Neurodivergent Hormonal Sensitivity: How Understanding Your Genetics, Trauma, and ADHD Can Help You Heal with Paula Rastrick
This week on the ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, I’m joined by Paula Rastrick, EMDR therapist, psychological trauma specialist, and author of the upcoming book Sensitive Women: A Trauma-Informed, Neurodiverse Approach to Hormonal Sensitivity.
Together, we explore how hormonal sensitivity, trauma, and neurodivergence are deeply connected and how understanding this can help you better regulate your nervous system and emotional responses.
From perimenopause to past trauma, Paula shares empowering insights into how women can reclaim their wellbeing by honouring their unique physiology and lived experiences. Whether you’re neurodivergent, highly sensitive, or navigating hormonal changes, this episode offers practical tools and a compassionate perspective.
What You’ll Learn:
- How genetics, trauma, and environment shape your neurodivergent experience
- Why nervous system dysregulation shows up as anxiety, fear, and hypervigilance
- Why cortisol can feel addictive and keep you stuck in cycles of hyperarousal
- How hormonal shifts like PMDD affect stress tolerance and emotional regulation
- How trauma can be processed without words through body-based methods like EMDR
- Why removing people and environments that dysregulate you supports healing
- How taking responsibility for your reactions helps you reclaim your power
- Why not absorbing other people’s emotions protects your nervous system
- How prioritising space, freedom, and flexibility supports long-term wellbeing
- Simple morning habits that lower cortisol and help regulate your day
Timestamps:
- 02:00 – ADHD, hormones, trauma and your nervous system
- 23:12 – Hormonal changes and their emotional impact
- 32:46 – What happens when we suppress emotions
- 36:42 – Mindfulness and nervous system balance for healing
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by emotional ups and downs or struggled to feel calm in your body, this episode will give you the validation and gentle strategies you’ve been looking for.
You can connect with Paula via her website, www.thebrainbodymethod.com or Instagram @mrspaularastrick
Links and Resources:
Book on to the next ADHD Wellbeing Workshop about Creating ADHD 'Routines' and 'Structures' - Stability in Choppy Waters! Click here to book.
Catch all the previous ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Workshop Series workshops here. Available to buy now as on-demand.
If you love the podcast but want more ADHD support, get a sneak peek of my brand new book, The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit and pre-order it here!
Launching September! Tired of ADHD support that doesn’t get you? My new compassionate, community-first membership ditches the overwhelm by providing support aligned with YOU! Join the waitlist now for an exclusive founding member offer!
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.
This week’s episode is proudly sponsored by The Naked Pharmacy!
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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 have an absolutely fascinating guest.
Speaker A:Again, I say this every week because every week I have fascinating guests with the amazing insights.
Speaker A:But today I really am very much looking forward to having this conversation.
Speaker A:Her name is Paula Rastrick and she is on a sole mission to raise awareness of the science of hormonal sensitivity and the nervous system and the extensive crossovers in women's physical, psychological, cognitive and emotional health.
Speaker A:Now, Paula is training right now to be an EMDR therapist and she is fascinated by the Brain body connections and she has an amazing website called the Brain Body Method, which is about integrated strength, space trauma informed neuroaffirming approach to hormonal sensitivity.
Speaker A:And she empowers women to take back control through post traumatic growth resilience and evidence based psycho education.
Speaker A:And this is all through a neurodivergent lens.
Speaker A:Paula has ADHD herself and really understands it from so many different sort of layers.
Speaker A:So I'm really looking forward to this, this conversation.
Speaker A:Welcome to the podcast, Paula.
Speaker B:Hello.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:Kate.
Speaker A:The big conversation, the big topic that we wanted to talk about was the genetics versus environment factor of neurodivergence and how that shows up with all the conversations about trauma, hormonal sensitivity, nervous system regulation.
Speaker A:There's so many crossovers and we aren't just these simple people that can just be put in one box.
Speaker A:You know, you're autistic, you've got adhd, you've got trauma.
Speaker A:And I think it's so important that we start really peeling back those layers so we can get the nuances and understand and understand how it shows up uniquely to us.
Speaker A:So maybe you can start somewhere and maybe maybe you can reiterate some of the stuff we were talking about just before for the listeners.
Speaker B:Yeah, so I started to extensively investigate this through my own story to start with because I had a terrible time in perimenopause and I have got a complex trauma background.
Speaker B:So I do have a trauma background.
Speaker B:I have quite a lot of adverse childhood experiences.
Speaker B:And I thought at first, right, let's look at the research that crosses over when we talk about reproductive health, let's look at the research in trauma.
Speaker B:So I started to study that first, but then I started to join these dots and you'll know yourself being ADHD is.
Speaker B:We're very, I'm very, very good at pattern recognition.
Speaker B:So you'll start with one thing and then you'll start joining.
Speaker B:And I started literally, honestly, with one little mind map.
Speaker B:And over the years I just started mapping and mapping and mapping.
