:I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.
Speaker A:After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.
Speaker A:In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.
Speaker A:Here's today's episode.
Speaker A:Today I'm absolutely delighted to have with me a highly sought after psychotherapist.
Speaker A:Her name is Anna Martha and she is also a best selling author and she's a speaker and she is also the author of a brilliant new book called the Good Decision Diary which we're going to be talking about today.
Speaker A:Because I think this is going to be very, very relevant to many of us who have struggled with self trust and self doubt and making choices and decisions that we think are right or wrong, hate pigeonholing, all of that, but we're going to break it all down and really understand why sometimes making decisions with ADHD can feel really, really overwhelming.
Speaker A:So welcome to the podcast, Anna.
Speaker A:It's really great to have you here.
Speaker B:I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker B:Kate.
Speaker B:I have loved your podcast over the years.
Speaker B:I think it was one of the first ones I found when I was kind of having all these light bulb moments about my own kind of ADHD and I just found yours and it was just such an amazing resource.
Speaker B:So to think that I am now a guest on your podcast is just, it's amazing.
Speaker A:Oh well, privilege, Absolutely.
Speaker A:Well listen, it's likewise, it's sort of so great to have you here and I've always admired you from afar, so it's wonderful.
Speaker A:And I really love your book.
Speaker A:I was just saying before, it's a beautiful looking book.
Speaker B:It's very pretty, isn't it?
Speaker A:Yes, it's so pretty.
Speaker A:Look, it's shining there and it's called the Good Decision Diary.
Speaker A:And I absolutely love the concept of this because as I said in this intro is for us.
Speaker A:We are so often overwhelmed by our own mind, our own brain, our thoughts, never ending, sort of.
Speaker A:I mean I, I, I would, I'm going to speak for myself here that I have struggled for so many years of like what's the right decision?
Speaker A:What should I do?
Speaker A:And One minute I feel so all in, like, all that dopamine, all that enthusiasm, and I'll wake up the next morning, go, what the hell was I thinking?
Speaker A:Like, why have I committed to that?
Speaker A:Why did I say yes?
Speaker A:And it still happens now with full awareness of my adhd.
Speaker A:But I have a little bit more insight as to, like, what drives me, you know, making decisions or not making decisions or being a bit more, I would say, self aware with the decisions and give myself time to pause and reflect.
Speaker A:And I know that your book really touches on that.
Speaker A:I'd love to hear a little bit more about your story.
Speaker A:I know you mentioned that you were diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago.
Speaker A:I guess tell us a little bit about how that showed up for you and what's led you to be writing the books that you have over the past few years.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, actually I wrote so many of the books before I even knew that I had adhd.
Speaker B:And looking back, the themes and things I've written about, it just makes so much more sense looking at it through that lens.
Speaker B:But I, I think it was in the pandemic.
Speaker B:It was one of the lockdowns.
Speaker B:We were really.
Speaker B:My husband and I are really struggling with one of our kids, I've got three young kids.
Speaker B:And just his challenge with like emotional regulation, the way that he dealt with emotion, it was just so.
Speaker B:There's just a lot of throwing things, a lot of just big feelings.
Speaker B:And I was then having big feelings and it was all just really, really hard under the pressure cooker that was the pandemic.
Speaker B:And I remember, you know, we were kind of on the sofa and I was just reading through all these things, you know, what can it be?
Speaker B:What can we do to help him?
Speaker B:Basically, what can we do to help, we do to help life?
Speaker B:Because it was just feeling really, really challenging.
Speaker B:And I started reading about adhd and I think because he hadn't, he didn't fit with my own very limited knowledge and understanding of adhd.
Speaker B:So it was, you know, starting to read about the different ways that it presents in people and having this light bulb moment for him and thinking, oh my goodness, I think we found what it is.
Speaker B:And then of course, it kind of opens up podcasts and articles and books and, you know, just this little recognition suddenly found us being able to access loads of different insight and resource that was so, so useful.
Speaker B:But I remember this moment.
Speaker B:It's one of those moments that I think we all have, those moments that just stay with us.
Speaker B:It was my husband.
Speaker B:He sat on the sofa next to me, and he nudged me, and he was like, does this sound familiar to you?
Speaker B:And suddenly it was like I'd been given this reference point, this framework, this.
Speaker B:This.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was like a light getting switched on.
Speaker B:I know so many people explain it like that, but it was so true for me.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I think I. Yeah, I found this sudden recognition.
Speaker B:It was completely unquestioned in my mind that this just fits me.
Speaker B:And of course, then I started reading about women.
Speaker B:I started reading, listening to your podcast and listening to people's stories.
Speaker B:And the most profound thing that it did for me was help me find compassion for myself.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that, to be honest, as someone who has really struggled with that for a lot of my life, someone who felt just like I wasn't enough.
Speaker B:I was always striving.
Speaker B:I was always just getting stuff wrong, had no.
Speaker B:People just would joke about my.
Speaker B:The way that I would just take things really literally, the way that I would just get lost all the time, regardless of the directions someone gave me.
Speaker B:I'd walk out of a shop and I wouldn't know where I'd come there.
Speaker B:Just so many things that I was just so frustrated with myself over the years and get.
Speaker B:Getting that diagnosis and getting that long report, all the different areas of kind of like, processing and where I scored, it was just.
Speaker B:It was just incredible.
Speaker A:You see, I'm listening to you now, and I'm thinking, externally, you know, people probably thought, oh, she's, you know, an author.
