Foreign welcome to another episode of the ADHD Women's well Being podcast.

And I'm going to bring you a little bit of a different one today.

And I am just here on my own.

I've got a cup of tea and I'm reflecting on the past couple of years as the book the ADHD Women's well Being Toolkit.

My brand new book has just launched and I thought I'm just going to come and be vulnerable and I'm going to come and have a chat with you and maybe share some of my reflections, my insights and I guess how I'm feeling now that I have a book out there that is based on this podcast.

If I go back to that version of me nearly six years ago who had no idea they had adhd, who was struggling, who was juggling, who was overwhelmed, who was anxious, and I look at the version of me now who is by far not perfect, but is evolving.

And I've gone through a process of deep, deep awareness, but healing and forgiveness and development and a huge amount of self compassion and I, I'm really, really proud to, to be where I am right now.

Do I want to do more?

Yes.

Am I ambitious?

Yes.

Have I got lots more ideas?

Of course.

I've got adhd.

I've got brain fizzing with ideas and a body that is saying, you know, screaming at me to slow down and to stop.

And as someone who has experienced burnout before and know exactly what those signs are, I am a lot more conscious and intentional with my energy.

And that is a huge part of what I do in the work, you know, when I'm coaching and in the, in the communities that I work in, but also what I wanted to put into the book.

And the book is very much kind of like a blend of my own lived experience, bringing lots of the practical tools and the strategies that have helped me and have helped my clients and different modalities that I've studied and, you know, gone and done different qualifications in, and also blending the amazing wisdom and insights of the guests from this podcast and that is what I love so much about the book we work so, so hard to give you.

Genuinely, what I believe is a toolkit is a, it's a roadmap of allowing you, wherever you are in this ADHD journey of yours, to discover and to have more awareness as to what you're dealing with that day.

And as we know, depending on where we are with our hormones and our cycles, mood, energy, so many different things, you know, just the stresses and the overwhelms of life, that we need these tools, we need these daily tools, we need these reminders so we can break free from the many shackles and limitations that we found ourselves in.

The blocks that we've just not been able to navigate for, for so many different reasons.

But one of them is because we've not understood.

We've not understood what is going on with us.

We've not been able to say, oh, okay, so I'm neurodivergent and that means that this is what I'm prone to and this is how my brain works.

So we are at the very early stages of learning what is going on in our brains, which parts of our BR are working faster or struggling to keep up in different ways.

You know, alongside with our executive dysfunctioning working memory, our emotional regulation, there's so many different parts of our brains that we are just recognizing are the ways our neurodivergence shows up.

What I wanted to bring to this episode was allowing you to get a bit more of a feel for the book.

And you might hear me turning pages now because I have it right in front of me.

And the crazy thing with ADHD is that we have so much in our heads and we have so much we want to say.

And I got to a point where I was like completely overwhelmed.

Like, I wanted to basically give you some form of bible on adhd, which clearly is not helpful for, for me and for you.

And thankfully I had an editor and I also had the, the team, the publishing team who really, really helped me refine and focus my thoughts and allow what I wanted to articulate onto paper, which is really, really hard with adhd.

And I, it was a personal struggle that I wanted to give so much, but I also didn't want to overwhelm.

And then that kind of conjunction of wanting to give you everything but not, not know how to refine it was where I leaned on help and support.

So I'm really proud of the way we've broken it down because we've broken it down into a way of dipping in and out of chapters wherever you.

You're finding yourself that day.

So just to give you a bit of context, so we start with the book about awakening who you uniquely are.

Then we go into understanding our anxiety and learning how to soothe it.

Then we discuss rsd.

We learn how to understand it, to spot it, to remove the sting, the remove the self judgment and to move through it.

Obviously I have a chapter on regulating your nervous system because that is something I do every single day.

I sort of hone in on.

And it's something that I've done loads of workshops.

It's a personal topic of mine that I really, really enjoy because I do believe that our ADHD is based on our nervous systems are very, very sensitive nervous systems, which has been imprinted from our childhood, from our programming, from the different generations, from who we've been parented by, where we've grown up, how we've been schooled, the trauma that we've gone through.

And that is kind of the.

The vessel that our ADHD shows up in.

So then we move into living in sync with our hormones.

Of course, I'm going to be talking about hormones.

And then we go into preventing burnout.

Lots of tools and understanding and strategies to, most importantly, prevent burnout.

I don't want people to be in a burnout phase and then go, oh, how do I, you know, claw back?

I don't want anyone clawing back from burnout.

I want us to be able to spot it, to notice it and see it five steps ahead.

And we can do that.

And it takes, again, lots and lots of self awareness.

And I would say that the book is a self awareness tool.

It's just allowing you to go, oh, that's how it shows up for me.

Oh, yes, I really relate to that.

Or that really resonates with me.

Or, yes, that's what I have a tendency to do.

And so when we see it, we're able to spot it better.

But when we can't see it, we can't change things.

We can't have awareness, we can't breathe into it and ask for a different choice, a different response.

And then from this, from the sort of the investigating the many challenges and finding strategies and tools to help you through them, we start kind of thinking, right, how can I channel this brilliance I have?

And of course there is brilliance there with our adhd.

So we talk about boosting our creativity and leaning into joy and finding fulfillment.

Now, we can never underestimate the power of joy and fulfillment and knowing that we are living up to our potential and there's purpose there.

That's what wakes us up every single day.

You know, there's only so much we will get excited about if it's not aligned with us.

And I also talk about it's okay to change.

It's okay to change our minds and change.

And the dopamine sort of like leaves us and we're sort of thinking, oh, my goodness, you know, there's another thing that I've just started and now I'M going to have to stop because the interest is gone.