Speaker B:And so I started crossing over research papers across multiple genres and I started to look at it in a much bigger, bigger kind of deeper layered way, starting from when I was in the womb.
Speaker B:So I started from when I was in my mum's womb and then I started to look at my mum's profile and my dad's profile and their relationship.
Speaker B:And that's when I started to think, right, I've been diagnosed with adhd.
Speaker B:How much of this is heritable genetics?
Speaker B:And I reckon that came from my dad's side, just with the way I've traced it.
Speaker B:And then how much was my environment because my parents relationship wasn't great.
Speaker B:And then I started linking it all up.
Speaker B:So I, I'm very much of the opinion that you've got heritable genetics and these are evolutionary genetics that would have been passed down for survival pro, you know, purposes, if you, if you like, adhd, autism, highly sensitive people, this kind of wiring, more hyper vigilant, more in tune with the environment.
Speaker B:When you had tribes in the hunter gatherer days, you would have had different wiring to survive.
Speaker B:And I believe that's the genetic component.
Speaker B:And then I believe in epigenetics, your environment can really make an impact as to how your genes are switched on and off.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker A:And I think epigenetics is the conversation that so many of us with ADHD, or like you say, this sort of crossover of so many different relatable traits that we can see that really we can understand and we can look back and we talk about this a lot in the podcast, is that we look back at the generations and we see how our, how the neurodivergence showed up in different ways.
Speaker A:And we can say, you know, that showed up in mental health crises conditions, it can show up with addiction, it can show up perhaps, you know, we were talking about narcissism that we see Narcissistic traits in some capacities.
Speaker A:Again, this is all without any awareness, without any awareness understanding.
Speaker A:We're only the first sort of generation who are gaining this awareness in midlife.
Speaker A:So we are, we've been parented and they've been parented by people with absolutely no understanding of, you know, different type of neurological wiring.
Speaker A:So it's so fascinating because that crossover of late in life diagnoses and trauma, whether, you know, it's lots of little T's or lots of big T's, but it's always, always there.
Speaker A:And then that impacts how we, our nervous system has been.
Speaker A:And again, you know, I only understood nervous system regulation a few years ago, you know, four years ago.
Speaker A:So I had no idea that the nervous system was creating anxiety and hyper vigilance and fear and worry and how that showed up in my body, how that showed up in my emotions and my thoughts and all of that.
Speaker A:So it's so fascinating now that we can break it down that we're gaining this understanding and then we can recognize the epigenetics as well.
Speaker A:So now we can make a change if we've got this understanding.
Speaker A:We can change ourselves and our environment now, but we can also, if we're parenting children, you know, who are neurodivergent.
Speaker B:You can start to understand it more from a, from, from perspective really, can't you?
Speaker B:That the nervous system is being finely tuned in your younger years and it's very sensitive, the brain and nervous system in the formative years.
Speaker B:And that's where there should be, in my opinion, an understanding of that so that we can attune to the nervous system rather than the nervous system becoming too hypervigilant and very stress sensitive.
Speaker B:So in the way that I've looked at this, it's like, well, what makes a woman more hormonally sensitive?
Speaker B:And I've looked at different factors which are, and this is the ones I've identified.
Speaker B:So more stress sensitivity, more environmental sensitivity, more sensory sensitivity, and more nervous system sensitivity.
Speaker B:And this is where I believe you've got the connections.
Speaker B:And obviously you've got the biological side.
Speaker B:So you've got your biology, then you've got your psychology and you've got your psyche.
Speaker B:So it's not just a biological construct, you know, I mean, when we look at some of the traits that we're talking about, emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitivity, these are constructs, aren't they?
Speaker B:They're personality constructs that have come developed from perhaps your experiences as well as, and your environment as well.
Speaker B:As your predisposed genetic component.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean if we're breaking this down, it was about safety.
Speaker A:It's about safety.
Speaker B:100% survival and safety and protection.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So if we look back at our childhoods and we can see the many times that we may have not felt safe or connected and we've not felt like we've been understood or we've been listened to or heard or validated, all of that is directly impacting our nervous system.
Speaker A:And, and this is why it kind of upsets me a lot when people don't understand neurodivergence.
Speaker A:And I've started to use the word neurodivergence a lot more than just saying adhd because people just kind of think it's such, it's such a tip of the iceberg.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And ADHD is, yes, it combines all of this, but then we can understand it.
Speaker A:Like you say, with the sensitivity and the nervous system regulation.
Speaker A:I feel like it is a bigger umbrella term where we see all these crossovers and I think trauma, trauma is always part of this because I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced it.
Speaker A:And that then impacts their nervous system regulation.
Speaker A:And we see that now this, like we talk about stress, I read recently that cortisol is more addictive than nicotine.
Speaker A:So if we've been brought up in, you know, stressful environments and that's all we know and it doesn't feel, almost doesn't feel safe to not feel stressed, to be relaxed.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's not safe to feel relaxed.
Speaker B:And that's how I grew up.
Speaker B:That's exactly how I grew up.