Speaker A:She's a psychotherapist.
Speaker A:Look, she's got an amazing profile.
Speaker A:And people are thinking, like, how can this person have adhd?
Speaker A:And so many women go through this that we have.
Speaker A:It's almost like these such contradictions that we are high achievers.
Speaker A:We're perfectionists.
Speaker A:Externally, we're trying to hold everything together by our fingernails, literally holding on for dear life.
Speaker A:But underneath, as you know, and so many of us know that it feels like we're just totally drowning and we're just waiting for someone to help us or give us, like you say, that reference point, but I guess for you, you were a psychotherapist, and so many of us don't have any therapeutic background at all, so we really don't have any understanding.
Speaker A:Or many of us have gone therapy and counseling, and it's not been picked up on.
Speaker A:So as a psychotherapist, how did you feel when you had that realization?
Speaker A:And I know it's harder for us to be able to be introspect, where we are very introspective, but it's harder to see it ourselves, even if we're psychotherapists.
Speaker B:It's so true.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, I was never trained in picking these things up.
Speaker B:Wasn't part of my training.
Speaker B:I think for a lot of therapists, it's not part of our training.
Speaker B:I've very much learned a lot along the way, but I have also created a life for myself that is my hyper focus.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I've created a life for myself that, that enables me to be more likely to thrive.
Speaker B:You know, every day looks different for me.
Speaker B:I'm doing a podcast.
Speaker B:I've just done a session with lots of people working in the NHS in Northern Ireland.
Speaker B:You know, it's just so very, it's just so attuned to what I love doing.
Speaker B:So I think, yeah, I think sometimes we have our blind spots and we just don't know.
Speaker B:I just didn't know.
Speaker B:I think there's so much more information about ADHD now.
Speaker B:There's so much more like information out there that, that we get access to and we can start putting the pieces together.
Speaker B:But a lot of us, even in all those years of therapy training, that wasn't part of the, part of the training.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that's really validating for people to hear that because as we know, ADHD has only become in women and girls has only become top, you know, been part of conversations in the media, podcasts probably over the past five or six years.
Speaker A: know when I was diagnosed in: Speaker A:I was literally, oh, there's an article here or there's a bit of research here.
Speaker A:And I was trying to piece it all together and it was the odd podcast, you know, small podcast.
Speaker A:Which is why I thought, right, I need to start this podcast, because I have so many questions and I'm naturally curious and I'm very similar to you, I guess, Anna, that I have curated a lifestyle with privilege to be able to work to the best of my abilities and really hone in on those challenges, even though I do still get completely sort of short circuited by my ADHD all the time.
Speaker A:And it's still there.
Speaker A:I mean, even this morning I was having a conversation with my husband about some work stuff and I can see how often it comes up all the time.
Speaker A:My, this is this ADHD tax.
Speaker A:I had to pay a huge fine the other day because of something that I'd missed and it just happens all the time.
Speaker A:But to because like you say that that self compassion, we now understand what's going on.
Speaker A:So we have that self compassion beforehand.
Speaker A:That my self dialogue, that my inner dialogue would be, what's wrong with you?
Speaker A:Like, you're so immature.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker A:You're a grown adult.
Speaker A:Why can't you sort this out?
Speaker A:Why are you so irresponsible?
Speaker A:Why are you so disorganized?
Speaker A:And I mean, I'm thank God that five years later, I don't have that anymore.
Speaker A:Like, still, it's a bit more, It's a bit more tongue in cheek, there's a bit more humor.
Speaker A:Sometimes I'm a bit like, oh, what is wrong with you?
Speaker A:And I'm like, oh, yes, it's that ADHD thing again.
Speaker A:But if you think about so many women that I hear from who are only just discovering this in their 60s, 50s, 60s, 70s.
Speaker A:I mean, even if you just discover it in your 20s and 30s, it's still a lifetime of self criticism, which really does impact our self esteem.
Speaker A:And I wonder, you know, from.
Speaker A:I'm going to speak to as a psychotherapist now, how do people begin that healing journey when they have that realization?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, it's.
Speaker B:It can feel like such an insurmountable thing when you've got this new frame of reference and it can feel like a massive relief and it can feel like the light has been turned on.
Speaker B:But also, I think it's really natural and normal for there to be a kind of grief.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:To grieve the fact that you've done all these years and no one's noticed this, no one's connected the dots.
Speaker B:Maybe you've internalized a lot of the cost and a lot of the shame and a lot of the confusion, and you felt quite alone with it.
Speaker B:And, you know, that's that sense of, if I had been a little boy and I had been, you know, not sat down in the chair at school and it had been picked up when I was six, you know, what if that.
Speaker B:Would life have looked different if someone had known that about me?
Speaker B:Or it had been more of a.
Speaker B:Or if people at school had no more of the kind of iterations in women.
Speaker B:And it's just, I think it's okay for there to be a grief.
Speaker B:It's okay to grieve.
Speaker B:It's okay to not always feel like it's a superpower.
Speaker B:Like, I would definitely say that, you know, there are many positives, especially creatively and.
Speaker B:But also it does make things harder.
Speaker B:And sometimes it is that sense of, wow, I have Tried so hard.
Speaker B:I've tried so hard for so many years to function in a certain way and I've always felt like I've not been able to.
Speaker B:And I've found all this frustration and it's okay to feel.
Speaker B:Feel sad about that.
