Pictured: me sat in the garden at my new house having a cuppa!

At the same time, a war broke out in the Middle East. So it became apparent that I may not be able to travel to my own retreat, and one other guest was in the same position. It went ahead, my amazing co-host has stepped up, plus a guest to handle the yoga side, who is a yoga teacher!

Obviously the main news here is my life update: that I am separated and living in a new home. We are still great friends and we intend to remain that way. A request: please don’t say or feel ‘oh I’m sorry’, because honestly, there is nothing to be sorry for. That phase of our relationship completed. Yes, of course there is sadness there. However the harder thing is to stay, full of tortuous cognitive dissonance about the ‘decision’. Once it’s made, sure there are waves of grief, of course - and change is very hard for neurodivergent people as I am finding out in real time - however the ups and downs of this period are nothing compared to how difficult it’s been over the past handful of years, waking one day with one decision, then the next day the opposite.

Making the decision is the hard bit. Once it’s made, everything else becomes movement.

Like with Bali, I thought the choice had been made for me. People told me there was no way the flight would go ahead: they were evacuating people from that area and your flight will be cancelled, 100%. All the flights on the run up to the day of travel were being cancelled, one by one.

So I set up my retreat to be run by my co-host, with my fabulous yoga teacher guest providing that part. Then on the day, the flight didn’t get cancelled.

They even extended the layover in Dubai from 1 1/2 to 18 hours. I happened to have a friend, my spiritual / business coach, stuck in Dubai in a hotel room, listening to missiles flying over. Suffice to say she didn’t enjoy this experience. I was checking in with her constantly, thinking - I am so glad to be at home.

I decided to cancel, despite the flight going ahead. My thinking was: I have 3 kids, I’m in the middle of a separation and a move. I couldn’t risk getting stuck, or worse.

After I decided and requested a refund from the airline, I asked my coach, was this the right decision? Absolutely the right one, she reassured me.

My co-host totally stepped into her role. She was now leading the retreat, something she has never done.

The guest on the retreat, herself a yoga teacher and someone who I know quite well, agreed to teach my daily practice. She left me a message saying how she was grateful for the opportunity to teach and gain confidence.

The two women, the guest yoga teacher stand-in, and my co-host, are also both carrying on after the retreat to a yoga teacher training. One to train in yoga, and one to assist teach.

I see these two maybe doing something together in the future.

My guest who also cancelled, due to traveling with me, reflected that actually the refund will come in handy right now.

I replied, it’s funny, I think everyone has got what they need from this, not what they wanted. But what they NEEDED. Big difference.

That week, leading up to the day of intended departure, I prayed, like I do every night. Just a casual convo in my head. Instead of asking that we all get to Bali safely, I said instead: ‘please, God, let us all get what we need from this scenario, whatever is in the highest good for all - I trust you and I hand over control to you.’

The co-host and the guest are leading the retreat, gaining experience and confidence.

The guest, a welcome financial boost.

Me, I had time to move house, focus on myself, and hand over responsibility of this amazing retreat to a trusted friend.

God gave me what I needed. He gave us all what we needed. (BTW replace God with universe if that makes you more comfortable, same-same, in my opinion.)

Just like with my marriage ending: I didn’t want it to. Who wants that? I wanted to keep my unit together. I wanted to heal our issues, and be a unit, a team, a crew, forever. Even writing this is hard. I still want this, you see.

We have a little wooden carving in our kitchen with 5 bears, each one representing a member of the family, Dad, Mum, each kid with their name engraved… and they all fit together, tessellating perfectly, supporting one another with a little red wooden heart at the centre. I used to take me out, then take my husband out, and just look at it. And cry.

How can I disassemble this unit? How can I blow up the most precious thing in the world to me? And yet, if we don’t then myself and my husband will be unhappy.

As they say, divorce is hard. Staying is hard. Choose your hard.

We decided to end the marriage. Because if we didn’t? We would implode.

So we are rearranging. We are changing shape. He will always be my children’s father. He will always be my family. This isn’t ending. It’s expanding.

Every tarot card, every astrology reading, every sign, they all screamed ‘this is what you need to do’. So I did it. I did the thing I needed to do to survive.

I kept listening to Taylor Swift’s You’re on Your Own Kid.

These lyrics hit hard:

You're on your own, kid
Yeah, you can face this
You're on your own, kid
You always have been

It’s interesting, the notion of being on your own, as a spiritual person. The paradox is: you are born and die alone. So consequently you hold nothing. You release all. You let life play out and move with the flow of happenings. The mistake is clinging on. The notion that you are only real, love, worthy, if you stay.

You’re on your own, kid. But also, you’re never alone, because of source, God, universe, angels. That’s what I believe. So that means I can move freely, let go - because on this plane I am on my own, but equally I am never alone. I have my relationship with the cosmos, the magic, my spirituality. Leaning into this paradoxical truth has been invaluable. The only way I could do this was to KNOW it was being supported. I ask for signs, I talk to source, all the time. And I get what I ask for.

Instead of seeing it as blowing up my family, we simply re-arrranged it. In doing so, I truly believe that my kids will build resilience. That they are being modeled a woman, and a man, who won’t settle. Who will fight for their own life. For their own right to be happy. That’s powerful.

As Glennon Doyle says in Untamed:

“Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.”

I think we are all in agreement now, that we can’t stay for the kids. Despite that knowing, the urge is strong to try. We did. We tried. There is a part of me, deep inside, that would not shut up. She would not let it go. That inner knowing. My North Star. A guiding force inside of us all that, when we get quiet, speaks loudly. She said: you know what you need to do.

Dylan Thomas in his poem Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night, talks about fighting for life in respect to his dying father, but metaphorically speaking leaving a marriage is the ultimate act of “raging against the dying of the light” - refusing to let my spirit be extinguished by a circumstance I can still “burn” my way out of. It’s about more than actual death, it’s about fighting for our life. Not giving up.

I am receiving messages that I am breaking ancestral binds, too. That I am the first. The first woman to go. To forge a path on her own. Because prior to me, there were women who walked before me who couldn’t. Financially - or for another reason (most likely about money though).

I would receive sign after sign to leave. I did leave many times. Not because either of us was a bad person. But because the relationship wasn’t making either of us happy. We weren’t flowing, we were resisting. As they say ‘what you resist, persists.’

But the decision was what was so hard. Going from familiar to new. From comfortable to uncomfortable - and considerably less financially secure!! There is a lot of faith involved. Faith that I can survive on my own, financially, mentally.

It’s only by going through hard things that we grow. Each struggle, every movement forward, despite the hurt and hardship. That’s how we build emotional resilience, that’s how we grow wise. No regrets, just growth. It’s standing still in our own denial and fear that is the cancer. Not moving forward and, yes, people feeling hurt. Hurting isn’t the enemy; apathy and stagnation is.

The idea that two things can be true is something I am learning to hold: yes, this hurts. And yes, this is right.

Equally, yes, I had FOMO when I saw the Bali girlies. But last week I sat in my new home, on my own. Furniture assembled, fresh pictures hung. Figuring so much shit out. Which key, where? Overwhelm, lots of it. And also, I’m excited. Yes I cried yesterday a few times. I felt alone, the visceral reality of only seeing your kids half the time hitting home. (And also the relief and deep sigh when they leave from sheer exhaustion.) I also feel immense pride: I did the hard thing. The hardest thing I have ever had to do. And I believe the universe will reward me and all involved with the gifts that come from being brave.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Like when I have been so down, I seriously thought people were better off without me. Just like that, in that moment, when it becomes harder to not choose - to leave, to save your own life, to fucking move… just like that, you must rage against anything that takes away your light.

Your highest self, your inner protector, call her what you want, but she has got your back, and she is divinely led. Your soul, it’s lived before. It’s here to learn, to release karmic cycles. Let it happen. Tame Impala lyrics to his song, Let it Happen, spring to mind:

“I heard about a whirlwind that's coming 'round
It's gonna carry off all that isn't bound
And when it happens, when it happens (I won't be holding on)
So let it happen, let it happen”

The universe will always guide you to what is best for you. So ask her for what is in the best and highest good for all involved. Unattach from the outcome. When you pray for a specific thing, you are controlling the outcome to what you think is best. But that’s not how she operates. The universe knows what is best, in the long run, for all of us. So let her guide you. Even when it’s really hard. Especially then. Like a river flowing let life carry you along. Make aligned decisions. Keep referring back to the truth, the authenticity of the situation. And you can’t actually go wrong.

And have faith. Faith that sometimes the hardest things are the ones with the biggest reward.

+++

I am shifting things in my business to focus on content creation (right here!) around spirituality through a neurodivergent lens, including yoga offerings and retreats, too.

My website will be coming down soon. I am focusing and streamlining and moving to Substack as my home - writing like this and a new podcast called Cosmic Squirrel - all about spirituality and life through my neurodivergent lens.