Speaker B:And I didn't realize that, that, and I didn't realize that through my childhood.
Speaker B:I didn't realize that the biological components, if you like, with more hyper vigilance, more hyper arousal, more heightened cortisol, more heightened adrenaline, you know, and your nervous system is really, I believe, what we should be looking at because you're dead right in what you just said.
Speaker B:So when you look at female mental health and you start talking at and looking at things like borderline personality, you start looking at all of these DSM diagnostic standard manual sort of tick box diagnosis.
Speaker B:Honestly, I don't think you can distance distinguish some of them because borderline is the same, it has the same components and it gets a really bad press board.
Speaker B:I mean, fascinated with, you know, the crossovers with hormonal sensitivity, borderline personality, narcissism, adhd, autism.
Speaker B:When you actually look at it, it's really difficult to just draw straight lines in the sand, Kate, and say, do you know what this is?
Speaker B:An ADHD profile.
Speaker B:I do not believe that we've got that right.
Speaker B:I think we're looking at a nervous system profile.
Speaker B:And then we need to understand that the nervous system profile dictates the hormonal profile.
Speaker B:Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker B:Rather than it being.
Speaker B:It's like, you know, when we look at the typical medical, biomedical model of what we're going to say is hormones and you'll talk about perimenopause, menopause, pms, pmdd, postnatal depression.
Speaker B:In my opinion, they've looked at that purely from a reproductive science.
Speaker B:And we've got that wrong, Kate, because we need to be looking at.
Speaker B:It's a nervous system science.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And when you look at sort of PMDD can occur at any point across a woman's life, and that is because of epigenetic changes.
Speaker B:That is my belief.
Speaker B:Otherwise we'd all be crossing these spectrums at the same time and we're not.
Speaker B:It depends on those.
Speaker B:Hormonal changes impact epigenetics.
Speaker B:And that is why I believe some women are getting to midlife.
Speaker B:Their nervous system has become more and more dysregulated depending on their environment.
Speaker B:And that has then impact perimenopause.
Speaker B:That's what happened to me.
Speaker B:And I think we've kind of not got it the right way round.
Speaker B:Is that making sense, what I'm saying?
Speaker A:It does make sense.
Speaker A:I think it's about.
Speaker A:We hear again, women in their late, you know, 40s being diagnosed typically, and it is always around perimenopause.
Speaker A:But it's also around the time where stresses are happening.
Speaker A:Divorce, you know, parents are dying, we're looking after sick parents, we've got teenagers that need help, all sorts of things.
Speaker A:It's normally sort of like this storm of.
Speaker A:Of stressors are happening where our nervous system is just about, kind of managed, just about.
Speaker A:And then something happens and we no longer have that inner resilience.
Speaker A:And that's when we're feeling, you know, like you say, the hormonal stuff, the sensitivities maybe, and that's what's pushing our ADHD symptoms.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's hard to.
Speaker A:It's hard to differentiate what's going on because many of us will look back, you know, during puberty, before puberty, all different stages of our life, and see how our ADHD showed up.
Speaker A:And I don't want people to feel invalidated that it's like, well, maybe it's not adhd because we're talking about trauma, but we can find ways.
Speaker A:And many of us are very, very resourceful.
Speaker A:And we've found ways throughout life, you know, different types of scaffolding and support systems and things that we've created.
Speaker A:But sometimes that house of cards just collapses.
Speaker A:And that's when we feel the hormonal sensitivities and we feel just like we just can't cope with the stresses anymore.
Speaker A:I don't want to make this conversation all doom and gloom because I think it's very important that we state all of this because people will resonate so much.
Speaker A:They'll resonate.
Speaker A:They'll see it in family members, they'll see it in themselves.
Speaker A:But what I want to be able to move towards now is like, okay, so now what?
Speaker A:I want to move forwards now with more peace and calm and regulation.
Speaker A:What do I do?
Speaker B:From my research that I've looked at, I think one of the things that we do need to understand is that perimenopause in itself is a heightened nervous system dysregulation state.
Speaker B:So it's my opinion, based on the research that I've looked at, that because progesterone drops first, right?
Speaker B:That reduces your window of stress tolerance.
Speaker B:Because it's the progesterone that's creating the estrogen and progesterone are buffers.
Speaker B:They're neuromodulators.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:But it's the progesterone dropping first that then decreases your stress resilience.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:And it reduces your window of stress tolerance.
Speaker B:So when we look at how does hormonal fluctuations impact us, then we need to understand that it's about.
Speaker B:They are internal stressors to the nervous system based on what's going on internally, but what's happening in your environment at the same time.
Speaker B:And you, you touched on that, Kate.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Because we can't.
Speaker B:It's not just your internal stresses, it's your psychosocial stresses.
Speaker B:They are impacting the nervous system as well.
Speaker B:And what happens is, is you can end up with heightened hyper arousal.
Speaker B:So you have this heightened state of anxiety.
Speaker B:You have a heightened.
Speaker B:Well, you already had that, right?