Speaker B:You know, it's.
Speaker B:I think it's sometimes in moving through that grief and allowing that grief to take up space that we actually move more closely to that place of acceptance.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, yeah, the grief is normal and just you start rebuilding from a foundation that is clearer and more authentic.
Speaker B:And it might be that, you know, that you've been doing so many things to try and build up your confidence over the years and you feel like, you know, it never felt quite like it's working.
Speaker B:Well, actually now you've got this frame of reference, there might be different, different things that are going to help you more that you wouldn't have found otherwise.
Speaker B:So, yeah, let the grief be there.
Speaker B:That's okay.
Speaker A:The frustration, I think that's really amazing.
Speaker A:And then like you say, you build from a different frame of reference.
Speaker A:And I'm interested to hear a little bit about the Anna that didn't have that frame of reference.
Speaker A:And obviously you trained as a psychotherapist, you've written quite a few books.
Speaker A:I can hear that.
Speaker A:You obviously like the varied way I've read your bio.
Speaker A:You do like amazing things.
Speaker A:Lots of different workshops and presentations and speaking with what part of you, I guess early on, when you had trained to be a psychotherapy therapist, decided that that wasn't going to satiate your curiosity or your ambition and you obviously diversified into lots of different areas because for me, that's always like, ah, I can see ADHD there for sure.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So I think I was always someone that was very caring.
Speaker B:I was always a fixer.
Speaker B:I was always the friend that people came to.
Speaker B:That was very much part of my identity.
Speaker B:And it has been kind of, in a way, for most of my life.
Speaker B:And I put that down to kind of trauma of younger years.
Speaker B:I lost my sister when I was 10.
Speaker B:She died of cancer.
Speaker B:And I think because there was so many, so much grief going on around me, so much kind of loss, my.
Speaker B:My whole identity became kind of being about the good girl, the easy girl, the.
Speaker B:The kind one, the one that made things kind of more comfortable for everyone else.
Speaker B:And that was kind of a survival mechanism.
Speaker B:So I worked in advertising for a while, so I worked in companies in London and I felt I was good at it because I was so scared of getting stuff wrong.
Speaker B:So I just worked really, really, really hard to get everything right and on the surface I did well, but the, you know, the background, I was just actually feeling really, really low and I just knew that that wasn't for me.
Speaker B:I had to wait until I was 25 to do my Masters because there's like a minimum age where I trained.
Speaker B:And I think I just wanted to solidify the fact that I was, I was the helper, you know, so let's just make this my, my life's work then.
Speaker B:I've got all the tools to support other people and I never really have to talk about myself or be vulnerable because that was really, really hard for me.
Speaker B:But training as a therapist, you get lots of therapy.
Speaker B:That's part of the training is that you have to go to therapy and.
Speaker B:And it really just, I think it was so humbling for me.
Speaker B:I really had to push myself to open up and allow myself to be supported.
Speaker B:My first job, I was working at a GP surgery.
Speaker B:I was doing kind of clinical work, private practice, and I had again, all these kind of different contexts that I was working in around South London.
Speaker B:So I'd be getting the train into London to go and work at that clinic and then I'd be going down to Brixton to work at work at that GP surgery.
Speaker B:So there was kind of a lot of differentiation going on in my work week, which I quite liked.
Speaker B:But then I moved out of London, I had my first child and that was great.
Speaker B:Loved it.
Speaker B:He was pretty straightforward.
Speaker B:I thought, this is, this is good, I'll do this again.
Speaker B:I think I was pregnant by his first birthday.
Speaker B:Between those pregnancies, I was just again, just seeing some clients a few hours a week in a local surgery.
Speaker B:But my second child, he had silent reflux.
Speaker B:He just never slept and I think it completely sapped me of resource.
Speaker B:So I had postnatal depression again.
Speaker B:I kind of didn't even really see it because I couldn't see the wood for the trees.
Speaker B:I went back into my mechanism of like, don't worry about me, I'm fine.
Speaker B:Struggling to accept or seek support.
Speaker B:And I think it's these little moments over the years that, where I was just taken to the end of myself.
Speaker B:And I think the adhd, you know, that part of me that is just so high functioning and so kind of over functioning, it just depleted me even further.
Speaker A:I think the over functioning word is so key because that in itself shows and validates why people are so burnt out.
Speaker A:Like, when you're a divergent, women especially suffer with Burnout throughout because it's.
Speaker A:They're not even realizing that over functioning.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think it is hard because it's.
Speaker B:You just don't realize how exhausted you are sometimes until one thing happens or one of the kids gets sick or, you know, and then suddenly you're, you're on the floor and you're confused as to why other people around you don't seem to be on the floor when you're on the floor.
Speaker B:And I just felt really de skilled, really self questioning.
Speaker B:And that kind of, that cycle really just continued for a few years until after the pandemic.
Speaker B:I hit burnout.
Speaker B:Like proper nervous system, psychological, physical burnout.
Speaker B:And it was the most humbling thing I've ever experienced because from running life at 100 miles an hour and then maybe crashing on a Sunday in a tearful heat with no resilience and no capacity to be calm or anything and then just pick myself up and going again, you know, it was like the one final burnout to end all burnouts.
Speaker B:And I just could not function.
Speaker B:I could not work.
Speaker A:What did that look like for you?
Speaker B:Just total and utter brokenness.
Speaker B:I had no skin.
Speaker B:It felt like I had absolutely no skin against the world.
