The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women
The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women is a safe space for trauma survivors and neurodivergent women ready to claim their voice, soften into their truth and feel at home with themselves.
I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), certified Life Coach, and 500-hour trained yoga instructor who understands this journey intimately as a neurodivergent woman, trauma survivor and as a therapist and life coach.
Each week, I offer soulful episodes where I intertwine my lived experiences with insights from my therapy practice all with the goal to help women unmask and find peace in their lives by healing trauma and learning how to accommodate their neurodivergence.
Through real talk, mindfulness practices, and gentle healing approaches rooted in trauma-informed wisdom and nervous system care, you’ll find practical tools to help you feel safe in your body, seen in your story and supported in your journey.
This is your sanctuary to soften, heal, and remember that you were and are never too much.
Work with me: Click the link to schedule a free 15 minute consultation.
The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women
Getting Unstuck: A Late Diagnosed Guide to Routines and Systems
We unpack why “stuck” is not laziness and map clear ways to move again using ND-friendly rules, mindset shifts, flexible routines, and micro-habits. We trade shame for curiosity, perfection for progress, and rigid schedules for structures that flex.
• defining stuck as executive dysfunction and freeze
• naming perfectionism, all or nothing, and decision paralysis
• harmful rules that create shame and shutdown
• helpful rules that lower barriers and build momentum
• mindset shifts from shoulds to what works
• flexible routine design with capacity tiers
• habit stacking, dopamine stacking, and visible cues
• planning for disruption and graceful restarts
• tiny steps, body doubling, timers, and rewards
• compassionate self-talk and sustainable change
About Autumn:
I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas specializing in trauma-informed care for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors.
Therapy (Texas residents only):
I provide individual therapy in my private practice for women working through trauma, late diagnosis processing, relationship challenges, and healing from narcissistic abuse or toxic family systems. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming and focuses on helping you understand your patterns while building practical tools for nervous system regulation and authentic living.
Life Coaching (available anywhere):
For women outside Texas or those wanting support alongside therapy, I offer:
•Somatic Healing Coaching: Bridges the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement practices, and practical integration tools. Perfect as a complement to talk therapy or for those ready to work directly with their body’s wisdom.
•Unmasking Journey Coaching: Specialized support for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women learning to reconnect with their authentic selves after decades of masking. We work on identifying your real needs, rebuilding your sense of self, and creating a life that fits who you actually are.
Whether you’re healing trauma, discovering yourself after late diagnosis, or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body.
Subscribe & Share:
New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. If today’s episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it or leave a comment—it helps other women find this space and know they’re not alone.
Work With Me:
Ready to start your healing journey?
📋 Free 15-min consultation to see if we’re a good fit: http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub
🎵 DIVINE WOMAN Playlist (Apple & Spotify): Empowering songs for women healing through softness and strength - link are on the linktree!
Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women, a space where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your journey home to yourself is honored, no matter how winding the road. I'm Audemar and I am passionate about supporting women on their healing journeys. As a licensed professional counselor in Texas, I provide trauma-informed therapy for clients in my private practice, specializing in work with neurodivergent women and trauma survivors. For women outside of Texas or those looking for additional support alongside their therapy, I offer life coaching programs including somatic healing, coaching, and an unmasking journey for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women. My somatic coaching is designed as a complement to traditional talk therapy, helping you bridge the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement, and practical integration tools. Whether you're working through trauma, discovering your authentic self after years of masking or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but to feel genuinely safe and at home in your body. New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday, so be sure to subscribe, follow, add me to your playlist so you never miss one. And if today's episode resonates with you, I'd be so grateful if you'd share it with someone who needs to hear it or leave a comment. It helps other women find this space and know they're not alone and they're healing. All right. My intro. If you've been listening, that was a new intro. What do you think? Today, ladies, we're going to talk about being stuck. And I don't mean stuck in traffic or stuck on a hard decision. I