Current offerings:

I am still running (universe willing!) a yoga and Ayurveda retreat in Suffolk Jan 2027: daily cold ocean swimming, Ayurvedic chef, hikes, yoga circles and so much more. Amazing quirky house just a stone’s throw from the beach. Email me if you are interested. Early bird pricing: £2130 for a single room with your own bathroom. Payment plan available. Link here that will expire at the end of the month I will pop a page up to replace the website one, so if it’s broken please email me: Rachel.cummins@gmail.com

More below…

This Substack is replacing my website, my email lists, and maybe even eventually my Instagram. So, if you enjoyed this post and my work in general, please do hit Subscribe. Posts are free - in time I will introduce a monthly subscription offer in return for monthly online yoga get togethers for ND and ND relating folk.

It’s now called Just Rachel Bridget: Cosmic Squirrel.

Just me being squirrely and talking about all things cosmic. This is my next chapter.

Please follow along!

Likewise, if you are not feeling it, that’s fine, click unsubscribe. I transferred my email list over to this platform so you do have to click unsubscribe if you do not wish to get these anymore.

Thanks for your patience and support!

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A bit before that, late 20s, I started writing, I thought of a book that I wanted to write - I have thought of a lot of books to write! This one was called The Road to Self Improvement. So, I guess I was starting to become a tad more aware. Of my behaviors, of my trauma, of my (what I now recognize as) acting out.

Skipping ahead though to my fixing period. Someone bought me The Road Less Travelled. I read the intro and had an epiphany. (I didn’t read more than that, so I guess the epiphany wasn’t that amazing). Said lightbulb moment? It was something to do with instant gratification. I recognized myself in that. Yes, I thought, I have that problem. I want it NOW. I want to stop this feeling NOW. I want to do this thing, have this thing, NOW, NOW, NOW.

And to hell with the consequences. Or, even: consequences, what are they? Oh, these - she thinks, the day after when it all comes crashing down. THESE consequences.

I have always been someone who needs to be whacked over the head with something 158 times before I get it; I guess you can say that I am an experiential learner. I need to embody something, to walk the walk, to knock on the door, to be IN it to understand it. And a few times, at least. And to overcome it? Well, 10X that. In fact, 100X it.

My journey with self improvement, self help, etc was always blended with self care. One day, I picked up someone’s (it may have been mine, I’m not sure) Spa Secrets for Body and Soul book made by the spa chain Champney’s. And I loved to sit in bed and read it: recipes for homemade teas, body scrubs, and methods for mindfulness. This was BRAND NEW INFORMATION (channeling Phoebe from Friends, it was probably around that era, too). And I loved it.

I soaked up that self care stuff, sometimes with a hangover - and realised THIS is what I want. I want fresh herbal tea, early nights, yoga, essential oils… to feel WELL, and not all over the place! I had the same kind of feeling about being WELL as I had about being DRUNK. That seems paradoxical, but really they are both about feeling good. I wanted that shit, all over me, always.

In other words I wanted to avoid feeling bad. To avoid feeling.

Realizing my patterns for being up and down all the time, I read that Stephen Fry was diagnosed with Cyclothymia - and it resonated, a lot. Ups and downs had always been a feature of my life. And so I began to look into it. I organized some CBT but it didn't resonate at all.

After many years of probably twice-weekly excessive binge drinking, often fun but sometimes with horrible consequences that did not in any way represent who I was at my core (does it ever, for anybody? Not special here!) I decided to look into options: first, a male counsellor that gave me the creeps. He showed me an emotions wheel and I couldn’t identify with any of them. WTF? I had always thought of myself as an emotionally intelligent person! Oh, shit, actually I can’t distinguish between anything other than: Happy… and Tired… or Sad. What does this mean?

Fast forward again, and I joined an alcohol free challenge group - the big one that focuses on exercise and day counts and the big aim being to give up beer for a year. So many people in the sober space started here, so kudos for them for being pioneers in the field of sober curiosity. I was amazed that there was an option other than AA. I joined around 2017, after a few years of trying and failing to moderate and even not drink at times. Not drink?! I know, crazy, right? Sounds so bat shit now, but then, even that recently, it was strange to not drink - unless you were and always had been teetotal or were an Alcoholic with a capital A. I didn't identify with either, I’d just always (pretty much) drank to excess. And then that, somehow, tied into my mental health ups and downs. I didn’t realise how much the two were intertwined. The need to not feel my feelings.

Honestly though, I never felt mad, sad, or bad enough to get proper help. Or to take it seriously enough to commit. But it was always there, this background feeling that I was broken and needed fixing.

I didn’t need to be fixed; I needed to be clearheaded, long enough to actually FEEL. And from there, to heal what needed attention, so I could actually make progress and fulfill my potential as a human!

My 30s were spent in a seesaw of ‘sober curiosity’ (or, let’s call the spade what it fucking is: I kept relapsing!). However, all was not lost: I cranked up my dial on understanding. And I never gave up. And THIS is a key factor here in my journey and why I, to this day, do not view myself harshly for taking quite so long as I have to arrive where I am at now. I grew so much, albeit two steps forward, five back, ten steps forward, two back - it was like a crazy dance that had me in a tizzy. Cognitive dissonance was my most frequent state. There are worse states to be in, sure. But CD is like a quiet form of torture, like raindrops quietly falling on one spot of your head, all the time. No one else’s, just yours. Everyone else says it’s sunny, but you can feel rain. You swear. AND you can feel sun. Which one to focus on. When both feel so true? Oh well, just ignore it, what will quiet this noise? I know! Wine! Anyone fancy a drink?

Being constantly torn in one direction, then another is so hard. Remember I said I looked into Cyclothymia (this is a milder form of Bipolar)? Well, I later started piecing together all the evidence and released I was neurodivergent rather than bipolar. Specifically I am now diagnosed ADHD and also I believe have traits of Autism (investigation pending on the latter). With this evidence, I can see in hindsight that what I though was CD - and, was, to some degree - was also probably AuDHD, which is like a constant tug of war in your noggin, all the time. Autism wants order, control, predictability. And ADHD craves spontaneity, impulsiveness, and is forgetful and reckless. Oh joy of joys to be in my brain! LOL!

So, back on track… I had two lovely beautiful babies in my early 30s and this naturally calmed me down - but Party Girl was still in there, bless her. I had yet to figure out the whole picture. In my late 30s I had my 3rd child. And, a delightful combo of sleep deprivation, perimenopause, suppressed trauma, and undiagnosed (at this stage) neurodivergence, combined to create a lovely cocktail of depression and extremely low self worth, resulting in suicidal ideation. I was misdiagnosed by a psychiatrist who spoke to me for 15 minutes, with major depressive disorder (MDD) and then, later, correctly, with ADHD (after my eldest was diagnosed, and the doctor said, mum, have you ever been assessed…?!). I was put on SSRIs for the misdiagnosed MDD - still on them to this day and would like to come off, but my brain has gotten so used to them it’s really hard to. The day will come, I’m sure, I am in no rush though.

I was still, in my early 40s, in ‘please fix me’ mode. My diagnosis of ADHD and the sheer depth of sadness I had reached, finally made me realise two things:

1. no one was coming to save me; I had to do this myself

2. it would have to become my priority in life because my kids needed me to be well

I started to deep dive into self-care. And I became obsessed. I realised it was not about baths and getting your nails done (both lovely and important in their own way). It was actually about having my own back. And that was hard, coming out of 40 years of people pleasing and not ever speaking up for myself. Well maybe I did, but only I was very drunk, and that never ended well.

I trained as a holistic coach, not originally to be a coach, but for my then self care community Mumfully, which no longer exists. I ended it before it really got going as it was lacking the spirituality I knew, deep down, I had to talk about and eventually, embody, as part of my business. During lockdown, like many of us, I started doing yoga daily to stay sane - and escape my family for 20 mins! For the first time ever I completed something - the 30 days of yoga with Adriene on YouTube. I then came across Alexandra McRobert and immediately signed up for her 200hr YTT online. This felt like home. Since then I have done her 300hr, her Advanced Yoga Sutras, Sober Yoga plus other providers’ CPD courses like Yin, Aromatics for Yoga and many more.

What I loved about yoga, and working my way through the holistic coaching course, was how I was doing them on my own. You see, nobody knows you, like you. Not the psychiatrist who talks to you for 15 minutes, or the GP who has 11 minutes less then that, and, honestly, just needs to get you out the door with some level of solution. But solutions to these problems aren’t quick, and they aren’t simple, and they aren’t one size fits all. But this inner work, it was all about self enquiry - deep diving into why you are how you are, with compassion. Self healing. Self care, too. Self care was the micro moments of self love. Self healing was going back, combing over hard things and exploring them. Facing up to things, in your own time. Coaching is about taking action. Problem solving, which my neurodivergent brain bloody loves.

What I love about self healing, is that we ALL can do this. You won’t believe how capable you are of healing yourself. Sure, use a practitioner to guide you but don’t forget how accessible all of this is to you, just by using books and watching videos! By deciding to do this, finally commit to it.

