Are You Questioning Whether You Have Autism or ADHD as a Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur, Coach, or Practitioner?

Are you questioning whether you have autism or ADHD as a Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur, coach, or practitioner?

In today’s episode, I explore some of the questions many of us face: Should I seek a diagnosis for autism or ADHD? How can I support my nervous system and operate at my highest potential?

Through personal stories and insights, I’ll show you the power of embracing our neurodivergent gifts and creating a positively supportive environment for growth. This podcast is for anyone questioning their neurotype, seeking self-acceptance, and aiming to thrive authentically in their entrepreneurial journey.

Why Listen:

• Gain clarity on whether seeking a diagnosis aligns with your journey
• Discover strategies to support your nervous system and enhance functionality
• Learn the importance of self-compassion and leveraging neurodivergent strengths
• Understand how creating a supportive environment can lead to greater success and fulfillment as a highly sensitive entrepreneur.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:12

Hello and welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here. Today's episode we're talking about have you questioned whether or not you might have autism or ADHD, especially as a highly sensitive entrepreneur, coach or practitioner? Now, I'm bringing this up because I have had a lot of questions from followers and the experiences that I've had personally and that I have guided many of my clients through. There's been a very common theme of questioning whether you might have the neurodivergent neurotype of autism or ADHD, especially if you're a highly sensitive person, because highly sensitive person or sensory processing sensitivity is a form of neurodivergence. And here's the thing is that there can be a lot of overlap between sensory processing sensitivity, autism and ADHD. Now there are some people that I'm noticing on the internet that are saying, well, if you're a highly sensitive person, that automatically means that you're autistic, and I don't believe that to be true, because there are a subset of the population that have autism, that do not have high sensitivity, and some that even have hyposensitivity. What I believe it is is that there are an overlap of traits and neurotype features that overlap between the two different neurotypes, and that's why there's also a lot of commonality between highly sensitive people and some people who have ADHD.

Speaker 1: 2:50

The medical field is starting to recognize that some people can have both autism and ADHD, which is now being termed AU ADHD. Now, this is the thing If we look back in the history of diagnosing for autism, historically, if one was diagnosed with autism, then the rubric said that it was impossible for that patient to also have ADHD, and now they're seeing that that's not true, and this is just proof about how medical trends and diagnostics can shift and change as we start to understand more and more, and especially when it comes to autism, especially if you're a female. Historically the research on autism was done primarily on males, especially boys, young boys. As the research has widened and they're looking more into a wider subset of the population, they're seeing that not only is autism something that is present in females, but oftentimes it looks very different than what it looks like traditionally from the research that was done on males. If you're interested in diving deeper into any of this, before I forget, I want to suggest a book to check out that you might find interesting and informative, and the book is called Divergent Mind Thriving in a World that Wasn't Designed for you, and the author's name is Janera Nirenberg, and this book speaks about some of the different neurotypes of neurodivergence, and especially in the female population.