Speaker B:So I had no resilience.
Speaker B:I had no capacity.
Speaker B:Talking about decision making my husband be like, what do you want to eat for dinner?
Speaker B:I would just have panic attack.
Speaker B:I could not even apply myself to simple decisions.
Speaker B:Every noise, because I'm very noise sensitive, I'm a big fan of the loops.
Speaker B:Every noise just felt like it was in me.
Speaker B:Even my kids playing happily, I could not.
Speaker B:It was too much.
Speaker B:I couldn't be around people.
Speaker B:I didn't have any social capacity.
Speaker B:I just had to drop off the face of my work.
Speaker B:I could not, you know, and after years and years and years of kind of that over, overactive, applying myself to everything and getting my sense of identity and worth out of what I was doing.
Speaker B:I just, I couldn't do anything.
Speaker B:And that was really, really hard.
Speaker B:But I think it was, it was coming in a way it had to happen because life has never been the same since.
Speaker B:And I'm glad, glad of that.
Speaker B:But I think that's often the hidden cost, you know, when you see people thriving.
Speaker B:I was thriving, my work was thriving, but my boundaries were not there.
Speaker B:So it wasn't sustainable.
Speaker B:I had no boundaries and I, because of my adhd, I struggled to keep the ones that I did have because I was depleted and I had no impulse control.
Speaker B:So I'd be on Instagram and I'D be taking stuff on that I didn't have capacity for.
Speaker B:And it was, it was gonna, it had to happen.
Speaker A:I, I'm hearing your story and I'm, I'm hearing like a combination of so many different people that I've spoken to over the years.
Speaker A:And this is such a common trait reality.
Speaker A:And I, I speak to people all the time that have to literally str and start all over again.
Speaker A:Was that a similar situation for you?
Speaker A:You had to literally sort of start and rebuild your life again?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I didn't know about the ADHD at this point.
Speaker B:It came kind of not, not long after, but it just made so much sense.
Speaker B:And I think the fact that we get away with it, you know, we get away with low level burnout because really, at the end of the day, the main person that's paying the price is us.
Speaker B:So we don't tend to especially, we've got that loud inner critic value ourselves enough to think, I don't want to pay this price.
Speaker B:This doesn't feel good.
Speaker B:We're, we're serving the people around us.
Speaker B:We're, we have the output, we're getting the dopamine hits, we're feeling like valid and validated by what, what our output is, whatever that is.
Speaker B:And we just kind of get away with it for a while until we don't.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it sounds like, you know, obviously that the trauma that you went through as a child, that your default state was to give and to help and to be that fixer.
Speaker A:And there's a price always to pay for this.
Speaker A:And I see this.
Speaker A:I've got a friend who is similar and she's always sort of like ill or she gets migraines or she has to sort of have time off work.
Speaker A:And it's a cycle.
Speaker A:It's a cycle.
Speaker A:And I catch my, I try and catch myself now in this cycle because I always kind of like think with ADHD for us that we have a brain and a nervous system and they compete against each other and we have this brain that is never ending.
Speaker A:We've got ideas and ambitions and incredible concepts that we want to materialize.
Speaker A:And we're creative and we want to give so much because it's this brain that's just never ending, but a nervous system that is very, very sensitive and perhaps is living with trauma and we have hormones that are sensitive as well.
Speaker A:And so we've got this sort of sensitivity, but a brain that's like, come on, just keep going, keep going.
Speaker A:You've got more to give, you know, and we're constantly having to kind of fight against it where we feel that if we don't do this output, this creative output, we're sort of stagnating or stunting ourselves.
Speaker A:But the nervous system is like saying to us, calm, we need rest, relaxation and we all have to find our own balance.
Speaker A:And everyone's balance is different.
Speaker A:And we're always in that kind of push, pull, ebb and flow.
Speaker A:It's constant.
Speaker A:Where I mean, even today I've had to because of my book that came out this summer.
Speaker A:I've got lots of events planned because no one was really doing anything in the summer.
Speaker A:And I suddenly looked at my diary and this is like a thing that I always talk about with my coaching clients.
Speaker A:I always say, check your diary, go in a week, your next week, two weeks, just double check, see what's in there.
Speaker A:Because with ADHD we forget.
Speaker A:We just put stuff in.
Speaker A:And then I always get clashing things and I looked at my diary and I was like, what the hell have I done here?
Speaker A:I just kept saying yes, yes, yes.
Speaker A:So I've had to go in my people pleasing part of me and that's that perfectionism and that person that wants to like really like deliver is like telling me not to cancel.
Speaker A:But I can feel my nervous system already experiencing the over commitment.
Speaker A:I can already feel this, this kind of cortisol in my body that I've over committed.
Speaker A:So I had to cancel and people aren't very happy with me.
Speaker A:But I know it's the right thing and I know that if I said yes to everything that's in my diary, something not good will will happen.
Speaker A:And it's, it's a shame.
Speaker A:But I need to be present for my kids and I'm sure you do.
Speaker A:And my family are everything to me.
Speaker A:And yes, I have ambition and I want to help people and this, I love this community.
Speaker A:But essentially if someone said to me, what, what is it that you want out of life?
Speaker A:I would say I want inner peace and I want calm and I want regulation.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I would love to be successful and sell books and have a great podcast and help lots of people, but that is not what's gonna keep me sane.
Speaker A:The sanity comes from the regulation and the calm and the inner peace.