What really landed this sense of inner healing was getting out of my own head, beyond the coaching program I took, and into my body. It was the embodiment coaching and the yoga training. Ultimately, the coaching program got me a plan, but I didn't realize until later, the really secret sauce was the yoga I was doing alongside. Cracking myself open (literally, knees are so cracky), creating space in my body, allowing trauma to shift and recalibrate. Giving myself peace by not drinking. Sure, I was slipping up quite a lot, but I kept returning. Yoga had taught me self-compassion.

I started to read around the mind body ‘connection’. I read Gabor Mate, Bessel Van Der Kolk, and many more. I started to feel into what was I already knew was so true for me: all of you is all of you, there is no separation. Extend that further: all of you is made of energy, the same energy that all life is made from. We aren’t separate, not in our own physiology, emotions and spirituality - and certainly not from each other, and especially not from nature. This felt soothing. I never had to be alone. Suddenly my innate spirituality that had always been there, had a voice, a framework - and a purpose. It was really healing me. And that in turn helped me to be a better mum. Win, win.

This type of work, both in the psychology and spirituality world, resonated and made complete sense. Why on earth do we see the mind and body as separate!? It’s lunacy. Lunacy, even, is a word that is derived from Lunar - the moon. It was known, back then that behaviors were affected by changes in the moon. You see? The link between us, mind, body and soul - and the earth, the moon - it’s always been there. But we have forgotten our innate, particle-level oneness with the earth. We have fragmented ourselves into things that need to be fixed. Why? Well to start with, when we outsource our power, we become ideal avatars to sell products to by big companies who need us to be reliant on them for them to exist. I know - I am selling too, to some degree, all the time. But I like to think there is a difference: one is empowering and the other, disempowering.

Fixing ourselves suggests we are broken. But we are simply humans having human experiences. When we come into alignment with our true nature of oneness and innately self-healing beings, things start to get better on their own. Healing doesnt have to be complicated. I am re-reading a book on intuitive Ayurveda (‘sister science’ to yoga, mainly based around diet and lifestyle) at the moment in which she provides simple outlines for wellness that revolve around simple food, stable routine, relaxed self care practices. Living in alignment with nature, seasons, elements.

We have run away from ourselves. We are progressing way faster as humans than what we can actually keep up with. And our bodies, our nervous systems, are shredded by the effort.

It’s no mistake that it’s normally in midlife - what we used to call a midlife crisis - because we have to stack up enough crap, enough mistakes, to be able to stand still and say, enough - something has to change. Don’t feel too bad! Our 20s are literally for making mistakes! 30s? About realised that we made them, and wondering how to do better. 40s? Doing the work. OK, so some people go through this process quicker but this is very common as an arc of healing, age wise. (I mean, I could talk here about past lives and how that impacts our speediness, readiness and depth of healing in this lifetime, but that’s a whole other post).

Here’s what really shifted things for me: healing, true, embodied, soul level stuff - comes from a whole person approach. We can’t truly heal by sitting and being in the mind. We have to be in our body. We have to face what we have been avoiding, and it lives in our tissues (as the saying goes: ‘the issues are in our tissues’!). I went to therapy a year or two ago. Great therapist, lovely lady. After the session I had to beat my chest and jump up and down. During the session I was twitching I needed to move so bad! I needed to move, to shake that shit off, to process and transmute. This should be standard procedure - everyone needs to remember their own power to shift energy, to release and regulate, just like dogs and other animals do!

If, like me, you struggle to name emotions - it’s called alexithymia - then somatic/embodiment work is so helpful. You can instead use colors, textures - or nothing at all. You can simply feel into where in your body the feelings are.

So many midlife women, like me, try to “fix” themselves for years with books, courses, or endless self-improvement - and that’s great, definitely better than nothing. Truly though, healing doesn’t come from the mind alone.

When we get into the body, we start to cultivate an inner steadiness. We visit this place, often: this is not a one and done thing. We start to know, with regular visits inward, how to drop in. And guess what? That keeps us calm in stressful situations, too. We can hack moments that used to trigger us! This place, this warm, fuzzy safe core of us, we can go there anytime. And this knowledge, deep and embodied, it’s empowering: we start to feel like, hang on, we are braver, more calm, more resilient. We start to trust ourselves again. We stop abandoning and we start having our own back. We do more, say more - or maybe even do less and say less if that’s the energy that’s needed! Maybe a mix of both - you get to choose. And this time your true self is leading the way, not people pleasing, not intoxicated, or seeking something from others. Just, you.

And here is the icing on the cake - and the thing I like to think is different about my coaching and my work 1-to-1 particularly. We can feel and heal. Then we can take all the aligned action. We can envision and manifest our desires. But then? Then we let that shit go. Why do we do that? Why do we surrender? Well, through cultivating body based awareness and regulation, we realize that healing isn’t about life or other people being perfect - and we don’t need to be, either. It comes from knowing, deep in our mind, body and soul, that we can feel safe no matter what happens - rather than trying to control the outcome of every little thing - and that’s when we truly start to heal.

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++++++++

Some journal prompts:

+ do you feel like you have been in your head when it comes to healing?

+ what is stopping you from being in your body?

+ what would it be like to truly feel, and not be scared of what we find there?

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I am running a new 1-to-1 coaching program for Embodied Homecoming that combines Holistic Life Coaching, Embodiment/Somatic Work with Yogic Wisdom - I am giving a discount of £222 to the first two people that sign up and I only have 2 spots!

Code: homecomingbeta to get £222 off. Link below! Or, prior to that book a taster session with me to see what it’s all about! Link also below.

Embodied Homecoming 1-to-1 coaching

Come to my Bali Retreat

Come to my online Winter Rest session Dec 28th

Join my Embodied Queen Program online

Grab my free 30 day moon journal

See, I am a multi passionate. Many of us creatives are - and holistic people, I think they are even more so - so what chance did I have?! I have always struggled to nail down what my thing is, and that therefore extends to what is my name, my brand etc. It’s exhausting - and so distracting from actually doing the work.

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However I think many of you understand, no matter if I called myself shit on a stick (I won’t don’t worry) it’s always still just be me, doing my thing, evolving and taking shape.

We are all, always in flux, anyway, and that’s just a universal truth. That said, I do recognize that one must make sense to others, to reach them and make magic.

Hence, a little brand tweakage. I want to explain why, and what that means. And hopefully share some wisdom and life updates, too.

As I wind down into the last months of 2025 and reflect on my first year as a yoga teacher, out there doing the work of yoga teaching in all its different forms, testing this way and that, seeing what resonates, I have a strong desire to just bring it ALL in, to one, sustainable place, one home, one grounded bank of work, including all the yoga, the writing, the speaking, the retreats. As multi passionate and digressive as it is - and it is, by its very nature. We’re talking about big life themes, here. That shit will diverge and go wide and then, snap, be about the moments, the minutiae, the introspective. It’s hard to contain the message. But contain we must, as we need to make sense of things, right? To attract my people and make impact. But my work will always be wandering, because I am that, and so my work must be that too! We need to be true to ourselves.

Just a quick note to say, I won’t always be talking in this ‘breaking the fourth wall’ way about my business. I simply need to set out my stall as 1) I haven’t been on substack for ages. 2) I am renaming my shit, again. 3) I want to get clear myself and extend that to you, my few but treasured readers!

I want to CREATE. That’s what I do. Whether that’s a yoga class or retreat or a blog post. Historically I made videos and wrote blog posts. I used to be known as a creator on stay at home mum life, and homemaking.

HOME has always been my, well, home.

Thanks for reading Come Home by Rachel Brady ! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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In my life, as I started to heal after my depression (that I never massively talked about as said mum blogger) got really bad around the age of 40, I started to bring in wellbeing, and for a while my strapline as Mrs Rachel Brady (my old blogger persona) was Wellbeing & Home. My two greatest passions. Then last year I put down the creating for a while, I got very clear about yoga being my focus, and started that business - Rachel Brady Yoga - and it has been a success! It’s been really hard, though, transitioning from Home stuff to only Yoga stuff. And I lost a lot of people on the way! One in, one out was the trend over on my Instagram (honestly, I don’t really care - not in a mean way - but it’s not how many people you have with you, but whether they are actually engaged with what you offer, is what really matters). But I never felt or feel that RBYoga was ALL of me.

Very recently as part of my yoga business element of what I do - and will continue to do - I ran my first retreat, the picture above is me and my co-host, Cybele Botran (the retreat deserves its own post and I will do that, soon). On said retreat the author of The Sober Diaries (one of the first quit lit books I ever read) and since then many other fictional books, Claire Pooley, came to see us. She did a talk on publishing. It was so interesting, and it woke up another part of myself - the writer, who I had kind of ignored for a while. I remembered that I wanted to share my story in a book form. Clare gave me food for thought on whether I had to do this necessarily as a memoir, or a factual book - or, maybe to consider writing it as a fictional novel. Massive lightbulb moment! What freedom this would allow. It was just the permission I needed to awaken my creativity. I WANTED to write again. A few years back I started - and almost finished actually - a novel. But I didn’t think it was good enough, so I dropped it. I used to describe my writing as ‘cosy novels about hard things’. I kept realizing that I was actually writing a novel about myself - and trying to stop myself doing that. It was about a blogger who moved to the country with her (then) two crazy kids, charming husband, who drank too much and struggled with mental health, all whilst maintaining a pristine image online of the perfect domestic goddess who radiated pure joy (but silently struggled). ‘FFS, why do I keep making this story about me?!’ I used to think, berating myself for not being able to see beyond my own narrative and experiences. And now, I see, maybe I was always trying to write my own story in a way that felt safe and at the same time, expansive.