Speaker 1: 4:30

I found this to be a really empowering book. It really helped me better understand myself as a woman who is neurodivergent, especially for the fact that I've always felt different. Reading this book helped me to understand some things about myself that I didn't understand before, and this is the thing that I find with my clients and some of the people that reach out to me that follow me is that when you understand more about yourself, then you can understand why you do the things that you do, and that's empowering. The more you understand about yourself, the more empowered you can feel, instead of wondering why is this happening to me, why can't I fit in, why can't I do it like these other people? And especially for those of us who are neurodivergent, when we look at, say, for example, sensory processing sensitivity or highly sensitive people, that makes up about 20 to 30% of the population, and so that means that our nervous system and our brain is wired differently than 80% of the population, and so that means, of course, we're not going to function the same as most of the people around us. And, as I talked about in last week's five-day training on day four, when the people around us don't understand our differences, especially when we are neurodivergent, then we can be led to believe, and conditioned to believe, that there's something wrong with us and that there's something about us that we need to change, fix, hide or mask, and so masking is a very common term that is used, especially in the autism world. About masking or hiding who you truly are masking or hiding those traits that maybe other people might think are quirky or weird, in order to try to blend in or fit in or not stand out, and I know that was the case for me for pretty much most of my life.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Turning back to the main focus of the topic of conversation for today's podcast episode is are you questioning whether you might have autism or ADHD, especially if you identify as a highly sensitive person, which you probably do if you follow me and if you're listening to this podcast, you're following this podcast, and so there is a subset of the highly sensitive population who is also going to identify as having autism or ADHD. Now my personal experience. I'm going to be speaking more focused and highlighting autism versus ADHD. I'm going to speak from my own lived experience today, and so, as you already know I identify as a highly sensitive person with sensory processing sensitivity. A number of years back I started to explore and was opened up to the possibility could I also be autistic? And it was a really interesting thing that started me on this road of looking at myself and whether or not I might have autism.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So as a naturopathic doctor, I already knew a fair amount about autism and the criteria for diagnoses, and I knew that one of the things that is a very common feature of somebody who has autism is they might have a difficult time understanding idioms. Examples of idioms could be things like the straw that broke the camel's back, like a fish out of water kill two birds with one stone. You know these are just a few examples of many. I never thought twice about this for myself. I do remember when I would learn some of these phrases when I was a child. They would have to be explained to me and then I would memorize the idiom and then, whenever anyone would say it, I would just refer back to the memorized definition of what this idiom means and I never thought twice about it until I ended up where I'm living now.

Speaker 1: 8:39

So the backstory. I think it was about nine years ago I was living on the west coast of British Columbia, canada. I ended up meeting my now husband and he was over there on a work contract for 12 months and his home is here in Quebec, canada, and so he's a French speaking Quebecois. And as we were dating, it became clear, as his work contract was ending and my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, that it was time to pack up where I was and move back east. So we ended up moving back to his home in a town in Lac-Saint-Jean that is 99.9% French speaking. So I had no choice but to really catch up on my French.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Now the backstory on that when I was in high school I did go to French immersion, so all of my core subjects were in French, and I'm really grateful that I chose to do that when I was younger, because I developed a really good core understanding of French. But of course, I didn't speak French for 20 years and the French that I learned in school was very proper French. It was all about the grammar. It was very much about just the proper way to speak. French that I learned in school was very proper French. It was all about the grammar. It was very much about just the proper way to speak French. I did not learn about the Quebecois slang and I did not learn about idioms when I was in French immersion.

Speaker 1: 10:08

So, fast forward to me moving with my husband to Quebec, canada, living in this French-only speaking place, speaking French with my husband and his teenage children, it was only a matter of time before the idioms would come out, the French idioms. They made absolutely no sense to me. They would say something, they would say an idiom, and I would just look at them with this blank stare, like what did you just say? And it became clear as more and more idioms came out. They had to define the idiom and I had to memorize the idiom and what it meant so that I could refer back to it in my mind whenever anybody would use an idiom. And I started thinking about this and it sparked something in me. I don't know why it did, but it did. And so I decided to go online and do a little bit of research. And this is the other thing is, when I do research, I dive into rabbit holes. When I find a subject that I need to learn more about, I will dive and dive and dive. And it fascinates my husband and I have close friends of mine who are just absolutely amazed with what I come up with when I end up going into these rabbit holes of research.

Speaker 1: 11:30

So here I am, going into learning about autism and I decided to take some online tests and scored extremely high on all of them. And I did one of the tests in French so that I could show my husband the results. And he looked at me. He said you would rather go to a library than a house party? And I said yeah, and we had a conversation about that and he went. What do you think about this? I ended up finding a website. It's a great resource for you if you're wanting to learn more about autism for yourself or for loved ones. It's called embrace-autismcom. The person who created this website is a naturopathic doctor and it's got great resources and several self-assessment tests that you can do.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Now this is the thing is these self-assessment tests are not official diagnostic tests, as mentioned on the website. The willingness to take all or a multitude of tests may itself be indicative of autism, and I would have to agree. Now here's the thing is, once I started to dive into these rabbit holes of understanding more about autism and recognizing myself in so much of the features and the diagnostic criteria and looking back at my past, especially my childhood and going everything makes so much more sense now Everything. I have not received an official diagnosis for a number of reasons and I'm going to go over why you may or you might not want to consider getting an official diagnosis For myself. Where I live, the medical system is heavily backlogged and where I'm located, all of the medical practitioners only speak French and so my French is decent, but it doesn't come as easily to me as English and I don't feel comfortable doing assessment tests, especially an autism assessment test, in French. So there's a lot of limitations to me accessing getting an autism diagnosis where I live currently. Now I can say that I'm self-diagnosed and I'm sitting on the fence about that. All of those self-assessment tests that I've done, I score extremely high, but I'm on the fence about identifying myself as a self-diagnosed autistic and that might change to observe in people that I know, in clients and on the internet and on social media.