Speaker A:And that's what I always have to choose over everything else.
Speaker B:And I think that's exactly it.
Speaker B:It's the knowledge that you just can't, you can't have it all.
Speaker B:Realistically.
Speaker B:We can't do everything well and also be present and have the ability to regulate ourselves when we want to.
Speaker B:And I think that's what that burnout showed me.
Speaker B:When I was truly burnt out, I couldn't laugh, I couldn't be present.
Speaker B:I just wanted to just be completely numb.
Speaker B:I, you know, I couldn't rationalize anxious thoughts, I couldn't laugh, I couldn't just, I couldn't just enjoy the good things in my life.
Speaker B:And that's what I think I'm so aware of is that if I'm overriding those little nervous system signals, if I'm overriding those feelings of actually, oh, I don't know if this feels like too much and I let my people pleasing win over really, that's what's at risk, you know, that's what's at risk is not being able to be present with my kids.
Speaker A:I want to come onto your book because I think it's really so pertinent to what we're talking about because decision making and our brain exhausts us.
Speaker A:You know, I was talking to someone yesterday, just, you know, I said to her, living with an ADHD brain and nervous system is exhausting in itself.
Speaker A:You know, you could look totally fine on the outside, look like everything's your, the boxes are being ticked.
Speaker A:But just living in a brain that never stops and it's constantly self questioning and we never quite trust our decisions is.
Speaker A:And there's always this so much import.
Speaker A:I wonder, did that lead you to write very specifically about decision making?
Speaker A:Because did you struggle with that yourself?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think the book really came from this moment when I was standing in the shower and I just looked down at my body and I was like, I am, I'm so good to you and I'm so mean.
Speaker B:Like there have been times, you know, I'm, I think because the way that I'm wired, I like making big promises to myself, right.
Speaker B:I'm gonna do this workout plan, I'm gonna never do this or never eat that or never drink that or never.
Speaker B:And suddenly it's kind of like it's all or nothing.
Speaker B:And a Monday will just be.
Speaker B:I will use shame.
Speaker B:You know, historically I've used shame to just launch my way into change.
Speaker B:So I feel horrible after having a really bingy weekend.
Speaker B:So then Monday everything's gonna be different.
Speaker B:I'm gonna get up and I'm going to journal, I'm going to do a workout, I'm going to not eat this, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker B:And it's just, yeah.
Speaker B:That kind of shame catapult into big change.
Speaker B:And I think I just recognize in that moment in the shower that, you know, so many of those kind of promises have led to me doing really good things for myself and so many of them have just led me kind of shame.
Speaker B:Just, you know, historically I've had like eating disorders and just not treated myself well at all.
Speaker B:And I found myself, I think it was one of those, you know, maybe it was a Sunday evening or it was one of those moments where I might kind of make a, like I'm going to pledge to myself.
Speaker B:And I thought I'm not going to do this.
Speaker B:I just keep doing this, keep on a crash and burn and you know, it's like I'm standing on, walking on a tightrope, I get on a tightrope and then one wrong move and I'm off and I'm back in self criticism and shame waiting to start all over again.
Speaker B:And I thought what would it be like to just make the pledge of I will make better decisions more of the time.
Speaker B:So in those little moments, you know, when it comes down to I've already had three cups of coffee, I know that I do not need, I don't even need that much, let alone more.
Speaker B:But I'm standing at the coffee machine thinking I can make a decision now to kind of really nurture myself or not, you know, what's it going to be?
Speaker B:And just the intentionality of breaking it down into those little decisions where we can choose to kind of either really nurture ourselves and move towards something or we can choose to stay where we are or do the same old thing.
Speaker B:And it's just, I guess try not to autopilot our way through things, trying to find a bit of, just tune into ourselves, find a bit of compassion for ourselves, understanding why we self sabotage, why we make promises that we can't keep and just finding a more sustainable, gentle way to growth.
Speaker B:And my whole little mantra is more of the time, not all of the time because I can be so black and white, I'm thriving or I'm failing, I'm doing this well, or I've just completely fallen and I'm rubbish.
Speaker B:So it's just thinking how can we grow a little bit more sustainable and how can we zoom out and look at that really bumpy wiggly upward graph rather than just shaming ourselves if it's not kind of a straight upward line and just add some humanness into growth and decision making.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so what you've given us through that because obviously through your ambitious ADHD over functioning brain you thought you know what, I'm gonna write a book about this.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna just keep it to myself.
Speaker A:I'm gonna, I'm gonna graft and write a whole book.
Speaker A:And it really is an amazing book of guidance and prompts and journaling and great techniques, really lovely techniques on guilt, on self sabotage, which I really, you know, found quite interesting.
Speaker A:And also on understanding our values, what drives us, what are those foundations that lead us to making those what I would call sort of like soul led decisions.
Speaker A:Like really what are deep inner wisdom that inner guidance wants to give us?
Speaker A:And I, I've become more spiritual in my old age, I would say.
Speaker A:And I've always tried to be very logical.
Speaker A:I've always tried to use this sort of very linear approach as to how life should look.
Speaker A:And then something pulls me and it feels like it's a bit left field, but I feel it in my body.
Speaker A:I'm like, oh, that sounds really lovely.
Speaker A:Or.
Speaker A:And I've started to learn.
Speaker A:I. I had a coach years ago and she used to say, what does it feel like in your body?
Speaker A:I was like, I don't know what you're talk felt because I was so brain led.