mean that feeling of being stuck in your life, stuck in patterns that aren't working, stuck trying to make yourself do things that you know you need to do, but somehow just can't. Maybe stuck watching everyone else seem to have their lives put together while you feel like you're treading water, slowly sinking, or maybe just outright drowning. And if you're neurodivergent, ADHD, autism, or both, you probably know this feeling intimately. You have things you want to do, need to do, even desperately want to do. But you just, for some reason, just can't. You're frozen. You procrastinate. You cycle through the same unhelpful patterns over and over, and then you beat yourself up for being lazy or undisciplined, or the worst one, broken. But guess what? You've heard me say it before, and I'm gonna say it again. You are not lazy, you are not broken, you're not lacking willpower or discipline. Your brain works differently, and the traditional advice for getting unstuck, the productivity hacks, the just do it mentality, the routines and systems designed for neurotypical brains, all that, those don't work for you. In fact, they may make you more stuck very oftentimes. So today, I want to actually talk about what keeps you stuck when you're neurodivergent and what helps. Because you deserve tools that actually work for your brain, and you deserve to stop fighting yourself and start working with yourself. Alright, so let's understand what being quote unquote stuck actually is, because it's not what most people think, because it's not laziness, like I said. When neurotypical people see you stuck, they think you're lazy. You think you're lazy. But laziness would mean you don't care. And you do care. You care desperately, you want to do the thing, you're just frozen. This is a this is executive dysfunction. This is not laziness. Executive function is the set of mental skills that help you plan, start task, stay focused, manage time, and follow through. When you're neurodivergent, these skills are impaired. So you're not choosing not to do the thing. Your brain literally cannot access the start button. Or it can't break the task into steps, or maybe it just can't estimate how long the task will take, or it can't maintain focus once you start. That's neurological, not moral. That's not a character flaw. That is just the way your brain is wired. So sometimes, especially for extra extra blending executive dysfunction and trauma, for trauma survivors, stuck isn't just executive dysfunction. It can also be your nervous system in freeze mode. When your nervous system perceives threat, and for traumatized people, lots of things register as threats, even when they're not objectively dangerous. And then when that happens, you go into survival mode. And sometimes that survival mode is the freeze response. You're not moving forward because your nervous system has immobilized. Right? It's it's you're immobilized, it mobilizes you. This this can often happen when a task has triggered you to feel shame, perfection, or and or a fear of failure. Your nervous system just says, oh, I perceive a threat and I'm shutting down. Also, it can be a part of being part of being part of practicing for perfectionism. That wasn't perfect. Ah many neurodivergent people, even maybe especially for those who are undiagnosed or late diagnosed, they develop intense perfectionism as a coping mechanism. This is where you have learned that you had to be perfect to compensate for being quote-unquote different. You had to work twice as hard to get the same results, and you could not afford to make any mistakes. So now, when faced with a task, your brain says, if I can't do it perfectly, I shouldn't do it at all. And since you can't guarantee perfect, you don't start. You're stuck in the gap between your standards and your capacity. Sometimes the stuckness is about all or nothing thinking, about unhelpful thinking patterns. And ADHD brains, let's just say maybe neurodivergent brains tend toward the black and white thinking. It does come up a lot with ADHD, but I've seen it in just neurodivergence speaking. It's either perfect or it's garbage. You're either doing everything or nothing. The task is either completely done or it doesn't count. This makes you stuck because most of life exists so much in the middle, so much in the gray. Most progress is incremental, messy, and imperfect, but your brain doesn't recognize that as valid. So you stay frozen waiting for conditions that allow for all of it, which will never come. And what about decision paralysis? Decision fatigue. Too many options, you're stuck. Not enough information, again, you could be stuck. Too much information, also very stuck. Afraid of making the wrong choice, super stuck. So our brains struggle with decision making because we can see too many possibilities. We struggle to prioritize and we fear closing off options. We can struggle because we need more information to feel safe making a choice, or because unexpected outcomes feel threatening to us. So you get in that analysis paralysis, researching forever, never actually deciding. And then you've got the whole failure of task initiation. Like even when you know what to do and want to do it, your brain can't generate the activation energy to start. The task is sitting right there, you're sitting right there, and somehow the two of you cannot connect. You need some external trigger, some deadline pressure, some burst of interest, something to jumpstart the engine. But when that's missing, what happens? We're just stuck. What about overwhelmed shutdown? When there's too much to do, your brain