Speaker 1: 14:19

When you get a diagnosis, like I mentioned, it explains so much and that's empowering and it can feel liberating and it can feel like wow, I finally figured a piece of my puzzle out. This makes so much more sense and there can be this tendency then to identify as being autistic, to the point where it just becomes your whole identity, and I understand that. It's such an important part of who you are, especially when no one has understood you, when you've felt so misunderstood for so many years, especially when people around you have been trying to get you to change, telling you that you're too weird or quirky, telling you that who you are and what you're doing isn't right and wondering what about you is so broken. And once you recognize and realize I'm not broken, I'm autistic, there's this weight that's lifted off of your shoulders, especially for me. I know I've spent so many years of my life trying to fit in somewhere, trying to belong somewhere, and it could be so easy for me to that now say I now have an identity, I now belong somewhere, and I think it was the years leading up to finally coming to this realization that I might be autistic that has prevented me from really stepping into this as an identity, and that's this. I recently spoke about this on my social media.

Speaker 1: 15:58

I spent a lot of years trying to find a way to fit in, searching for somewhere where I belonged, because I never felt like I belonged anywhere. And if we look at the last seven, eight years of my life, I've gone through many shifts, starting with after my mom passed away. I ended up in the worst autoimmune and endometriosis flare of my life and it changed my life. It spiraled me into a dark night of the soul. I lost a sense of who I am, trying to figure out who I am as I was watching my physical abilities and my future and my capabilities and all the potential that I had for myself slip through my fingers like sand. During those months and those couple of years, as I was navigating these flares and figuring out what was going on and figuring out who I am, amidst episodes of being bed bound for weeks and months at a time, I started to find communities of other people who were dealing with the same issues, other people with autoimmunity and endometriosis, and I felt like maybe that's where I belonged Right.

Speaker 1: 17:19

As I was diving into rabbit holes of research, trying to figure out how to pull myself out of this, and as I was navigating, trying different things to manage my symptoms, I came across the carnivore diet. It seemed to be the miraculous thing that turned everything around for myself. It enabled me to get back on my feet after being bed bound for months. And, of course, this carnivore diet. For a naturopathic doctor, it made absolutely no sense, but it was also the thing that helped give me my life back when I was watching it slip through my fingers. As I was diving into rabbit holes of research about the carnivore diet and why that may have been the thing that helped to turn my symptoms around, I discovered communities based around the carnivore diet and low carb and I thought, well, maybe that's where I belong. But then, as I was continuing my path, I was finding that the carnivore diet was helping. But it got me to a place where I plateaued and I was actually starting to develop sensitivities to certain cuts of meat. So it was like I was backing myself into a corner, even on one of the strictest diets on the planet.

Speaker 1: 18:44

And it was around that time if you've listened to some of my previous podcast episodes that I started to explore, well, what else is possible, what else is going on here. And that's when I really started to dive into doing some of that inner emotional healing work, and I was working with my mother's spirit, and this is when I did all that work to heal some mother wounds and develop self-compassion for myself that I had sorely lacked for most of my life. And as I had dove into this inner emotional healing sphere, my health got even better and I noticed that those food sensitivities were waning and I was able to start introducing some foods again. And as I was doing this, I was recognizing that I was no longer feeling like I belonged in the carnivore community anymore because I was introducing these other foods. And then, as I was going through this shift, that's when I was really starting to look at well, do I have autism? And between me starting to notice this for myself and my clientele that was coming to me that were highly sensitive people more and more were starting to question for themselves and it was kind of an awakening moment for them and for me. And I decided that this time I'm not going to make this the same cycle as I've done in the past with falling into autoimmune communities, thinking that's where I belonged, or falling into carnivore communities, thinking, okay, well, if I can fit in here, then I'm going to belong somewhere and this is my identity.