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But again, you've either masked it.
Speaker B:So I'll give you the example of how I started to work out.
Speaker B:I've always been highly sensitive.
Speaker B:So what did I use?
Speaker B:I used alcohol, I used drugs.
Speaker B:I didn't know at this time that actually those coping mechanisms were due to my own nervous system dysregulation, because I had no idea.
Speaker B:And when we look at the research now, we can See that women who have higher excitation in the nervous system, which is adhd, autism, all of these profiles, cptsd, these are the links I found.
Speaker B:We also tend to be more addicted to food, binge eating, alcohol.
Speaker B:And that's because in the higher estrogen phases of the cycle, women are more vulnerable to addictions.
Speaker B:And I think we've kind of got this a little bit wrong because we're almost sort of focusing too much on each estrogen and thinking it's all estrogen and dopamine.
Speaker B:Well, it's not, and this is misleading.
Speaker B:And I find this conversation of, you know, pretty much everyone says, well, the reason that women with ADHD struggle more is because the estrogen decline.
Speaker B:It's not, it's a roller coaster which, which really disrupts that balance.
Speaker B:And once we understand that, then it's about that window of stress tolerance.
Speaker B:How do I increase my capacity to handle the stressors in order to not have that up, down, roller coaster?
Speaker B:So what I'm suggesting, Kate, is we need to increase the window of stress tolerance and that will help us to have the capacity to deal with the stresses which are internal and external stresses.
Speaker B:And I think looking at what we've already spoken about for me is processing of trauma.
Speaker B:So, you know, we know that we hold trauma in the body.
Speaker B:So that's a lot of my work, what I'm looking at.
Speaker B:And also I'm looking at the science of what's called HRV training and vagal toning, because that's my background.
Speaker B:So I came from a sports science background.
Speaker B:And in my opinion, we are so focused on doing, we don't have the rest and recovery part.
Speaker B:So if you're already in that turbulence and you're still doing, doing, doing, because how many of us really just keep pushing, pushing, pushing.
Speaker B:If you've got no stress capacity, you are going to struggle far more.
Speaker B:So the science side of things, I came from a background where if I worked in professional football and you had a professional footballer who's in the red zone in training and then they'd see the data, you're in the red zone.
Speaker B:Perhaps he's had problems at home, perhaps he's had an argument with his wife, perhaps he's just had an injury, what would you do?
Speaker B:You try to, you'd pull him back to rest and recovery in order to increase his capacity to then go and play Manchester City on Saturday.
Speaker B:It's the same with hormonal cycles.
Speaker B:We're not going with the kind of ebb and flow, we're pushing, pushing Pushing.
Speaker B:And we're not designed to do that, Kate.
Speaker B:We're not designed biologically as women to be pushing, pushing.
Speaker B:And I think that's where burnout happens, because how many burnout cycles have I been through in my life?
Speaker B:Because I've pushed the system to the point where it has to shut down in order to conserve energy.
Speaker B:And that's what the nervous system will do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, it's all so fascinating.
Speaker A:And I totally agree with you about progesterone.
Speaker A:Why are we not talking more about progesterone?
Speaker A:Why are we not.
Speaker A:Yeah, we've got it gone.
Speaker A:I wish that more women knew about this.
Speaker A:And I've spoken to so many women going, oh, I've had terrible experience with progesterone.
Speaker A:I've got a progesterone sensitivity, progesterone intolerance, progesterone.
Speaker B:I just want to say to you, because I did a whole Instagram live, it's on my Instagram grid, talking about the reasons why some women have what's medically called progesterone sensitivity.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And it really needs to be understood because it's not as simple as what it's being made out, which is like, oh, it's progesterone.
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It's due to epigenetics and epigenetic changes at the GABA receptors.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So some women struggle to convert progesterone to allopregnal alone, which is what you want it to convert to, but they're then being told that they're progesterone intolerant.
Speaker B:That is not the case.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And some women, depending on your epigenetic profile and your nervous system, which we keep saying some women need higher progesterone to estrogen ratios.
Speaker B:That is not being talked about enough.
Speaker B:It's being focused on estrogen.
Speaker B:Now, if you've got too much estrogen, Kate, you're in hyperarousal.
Speaker B:It's a stimulant.
Speaker B:We've got a balance of excitation and inhibition.
Speaker B:That's how the nervous system works.
Speaker B:And estrogen is excitatory and progesterone is inhibitory.
Speaker B:And when you actually understand it's two forces working against each other, then to talk about estrogen in isolation, particularly with nervous system profiles, adhd, complex trauma, autism.
Speaker B:It's scientifically incorrect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because a lot of ADHD women who I've spoken to over the years have said that progesterone, and again, I'm gonna maybe say the synthetic style of progesterone before they've Been sort of perimenopausal, has contributed to depression.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's con.
Speaker A:Contributed to low mood, to, you know, even sort of suicide ideation.
Speaker A:And they've been terrified of progesterone because of it.
Speaker B:It's got muddled up, though, hasn't it?