might just simply shut down entirely. The to-do list is so long, the task is so big or complex, and your brain goes, Nope, too much, system offline, click. This is a protective act. Your brain is trying to save you from overwhelm by just not engaging, but it leaves you stuck, and the overwhelm doesn't actually decrease. As we know, it increases because now you're stuck and shit's piling up. What about learned helplessness? If you've tried to change patterns before and failed repeatedly, tried to build routines, tried to be more organized, tried to just be better, your brain might have learned nothing I do matters. I can't change this, I'm just stuck. This is learned helplessness. And it's incredibly common in neurodivergent people who spent years trying to fit neurotypical molds and failed, or seemingly failed. Your brain learned that effort doesn't lead to success. So why try? And I say all of this to say when you're stuck, it's not because you're lazy or weak or undisciplined or broken or any of that garbage that we pick up along the way. It's because your brain works differently. And the neurotypical approaches to productivity and change don't account for executive dysfunction, your nervous system state, the perfectionism, the all or nothing, decision paralysis, task initiation issues, overwhelmed or learned helplessness. You need different tools. So guess what? Let's look at rules that help versus rules that harm. Because we have a neuro, like as a neurodivergent, we have complicated relationships with rules. Because we are literal thinkers, we have a strong sense of justice. So we want to do the right thing. So it's kind of like that dichotomy of like, I follow the rules to the T unless they're harmful, unless they don't work for me, unless they make me feel uncomfortable, unless I feel they're wrong. So some of you and some of us are rule followers to the extreme. You need structure, you crave clear guidelines. Maybe you do better with explicit expectations. And some of us are rule resistors. External rules feel suffocating. You need autonomy, you have you rebel against your shoulds. And some of us are in the middle, a little bit of extreme world following, and we'll break a rule if we need to or feel that it's not right or not just. Again, even in this, there's you see, I wanted to go black and white, but as I'm reading my notes, girl, there's gray. There's a I'm a little bit of both. I will follow a rule if I feel like I'm gonna go to jail if I don't follow the rule. I will follow the rule if I'm so I don't get a ticket. I guess so I don't have to work with the police. But I can't think of a rule I don't follow. Maybe it'll come to me and I can remember, but I'm always about staying safe, right? Trauma response, neurodivergent response, whatever you're probably a little bit of both. Anyways, sorry. But regardless of which camp you're in, there are rules that help you get unstuck and rules that keep you stuck. Okay. So what about this rule? Quite harmful. I have to do it perfectly or not at all. This rule guarantees guarantees, guarantees you'll stay stuck because perfect is impossible. Perfect doesn't account for your energy levels, your executive functioning, your capacity on any given day, or your nervous system state. This rule is simply coming from trauma, from being in a neurodivergent, from being neurodivergent in a world that punished you for being different, from internalizing that you have to compensate by being exceptional. But guess what? It's keeping you frozen, my dear. What about the harmful thing we say to ourselves? I should be able to do this easily like everyone else. This rule is based on a false premise that everyone else finds things easy. They don't, and more importantly, you're comparing your internal experience to other people's external presentation. You have no idea how hard they're working or struggling internally. Your brain is wired differently. Some things that are easy for neurotypical people are genuinely harder for you. That's not failure, that's neurodivergence. And comparing yourself to a neurotypical standard keeps you stuck in shame. Yuck. What about if I can't do it every day, there's no point in starting? Ooh, talk about a regimen, a self-care, a routine, and trying to get those going and you miss a day. That's all or nothing thinking disguised as a rule. That is dysfunctional thinking, unhelpful thinking disguised as a rule. It says consistency is all or nothing. But that's not true. Doing something twice a week is infinitely better than doing it zero times a week. This rule keeps you from starting because you can't commit to every day, so you don't start at all. But inconsistent action is still action. Imperfect consistency, guess what? It's progress. This one gets us stalk. This is a good one. I like this one. This is a bad rule. This is a harmful rule. I have to feel motivated to start. This rule keeps you waiting for a feeling that might never come. Motivation is unreliable, and that's especially true for ADHD brains. You can't count on it. This rule keeps you stuck because you're waiting for the quote-unquote right feeling before you can act. But action often creates motivation, not the other way around. What about this one? I've got some goodies. I wrote down some goodies. I should be able to do this without help. This rule is rooted in shame. Needing help means I'm weak or incapable. But that's not true. Everyone needs help. Neurotypical people just have systems and structures built for their brains already in place, so they don't recognize it as help. You needing accommodation, support, body