Speaker 1: 20:27

I'm seeing now that there are communities, especially within the entrepreneurial world, of people, especially women with autism and ADHD, and I say especially in the entrepreneurial world, because there's this high percentage of people with autism are not thriving in the working world with a job for various reasons, right, especially if their needs can't be accommodated for right. Trying to fit yourself into a world that's not designed for you is hard. World that's not designed for you is hard, and so a lot of people who are highly sensitive, are artistic, do have ADHD. They will feel called to become an entrepreneur and work for themselves, so that they can work on their terms, so that they can design their work in a way that's designed for them and that makes absolute sense. And I'm all for that, and actually that's a core of my personal messaging and mission, which I'll get to in a minute.

Speaker 1: 21:30

But what I was noticing on social media is I could easily find myself spiraling into the same patterns that I have in the past of I need to find a place to belong and, oh, this is where I belong, this is who I am. And then I've come to realize that that cycle doesn't actually give me what I'm actually looking for within myself. I don't need to identify and become part of a group to feel like I belong. Through my own process of inner healing, I've come to recognize that what needs to happen is for me to understand myself, and so this is why understanding these neurotypes can be so helpful, but then not attaching to it as an identity that allows me to belong somewhere. And it's so ironic, because I spent most of my life searching to belong, and now that I've gotten to this point where I have put enough pieces of the puzzle together to figure out what's actually going on underneath the surface and who I actually am, I no longer feel like I need to fit into a group somewhere, and so that's why I don't want to attach too strongly to any one identity.

Speaker 1: 22:53

But I also think that it takes a journey to get to this place, and sometimes especially if you've spent so long searching for an answer and feeling so confused and misunderstood, and when you finally have an answer, sometimes that pendulum needs to swing over to the opposite side of attaching onto this identity, because it's finally something that fits Before. Then you can loosen the grip and find somewhere in the middle where you understand that it makes up a piece of you, but it's not the whole you, and I think this is the thing for all of us. You know, understanding these aspects about ourselves again is so empowering and it explains one piece of a much bigger picture about ourselves. We are are all multifactorial, multilayered beings, and understanding our neurotype is one piece of a much bigger puzzle, but it's also a very empowering piece. So, if you've been questioning, is it possible that I'm autistic or ADHD?

Speaker 1: 24:03

Now, if you're listening to this, maybe you've questioned and you've already had an answer, and I'd be interested to know how much of this resonates or doesn't resonate, or how much of my story might resonate or overlap with yours. And this is the thing everyone's story is different. There's going to be some things that resonate and some things that don't. And, as with all things, take anything that I say with a grain of salt, because my experience is not going to be the same as your experience. Take what you need and leave the rest behind, but hopefully, in all of the episodes that I share here, there's going to be something that might help you to put together another piece of your own personal puzzle. Now, if you've been questioning and you're not sure yet, you might be asking should I seek a diagnosis?

Speaker 1: 24:52

I've had many conversations with people who've been questioning whether or not, they should seek a diagnosis. And there's two fairly common camps that I tend to see. There's one group of people who don't want to get a diagnosis. It's enough for them to recognize themselves in this neurotype so that they can better understand what they're about and how they operate. But they don't want to have an official diagnosis for a variety of reasons, often because they don't want to have it on their medical file, maybe for work, maybe for life insurance or for other purposes. They're just comfortable to know that yeah, I'm quite likely autistic and I don't need to go further with a diagnosis. And then there's another school of thought where somebody really wants to have that diagnosis so they can have that confirmation. Because when you have that confirmation, I understand that that can feel so liberating and freeing and confirming. And so for some people they want the diagnosis, to get the confirmation, so that they can finally maybe trust something about themselves after all these years of gaslighting themselves out of being who they are. And for some people, having a diagnosis can be really helpful so that they can get the accommodations that they need as a neurodivergent person and maybe get the support in terms of disability or get those accommodations in school or with work or whatever it is for them. Having that diagnosis is helpful for them for these reasons and many others, and so you might be in one camp or the other, or there might be something else.