Speaker B:Because it's not the same, is it?
Speaker B:Because progestin is not the same as progesterone.
Speaker B:And, you know, in my book, I talk about, I went on the pill when I was 15, right, because that's what you did, you know, you went on the pill.
Speaker B:But we've now got the research that's starting to come out that says when you're young and your brain is very plastic, right, Your nervous system and your brain is highly sensitive and very plastic, these epigenetic changes, they can affect the GABA system.
Speaker B:They can affect GABA receptors, right?
Speaker B:And then later on in life when you start to then take, you know, some, it can create an adverse effect due to epigenetic changes at the GABA receptors.
Speaker B:I think this is something that really needs to be explained because progestin, again, is being almost talked about in the medical world as the same as progesterone.
Speaker B:It's not the same.
Speaker B:I don't know how this happened.
Speaker A:Let's go back to what you were saying about the processing of the trauma.
Speaker A:So we can't change our past.
Speaker A:We know that.
Speaker A:But, you know, like you, you know, is that if it's stuck within our body and it's stuck in our nervous system, that we are going to have these cycles.
Speaker A:We're just going to be kind of running on these.
Speaker A:This stress mode of this nervous system just heightened the whole time.
Speaker A:So if we're making this conscious decision now of saying, right, I don't want to carry this on anymore, and I want to create a more harmonious environment for my children to live in.
Speaker A:I want to create a state of regulation in our household and have safety and connection in my later years.
Speaker A:What can people start doing now?
Speaker A:Like even just from this podcast now going, I, I need.
Speaker A:I need things to change.
Speaker B:One of the reasons that I particularly am moving into creating a bespoke program, really, for women is because when you talk about complex trauma, one of the stumbling blocks or the issues is this whole fear of thinking, I have to talk about my trauma.
Speaker B:I have to talk about things that have happened to me.
Speaker B:And a people are not comfortable with that because it feels like I'm going to regurgitate.
Speaker B:And we know from the science, right, that really, to process trauma, we don't need to go there.
Speaker B:We don't need to because it's a bottom up experience.
Speaker B:That is why I've decided to go into more EMDR and somatic works, because you do not need to go there.
Speaker B:You want to be able to process the trauma and mobilize that energy out of the body.
Speaker B:But for some people, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to talk about it.
Speaker B:And that's really important because I think that puts people off.
Speaker B:And I think it's really important that if you are going to, I call it sort of healing.
Speaker B:And I believe that if we all heal, then we have a better world.
Speaker B:You know, I mean it's, you know, if we were all to take accountability and responsibility for our healing, could you imagine how much better the world would be?
Speaker B:So I believe that actually processing the trauma and actually then through emdr, so finding somebody that's got a somatics and an EMDR sort of background, but then also that understanding of self and I think honestly the psyche work is so important.
Speaker B:So you'll have heard of ifs, you know, Right.
Speaker B:Understanding your psyche and your part.
Speaker B:And what parts are you keeping pushed down?
Speaker B:You know, the little girl that was scared to say anything because you wanted to conform.
Speaker B:And I think ADHD and neurodivergence, there's a lot of that, a lot of that pushing down parts of your psyche that you felt you needed to fit in, didn't you?
Speaker B:I mean, I remember when I was at school being bullied and I mean, how many of us have been bullied at school?
Speaker B:This leaves an imprint in your nervous system.
Speaker B:So I believe doing the work and doing the emdr, then understanding your psyche, allowing yourself to step forwards.
Speaker B:And I think this is the really brilliant thing about perimenopause.
Speaker B:Although people, I do get pushback.
Speaker B:Perimenopause is the time to shed that fear, that masking.
Speaker B:It's the time to step into who you truly are.
Speaker B:And I am a massive authenticity.
Speaker B:I'm just like, you need to be your authentic self and ditch, ditch the people that don't accept you for being authentic.
Speaker B:You know, and it's that that can be so hugely powerful in itself.
Speaker B:Just having permission to think, you know what I'm shedding.
Speaker B:All of this stuff that no longer serves me.
Speaker B:I mean, sometimes that's people, Kate, that's people shedding the people.
Speaker B:Toxic relationships, people that still dysregulate your nervous system.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Instead of holding on to these relationships, it's time to let Them go.
Speaker B:And even that in itself has a huge impact on your nervous system.
Speaker B:Because we know we're designed to co regulate, we're designed for social connection.
Speaker B:Well, if you're in social connection and that friend that you've had for 20 odd years actually isn't really a friend, they have to go, I know because.
Speaker A:No, I think it's, it's so important to sort of state it as it is because people pleasing for, for many people like us who have been masking and like you say, trying to fit in and you know, conform and just feel safe in their sort of social environment is exhausting.
Speaker A:And it leads, you know, we know the statistics that it leads to things like autoimmune conditions, gut problems, like physical symptoms such as chronic pain and skin problems and all sorts of things.