doubling, external structures or mechanisms. That's not weakness. That's knowing how your brain works and using tools that help. I hear this one often. I need more discipline, more willpower. That's the answer. This rule fundamentally misunderstands neurodivergence. You don't lack discipline or willpower. You lack executive function support. You lack the nervous system regulation. You lack systems designed for your brain. Beating yourself up keeps you stuck in shame, which actually makes executive function worse. So those were the harmful rules. I hope you were able to see one of those, which one you lean towards, so that you can give yourself permission to let go of that harmful rule. So rules that help, rules that get you unstuck. Done is better than perfect. This rule gives you permission to do things imperfectly, to do them messily, to do them good enough. And good enough is actually good enough. Here's a little secret. As a neurodivergent, most of the time, I'm not saying I'm 100% here. This is just my observation. This is not evidence-based research or a statistic I picked up, but what I've what I've observed about neurodivergent individuals when it comes to work or task, you giving 30 to 50 percent is a typical is a neurotypical 100%. So like even when you think you're like putting out crap, it's still shiny as hell and pretty. That's your superpower. But this rule gets you unstuck because it lowers the barrier to starting. You don't need perfect conditions or perfect execution. You just need to do it. What about something is better than nothing? Can't do a full workout? Please do 10 minutes. What about not able to write the whole article, the whole writing assignment, the whole paper? Just write one paragraph. You can't clean the whole house? Okay, clean one room, one spot, one area. You can't do a full routine? Okay. Do one piece of it. What feels accessible? Something is better than nothing. This acknowledges that partial efforts count. The imperfection action is still action. And that right there, those small steps, they accumulate. I would like for you to adopt the my brain works differently, and that's okay. This rule is of self-compassion. It's acceptance. It's releasing the neurotypical standard and working with your brain instead of against it. This removes the shame layer. You're not broken for needing different approaches. You're neurodivergent, and neurodivergent brains need neurodivergent friendly systems. I'd like for you to use this one as well. I can ask for help and use tools. This gives you permission to use accommodations without shame. Body doubling, timers, pomodoro technique, anybody, please, external accountability, apps, asking someone to help you start, whatever works, like just use it. Accommodate the shit out of yourself. Because this rule gets you unstuck because you're not trying to do everything with raw willpower. You're using the supports that help your brain function. What about the helpful, helpful thought of I can start before I feel ready? This rule flips the motivation script. You don't need to feel motivated, and you don't need to feel ready. You can just start anyway, and the feelings often follow. This rule gets you unstuck because you're not waiting for perfect internal conditions. You're acting despite imperfect feelings. So, like say you have dishes, laundry to do, for example. You don't want to do them. You'd rather lay in bed. Okay, well, what if you just set a timer for 10 minutes? Just do dishes until it goes off. When it goes off, do you want to finish? Are you done where you're at and you can come back later and do another 10 minutes? You don't have to be ready. But you can start. What about rest being productive? I mean, I just want to scream this from the rooftops. Like, fucking rest. Like, stop trying to prove yourself, stop trying to perform, stop trying to be everything to everyone and be something to yourself. Because this rule counters hustle culture and toxic productivity. Rest is not laziness. It restores your executive functioning, it regulates your nervous system, and it prevents burnout and overwhelm. This rule gives you permission to rest. You actually have more capacity to act when you need to when you rest. This happens in grief. This happens in recovery. This happens in neurodivergent affirmations, affirming living accommodations is what I'm searching for. Progress is not linear, is what I'm trying to say. This gives you permission to have bad days, to have setbacks, to have plateaus without interpreting them as failure. Progress is messy. It goes up and down all around, and that's normal. This helps you not catastrophize setbacks. You see them as part of the process, not proof that you've done wrong, not proof that you're failing. And how do you? I want you to take these rules. So progress isn't linear, rest is productive, I can start before I feel ready. I can ask for help and use tools. My brain works differently, and that's okay. Something is better than nothing. Done is better than perfect. These are the rules. Write them down. Put them where you can see them. When you notice yourself following a harmful rule, I should be able to do this without help. I want you to pause and I want you to substitute the helpful version. I can ask for help and use tools. This is retraining your brain. This takes time, this takes patience. So be good to yourself, be compassionate with yourself, and be proud when you just notice that you followed a harmful rule. Maybe you didn't have the opportunity to catch yourself in time to read the new rule. But once you get there, you acknowledge, find that