This realization made me reflect - am I fencing myself in too much by calling my business Rachel Brady Yoga. The answer was yes. I went back and forth between the truths I was faced with: ‘yoga is my life, it’s my passion, my method of living, my hyperfocus, my practice - it’s why I am OK’… and then I would go: ‘but is your truth, your work, in what you share, is it about yoga specifically, or is it about your story: a dysregulated, undiagnosed (then late diagnosed) neurodivergent women self-medicating for years with alcohol to manage her fluctuating energies and out of whack nervous system, then discovering a toolkit, a way of living - yoga and sobriety - and finding peace, at last?’

Yeah, it’s the latter! The yoga, as much as I adore it, is the toolkit. And I share that with you. But the way I share it is my offering, really. A blog post, a podcast episode, a video. Maybe you’ll decide to do coaching or a retreat with me. But really, I can reach most people with words, spoken and written.

Come Home is now the name of this substack and it will be the new name of my podcast, previously called Conscious but Grounded. Honestly, I have spent WAY too much mental time fretting over changing the name of things. Calling it ONE thing is my answer, my call to simplicity. This releases that time to actually create and help the people I want to help - and ultimately, to live my purpose.

Why Come Home? Well, it’s what it’s all about. I learned, through these embodiment practices and by being more in my body day to day, minute to minute, by practicing staying with myself, that I could create a sense of home in my body - and that this is what I needed more than anything else. To feel at peace in myself. So that no matter where I go, what I do, I can come home. To me.

Come Home incorporates all of what I do. It covers all of what I share. When we aren’t coming home to ourselves, we are escaping ourselves. We are abandoning. We run from what we know we’ve got to face. It gives me such a sense of strength, to know I can do anything because I can overcome that sense of fear that used to lead the way. This sense of fear would stop me from doing things, from saying things. It would also make me do things and say things that weren’t from a place of love. But now I know, the fear was trying to protect me. It’s not the enemy.

When you come home to yourself, your fear can take a seat. Fear can stay, but it can chill out. You can reassure fear, I’ve got this. And by actually having this, having your own back, creating boundaries, returning to self, over and over, you build trust with yourself and then fear sees this, and relaxes a bit.

So yes, I just completed by first ever retreat. I came home a few days ago. I am still high off all the love that was in that group. It was beyond words. Today, in a few hours, I begin my first ever online program with yoga, sharing circle and rest. This is a chakra education and experiential program. Both the retreats and the program are called The Embodied Queen. Why? Well because when we become more embodied, when we play, we connect, we move, we breathe - we step into the queens we truly are, beneath all that fear. This doesn’t mean we never do stupid shit, or lose our temper. But it definitely happens less, and when it does, we have compassion for our inner parts that need some love and reassurance.

And guess what? When you step into this more embodied self, and do scary things, they don’t feel scary. They feel expansive. They feel fun. Sure, you have some nerves, but they are more like excitement than dread. When you live your purpose because you have stopped abandoning yourself and started listening inwards to what you really want, really need, and really feel, you start to show up authentically - and that shit is magnetic. People want to know, what’s her secret?

The secret is that I stopped running away and I came home. I started loving myself, all of me, so fiercely that it became truth and my go to and not an effort. I looked at a photo of my young self, aged about 3, on retreat as my amazing co-host Cybele asked us to bring photos of our child selves to help us when doing reparenting work. And I felt such deep maternal love for her. Soft, chubby cheeks, curly blonde pigtails. Looking up at the parent or photographer just out of sight with such innocence and wonder. The child is me - and the person she is looking up to, I like to think, now, is also me. And your childhood photo - go find one, look at it, and direct the love you have for that little one, right back at yourself, now. She’s still in there.

And she wants you to come home.

+++++++++++

Please bear with me whilst I make this mini rebrand make sense, my URLs will redirect soon, my logo etc will be done properly etc in time. I love you. Leave a note to say hi!

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Ways you can work with me right now:

Come to my Bali Retreat

Come to my online Winter Rest session Dec 28th

Join my Embodied Queen Program online

Grab my free 30 day moon journal

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I’m sitting here at the driving range café, eating a cheese and ham toastie with homemade chips — so good 😋 The older two are hitting balls, fully immersed in their latest obsession: GOLF! ⛳️ It’s giving me a moment to catch up on work stuff.

Truthfully, I haven’t been doing much — as per my last few emails, chronic fatigue and illness have dominated everything recently. 😞

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After deciding to press pause for the summer to recover from whatever was going on, I thought I was resting… I even went to the gym, was given a great new routine — and then smashed it out the very next day 😅 because I didn’t want to forget it. Totally overdid it.

I was more tired than ever — even though I really enjoyed the gym and the post-workout glow.

Fast forward a few days, and Adam suggests a bike ride. I combine it with an outdoor swim at the local lido 💦 We cycle there, I have a little splash around, then we set off on what was meant to be an ‘easy’ local ride...

LOL.

Adam takes me down a steep, rocky track. It’s really hard to navigate. I nearly make it — the end is in sight — and then, BAM. I go flying over the handlebars 😬

Landed straight on my knee. Wailed and snotty-cried like a baby. Blood pouring out. I got so mad at Adam, who tried to get me to walk. I just couldn’t.

We were really high up, off a country lane, on a bridleway of sorts. We had to call an ambulance — no other option 🚑 Just then, by total chance, Stan’s teacher for next year appeared with her husband! They sat with me while Adam raced home on his bike to get the Land Rover, since the ambulance ETA was an hour. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but I do remember the pain 😖

Eventually, my knee was cleaned and glued up, and I inhaled an entire canister of gas and air 😵‍💫 It definitely helped with the pain… though it also sparked a bit of reflection on my penchant for mind-altering substances!

Under the influence, I decided not to get an X-ray — the paramedics didn’t think it was broken. But the next day (and night) were so painful. I cried through it, gutted to miss out on a social event I was really looking forward to.

I went for an X-ray the following day — thankfully, no break. But I’ve now been referred to Orthopaedics and have an MRI next week. The likely outcome? Damaged tendon. Possibly surgery, possibly just physio. 🩼

It’s hard to walk, though I can now. I asked my mum to stay another week and help, which she happily did 💕

Honestly, I’ve mostly just eaten and cooked these past few days — the only things I could really do. I’ve been properly out of action. Yesterday was my first outing: hobbling around Chesterfield Park, then even a visit to the pub later on 🍻

Today? Sober reset. No self-hate. Just compassion for what’s been a really tough few days ❤️‍🩹

I’ve put on what feels like a lot of weight in just five days. Isn’t midlife great?! 🤪

My mobility has been seriously impacted. It’s been depressing at times. I’ve worried about my yoga teaching career 😔

But… there have been positives.

I found out Mercury was still in retrograde when all this happened. People blame it for tech fails and disruptions — but actually, it’s about stopping. Reflecting. Reassessing. Pausing to audit 🔄

And that’s what I’ve done.

I even asked ChatGPT for an astrological reading (and a symbolic meaning for the injury) — and it told me the universe had literally brought me to my knees, to STOP and look inward 🌀

Here’s what came up for me:

✨ I need — and want — to be looked after
✨ I have worthiness wounds around this
✨ I think I’m resting… but I’m not
✨ I love yoga — and I was scared of losing it

I haven’t enjoyed resting. But it’s given me a chance to stop, look around, and be grateful.

Grateful for my mum, who’s looked after me so lovingly — even when I’ve been a pain in the ass 🙃 Grateful for my husband, despite his tendency to think things are never as bad as I say they are 🙄

That, in itself, was a talking point — I explained how it makes me feel when I perceive that he minimises my pain. And then, yesterday, I noticed how when my son fell, we all rushed to say, “You’re OK! Get up!”

💡 Lightbulb moment.

Why do we do that?

We want it all to be OK. We want the person (physically, emotionally, metaphorically) to bounce back, because seeing them hurt makes us uncomfortable. But maybe what we need is to sit beside them and say, “Oh honey, this is hard. I’m here.” 🫶

It’s not always helpful to say “you’re OK” — even if we mean well. It can be a kind of gaslighting. We need to listen more. Witness more. Honour what is.

So yes, I’ve learned a lot this past week.

Today, August 1st, feels like a reset. I booked in with a new sober coach, just to keep me on track. There doesn’t have to be a rock bottom to say:

👉 “I want a healthy life.”
👉 “I need more support.”