Speaker A:So when we, like you say, when we start unmasking and we start stepping into our authentic self, letting go of the people pleasing, like you say, removing ourselves from toxic situations, we start noticing our physical symptoms beginning to heal as well.
Speaker A:And it's no coincidence.
Speaker A:So what, what's hard, and I'm going to speak from a personal perspective is the doing.
Speaker A:We can say it.
Speaker A:And yes, there's going to be family members that you think, okay, that person really triggers me.
Speaker A:And every time I'm around them, I, my shoulders go up, tension, my neck hurts, my, my chest palpitates.
Speaker A:But sometimes you can't just get rid of family members.
Speaker A:And it's all very easy, you know, when you see all these sort of memes on social media.
Speaker B:But yeah, family members is a tough one.
Speaker A:It's trying to almost like you say, with the parts work, seeing it all and without judging and recognizing and going back to that, that child, that inner child and you know, with a hand on your heart and just saying, I get it, I understand.
Speaker A:I can see that you're dysregulated.
Speaker A:Sometimes I do that now if I'm in a situation and I can feel all of that instead of just being like, oh grow up Kate, or just deal with it or you're a grown woman, like, why aren't you just getting over it?
Speaker A:Someone said that to me, my family the other day and went, why aren't you just over it?
Speaker A:Just get over it.
Speaker A:And I recoiled and I just kind of thought, you know what, that's a, that's a them problem and that's their thing.
Speaker A:And I spoke to myself with kindness and love and said, this is not an ideal situation you're in.
Speaker A:I get that and I know it's not easy and you're going to be out in a couple of hours and maybe you can't, you don't need to put yourself in this situation very often.
Speaker A:But sometimes, unfortunately, we do.
Speaker A:You know, Christmases, family get togethers, where we have to be in those situations, it's, it's recognizing how it impacts our body and maybe then speaking to that inner child and that version of ourself that does need that compassion, even if we're not getting it externally, I think does help because there are a lot of people that will just go, well, I can't just eliminate certain people from my life.
Speaker B:And you can't just, you can't.
Speaker B:I mean, I've had that.
Speaker B:Trust me when I say I've had that.
Speaker B:I have had that.
Speaker B:So, so what I've done then is once I've started to work all this out, I'm like, right, okay, so the only person I can take control of is my own is myself.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Because you can't change other people.
Speaker B:It's impossible to change other people.
Speaker B:Particularly if you have a complex relationship, you know, then the work comes from the inner work of you understanding how you react to that person.
Speaker B:So your reactions are your responsibility.
Speaker B:That sounds a bit like tough love, because sometimes I do have people that are like, well, they've triggered me.
Speaker B:Those triggers are your responsibility because you can't control the environment.
Speaker B:But what you can do is you can start to understand, why does this person affect me so much?
Speaker B:Well, we know as somebody who's more sensitive that we are more sensitive to rejection.
Speaker B:We're more sensitive to criticism.
Speaker B:You know, when you talk about being more sensitive, so therefore understanding that that's you, then you do the work to understand, to put the boundaries in place.
Speaker B:Which doesn't mean that you don't see these people, because you're right, you have to see them.
Speaker B:But it's about your reactions.
Speaker B:It's those boundaries about how they're affecting you.
Speaker B:Whereas I always used to try to shape shift around people because that's what you do.
Speaker B:You, you grow up kind of adapting and shape shifting yourself.
Speaker B:I won't do that anymore, Kate.
Speaker B:What I'll do is say, this is me.
Speaker B:This is my space.
Speaker B:If you come into my space in my environment and you either attack me or you're trying to be, you know, because you've all got these people in life that will deliberately try to, you know, maybe trigger you, then you start to understand that actually they, they have to take control of themselves.
Speaker B:It's about you understanding yourself.
Speaker B:So that, you know, no, this isn't my issue.
Speaker B:And I think it's this external projection all the time.
Speaker B:You know, you can't externally project your internal world onto someone else.
Speaker B:And that's what it's called, projection.
Speaker B:When someone's struggling internally, they typically, particularly from the family I grew up with, which more on the narcissistic spectrum, that projection is then pushed to you, and you're dealing with someone else's external projection, and it's understanding that's not your responsibility.
Speaker B:I am not going to take that on board.
Speaker B:I understand what that is now, and I'm not going to allow that to become my issue.
Speaker A:I think it's really empowering for people to hear that because we can find ourselves in this victim mode.
Speaker A:And I think when we've not had understanding or we've not been able to, you know, hear conversations like this where people are stating things, and then we're able to connect dots and go, okay, so I actually know what's going on now.
Speaker A:And we have been in this mode of, well, they do this to me and they've done that to me, and my life's been really difficult.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that's all very, very valid.
Speaker A:Totally agree with you that we have to take responsibility to.
Speaker A:To heal.
Speaker A:We have to take responsibility to regulate.
Speaker A:We have to find ways to not, you know, carry on these cycles to.
Speaker B:You know, it's generational trauma, Kate.
Speaker B:That's what it is.