you've followed a harmful rule, and then say, oh no, the new rule is this. Next time in the future, this is what I'll use. So what about mental shifts, your mentality, how you think about yourself, how you think about your capacity and your struggles. This has a huge impact on whether you stay stuck or get unstuck. Let's talk about the shifts that actually help neurodivergent brains. Shift one, I want you to go from what's wrong with me to how does my brain work? I want you to be curious. Because when you say something's wrong with you or that you're broken or behind or flawed or not like everyone else, it keeps you stuck because it's rooted in shame and self-blame. Shame shuts down executive functioning, shame activates your nervous system's threat response, and shame makes everything harder. Duh, what did I just explain? The new mentality: how does my brain work? What does my brain need to do this? What's the actual barrier here? This mentality is curious instead of judgmental. It's problem solving instead of attacking yourself. It's asking, what's the obstacle? Not what's wrong with you? What's wrong with me? So instead of saying, like, why can't I just start this project? I'm so lazy. Try saying my brain needs external structure to start tasks. What structure can I create? Can I ask someone to body double? Can I set a timer? Can I break this into smaller first steps? What about going from I should be able to, to saying, what actually works for me? So, like the old mentality, I should be able to wake up early, I should be able to focus for hours, blah, blah, blah. I should be able to remember things without writing them down, blah, blah, blah. Shoulding yourself all over. Should is based on a neurotypical standard or some idealized version of yourself that doesn't match reality. Should keeps you stuck fighting your actual brain. I worked at a psychiatric hospital, and one of the therapists I work with, he was in charge of the adult group, outpatient group. And he would get so tickled when I came across the lesson about unhelpful thinking styles, because shoulding, cutting, wooding is unhelpful thinking styles. It never solves anything. And he would get so tickled because his thing would be like, What are you doing? You're shooting all over yourself. And that's disgusting. And he would get so tickled and laugh. So every time I talk about shoulds with anybody, I share that. It's like, really, you're shitting all over yourself. Like you're covered in shit, girl. You've got shoulds all over you. Like clean yourself up and quit talking to yourself like that. Like it's it's poo-boo, it's boo-boo, it's gross. And the new mentality, what actually works for me, what actually works for my brain, your energy patterns, your capacity, your nervous system needs. So instead of saying I should be able to wake up at 6 a.m. like successful people, try, I'm a night owl. My brain works better in the evening. How can I structure my life to honor that instead of fighting it? What about shifting from all or nothing, like we talked about earlier, to something is better than nothing? Because the old way, all or nothing, keeps you stuck because most of life, like I said earlier, is in the middle. It's all gray. In the new excuse me, the new mentality, any action counts. One small step. Doing something twice a week is better than zero times a week. So instead of saying, if I can't work out for an hour, I'm not gonna work out at all, try saying, I'm gonna walk for 10 minutes, I'm gonna lift weights for 10 minutes, I'm gonna swim for 10 minutes because it counts. It helps. It helps. It counts. You can shift from I need motivation to I can act without motivation. Because the old mentality keeps you stuck waiting for something that's never coming. And the new mentality, action creates motivation, not the other way around. I can start even when I don't feel like it. And often the motivation follows once you're in motion. So instead of saying I'll clean when I feel motivated, try, I'll clean for five minutes, regardless of how I feel, and see what happens. Oftentimes, this starts creating the dopamine, the momentum, especially if you have lighting or just maybe natural light coming in and all overhead lights off, maybe have a good playlist or something to watch or listen to, that dopamine will go. What about going from I'm behind to I'm on my own timeline? Because this new mentality of I'm on my own timeline, my path is different. There's no behind because there's no universal schedule. You're exactly where you're supposed to be, and that's that's where you start from. So instead of saying I'm 35 and should have my career figured out by now, try saying something like I'm 35 and I'm figuring out my career now. That's my timeline, and it's valid. How about shifting from I can't handle failure, I can't fail, I have to be perfect, to failure is information. Because the old rule keeps you stuck, it keeps you from trying. The new mentality that failure is data, it tells me that something doesn't work. So I can try something else. It's part of the process, not proof of inadequacy. So instead of saying, I tried that system and it didn't work, I'm hopeless. You can try to say, that system didn't work for me. What can I learn from that? What might work better? These mentality shifts can take practice. Your brain will default to old patterns, especially when you're stressed or overwhelmed. And that's normal. Notice when it happens and gently redirect to the new mentality. And over time, the new patterns become more automatic. What about routines? Because traditional advice of building routines