Speaker A:Everything was logic, cerebral.
Speaker A:And now I really try and tune into what my body is, is doing.
Speaker A:Like if my body kind of feels like all open and soft and expansive, I kind of get a bit more curious about that.
Speaker A:And I sometimes can feel like if someone says can you do this or will you do that?
Speaker A:And my body suddenly tightens up and clenches.
Speaker A:I'm like, ooh, there's something there.
Speaker A:There's something there that I don't want to commit to.
Speaker A:But before I would have overridden that with people pleasing and fear of what people might think of me or being judged.
Speaker A:And so I'm kind of noticing different clues now.
Speaker A:But I also wonder now that I'm in the throes of perimenopause, I'm in my mid-40s, I don't really give a shit much anymore about what people think of me.
Speaker A:I do wonder if there's an age thing, but there's also an awareness of like.
Speaker A:Like I can please people, but it's always going to be at my detriment.
Speaker A:I make decisions based off a slightly different algorithm.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I wonder, you know, do you cover that little bit in the book?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Tuning into our.
Speaker B:Tuning into our gun.
Speaker B:You know, I think the most amazing thing about our body in our culture, we're so kind of that there's such a separation between the Mind and the body, you know, the focus on the mind and that cerebral kind of logical part.
Speaker B:And we don't in other cultures, there's such a reverence for the body and how the body is responding, what the body is saying.
Speaker B:And I think our body isn't defended in the way that our brain is.
Speaker B:You know, we've come up with all of these excuses, all of these like just analysis and it's all, you know, in our head, but our body doesn't have that.
Speaker B:So our body isn't defended in the way that our, our brain is.
Speaker B:So often what is coming up in our body is often a lot more like pure and undefended.
Speaker B:So if we can start tuning into that and literally just thinking, how did I feel just then when I was presented with that question?
Speaker B:How do I feel when I think about taking on that project?
Speaker B:And sometimes you might start noticing, you know, the tightness in your chest or the fact that you're clenching your shoulders, or you might feel this kind of like spurt of adrenaline or cortisol that those stress hormones.
Speaker B:And that's really your body saying, this doesn't feel safe.
Speaker B:In some way, this feels like a pull on my resources that I don't have.
Speaker B:And I think the more that we can tune into and honor that, that the more we start living in alignment with our actual capacity, then we're less likely to burn out.
Speaker B:We're more likely to be wholehearted in the decisions that we make.
Speaker B:And we start realizing that actually the world on the whole can handle a more authentic version of who we are.
Speaker B:And then the mask starts slipping because we don't feel like we have to be someone we're not commit to things that we don't have capacity for.
Speaker B:And you start realizing that you're, you're thriving a bit more, you've got a bit more headspace, you've got a bit more calm in your body.
Speaker B:You're able to lean into some of those joyful moments a bit more.
Speaker B:And you start just wanting, wanting more of that and growing in confidence that the right relationships can handle that and make space for that and probably actually really even love seeing you be more yourself.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love how you just said be more yourself because that's the name of my new membership, Community membership.
Speaker B:Oh, amazing.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:So permission giving.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean it's a play on my, my surname, but it's called because exactly this.
Speaker A:I wanted to create a space for more women.
Speaker A:Exactly what you just said.
Speaker A:To be more authentic.
Speaker A:Drop their mask and start leaning into how they want to show up in the world.
Speaker A:And we've all been told and conditioned and, you know, how we.
Speaker A:We should be behaving and acting and being as women.
Speaker A:And I actually think that the ADHD diagnosis or our awareness of it gives us this permission slip to finally choose ourselves over what we've been over giving, you know, and sort of trying to.
Speaker A:Trying to put ourselves into, like, a box that we've never quite fitted into.
Speaker A:And many of us have had, you know, we're in communities or families or societies where we've.
Speaker A:We've only been shown one way of being a woman or one way of living that is right or wrong.
Speaker A:And actually, we've not been told at all how to prioritize our own needs and prioritize our own desires and our energy and to have space to reflect on our life.
Speaker A:You know, many people have gone through trauma and grief and sadness and all sorts of iterations of who we are, but we've never had that space to really go, actually, what is it that I want?
Speaker A:Who do I want to be with?
Speaker A:How do I want to show up?
Speaker A:Where do I want to be more creative?
Speaker A:What can I let go of all of these questions?
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:So to have those people to walk through that kind of long transition of, this is who I have been for so many years, because this is who I thought I should be and people wanted me to be.
Speaker B:And I can't carry on being that.
Speaker B:It's not sustainable for me anymore with this new knowledge and insight and understanding and respect I have for my nervous system and my capacity.
Speaker B:I cannot for the life of me carry on being that person anymore.
Speaker B:But it comes with small print, right?
Speaker B:Relationships change, friendship circles change.
Speaker B:Your diary looks different.
Speaker B:And actually, that can be really hard.
Speaker B:That can be confusing.
Speaker B:Can be confusing for you.
Speaker B:It can be confusing sometimes for those around you who are watching this change take place.
Speaker B:And maybe you seem different and you don't want to do the same stuff anymore because actually you're giving yourself permission to live in a way that means you're not just burnt out.
Speaker B:My husband and he bought me Coldplay tickets as a surprise, right?
Speaker B:And I literally.
Speaker B:He told me, I've got Coldplay tickets.
Speaker B:And I was like, that sounds awful to me.
Speaker B:I don't want to go.