In my rest, I’ve realised: I want a simple life. One where I use my skills to help others — and get paid fairly for that. 🙏

I’m dreaming up a funded programme for ND teens and their parents who are out of school. I’m thinking creatively about how to do my work in ways that nourish me. I’m in a season of unmasking 🪄

Autism? I’m not sure. ADHD — definitely. And that’s enough to need support.

I don’t have to “prove” anything. I’m attracting amazing ND women, witchy women, and I feel like it’s a really powerful time in my life. 🧙‍♀️💫

My ND kiddo is teaching me daily (🙃) how to be calmer, more forgiving, more present.

I’m letting go of perfectionism. Accepting that I need help — with cleaning, with life, with boundaries. Accepting that marriage is hard. That people aren’t perfect. But if your heart is good, it’s enough ❤️

This knee injury? Honestly… it’s made me feel blessed.

If you have someone who shows up for you in your hour of need — you are blessed.
If you have mobility — you are blessed.
If you have something you miss when you can’t do it — you are blessed to have found that thing. And blessed that the loss is only temporary 💫

Ways to connect with me right now:

🌿 Local teaching relaunching in September — keep an eye on my website for details plus news on my funded project for ND teens
📺 Watch my YouTube — more ADHD content coming soon, including my ADHD Holistic Toolkit with yoga + chatty vids
🌊 My Cornwall luxury alcohol-free retreat still has spots! Secure yours with a £500 deposit
🎁 Grab my Inner Peace for ADHD Minds freebie — a 7-day video course on creating a calming morning routine

Thanks for reading, as always 🤍
Let me know if you relate — I’d love to hear from you.

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And you know what? It felt amazing. The space was full. Not just physically, but energetically. I feel nourished, expanded, and grateful to have delivered this offering.

The theme was Opening the Heart. We moved through aroma-point therapy (holding an acupoint over the heart for three minutes with essential oils to activate that energy centre), journaling, sharing, gentle asana (postures), heart-opening cacao, yoga nidra, and more reflection. Yes, I packed a lot in!

At the end, one of the participants kindly shared some feedback: “I would’ve liked more yoga.”

I genuinely welcome feedback—it’s how we grow, and I took care to respond with compassion, not defensiveness. I explained that all of what we had done that day, was yoga. Her words made me reflect: what do we mean when we say “yoga”?

For many people, yoga means exercise. A stretching class. A workout. And I get that. Most people’s first encounter with yoga is in a gym or studio setting focused solely on the physical practice.

But here’s what I aim to share through my work:
Yoga is not just movement. Yoga is life.

I teach what I call Full Spectrum Yoga. A friend of mine refers to her offering as Spiritual Yoga. Another calls it Holistic Yoga. The name matters less than the intention behind it: to honour yoga in its wholeness.

Asana—what most people think of as yoga—is just one of the eight limbs of yoga. That’s right: one-eighth.

Yoga also includes how we live (Yamas and Niyamas), how we breathe (Pranayama), how we draw our senses inward (Pratyahara), and how we focus, meditate, and ultimately experience oneness (Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi).

The purpose of yoga?
Not flexibility. Not toned arms. Not perfect balance.
It’s self-realisation.

Through the practices—whether that’s postures, breath, meditation, or self-inquiry—we begin to see more clearly what we are not, and come home to what we are.

We are more than the body.
More than the mind.
And we only glimpse this when we make time to be.

And if resistance arises? That’s OK.
If you’re ready, beautiful.
If you’re not, that’s beautiful too.
It’s all part of the path. There’s no wrong place to be.

Today’s theme, Opening the Heart, led us to a powerful journal prompt:

“If your heart could speak, what would she say?”

Maybe she’s loud and clear.
Maybe she’s scared and silent.
Maybe she’s bursting with unsaid truths.
Maybe she’s wary, guarded, unsure.

Whatever arises—it’s welcome. It’s information. It’s learning.

We meet it all with compassion, without judgment.

So, you want to “do” yoga? You want to “practice” yoga?

Try this:

• Be non-harming, just for one hour.

• Sit in stillness for 30 minutes without checking your phone.

• Stay calm in the middle of family chaos.

• Be radically honest about the ways you avoid feeling.

I don’t say this to provoke. I say it to open the door to deeper understanding.

Yoga isn’t the pose.
The pose is the portal.
The awareness that follows—that’s the yoga.

This is the path.

This is the practice.

This is yoga.

Retreats, audio courses, day retreats, monthly workshops, half price coaching tasters, and more: My offerings are all here on my LinkTree 💕

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This week, I taught a Yin class, online. It was the first one I have taught from home, from a sweltering barn, in the evening. With the kids at home. And no husband to watch them. What could possibly go wrong?!

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As a householder, I have 3 kids (who are obviously at home in the evening), my husband was away, as he often is. Just before I went live with my students, my 6 year old bangs on the barn door, demanding I come and fix the TV, as it was glitching during a Bluey episode.

I lost it. Not 100% lost it, but like 35% lost it. I stormed him down to the house, angrily. With minutes to go, literally 2 minutes, I scolded my 12 year old for not babysitting him as she promised she would.

Anyway, I dashed back to the barn. Now, an aside to say our barn is like a greenhouse. We actually use it to bring seedlings on, it’s that hot. I think it read 25.5 degrees Celsius in there.

Cooling Yin, this was not gonna be.

Anyway, I got on, and during my check in, was honest that I had just had this experience. It was OK. We began. The class was fine. During one pose that I had never taught before, I realised it was misplaced in this class, this was a complex pose and required props for beginners. Again, it’s OK.

Yoga teaching is hard. Music. Lighting. Sound. Cues. Language. Philosphy. Tech stuff. Holding space. Sequence creation and remembering. Theme. All of this, and so much more, to remember. You need to be in a good head space to teach well. But is this even realistic, because… LIFE?!

Anyway, I taught the class. It was fine… until …

Savasana. The attendees are relaxing, in silence as felt was needed.

My 6 year old starts banging on the door. Knowing that I was teaching - he could hear me. He was very intentionally trying to scupper my class. I muted my sound.

But as I closed the class, and spoke my closing prayer, there’s no way they couldn’t hear him banging on the door with a big stick.

FML!!!

I closed class, stumbling over my words in the prayer that I must’ve said a thousand times, because of the stress and distraction.

I joked about it to them and apologised. Maybe they couldn’t hear it, as sometimes on Zoom calls people say sorry for some noise and we can’t hear it on the other side.

But DAMN. I was sweaty and this was stressful.

I ended the call and drank a beer and smoked a cigarette. And then I sat down to write… which is what you are reading now.

So, just to give context, I have dabbled in drinks again a few times recently, and as such it is hard to gain momentum in my chosen path of sobriety. It’s not that I need to give up drinking because I am drinking or smoking so much; I WANT to quit because they do not serve me, they feel terrible in my body, and I hate that I don’t have control over this.

Under heightened circumstances, whether that’s excitement, stress (most often), or nerves, or depression - or joy, occasionally - my brain sometimes goes, oh, I know what I need right now - a drink, or 4, or 6 - and a few cigarettes.

You may be familiar with my sober journey. I will briefly fill you in, if not. Around 2012 I started to begin thinking about quitting booze. I know this because I remember considering having a sober hen do - and I also remember joining One Year No Beer around then. Since then, a few years of dabbling happened, and then at around five years of dabbling I started to take it more seriously, and do 3 month stints of being sober. I have spent the vast majority of the past 5, even 10 years, sober. I have done sober weddings, sober holidays, all of it.

That is why this is SO frustrating. I know I can do this. Sometimes, the hard thing I do - then I come home and let something really small trigger me into having a drink.

Am I addicted? I must be. An addiction is an action you keep repeating with negative consequences and you can’t stop. That’s me. That’s this.

So, back to The Sweaty Evening of Stressful Yin Yoga Teaching. LOL. I mean, it’s OK to laugh. I laughed, at the absurdity of teaching a dreamy Yin class and then slamming the laptop shut and grabbing a beer and a cigarette!

Because that’s exactly what I did.

It was hot. The heatwave perhaps had been contributing to this.

Also I had spent a very busy few days working in a business container so my head was in a laptop, creating, for my business. (This, by the way is in total antithesis to what the container is about - and entirely my fault. My coach who runs this knows me well and sent numerous voice notes saying slow down. This is also part of my problem, my fastness, my energy imbalances, which I will write about also, soon.) Suffice to say, some self care went out the window, and I didn’t go to a meeting for a few days. Someone at a meeting said recently:

“If you’re not working on your sobriety, you’re working on your relapse.”

And this is so flipping true.

I had about week under my belt, again, after drinking in Jamaica for a few of the days and then also prior to going, breaking another amazing 3 months stint.

This is my pattern: 3 months, brilliant. Sabotage with drinking. ‘Recommit’ but it takes about 3 weeks of faffing to get back on track. Then I do it and get 3 months… and… guess what’s next?! You got it: I sabotage.