doesn't work for neurodivergent brains. You're probably trying to implement morning routines, evening routines, productivity systems, journals, planners, apps, and they might have lasted a little bit before falling apart. And that's not because you lack discipline, it's because those routines were designed for someone that doesn't have your brain. So what doesn't work? I'll meditate at 6 a.m. ADHD brains struggle with time-based organization. If your schedule varies, if you wake up, if your wake-up time varies, if you don't naturally track time, a time-based routine will fail. What works better is to anchor your routine to something you already do consistently. So you can say something like, I'll meditate after I brush my teeth in the morning, because teeth brushing is already a habit. Attaching meditation to it means you don't have to remember meditation at 6 a.m. You just remember meditation after teeth. So you can say, after I start my coffee, I'll journal for five minutes. When I get in my car, I'll do a grounding breath. Right before I close my laptop for the day, I'll write tomorrow's top three tasks. Your routines should be flexible, not rigid. And they could be in the form of like based on your capacity. So like you can have a real routine of like highest capacity and you can do all the stuff. You can have a medium capacity and just choose two or three things, and you can have a low capacity and choose one to two things. Be flexible, not rigid, not I must do these five things in the exact order every single morning. Life is unpredictable. Your energies vary. Your capacity changes day to day. Building flexibility into the routine, have a minimum version and an ideal version. So a minimum morning routine would be drink water, take meds, get dressed. An ideal morning could be drink water, take meds, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, 10 minutes of movement. Some days you do minimum, some days you do idea, some days you do a little bit of both. Both are successful routines. There's no wrong way to do it. And maybe start smaller than you think you need to. So I'm going to completely over all my life, new morning routine, new day, new me, workout schedule, meal prep, cleaning, all starting Monday. This is too much for your executive function to handle at once. It's all or nothing thinking. It sets you up for failure, which enforces learned helplessness. So start with one tiny habit. Make it so small it feels almost silly. And then build it until it's automatic. Then you can add another small habit. So don't start with a full morning routine. Start with drink a glass of water when I wake up. Do that for two weeks. Then add take meds with water. Build slowly. What you can also do is use external cues and reminders. I'll just remember to do this is not allowed as a neurodivergent. Out of sight, out of mind. You just won't remember. Making the routine visible and impossible to ignore. Put vitamins next to the coffee maker, medicines next to the coffee maker. Lay out clothes the night before. Set alarms with specific labels. Use apps that notify you, that help you stay on track. Put sticky notes where you can see them. And if you've got an accountability buddy, ask someone to remind you. And please, please, embrace novelty and rotation. Doing the same workout every day forever, your brain is not going to do that shit. Novelty, newness, and reward. You need to build variation into your routine. You need to have options and you need to rotate activities. Instead of running every morning, try Monday, I'll run, Wednesday I'll yoga, Friday I'll dance. Or I'll do some kind of movement most mornings, and I'll choose what sounds good that day. Honestly, and moving your body, I know this might be hard to hear and very counterculture. I want you to move your body to feel good, not to burn calories, not to lurk a certain way, not to fit into whatever machismo shit's going on, but just to feel good. And then move your body according to what feels good, not what you've got to punish yourself for to look a certain way. I said what I said. I love you all the same. I know we're all wipe swept up and trying to look a certain way, but I'm telling you, move for joy, not for performance to look some way. And then there's what's called dopamine stacking. Link routines to rewards. So listen to your favorite podcast only during your workout. Drink your favorite coffee only during your work session. Watch your favorite show only while folding laundry. Play a specific playlist only during cleaning. And I know this is hard, but I want you to plan for disruption. Expecting the routine to run smoothly and definitely does not work. Life disrupts routines, illnesses, schedule changes, stress, burnout. These will happen. And if you haven't planned for them, the routine dies the first time it's disrupted. I want you to have a restart protocol. When my routine gets disrupted, I don't try to jump back into the full version. I go back to the minimum version for a few days, then gradually build back up. Permission to pause routines when needed is okay. Taking a break from a routine during high stress isn't failure. It's adaptive. So for a morning routine, minimum water meds dressed, medium, water meds, dress breakfast. Idea, water, meds, shower, dressed, breakfast, 10 minutes of movement. But you decide each day which version you have capacity for. But your morning routine is flexible. In your evening routine, maybe it be a little bit more anchored. When I close the laptop, write tomorrow's top three tasks. After dinner, 10-minute clean sweep of main living space. Or a 