Speaker 1: 26:37

The key is for you to do what feels most aligned for you, and if you're having trouble deciding, what I suggest that you might want to consider doing is actually going back to the last five episodes In my podcast. I did a five-day, five-episode training on how to truly trust your intuition and make decisions in the most aligned way for yourself, according to your design and according to how you operate and think. And listening to those five episodes and practicing the tools that I suggest and taking in the concepts and the perspective shifts that I share in those five episodes might help you to come to a more aligned decision for yourself as to what you might want to do, whether or not you want to seek out a diagnosis or not. And one thing I often suggest for people who are seeking a diagnosis is that not all practitioners will be the same, and this is the same in the medical system with anything, but especially if, say, for example, you're looking for an autism diagnosis and you're a woman, you might want to screen out the practitioner and see whether or not they are knowledgeable about A diagnosing in adults, because that's very different than diagnosing in children and B whether or not they are familiar with autism and how it presents in females. So an adult female is going to be very different than diagnosing a male child, for example. So that would be my suggestion to you if you are seeking out a diagnosis, to make sure that the diagnosing practitioner is familiar with diagnosing in adults and, if you're a female, diagnosing in adult females. Otherwise, there might be a possibility of disappointment, even if you strongly have suspected that if you were to be diagnosed, you would likely be autistic.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Now, technically, in terms of autism, there's not necessarily any treatment per se, compared to say, for example, what might be considered for somebody who might be diagnosed with ADHD. I'm going to talk about in a minute about what can be incredibly supportive for somebody who has autism to increase your potential and functionality. Now, if you suspect that you might have ADHD, for example, getting a diagnosis might open up a pathway to medical treatment, if that's something that you would like to try. And again, when it comes to that, getting medication for some people, they would want that to support their ability to focus and their overall well-being, and some people are not interested in taking medication. As with any medication, there's side effects, and so there's always this pro and con list that needs to happen in terms of whether or not that is something that feels aligned for you. Some people have found that taking medication for ADHD can be incredibly helpful, and some people don't like taking those medications because of the side effects, and that's always a personal decision, and I'm not here to talk about being diagnosed. I'm not here to talk about whether or not to take medications or what medications are involved.

Speaker 1: 30:07

I will talk about a few things to consider that are going to help to support all of us with any type of neurodiversity. Whether or not you decide to seek out diagnosis or seek out medical treatment, the things that I find that are incredibly important are A understand yourself this is where learning about these traits and understanding how you're wired can be incredibly empowering and also understanding what your particular needs are, and anybody and everyone is going to have a different set of needs. You're highly sensitive if you're autistic, if you're ADHD, if you have another neurotype in terms of neurodivergence, and even within each of these neurotypes. Different people will have a different set of needs, especially in terms of supporting your nervous system, right? So your nervous system and your brain are wired differently than the neurotypical population and so, depending on how you're wired, you might have different sets of sensitivities that you might need to accommodate for, whether that be photosensitivity, or whether that be noises or tastes or textures, or and there's so many examples here your senses are definitely one thing to take into account when it comes to your specific nervous system needs and understanding how your senses respond or don't respond to certain things, and then how you think, how your brain processes things. These are examples of understanding how you operate and how your neurotype operates, and the next step?

Speaker 1: 31:57

So the first step is understanding yourself and the next step is accepting these things about yourself, especially if you've been conditioned to believe that these things are unacceptable. If these things are wrong, if these things about you are flaws that need to be fixed, you probably don't accept these things about yourself. You've likely been shaming these features about yourself away. You've likely been playing small, hiding these features about yourself or masking yourself so that these features that might seem weird or strange or quirky don't come out, so that you can try to blend in with the neurotypical population.

Speaker 1: 32:36

When you do this, when you don't own who you are, when you don't accept who you are, when you're trying to fight against it, when you're rejecting who you are, then you're putting additional stress on your nervous system and you're not going to thrive and you're likely going to struggle. You're going to struggle emotionally and over time with all of this pressure on your nervous system. It's going to impact your physiology as well. I've mentioned in previous episodes about how your nervous system is the bridge between your inner emotional terrain and every single physiological system in your body. And if you're putting all this pressure on your nervous system through judgment and criticism and trying to be different and trying to change yourself and not accepting yourself over time, your physiology is going to be impacted as well as your mental wellness.