Speaker B:He's like, what do you mean you don't want to go?
Speaker B:It's Coldplay.
Speaker B:I'm like, yeah, I want you to go.
Speaker B:But the thought I have not at this point in life, I use all my capacity on the Adventure that is parenting neurodivergent kids and working.
Speaker B:And I don't have that.
Speaker B:That requires so much capacity for me to go and sit with 80,000 people and then do this like two and a half hour journey home.
Speaker B:And I like to be at home in my loungewear.
Speaker B:That's my restorative thing, right?
Speaker B:And a few years ago I would have sucked it up and gone, you know, I would have probably felt quite stressed at the thought of it.
Speaker B:It's not the crowds.
Speaker B:I'm not anxious.
Speaker B:I just need capacity to be in that kind of environment.
Speaker B:So the more I've known and understood and allowed myself to kind of give myself permission to say no to certain things, then actually it gives me more capacity when it's called of me, right?
Speaker B:That I have more to give for the things in my life that demand it.
Speaker B:And I'm flipping glad he went.
Speaker B:And I was so pleased he went.
Speaker B:He was sending me videos, I was reading them in bed.
Speaker B:I was doing a bit of work and I had a face mask and I felt so at peace.
Speaker B:I felt no fomo.
Speaker B:I just felt just so peaceful that he was there and I was where I was.
Speaker B:And in the morning it was really hard and the kids were up early and there were meltdowns left, right and center.
Speaker B:And I thought, thank goodness I did what was right.
Speaker B:And I think.
Speaker B:But maybe that could have been upsetting to him.
Speaker B:Maybe he was disappointed, but he managed his disappointment and he went with his brother and his sister and it was wonderful.
Speaker B:And I think sometimes we can be so fearful of disappointing others that we just often out of fear of them abandoning us in some way, I guess, or, or feeling disconnected from that, we so chronically abandon ourselves.
Speaker B:So I think reconnecting with ourselves, it can mean life looks different and relationships look different.
Speaker B:And sometimes there's a grief attached to that as well.
Speaker B:Sometimes that's a bit of an uncomfortable phase.
Speaker B:But to be able to do that alongside other people and to hash it out and share and affirm each other, that's a really beautiful, important thing that you're creating and putting there for people.
Speaker A:I think that's incredibly inspiring.
Speaker A:And I think you're right.
Speaker A:The people who really care about you will want you to thrive.
Speaker A:And so even if you feel like you might need to sort of give a little bit of a caveat of, you know, I'm doing, I'm trying this new thing, this new thing of like, you know, prioritizing my energy and my needs, my well being.
Speaker A:And this, this new thing involves me Saying, probably no a little bit more than I used to.
Speaker A:And I know it's going to feel weird, and it's probably going to feel a bit odd, you know, when you ask me to do something and I say no.
Speaker A:But again, I'm kind of thinking, like, how can I do this sort of like, soft launch?
Speaker A:Because some people would be like, why are you always saying no?
Speaker A:And did it.
Speaker A:I used to be so obliging and used to be so giving and generous, and then all of a sudden, you know, they'll be pushed back.
Speaker A:But people learn, and it's like a muscle, isn't it?
Speaker A:And you have to kind of like flex it, and then people get it.
Speaker A:I've learned.
Speaker A:Starting to learn how to do this a little bit from family expectations.
Speaker A:There's a lot of expectations of me, you know, in a family.
Speaker A:I'm Jewish, and so there's a of.
Speaker A:Lot of Jewish expectations of family stuff, of, like, making dinners and all sorts of things and being very present, you know, making lots of family dinners all the time.
Speaker A:And it got to a point where I was like, I can't keep showing up all the time and saying yes.
Speaker A:So I'd say, actually no.
Speaker A:And then my husband decided that he.
Speaker A:He's like, you know what?
Speaker A:I don't cook, but I'm sure I can make dinner.
Speaker A:And he's actually started enjoying making dinner a little bit more now, and him stepping up.
Speaker A:And so we've seen this.
Speaker A:This, like, role change.
Speaker A:And for me, evolution and growth is everything.
Speaker A:You know, we've been married for 22 years, and I kind of think we have to grow and evolve together, like we have to.
Speaker A:Otherwise it's not going to work.
Speaker A:And it can't just be, I do this and you do that.
Speaker A:And when we shift and change, he's like, you know what?
Speaker A:You're going to work now?
Speaker A:Because my career, you know, it took a while to take off after I've had kids, but he's seen that, and he's seen, like, you know, what's your space now?
Speaker A:And if you need to work, work come Friday afternoon.
Speaker A:And that's normally when I'd be making dinner.
Speaker A:He's gonna step in and start making dinner now.
Speaker A:And it's actually really lovely.
Speaker A:And it's nice to model to the kids as well, you know, model to our teenage kids, that it's not just a woman's role to do this and it's not just a man's role to do that.
Speaker A:So I would maybe say to people, explore and get curious and have these open conversations because actually, like you say, people do get over it and we're so fearful of this disappointment.
Speaker A:But actually, sometimes it's nice to shake things up a bit and do things differently.
Speaker B:And yeah, people can step up and step in.
Speaker B:It might take a while.
Speaker B:It might be a bit of a moment where you think, if I'm not doing this, who will?
Speaker B:Maybe it won't happen in the same way that you did it.
Speaker B:Maybe it won't be who you expect to kind of step in, or it'll look a very different way.