Maybe I need to go live in the woods when I reach 3 months, on my own, with no money and only bread and water. I’m not even joking. But I can’t hide from life!

So, I share, I never ever drink in secrecy. Often when ‘I decide to drink’ (who is really deciding though, is it the addictive voice, or ‘me’), I will go to our local pub and do it, as I don’t want to do this secretly. It’s not illegal, and I don’t have to answer to anyone. Apart from God. He knows.

Sometimes, when I smoke and drink I speak to my late Nana. I look up at the sky and say, ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry.’ She herself struggled like me with drinking, and was sober on and off a few times during her last ten years or so. Also, she smoked for years.

I share because I process this way. I need to get this out. Because secrecy is where the toxicity (aside from the ACTUAL toxicity) comes in. It plants a seed that grows into:

I may as well drink this weekend.

I may as well smoke occasionally.

And I don’t WANT that. The real me, the peace loving, health loving me wants sobriety, honesty, vibrancy. I say the real me, but all of it is me. In Internal Family Systems we are taught that we are all made up of parts. I have had this therapy before, and may do again. What part of me is still longing to be heard, seen, and cared for? I think it’s my Inner Rebellious Teen, my protector maybe. She wants to help, but she needs to let Yoga Mum take over.

Talking of Yoga Mum, what does this have to do with Yoga and being a Yoga Householder?

EVERYTHING. Let’s revisit what a Yoga Householder (or what Householder Yoga) actually is:

According to Google AI:

“"Householder yoga" refers to yoga practice specifically adapted for individuals living ordinary lives with commitments like work and family, rather than those pursuing full-time spiritual paths... It's about incorporating yoga principles and practices into everyday life to improve well-being and find spiritual fulfillment within the context of a householder's responsibilities”

Incorporating yoga principles… into everyday life. Let’s look at this through the 5 the Yamas and Niyamas which are the first two limbs of the Eight Limbs of Yoga, as outlined in the ancient text The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They are essentially ethical guidelines and spiritual observances that lay the foundation for a meaningful and disciplined yogic life. Here they are:

🌱 Yamas - Ethical Disciplines (How we relate to the world)

1. Ahimsa – Non-Violence
   Cultivate compassion and avoid causing harm in thought, word, or action.

2. Satya – Truthfulness
   Speak and live your truth with integrity and honesty.

3. Asteya – Non-Stealing
   Do not take what is not freely given—this includes time, energy, and material things.

4. Brahmacharya – Moderation / Right Use of Energy
   Use your energy wisely and avoid overindulgence.

5. Aparigraha – Non-Possessiveness / Non-Attachment
   Let go of materialism and cultivate gratitude and simplicity.

🌸 Niyamas - Inner Disciplines (How we relate to ourselves)

1. Saucha – Purity
   Cleanliness of body, mind, and environment.

2. Santosha – Contentment
   Practice gratitude and accept life as it is in the present moment.

3. Tapas – Self-Discipline
   Commit to growth through consistent effort, even when it’s challenging.

4. Svadhyaya – Self-Study
   Study spiritual texts and reflect on yourself with honesty and curiosity.

5. Ishvara Pranidhana – Surrender to the Divine
   Trust and surrender to a higher power or universal wisdom.

Together, the Yamas and Niyamas are like a moral compass for anyone on a spiritual path, not just for yoga practitioners, but for living with integrity, clarity, and connection.

Let’s analyse through the lens of, specifically, the ones that I feel stand out in this instance.

Ahimsa: non harming

OK so my outburst at the kids. Not good. Rage is an issue for me. One of my biggest issues, actually. And it is related to THIS issue of sobriety, too. Above I alluded to my energies and fastness (then slowness). (These are ALL related. I know, people reading this may think: Bipolar. But I have spoken to docs about this and they aren’t sure. I am diagnosed ADHD, so this is the best I got at the moment. I also see my ADHD through the lens of yoga, as an imbalance of energies, and I will write about that next.)

Smoking is harmful; terribly. The WORST. Half a beer, not that harmful in itself. Alcohol on the whole though is heinously toxic. We are in collective denial of this fact. I don’t have the science but I know that drinking even moderately contributes massively to cancer risk, dementia risk. It is a Neurotoxin, which is why it damages mental health so, so badly. Whilst we condemn smoking - rightly so - we don’t condemn drinking as a society. Why? Big Alcohol? Collective addiction? It causes way more deaths than drugs, smoking… and yet we still worship at the gate of alcohol. One thing I realise is that, as a people pleaser and someone who yearns for acceptance and belonging, when I am not in a meeting (where I do, finally, belong) I feel like the odd one out when, in a room full of people, I am the only one not drinking. It’s hard. Saying that,. this is changing, as more people choose to take breaks and even quit - as a lifestyle choice rather than a Must Do. But how many people have died of cancer and unknowingly because of their moderate drinking?

Ahimsa is a key concept in yoga, and probably one of the most well-known. I am consciously doing harm to myself when I make this choice. I am in direct opposition to this concept. I also am harming my kids by making this choice, and by being rageful.

You know what else: it’s the over and over repeating of a pattern that is arguably the most harmful. The compulsion.

This makes me think of two other concepts in the Yoga Sutras, the text where these concepts are taken from and that yoga is based on, written by an Indian sage called Patanjali over 2000 years ago: Samskaras and Vasanas.

Samskaras are the traumas that have happened to us and the Vasanas are the patterns that we develop as a result. This is reductive, but for the point of this post it will do as an explanation. So… this idea begs the questions:

• at what point in my life did I start to feel something hard and then outsource its management?

• Why do I feel unable to manage feelings without numbing?

Both things I have to consider if I want to heal this compulsion to self sabotage and numb out by self medicating.

Satya is truthfulness. I am being truthful. OK. Good.

And I feel that I am honest, almost too honest; some would say I overshare! I dipped into my hard copy of the Yoga Sutra last night which is annotated by Sri Satchiananda.

The sutra translated is: To one established in truthfulness, actions and their results become subservient.

This means, the words you say become more powerful than the actions you do. Honesty rules over misdemeanours. This is compassion. Honesty breeds compassion.

He says first, you obey truth. Then, after some time, your words become so pure and powerful that what you say will come to pass. This is a bit like affirmations and why they work. Your brain doesn’t know that you may not fully believe them. Again, in manifesting we speak and think and feel as it were already true. I am sober. I am well. I am happy. I am abundant. I am a wealthy in heart and in bank account! Etc etc. The brain requires accordingly. (Is this not further evidence that we are not our brain, but our soul - when we can master that separation from the physical body and witness its working, we can master it).

This, from Sri Satchiananda’s popular translation and annotations of the Sutras:

“If you are always truthful, if no lie comes from your mouth, a time will come when all you say will come true….By the establishment of truthfulness, Yogis get the power to attain for themselves and others the fruits of work without doing the work. In other words things come to them automatically.”

So, if I keep saying my truth of this experience all the time, am I strengthening my chance of success? Maybe though, conversely, by constantly witnessing this pattern, it’s ingraining it further? Should I move towards affirmations of sobriety rather than admissions of relapse? I am sober. I am powerful. They are true, after all, I am sober (in that moment). I am powerful. Even if deep inside we know we are yet to master, say a year of this sober state, by saying these affirmations we are instilling a sense of truth and rewiring our brain.

I do find solace in honesty. Am I honest ALL the time, probably not 100%, but maybe 99%? I do find myself lying to the kids to suit my narrative. I try really hard not to.

Satya is about being honest ALL THE TIME. I need to work on this.

By sharing my truth in this radically honest way, which I do try my hardest to do, it takes the secrecy away, obviously, which equally gives me accountability - or does it? It’s not working, is it? I don’t think I’ve met anyone in recovery or sobriety with this pattern that I have. It’s crazy how long it is taking me to commit entirely to not drinking (or smoking). There is a compulsion here: to struggle - drink - be honest - be forgiven / ignored / enabled / whatever. It’s created a new compulsion that has replaced the old one - to smoke and binge drink heavily a few times a month, which clearly needed addressing (and I have addressed it - of not perfectly, so credit where it’s due). I have dramatically reduced the physical toxins, but the chaotic rollercoaster has stayed. Granted the highs and lows are not the same. But maybe it’s the drama and the cycle of being bad then being forgiven is what I am addicted to? All I know is I have to keep telling the truth to get to the bottom of it.

People ask why I can’t just drink occasionally. Because I know, as soon as I drink I want to smoke. And also, I may have 2 sensible times, but eventually there will be that one massive binge which could potentially ruin my mental health for a long period or even irreparably.