10-minute cleanup, clean up, clean up, everybody clean up. I mean, turn on the Barney song. And when that's over, sit down. Or when I plug in my phone, lay out tomorrow's clothes. Because each habit is anchored to something you already do, not a specific time. And maybe have a weekly reset. So I read the book, what was that book I read in underground? It was the seven habits of a highly effective people. And the one thing that I took from there was weekly planning. Every Sunday or Saturday sometimes or Friday, because I've done this forever, but every Sunday was what I started. I would sit down, I would open my planner, open my calendar, whatever I was using at that point in my life, and I would plan. I would plan my meals, I would plan my grocery list, I would plan sometimes Sunday I would do my laundry. Doesn't matter what order, it doesn't matter exact time, just something during a Sunday window, a weekly reset. The key is that your routines should serve you, not enslave you. If a routine makes you feel worse, change it. If it stops working, adapt. If you're you're not failing the routine, the routine is failing you, and you get to modify it. So what about habit formation? Like that, I where was I? I was in an I did a training and the guy said that now it takes 66 days to create a habit. What's the latest statistic? And then when I apply, apply that to a neurodivergent brain, I just say give yourself 120. I mean your barriers. You've got task initiation. You don't have the activation energy even when you want to. So the solution is to lower the barrier to starting to almost zero. Want to build a reading habit? You don't start with reading 30 minutes. You start with open the book. Just that. Opening the book is the habit. If you read after opening it, great. If not, you still did the habit. Opening the book. Want to build an exercise habit? The habit is to put on workout clothes, not the workout itself, just getting dressed. If you exercise after that, bonus. But the habit is the time. Tiny step first. And then you have the other barrier of a working memory. You forget habits exist because they're out of sight, out of mind. Your solution is to make the habits impossible to forget. Physical cues, put your yoga mat in the middle of the floor, phone alarms with specific labels, habit stacking, attach a new habit to existing habits, and visual reminders, checklist sticky notes in place. What about if the barrier is there's no immediate reward? Delayed rewards don't motivate. Solution? Create immediate artificial rewards. Check a box immediately after doing the habit. Immediately after doing the habit. That's visual satisfaction. Give yourself a small treat right after. Use stickers, habit trackers, whatever works in a satisfying way to track your progress. Celebrate the micro lens. And this could be a literal, like, yeah, I did it. What about the barrier of inconsistency feels like failure? You miss one day and you interpret it as I failed, the habit is ruined. I should give up. Missing one day doesn't erase previous days. The goal is progress, not perfection. Inconsistent habits are better than no habits. Twice a week is a valid habit frequency. Getting back on track after missing days is the actual habit. So what is habit stacking? After I existing habit, I will a new tiny habit. So after I pour my coffee, again, I will take my bio vitamins. After I brush my teeth, I will do 30 seconds of stretching. After I start my car, I will take three deep breaths. After I close my laptop for the day, I will write tomorrow's top task. So I've got the same examples. But it's just like after I make my bed, I'll stretch for a few minutes. After while I'm taking a shower, I will meditate. I want you to have it track. Like whatever way that looks like with an app, with a calendar, with you just writing something. You can do non-judgmental tracking. Just mark the days you did it. Don't mark days you didn't. Focus on accumulating marks, not avoiding gaps. Track your streaks, but give yourself a grace day. You get an X number of grace days per month. So frequency goals instead of daily goals. I want to do this three times a week, not I want to do this every day. And then track the frequency, not daily performance. And use app-based apps based with rewards. I use the Finch app, F-I-N-C-H, it's this little bird. You write all the self-care that you want to do or your daily task. And then when you do it, you get coins. And with those coins, you can buy it clothes, you can decorate its house, you can send stuff to friends. Like I fucking love Finch. I am like on a, I think I'm on like 400 or 500 days in a row. Like it has really helped me take care of myself and do some things that used to be hard. And then if you get bored, novelty, newness, and reward, rotate your exercises, rotate your habits. The structure stays the same, but the content varies. Ten minutes of movement is the habit, but you get to choose which day. And give yourself permission to evolve. Habits aren't forever. If a habit stops serving you, it's okay to change it. You're not failing. Your needs change. So give up if you genuinely hate it and it's making you miserable. If it's not aligned with your actual goals, you're just doing it because you should. Give it up if it's requiring so much effort, it's depleting your resources. And give it up if it's a source of shame rather than support. Habit formation when you have executive functioning challenges is different. You're not building habits the way neurotypical people do. You need more support, flexibility, forgiveness, and more external structures. So I