Speaker B:But things wiggle around and expectations change.
Speaker B:And, you know, we can, I think when we start, start recognizing that we are more, well, because of the healthy boundaries that we're putting in place, then it, it becomes important and it becomes really important.
Speaker B:It turns from something that is an experiment where you're literally kind of clenching your butt cheeks and you write, you know, five page WhatsApp message on why you can't do this and then your heart's racing and you feel sick about it.
Speaker B:To actually, this no is a no because I wouldn't be able to laugh with my kids over the weekend.
Speaker B:You know, this no is a no because I don't want to be crying in a heap on a, on a Sunday night on the floor thinking I can't and scraping myself up again.
Speaker B:And often the people that have had all your yeses, they don't know the cost.
Speaker B:And if they loved you and cared about you and knew you, it would break their heart to know the costs that some of those yeses over the years had given them, given you.
Speaker B:So it's just honoring and respecting the limits of your resources and knowing that the healthy boundaries we put around it just enables us to love and live more, not less, without the resentment and the burnout and the secret hurt that we sometimes feel.
Speaker A:I think, honestly, I think this conversation is going to be so helpful.
Speaker A:It's been very helpful to me.
Speaker A:So I just want to thank you for being here.
Speaker A:I love talking about this, validating so much of what we experience.
Speaker A:And I know that this book, the Good Decision Diary, is really going to be very, very helpful.
Speaker A:Because if you are listening to this right now and decision making and overwhelm and all the conversations that we've just had as part of your daily life, I know just opening a page and just reading a few, you know, that chapter there I think can be very helpful.
Speaker A:Even just using a couple of the journal prompts, prompts where we are really struggling.
Speaker A:I always think just before we finish I think journal writing and free writing or just using a prompt and then whatever is on our mind always, it always comes out in our.
Speaker A:In our words.
Speaker A:So I think.
Speaker A:I think it's going to be really, really helpful and it's help.
Speaker A:I don't know, you know, what you're working on or if you want to share anything, but if you are doing anything that you want people to know about, you know, tell me.
Speaker B:Do you know what the funny thing is?
Speaker B:I write the book so fast one at.
Speaker B:But that one, I think I wrote in about four weeks.
Speaker B:The one before I wrote in two.
Speaker B:Like serious hyper focus.
Speaker B:Like the house could have been burning down, Kate, and I wouldn't have known.
Speaker B:So I'm thinking about the next one and I'd love to write on like rage and irritability because I think that would be so good.
Speaker B:Love that.
Speaker B:So that's on my mind.
Speaker B:I do lots of guest podcasts at the minute.
Speaker B:I have had my own for four years where I've taken a break.
Speaker B:This was another, like, creative hyper focus, big project.
Speaker B:Should I have started it?
Speaker B:I wasn't so sure after the flurry of.
Speaker B:But I've actually really enjoyed it.
Speaker B:And I don't know if you've seen.
Speaker B:I design these kind of sensory pendants.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:So that's what.
Speaker B:I'm doing a bit of that at the minute and packaging them up and taking them off in the school run.
Speaker B:So they're like amazing kind of precious metals and just little things that you can twiddle with that look nice.
Speaker B:So I don't know, I'm just.
Speaker A:What's it called?
Speaker A:Abbasid People can.
Speaker B:It's called Love and Landing.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:But I did it.
Speaker B:I did it in a.
Speaker B:After a really hard time.
Speaker B:It was a creative outlet where I thought, I'm just going to delete Instagram.
Speaker B:I don't want to.
Speaker B:I'm too burnt out.
Speaker B:I'm going to do something creative.
Speaker B:So I designed this and then I ordered it from the manufacturers, did a load of research.
Speaker B:It was this really long process and then it all arrived from the manufacturer and I just had no capacity to actually do anything with it.
Speaker B:So it sat in my cupboard for about, I don't know, nearly a year.
Speaker B:My husband would say, anna, you think you might want to get those online at some point because there's quite a lot of money in all that stock and we could really do with having some of that back.
Speaker B:And it just felt.
Speaker B:I was so ashamed.
Speaker B:I felt all this shame every time I walked past the cupboard that it was yet another thing that I'd started and I just couldn't finish.
Speaker B:So, you know, I've really enjoyed actually kind of picking that back up at the right time and throwing that out to the world.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that idea of the creative outlet and sometimes exactly what you say.
Speaker A:The dopamine's there, the ideas are there and we churn it out and is in a hyper focus and then our energy doesn't match that and we just.
Speaker A:We sometimes just have to sit on it and wait.
Speaker A:And I've done that with lots of different projects and even this membership space.
Speaker A:I thought about it and it's been a six month buildup to it because I didn't have the capacity six months ago.
Speaker A:And so I just had to.
Speaker A:And I've learned now to sit on it.
Speaker B:It's hard, isn't it?
Speaker A:The old me would have pushed through.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Good on you.
Speaker B:I think that's it.
Speaker B:It's these little learnings, this little.
Speaker B:The wisdom and the maturity that comes, I think in time after getting this understanding about ourselves and just.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Finding the best ways to embrace it, but also protect our resources.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, thank you so much, Alex.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:I will make sure all the information is on the show notes and people can come to contact you with their jewelry and yeah.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker A:I really love this conversation.
Speaker B:I love chatting to you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is out now.
Speaker A:You can find it wherever you buy your books from.
Speaker A:You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.
Speaker A:I have narrated it all myself.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.