Bramacharya - moderation - well I guess I was moderate in my drinking on this occasion. I didn’t even want it. I poured the last bit away. But for me, moderation in this area isn’t a thing. It’s just bad for me, end of. So it’s a no. Often this sutra is read as celibacy from sex, but more in modern life we can read it as moderation in all things. We could argue that moderation in alcohol is OK, but is it? If it’s in direct opposition to Saucha, which is purity. Let’s talk more on that one…

Saucha - purity - smoking and drinking is deffo NOT SAUCHA! What’s pure about a cigarette or even half a bottle of beer? Patanjali devotes two Sutras to Saucha. No other Yama or Niyama has two lines about them. But Saucha has. Why? We talked about this in a recent Sutra Study class. Purification. That’s the practice here. The asana, the breath, the meditation. The guidelines of morality of the Yama and Niyama can be seen as purifying the soul. Reducing or hopefully eliminating Karma. It’s about refinement of mind, body and soul. Ending the cycle of negative consequences in our life. That doesn’t just happen. We do it layer by layer. Our homes, our bodies. All of it matters. My mum says, messy house, messy mind - and I find that to be so true. Whilst it’s impossible to have a perfect house with kids and animals, it’s true that when it’s tidy I feel so much clearer, and able to remain pure and, well, sober. I haven’t always been this way (not that I am brilliant at it now) - as a teen and a student I was horribly messy! I have had to learn the hard way, the only way. By doing it. By suffering negative consequences because of being messy, and preferring to try not to be.

In terms of our bodies, Saucha can refer to a good diet, hydration, a low tox home, ideally not much medication - as few toxins as possible. When we keep a pure body it helps us feel better and have a pure mind. We bow to the superior innate intelligence of a pure, unadulterated body as provided by God! My diet is pretty good, could be even better. I hydrate OK. My home is pretty low tox - this is a passion of mine but I am far from all the way there. But I am on several meds and I hate that. DO I need them all? Or have we become reliant on a broken health system which relies on us being unpowerful, unsovereign, and in a near permanent state of self created wrong-ness. With compassion, I can move towards working on all of these things and get closer to Saucha.

Alcohol is a toxin, and smoking is one of the most toxic things you can do. They simply have to go.

But also, the addiction is impure.

It’s craving - which is one of the Kleshas - the root causes of suffering, as described by Patanjali. There are 5 Kleshas:

• Avidyā – Ignorance / misunderstanding of reality

• Asmitā – Egoism / false identification

• Rāga – Attachment / craving - this is me!

• Dveṣa – Aversion / avoidance

• Abhiniveśa – Fear of death / clinging to life

When Raja, attachment / craving, is present in your life it can have a harmful knock on effects to many other areas, hence its high relevance as a key cause of suffering.

My own Raja (craving) about smoking and drinking to relieve the pain, or even an excess of any feeling - this act is a Vasana - remember from looking at Ahimsa, above, I mentioned that ‘Samskaras are the traumas that have happened to us and the Vasanas are the patterns that we develop as a result’. So at some point, a Samskara happened and I catered to it by creating a Vasana (pattern of drinking/smoking to deal with emotions), which clearly worked to start with - and over time this created a Raja (craving) for that Vasana. This is creating impurity, which is a direct opposition to Saucha.

The next Yama or Niyama that seems relevant (i.e. that I am failing with!!)… is Tapas.

Tapas is grit, fire energy, being determined, putting in the work.

I didn’t push through the evening as I have so many times. Honestly what annoys me the most is that it wasn’t even that big a craving. I have had very strong ones, ones that have made my head spin and that have made me flee to safety to make sure I stayed sober. This was a fricking WHIM. And I gave in like that *clicks fingers*. I feel instinctively that Tapas is something I must work on. It is an Aversion to uncomfortable feelings. Dveṣa – Aversion / avoidance - this is another Klesha - a root cause of suffering. I avoid uncomfortableness at all costs. I know this. And I have tried to work on it with cold tub water therapy and cold dips in the sea, also using a Shakti mat. I know I must do more. I need to be OK with not being OK.

My Tapas struggle also pertains to my flakiness. If I am not 100% well, I hate showing up to things. I hate not being OK. I hate being seen as not at my best. I feel as though love for me is conditional on that. I see now that this directly relates to Tapas. It’s OK to show up, not feeling great. Sticking it out, showing up, sticking to your word. This is a big one for me. And one that deserves its own blog post!

Svadyaya - self-reflection - OK so I am reflecting now. I’m good at this. Tick I guess. Honesty I do have. Curiosity, definitely. But does this mean that we can do whatever we want and as long as we are curious it doesn’t matter? I think my problem is that I think it will be fine if I keep doing this…

Or will it?

Maybe I am not being honest with myself. All those ‘just now and then’ cigarettes, they add up. All the time, the money, the energy or the cognitive dissonance of drinking/not drinking. It’s exhausting. Not just for me, but for loved ones - and for my sober community. I went to a meeting today and I feel embarrassed when I show up and say, I drank, AGAIN. Sure, so I didn’t crash the car or end up in prison. But it’s still damaging to me. This substance is something I no longer wish to be part of my life - same with cigarettes - and yet I am compelled, for the past ten years, to keep letting it back in, despite saying in my words and actions that I want the opposite.

In a wider sense, the self sabotage is keeping me small. If I keep repeating this pattern, it keeps me here, it keeps me safe. I shoot myself in the foot because I’m scared to see what happens if I don’t. As humans, we are more comfortable in the mud sometimes. It’s familiar. Our brains like familiar.

Ishvara Pranidhana – Trust and surrender to a higher power or universal wisdom.

A gut punch.

I started writing this a night ago, right after it happened.

And now, I sit writing it the next night on, going over my first rough notes.

I feel sick at this realisation. Also, emotional. This last Niyama: Surrender. Handing it over. Letting go and letting God.

This is the first step in the 12 steps. And I have never realised this before.

IS THIS WHY I CAN’T PROGRESS? Because I won’t surrender, and admit that I am powerless over alcohol?

Holy shit.

Look, I have so many friends who are sober, and I know the steps well, but I’ve never felt aligned with elements of AA. It doesn’t freak me out. I even went to a meeting in person and, despite the fact that I really liked the women (it was a female only meeting). I couldn’t get past some of the stuff. Like, saying “*name*, alcoholic” EVERY time they spoke. I don’t feel like I relate to the word. Because it suggests something that is out of our power. As does that first step. I believe it is in our power. I don’t agree that it’s a disease. It’s a Vasana (pattern), that comes from a Samskara (trauma), then a Raja (craving) is created and addiction happens.

However my way isn’t working, so am I blocking my own healing from this problem? Is it academic, pure semantics as to the language or approach? I act casual about it, but you better believe, it has had and it still has an impact on my life, despite never really having a defining ‘rock bottom’ moment.

Maybe I need to surrender. To say, OK ya got me, I fucking GIVE UP. Over to you! By admitting my way isn’t working, I hand it over to someone else. To the universe. I admit defeat. Let’s try this other way.

This step is about surrender. It is about acknowledging that the addictive behaviour is no longer in your control and that trying to manage it alone hasn’t worked.

The thing is, I don’t manage it alone. I have a sober community, Sober Mom Collective, priorly Somer Mom Squad. I have had 2 sober coaches. I also have The Mindful Life Practice which is a yoga community that focuses on sobriety. These are the people who support, and forgive me. What else are they to do?

How do I go from here, to there?

What am I lacking to make this stick?

Writing this has really helped. Maybe AA isn’t right for me, I know I feel that and it’s OK to feel that. So where do I go to now?

Yoga.

I see now that I am averse to discomfort: Dvesa. Aversion.

I see that I am in a pattern: a Vasana, and that pattern is creating suffering: Raja.

Raja - craving

Dvesa - aversion

Two of the five Kleshas, the causes of suffering. Two of them. No wonder this is hard.

The cure? I think I need Tapas. Grit, pushing through when I want to revert to old, very well worn Vasanas. I am fighting with myself, my own neural pathways.

I need to practice Saucha, cleanliness, and commit to my practice, my Abyhasa, of Asana to keep me well in body, and Dyhana, meditation to keep me clean in my mind and soul. Of clean eating and living.

Today I start afresh. Again.

I am sober. I am strong.

I can feel feelings and be uncomfortable and not tap out.

Yoga is the way.

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Circling back to what my newsletter is about - and why it helps me as a Yoga Householder to see my very human problems through the lens of yoga. It's about incorporating yoga principles and practices into everyday life to improve well-being and find spiritual fulfillment. My hope is that through writing about my own experiences in this way you too can see that Yoga is more than just moving on a mat - as lovely as that is!

Come move on a mat with me!

Connect below.

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Ways to hang with me!

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Yoga online, 2x weekly: Tues lunchtime class and Thurs eve class

Seasonal Day Retreats with me in Peak District

Sacred Sundays Yoga Workshops also in Peak District - the 8th June also includes a free hike after!

Luxury Sober Women’s Retreat in Cornwall Nov 2025

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For me, being homey is just WHAT I DO! I’m JUST like Meghan (ahem), I just EMBODY domestic goddess-like wonder!! No, only joking. (I’m way too swear-y and messy to be like Meghan as much as I love her!). But I do love cooking, homemaking, and living as naturally and holistically as possible. I’m really passionate about it being OK - no, more than OK - SUPREMELY important, to be a homemaker and for more of us to recognise and realise it’s importance and how much it matters.

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To realise in this lifetime, right now, that it might be THE most important job.