want you to identify where you're stuck. What type of stuck is it? Executive dysfunction, can't start, can't plan, can't focus, freeze response, nervous system shutdown, perfectionism paralysis, all or nothing, decision paralysis, overwhelm, or learned helplessness. And identify the harmful rules you're following. I have to be perfect, I need to be motivated first, I should do this without help. What else is coming up? What harmful rules do you have? And then I want you to substitute the helpful rules. Done is better than perfect. My brain works differently, and that's okay. I can start before I feel ready. Pick the mentality shift that would most help you right now. From what's wrong with me to how does my brain work, I should to what's actually works for me. All or nothing to something is better than nothing. I need motivation, changing that to I can't act without motivation. From saying I'm behind to acknowledging that you're on your own timeline. Practice just one shift for this next week. Notice when you're in the old mentality and gently redirect it. And then I want you to break the stuck task into stupidly small steps. Not write the report, but open the document. Not clean the house, but pick up five things in the living room. Make it so small it feels almost silly. That's the right size for executive functioning challenges. Remove barriers and add supports. Break the steps down, set reminders, use bodily doubling, add dopamine, music, podcast, TV, reward, novelty. Do the minimum version and get very specific. Do you need a timer, an alarm, accountability partner, body doubling, rewards? Do you need to break it into smaller pieces? Do you need external structures? Sticky notes, whiteboards, accountability buddy. I already said that. Professional help and accommodations, a life coach to help you unmask, to help you get your executive functioning to function and expect imperfection. You'll miss days. You'll do an imperfect imperfect imperfectly. You'll want to give up. This is normal. This doesn't mean you're failing. Plan for it. What's your minimum version when things are hard? How will you restart after missing a day that would be with grace, not guilt? How can you reach out to who can you reach out to when you're struggling? And how will you talk to yourself when you have setbacks? I hope that's with compassion, not criticism. And always, always adjust as needed. The plan isn't set in stone. You can and will adjust. If it's too hard, make it smaller. If it's too boring, add novelty. If it's not working, try a different approach. If you hate it, change it. If you're stuck right now in your routines, in your habits, patterns, in your life, I want you to hear this. I've said it and I will say it and I will shout from the rooftops. You are not lazy, broken, or lacking discipline or willpower. Your brain simply works differently, and the systems and advice designed for neurotypical brains simply don't work for us. We need different tools. We need rules that help instead of harm. We need mentality shifts that work for our brain, not against it. We need flexible routines. I'm not here to say just try harder. I'm here to give you practical tools that work for neurodivergent brains. Start stupidly small. Pick one thing from this episode and implement it this week. Just one. Maybe it's replacing one harmful rule with a helpful one. Maybe it's breaking one stuck task into micro steps. Maybe it's building one tiny habit, whatever it is. Just start there. And please be patient. Getting unstuck isn't a straight line. You'll have good and bad days. This is all part of the process. And none of it means that you're failing. You're learning how to work with your brain instead of against it. And that takes time, that takes experimentation, and that takes self-compassion. And you can do this. You can get unstuck. You deserve to stop fighting yourself and start supporting yourself. I'd love to hear from you. Do you got a question? Please message me. Want to help more women hear this episode and supporting me by helping my podcast grow? Please comment, leave a review. I believe this helps me show up in searches and helps me spread the word without being on social media at this point in my time and my life. Will I get on there? Maybe if someone manages it for me, but I personally can't create and come up with an engage in social media. That is a lot of spoons right now. Anyways, so if you could support me by sharing this, talking about it, sharing an episode, or just simply having a conversation about what you've learned and where you've learned it. I'd appreciate it. Want to work with me in my private practice? I work with clients on their healing journey through evidence-based therapy, trauma recovery. I also offer live coaching programs for women nationwide, including an unmasking program for late diagnosed, neurodivergent women, and a somatic healing program designed to complement your existing talk therapy. If you're already working with a therapist on trauma recovery, my coaching can help you integrate the work into your body through movement, breath work, and nervous system regulation. Because healing isn't just about understanding your story, it's about feeling safe in your body again. Click on the link in the show notes to book a free 15-minute consultation. But until next time, my dears, I want you to know that you are never too much, never too late, and you don't have to figure it out all alone. I'm right here every Wednesday and Friday to help you heal, to help you grow. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of you, and I'll see you soon.