And understanding about our hyper focus and how that might show up for a chapter in our life and then it sort of slowly dissipates.

And to remove the self judgment around so much of this that we can find joy and acceptance and fun and creativity in so many different parts of our life.

But we have to understand our neurodivergence first because that is the guide.

And yes, it comes with challenges, but it also comes with huge amount of positivity and curiosity and excitement.

And we need to embrace all these different parts of us.

And then something that I really find so helpful for myself is finding ways to simplify life.

Leaning into the simplification that our brain is often seeking.

Our brain and our nervous systems are often seeking and making sure that all the choices that we make feel aligned and stripped back and authentic to us.

So when we do something, we really believe that it's true to us and it is the realist.

And sometimes we need to strip that back and ask, how can I make this more simple?

How can I make this more authentic?

How can I make this more truthful?

How can I make this more aligned?

How can I play more?

How can I make this more effortless?

How can I lean into this with absolute self acceptance and self truth and allow the passion and the purpose and the fun and the messiness all just to kind of like come through?

So I would say I probably take you on a bit of a journey with the book for sure, because I want you to have this awareness and self understanding and self recognition and self healing so we can move through and find all the positive.

But also know that it's okay for there to be ebbs and flows and ups and downs and lows and highs and all of that.

And we know that comes with being a woman, being, you know, having hormones and leaning into things like gratitude.

Gratitude for all the things that we've experienced, gratitude for all that we are going through right now.

Because when we start reframing things and seeing things as lessons and we see things, what?

Why is this happening for me instead of to me?

And how can we learn more?

What can I take from this?

How can I move forward?

How can I break generational patterns that are no longer serving me?

How can I see these beliefs and change them, change them and know that I don't need them imprinting on me anymore?

And the biggest thing for me is I want you to have validation when you're reading page after page that yes, I wasn't Imagining this.

And yes, I did think I was being gaslit, or maybe I haven't self advocated or I haven't had the support that I needed.

And now is the time.

Now is the time for me to step into this new version of myself, this expansion, and call in what it is I actually want.

You've waited for so long not knowing and not understanding and say, well, what do I want now, now that I have more answers?

Maybe you don't have all the answers and maybe they'll come as well and have acceptance around the fact that we can't get all the answers all at once.

Maybe our nervous systems wouldn't be able to cope with that.

So we just live in this moment of calibration and integration that gently and gently things are changing and moving and developing.

And that's okay because for me the biggest thing around this book was authenticity.

And it's on the front cover, you know, it's called the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit.

Embrace your authentic self and harness your true potential.

You know, people think that I've written a book and it's going to be all about nutrition and exercise and, and supplements.

And yes, I talk about them, but not in huge amount of details.

This is, I would say, a self development book, a self growth book, a self evolution book.

So you can start seeing all of this and making choices that feel wise and, and feel like they are coming from a deep truth and you are learning about yourself for the first time.

And that is what I hope to, to bring to this, this community, this community that I'm so very proud of.

And I hope that through these chapters, whether we're talking about anxiety or hormones or RSD or joy or anything, anything that's discussed from like very practical level to maybe more of the more spiritual side, that you find the things that work for you that day and you find what is speaking to you that day.

Sometimes.

You know, one of my favorite things I think I've spoken about before is sometimes if I don't know what guidance, I'm feeling so overwhelmed and I'm feeling stuck, I'm feeling blocked and I'm feeling annoyed with myself and my brain and annoyed that I keep reverting back to the same things because sometimes I don't remember.

I don't remember all the things that I meant to do.

So I want you to know that I don't remember and you're not meant to remember that you can open the book and speak out loud and say, please guide me to the page.

The chapter that I most need today, and I think that's really.

Is a really empowering way of surrendering a little bit and releasing a bit of control and saying, just help me, guide me, show me what I'm meant to know today.

Show me what I'm meant to learn today.

And very often when it comes to books, we are often guided to that page, that sentence that we are meant to read today.

So I really hope that you might be able to do this with my book as well.

And you'll probably notice the tone of my voice in the book because I tried really hard to really, because I'm talking about authenticity, to lean into my authentic voice and give you what I hope comes out into the podcast and in my workshops and deliver it on the pages and through the audiobook.

So I'm going to leave it there.

And I hope that from today's podcast episode you lean into a bit of curiosity.

And if the book is speaking to you, please do go and get it.

Wherever you get your books from, I'd be so, so grateful, because when you aren't a celebrity, it's harder to sell books.

Now, this is not Where Was Me or a Victimhood, anything like that.

But we rely on the grassroots, we rely on the communities and we rely on this sort of word of mouth that if it works, please, please, please do share it.

Share it on your social media, share it in Facebook groups that you're on.

You know, there's lots of different ADHD Facebook groups.

Share it wherever you think is needed.

I personally would love to see this being handed out in GP surgeries as part of sort of social prescribing.

I would love a GP to be able to say, you know, I'm very sorry about the NHS waiting list at the moment, but same time, take this book and this book can be your guide to living with ADHD until you are able to be seen and get that diagnosis.

And I want you to know that this book doesn't replace medication, it doesn't replace coaching, it doesn't replace therapy, supplements, all the lifestyle interventions.

But what it does do is hold your hand and be that guide, be that compassionate cheerleader to give you that nudge and give you the ideas when you are feeling at a low point or feeling like you do need that extra bit of help.

So please do share it wherever you can.

I will be so very grateful.

And all the details are in the show notes as well, so if you do want to just click straight on the link, the.

The links will be in the show notes.

Take care, and I will see you all very soon.

Sam.