Speaker 1: 33:31

And so step two is accepting who you are, accepting these features about yourself and having compassion and I talk all about that in lesson four of last week's five-day learning series, how self-compassion is such an important key to thriving, especially as a highly sensitive person. And if you haven't been accepting yourself, you're not going to have a lot of self-compassion for yourself. And so step 2.5,. Step 3, I would say, is self-compassion Developing that self-compassion for yourself with unconditional love. This is an important key to healing and this is an important key to you actually stepping into a higher level of functionality and thriving as a neurodivergent person. As I mentioned in part four last week of the training series, studies show for highly sensitive people, when you do put yourself in a positively supportive environment, both from within and put yourself in a positively supportive environment in terms of accommodating for your nervous system needs, then studies show that this leads to something called vantage sensitivity and studies show that this leads to something called vantage sensitivity, which means that your level of functionality and thriving is going to go up and it will be significantly higher than any improvements that a less sensitive or neurotypical person is going to experience putting themselves in an equally positively supportive environment.

Speaker 1: 35:11

It's that important and it's something that, especially those of us who haven't been accepting of ourselves and haven't accepted our neurodivergence and we've been trying to fit in, we've been trying to find somewhere to belong and we think that there's something wrong with us. We're likely not supporting ourselves in a way that provides vantage sensitivity and this is one of the reasons why so many of us with neurodivergence don't thrive, especially those of us who are highly sensitive people. You know, I came across a few comments the other day from people who are neurodivergent and they do not believe that it is possible to thrive as an autistic person. From what I've observed from my own personal experience and through working with my clients, is that one of the things that causes those of us with neurodivergence especially highly sensitive people and especially those of us with autism, we don't thrive when we don't accept ourselves. We don't thrive when we don't have compassion for ourselves. We won't thrive if we are not accommodating for our own particular unique nervous system needs and we won't thrive if we're not owning the strengths and gifts that come with our neurodivergence. And so this is step three is getting to know your strengths and your gifts as a neurodivergence. And so this is.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Step three is getting to know your strengths and your gifts as a neurodivergent person, whether that be a highly sensitive person, autistic, adhd. There's a lot of overlapping gifts and there's a lot of unique gifts that come with each of the different neurotypes and when you come to accept them and own them and leverage them, you can leverage these over and above your professional skills, especially when you're an entrepreneur, especially when you're a coach or a practitioner. And you've got these professional skills, you can take these gifts that come with your neurodivergence and you leverage them and own them and lean into them. I recently came across a statistic that when you focus on your strengths and leverage them, that you can increase your quality of life by 600%. Like that's huge.

Speaker 1: 37:18

And this takes us accepting who we are and supporting our needs with compassion and leveraging the gifts. And when we do these things, then the challenges that come with these neurodivergent neurotypes become less challenging, they become less overbearing, they become less overwhelming. And this is the thing when you're not accepting yourself, when you're shaming yourself, when you're trying to fit in and belong, when you're trying to change who you are, when you're not accommodating for your neurodivergent needs, when you're doing all of these things and you've got all this pressure on your nervous system, then the challenging aspects of your neurotype are going to predominate. They're going to be the things that are more front and center and you're going to feel more challenged. You're going to feel more overwhelmed. When you accept yourself, when you have compassion for yourself, when you can give yourself grace, when you can give yourself the time that you need, when you can shift around your schedule and the way you operate and work and create boundaries and standards in your business that work for you and your neurotype, and when you leverage your gifts as a neurodivergent person in your work and you focus on your strength and you focus what you really love, without trying to force yourself to be someone that you're not, without forcing yourself to do things because that's what other people do. That's when the strengths come out. That's when you have this possibility to A increase your level of functionality and B thrive.