Speaker B:I mean, when you look at my family cycles, and I know you can talk about myself, is my parents died a long time ago, and I spent quite a lot of my, you know, years thinking, blaming, right?
Speaker B:So I'm thinking, you know, how could you have done that?
Speaker B:But when I've realized, okay, it's unrecognized.
Speaker B:They didn't know themselves, right?
Speaker B:And I'd happen to have two parents, that it was a very toxic relationship.
Speaker B:I'm not the only person that's had that, you know, I mean, I've had quite a lot of stuff in my childhood that I've had to deal with, and we all cope with things differently.
Speaker B:But when you start to realize, if I don't process this and let go of the anger and all the resentment or the bitterness, where is that going?
Speaker B:And I can only tell you from my mum.
Speaker B:It goes inside, down into the body and manifests as illness.
Speaker B:And that is so important because the only person that's going to get hurt is you.
Speaker B:You are going to become potentially ill from pushing down the anger, from pushing down the resentment.
Speaker B:And this is where I'm saying that if you can understand that it's not about saying that it's not valid because it is a hunt.
Speaker B:My experience is 100% are valid.
Speaker B:But I've realized at quite a later age, and I'd love people to see this from a younger age, all of that anger and resentment about two people that brought me into the world who didn't know in the 70s, you know, where's my anger going?
Speaker B:It's just going straight back in my body.
Speaker B:And I think that's the important bit is that without that anger, work on yourself and the, the letting that go, then anger and resentment unfortunately has a real physical.
Speaker B:As we've touched on, has a real physical consequence and a mental consequence.
Speaker B:It's not just your mental health, it's your physical health.
Speaker B:And I think we need to understand that more because really when we're looking at, you know, why we've got these illnesses, a lot of it comes from that push down emotional suppression in my opinion.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:There's no coincidence why the neurodivergent community suffers at such a high proportion with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, you know, like I say, autoimmune conditions.
Speaker A:It's all linked.
Speaker B:I've looked at that.
Speaker A:Yeah, Cardiovascular.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Hypermobility and inflammation.
Speaker B:Yes, inflammation.
Speaker B:Because in my opinion, I've done this in the book.
Speaker B:So what I've done is I've taken all of these and I've cross referenced them through research and I've looked at it all and it's like, right, look at these psychological components, then look at the neuro biological components.
Speaker B:Then you've got your behavioral components, then you've got.
Speaker B:And you will see that nervous system dysregulation and, and I don't want to scare people because this is my profile is higher inflammation.
Speaker B:It's higher inflammation, Kate.
Speaker B:That's, that is what it is.
Speaker B:And when we understand inflammation and how it affects the body, then we need to understand I have to work on reducing that inflammation.
Speaker B:And that is psychological inflammation.
Speaker B:That is psyche inflammation.
Speaker B:That's spiritual inflammation.
Speaker B:That's, it's.
Speaker B:You can't, you can't.
Speaker B:And hormonal, hormonal sensitivity is part of that.
Speaker B:That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker B:You can't, it's higher inflammation.
Speaker B:And it's all connected and we've kind of separated it.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I don't know why.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And all of that and then just going back to what we were saying before is that we're living in this world of productivity Pushing, achieving, never stopping.
Speaker A:You know, burnout is at an all time high and we are not giving ourselves time to rest and recover and renourish and recharge ourselves.
Speaker A:And this is, this world is sort of just like do, do, do, do, do.
Speaker A:And, and you're sort of like the validation comes from, you know, external kind of achievements and monetary things and materialistic things.
Speaker A:And we need to start recognizing that actually to have space, freedom, flexibility, time.
Speaker A:That is what we should be striving for.
Speaker A:And sometimes I'll get to a point in my business and I'm like, why is it not that this not working, I need to be doing more, I need to change this.
Speaker A:But for me, if I don't have that hour in my day to go for a walk and then I have got time to go and pick my kids up, and I know this is privilege as well, then I know how the impact it has on my nervous system, the stress levels in my house.
Speaker A:So I forego certain things because for me the biggest thing is can I still have a career still, can I still be the parent that I want to be while also maintaining my nervous system health?
Speaker A:And for me, my nervous system health is really at the very top of my priority list.
Speaker A:Because if that's not regulated, then I can't got four kids, I've got a husband, My massive priority is making sure that they are in a safe family home.
Speaker A:And that won't happen if my nervous system isn't regulated.
Speaker A:But we can change our mindset a little bit.
Speaker A:And it is about mindset with regards to.
Speaker A:Okay, so do I need to be on my phone first thing in the morning?
Speaker A:Can I claim some time back from phone usage or, or sitting instead of going for a walk or choosing to do some breath work?
Speaker A:Like little tiny tweaks that we can change?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I mean I even looked, I looked at a study the other day, a new one, about perimenopause symptoms being worse if you haven't got your circadian rhythm right.
Speaker B:So for example, blue light on the phone at 10 o' clock at night makes your perimenopause symptoms worse.
Speaker B:Well, of course it does.