Speaker 1: 38:58

And I think this is the thing that's not talked about enough. And I mean the other thing as well as a neurodivergent person. If you are trying to compare yourself to a neurotypical person and saying, but I don't look just like that, so I'm not thriving in terms of how my life functions, then you're always going to be in this constant vicious cycle of comparison that will never allow you to thrive. Thriving might not look like the person sitting beside you, but I want to ask you if you're wondering I don't know. I'm neurodivergent, I'm autistic, I'm highly sensitive, I'm ADHD and I'm not thriving.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Are you supporting your nervous system? Are you accepting of who you are? Do you have compassion for yourself? Do you recognize the gifts and strengths that you have and are you leveraging them? These are four questions to ask yourself seriously, and if you say no to any of those, then that might be a piece of your puzzle to look at to help you find a more connected level of functionality within yourself. And then the other piece to that that I had mentioned in the day four, training, was are you in a positively supportive environment? And part of that is what I've already mentioned about accommodating for your nervous system needs and supporting your nervous system so that you have a wider window of tolerance nervous system so that you have a wider window of tolerance, developing stronger vagal tone and higher heart rate variability and coherence. But also, what's the company that you're surrounding yourself with, the people around you? Are they supportive? And this can be a big question depending on where you are in your life and what's going on in your world.

Speaker 1: 40:52

I know for myself in my past I used to be in a romantic relationship with somebody who thought that my sensitivity was a flaw and constantly told me that I needed to grow a thicker skin, and he committed himself to helping me grow a thicker skin and telling me that it was for my own good, because there's no way that I could survive in this world being as sensitive as I am. You know I'm not saying this to shame or blame him. I can see his point of view, based on his conditioning that he thought he was trying to help me, but, as a highly sensitive person, studies show that when you are in a negatively supportive environment, especially with people who do not support or accept you, then you're not going to thrive. And I spoke in training for last week about my experience with my mother, and she was always telling me that I was too sensitive, right up to the point where, just before she passed away, she told me there's one thing that I can do for myself to improve myself as a person is to be less sensitive. And so, of course, I ended up in this romantic relationship that parroted the same message. But the thing is, looking back at myself.

Speaker 1: 42:09

When I was in that relationship, I was not thriving. I was constantly anxious and unsure of myself. Part of the reason was because the main relationship in my life with my romantic relationship, was negatively supportive. It was not a supportive relationship. When I left that relationship. I went to therapy to get some support and moved through a lot of issues and healed some of those wounds, did some work to identify the type of person that I wanted to welcome in my life as a romantic relationship. I'd learned some lessons about what to look for and what I want and what I don't want, and recognizing what you don't want can be so clarifying. That will probably be a whole other podcast episode for another day.

Speaker 1: 43:05

So when I met my now husband, he's a completely different person than who I've been with in my past. He's very supportive and accepting and understanding about my sensitivity. Now there's a strong possibility that he's likely neurodivergent as well. Without going into any details, that's likely why he understands me and that's likely why he is so positively supportive towards me, because he gets me, because there's so many things about each of us that are very similar. Looking at my life now in this relationship with somebody who's the closest relationship in my life and he's so positively supportive of who I am and how I'm built and how I operate, has changed the game dramatically and I can see it in how I operate, especially how I run my business. I can see how much that has changed my level of functionality, my level of thriving and my ability to connect with my own deepest sense of purpose, mission and vision. Because I've been able to lean into my strengths, because I've developed this vantage sensitivity of being surrounded by somebody who's the most important person in my life, who is so positively supportive, and then pair that with all the work that I've done to develop self-compassion for myself. After I did all of this inner healing work over these last several years, of course I'm thriving so much more than I ever have in my past, and this has positively impacted my work, not only my own level of enjoyment and my purpose and satisfaction and my success, but also the level of transformation that I'm able to facilitate for my clientele and the impact that I can provide for them. And I've talked about that as well in episode five of last week's training. But it's this deeper inner work of having compassion for myself and accepting myself and understanding who I really am and putting myself in a positively supportive environment, both in my relationships with my husband, who so positively supports me, and also doing business on my terms, where I'm setting up the schedule that works for me and my environment that works for me in terms of supporting my nervous system needs and working with the clientele. That really lights up my soul and energizes me, and focusing on the topics and focus that energize me.