Speaker B:It's exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker B:Your nervous system is what we need to be looking at.
Speaker B:In my opinion, rather than this kind of like isolated approach to just hormones.
Speaker B:We need to understand the complex system and even little hacks like that, which is, you know, for example, get up in the morning, don't look at the phone first thing, and eat before you have coffee.
Speaker B:So if you get up and you start drinking coffee and you already have a hyper aroused nervous system.
Speaker B:You're sending that nervous system up for the rest of the day and it's just get some protein down, you get some food and then have your coffee.
Speaker B:Just these little tweaks to, to bring your cortisol down.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thank you for saying that.
Speaker A:Because you know, part of this conversation is it can feel very overwhelming to listen to because it's kind of like, oh my God, how am I ever going to, you know, get to this point of healing and you know, processing this trauma.
Speaker A:But like you say, it's just those small things every single day.
Speaker A:And I really notice, you know, you know, I'm a sucker for a coffee in the morning before breakfast.
Speaker A:But I've really noticed that if I have my coffee with some eggs, I am a much calmer, more regulated.
Speaker B:That's what I do.
Speaker B:So I just make sure that I don't have my, I have a cup of tea.
Speaker B:I know it's like.
Speaker B:But yeah, this changed a lot for me that it was like, I'm not having my coffee until I've had my eggs because otherwise my cortisol is already high, isn't it?
Speaker B:Because remember you're getting up to.
Speaker B:And your cortisol levels are higher anyway because you're getting ready for the day.
Speaker B:If you push that system up into hyper arousal before you've even started with your environmental stimulus, your work, your husband, your four children, you are already in a dysregulated state and it's hard to come down from when you started so high.
Speaker B:So it's, it's just these hacks.
Speaker B:I think knowing this stuff that can help maybe.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I mean this is absolutely fascinating, Paula.
Speaker A:And I know that people will want to hear more from you.
Speaker A:Can you tell people, you know how they can work with you?
Speaker A:When is your book out so I can put all the information in the show notes for them?
Speaker B:Yeah, so my book will be out this year.
Speaker B:I don't have a date yet because I've got a publisher.
Speaker B:So my book is going to be out this year.
Speaker B:My book traces everything from the womb.
Speaker B:So it's a, it's the first time that's been done.
Speaker B:So I do believe it's going to make a massive contribution to this conversation, I'm hoping.
Speaker B:And the best place to kind of follow what I'm doing is on Instagram and I do do a newsletter as well.
Speaker B:And my work at the moment, I am actually in the process talking about work of designing a specific program which is going to be all around hormonal sensitivity.
Speaker B:So it's going to include all of the things we've talked about, which is the science.
Speaker B:I'm a.
Speaker B:I'm a big science person, so I like to know that what I'm doing and data.
Speaker B:So I'm doing case studies at the moment with two women with pmdd.
Speaker B:And once I've done my case studies with them, I'm then able to start to look out.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Is what I'm doing working.
Speaker B:So I want to get those case studies done.
Speaker B:So it's probably going to be later in the year, Kate, that it's all going to come together.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker A:Well, good luck with it all and thank you for your work and thank you for your passion because these conversations, you know, need to happen.
Speaker A:Thankfully, they've happened on the podcast a few times in different variations.
Speaker A:But I think the more we have these conversations and each expert bringing in, you know, their thoughts and their beliefs and again, their research, you know, it all has to be sort of research based because I'm very much of the.
Speaker A:I'm not sciencey at all, and I'm not really about data.
Speaker A:But what I am about is this sort of qualitative on the ground, you know, conversations I'm having with so many different people.
Speaker A:And it's all linking up and there's a picture that's being, you know, like a jigsaw.
Speaker B:That's how I feel.
Speaker B:It's like a jigsaw that's smashed.
Speaker B:And slowly but surely, this is how I wrote my book.
Speaker B:You start putting those pieces in and you get an extra expert in that says one thing that relates to this person.
Speaker B:And actually we're all speaking the same language in a slightly different way, but we are all speaking the same language.
Speaker B:It's just not quite got that whole jigsaw yet.
Speaker A:Yeah, and it's.
Speaker A:And it's coming.
Speaker A:I really do believe it's coming.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And the good news is, is that I'm speaking to, you know, scientists and doctors who are breaking the mold from, you know, this sort of traditional perspective of, like, the separation between, you know, the, the brain and the body and illness and our emotions and neurodivergence, and they're on the same page.
Speaker A:So change is coming.
Speaker A:So I just want to thank you so much for, for all your work and I'll just make sure that everyone, you know, has.
Speaker A:Has access to those links in the show notes.
Speaker A:Thank you, Paula.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:If today's episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for even further support.
Speaker A:My brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, is now available to order from anywhere you get your books from.
Speaker A:I really hope this book is going to be the ultimate resource for anyone who loves this podcast and wants a deeper dive into all these kinds of conversations.
Speaker A:If you head to my website, ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk, you'll find all the information on the book there, which is going to be out on the 17th of July.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