Speaker 1: 45:46

As I've spoken about in previous podcast episodes, I like going deep and it really drains me to stay in the superficial and not everybody in this world wants to go deep. That's okay. But on the other side of the token, me pretending and me masking and me trying to stay superficial to appease the people that don't want to go deep it drains me and exhausts me. It's not doing them a favor because I'm not giving them everything that probably that they're looking for, that they could get from another practitioner that would give them exactly the type of connection they're looking for, and I'm not giving my all to who I'm here to be destined to serve, and those are the people who love to go deep. And so all of this has helped me find my next level in my business and my next level of performance in terms of the impact that I can make for the people that I'm destined to serve and the level of success that I experience, not only financial success, but that level of inner fulfillment and satisfaction. All of that is important, especially for those of us who are highly sensitive people, finding meaning is such an important aspect to our lives and living in a place from connected authenticity. So I know I've gone. I've diverted a little bit from the main topic today. It's all sort of connected.

Speaker 1: 47:15

Going back to the question, are you questioning if you might have autism or ADHD? Especially if you've been following me? You're a highly sensitive person and especially if you're a highly sensitive entrepreneur, coach or practitioner and you're wondering if maybe there's this possibility that you might also have autism or ADHD and whether or not. Should I look into this? Is this a thing? Is this a possibility? Should I get diagnosed or shouldn't I? So I've talked about and touched upon those different things. It's a personal choice for everybody and we all have different reasonings for why or why not or which direction that we want to go, and I encourage everybody to do what feels most aligned for you, not what other people tell you to do, not what the expectations say. So I hope today's podcast has given you some perspectives to consider If you've been questioning whether or not autism or ADHD might be a piece of your puzzle, of your bigger picture, and I know if you're questioning whether autism is a piece of your picture. You have probably dived into all sorts of other topics and perspectives to understand this deeper, so I hope that what I've shared here has just given you another piece to help you better understand everything for yourself.

Speaker 1: 48:39

I know for the clients that I have guided through mentorship, many of them have come to a realization, either before we start working together or while we're working together, that they do indeed have autism or ADHD, and that's absolutely empowering.

Speaker 1: 48:58

And knowing this piece of the puzzle, we can work with that to help you identify even more clearly what your particular nervous system and neurotype needs are so that you can accommodate them, especially as a business owner, coach or practitioner, so that you can operate your business on your terms that is supportive and gives you that positive, supportive environment, so that you can work at your highest potential, at your highest level of functionality, up levellevel your business and accept and own and leverage your gifts as a neurodivergent person, because that's what's going to help you create that bigger impact that you know that you are here to deliver in your lifetime, to leave that meaningful legacy If that's something that you know that you want to explore more deeply to up-level your business to operate at your fullest potential, especially as a highly sensitive, potentially autistic or ADHD entrepreneur, coach or practitioner, you know that you want to make the shifts and adjustments, to be operating your business on your terms, connected with your mission, vision and purpose, and doing things in a way that are positively supportive for yourself, both within your own inner emotional environment filled with self-compassion, and also making the changes around yourself within your business so that you can truly thrive and make that deeper impact.

Speaker 1: 50:36

And you want to do that efficiently and quickly. You don't want to spend years doing this. This is what I do, and so I can help you get there way faster than if you're trying to sort through all of this on your own, because it can be really hard to see all of your puzzle pieces and your blind spots and the things that you can't see yet. And I can help you see that wider perspective and help you come up with the action plans and the strategy and make those inner shifts and the perspective shifts and how you see yourself and your business and identify what you really want and what your purpose, mission and vision truly is and move forward with that quickly and efficiently.

Speaker 1: 51:24

So if that's something that you're looking for. Don't hesitate to reach out. You can find more information about my three-month mentorship business on your terms in the show notes below, or you can send me a message and let me know that you're interested in applying and we'll have a conversation just to make sure that you're a fit, because it's really when we both feel like we are a fit to work together that that's when the magic truly happens. So if that sounds like something you're looking for and you know this is your time, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Otherwise, I hope that this was helpful or insightful or informative for you in some way and I look forward to speaking to you again in the next episode. Thank you for being here.