And I don’t care if that is unfashionable. I do not care. Because it’s true.

I’m not telling everyone to stay home and not work. This isn’t about keeping women in the kitchen. If that’s not your thing, GREAT! I love that for you.

I love and admire women who are killing it it the board room; it’s just not for me! (Also, you better believe that someone is holding it down at home - whether that’s a partner, a nanny or a relative - and that’s cool too - they are the homemaker - it doesn’t really matter who it is, but it’s important!)

For those of us who love to be at home, who love to be in the garden, in the kitchen, creating, writing, being a carer wholeheartedly, as an act of love and devotion, as a CAREER, then this might be a substack that you enjoy. Please 🙏 do share and subscribe, as this helps me grow. I am aiming to write several times a week, of not daily when possible, so let’s create a great, soulful homemaking community together!

Back to what I was saying… I understand the need for more, which is why I always end up creating something about my life, my YouTube, my podcast, my yoga classes. These are all parts of me. I can help there too, and will be writing about how to create a soulful business that you love and that fits around kiddoes.

My most ME part of me, is me at home. And instead of seeing it as separate from my yoga, I want to write here regularly remember that it is my yoga.

I mean I say it daily, but here goes if you haven’t heard it already: yoga is life. It’s all of us. It’s everything. It’s how you show up. The mat part is helping us to destress and create space so we can show up better.

Imagine if everyone came home to a cosy, love-filled home. To a wholesome home cooked meal. Imagine if we all used sustainable cleaning products and grew veg and baked bread. Yeah, it’d be pretty great eh?

So, I don’t do all of this perfectly. Not at all. My bread yesterday was flat. My littlest eats way too much Weetabix 🙄 . I like the odd Maccy D’s! Yeah, I can dip in and out of my holistic goddess-ness LOL. But the older I get the more I realise this is all I want. Holistic. Natural. Real. Sustainable.

Yoga isn’t at add on to that; it IS that.

What people think yoga is: bending into shapes that are only possible to fit young skinny white women.

What yoga actually is: a system for living that helps us all remember our oneness. Living with love. Remembering that we are earth: we came from there and we’ll go back there.

There are SO many elements to yoga. Sure, there is the marvellous asana practice - girl loves a stretch! But also let me give you an example of another branch of yoga: Karma Yoga, which Chat GPT helpfully described for me:

Karma Yoga is the practice of performing one's duties without attachment to the outcome, dedicating all actions to a higher purpose or to the greater good. It teaches that we should act with full awareness and integrity, but without ego, expectation, or desire for personal gain.

This is so resonant with homemaking, but it also applies to whatever you do, for love. Not for gain.

Quickly though, just to reassert something:

Being a householder isn’t the same as being a homemaker.

But because I know everyone links the two, I chose it as my name.

So, to reiterate, a householder is someone who lives a spiritual life without renunciating completely, like a nun or a monk has.

ANYONE who is spiritual and committed to being spiritual in their life, is a householder.

However it is always used in parlance as an allusion to the householder stage of life. I.e. when we are working, raising kids, etc.

It’s a vague term to be honest, but it resonates so much with me.

I take pride in being a householder, in every sense.

My house is not perfect. My meals aren’t always great. I lose my shit often.

But I see what I do as LIFE. When I am not aligned in this truth, I see anything external to that as The Thing. And I chase The Thing as if IT will make me complete. And in the act of chasing, I forget who I am. I forget the sacred act of love. I forget that heaven is right here, in the shape of 3 kids who all go on screens too much and fight with each other! (And are, occasionally, ADORABLE). It’s in the shape of a man who I met when I was 21 and who cured me of my problem that I wasn’t capable of romantic love. It’s all right here in front of me.

OK, enough waffling about what it is I want to do - and why. Time to DO the thing ⬇️

And today I wanted to share a recipe perfect to end fasting, or for brunch (which is when I tend to do that, on fasting days). It’s what I ate yesterday.

So, I am That Perimenopausal Bitch in the Streets Tryna Eat Protein and Not Getting Around to Lifting Weights. Hence the protein level in this recipe! Holla to my PM girlies out there! I see you.

This is a really simple, healthy, wholesome nourishing lunchy brunchy. So easy, too.

Just a quick note to say that my ‘recipes’ are always very approx, and casual. So don’t worry if you haven’t got this or that - I actively encourage winging it in the kitch, as that’s literally what I do on the daily.

Here’s what I used:

2 eggs, organic if poss

Half a tub of Greek yoghurt

Pickled garlic, few cloves OR a squeeze of garlic puree or a grated or crushed garlic clove

Spices: paprika; turmeric; chilli flakes

EV olive oil

Some nice vinegar (like ACV or white wine vinegar)

Good salt (I like Maldon)

Slice of sourdough

TONS of salad leaves - equivalent to a whole bagful

A few tomatoes

Here’s what I did:

• Fry your egg in olive oil and pop your sourdough in the toaster

• Grab your yoghurt and add in a little garlic, sprinkle in liberally the spices, and swirl EV olive oil through it - mix a little but keep the marbling effect

• Grab your leaves - douse liberally in oil and a little vinegar and a pinch of salt, massage them so they wilt a little. Plate this as a bed for the rest of it.

• Chop toms roughly into cube type shapes, toss in a little vinegar and salt. Scatter on top of eggs, which you can also place on the leaves by the way.

• Dollop, heavily, the spiced yoghurt.

• Add extra spices and chilli flakes.

• DEVOUR.

Ways to hang with me!

Follow me on Instagram

Stay in the loop and get a free Sadhana (how to create a spiritual practice) worksheet with my my mailing list!

Yoga online, 2x weekly: Tues lunchtime class and Thurs eve class

Seasonal Day Retreats with me in Peak District

Sacred Sundays Yoga Workshops also in Peak District

Luxury Sober Women’s Retreat in Cornwall Nov 2025

Thanks for reading The Yoga Householder! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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First I think it’s prudent to share the basic outline of what VM is and how it works.

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Vedic Meditation (VM) involves each individual being given a personal mantra by their teacher. This mantra is a Sanskrit word, which no meaning as such, the word they are given depends on their age, and they are provided with an extra add-on word to expand their mantra every year of continuous practice. So, if another 45 year old starts VM they will get the same mantra as me. You cant write it down, you are asked not to share it and you are asked to try not to think of it apart from when meditating. I love this ‘secret mantra’ element; it makes the practice so mysterious and sacred. I love my mantra, and I experiment with ways of saying it in my head. It’s very musical sounding; it’s more of a sound than a word, actually.

So this mantra is repeated, silently, over and over. Our thoughts wander. They will do that! And when I remember to say my mantra, I say it, once or a few times. Then my wandering thoughts come back… oh, I have a mantra… more thoughts… mantra… thoughts and so on.

I set a timer on the Insight Timer app, which pings a Basu Bell noise to start and finish. It logs my meditation and also the minutes meditated - but most importantly the day streak (good thing there are two, as when the time comes that one drops off for some reason, hopefully only for that day - the day streak is not broken. This in itself is genius and so forgiving. That means the day count is on there, on my iPhone homepage - and I do not want to break it! I also send my meditation group a tick emoji once I have meditated, for accountability. Occasionally with some side notes.

Position-wise, it is recommended that you are, above all, comfortable. Ideally, sitting up, with your back supported and your head upright, but relaxed. Ideally not dropped back or being supported as this is a little too conducive to sleep. That said, when I have been sick or very tired, I have laid down - and that’s OK too. Indeed, more than once I have crawled into my son’s bottom bunk and drifted off, muttering internally the mantra and thinking, ‘today, this will have to do’. Did I mention it’s a very forgiving practice? The priority is getting it done.

I have had quite a few what I call ‘trash meds’. These are when I am on the floor (metaphorically speaking). The meditation is late, it was interrupted lots of times, or I am basically just thinking the entire time and barely remember to say my mantra. Those are OK too. Rory tells us not to differentiate between ‘good’ or bad’ meditations. They are all important. He says the ‘trash’ ones, where we just process ‘stuff’ are also really helpful as otherwise those things would be stuck in our system, unprocessed. (And probably come out later in some unhealthy way!)

The Vedic meditation is a householder technique. Perfect for me, then. Everyone is a householder, right? For those of you who don’t know, in spiritual parlance, a householder is a person walking a spiritual path who is not 100% living their path above all else. So unless you are a monk, nun, or sage or other type of renunciate, we are ALL householders. But I also think we do attribute this term mostly to people who are home-based with dependants - certainly in modern terminology. I am totally a householder in all the ways, hence the name of this Substack! I have 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats and a rabbit; a husband that is away often, or prioritising his massive job if he is here (or tired from said job). I am the primary carer. I am the homemaker. And I love it. Apart from those times when I sulk around the house banging things around, muttering under my breath that no one else ever fucking does anything in this house! LOL. So, as much as my plan to meditate at 6am, uninterrupted even by my dogs (as I do this before I go let them out of feed them), and then at 2pm (so I have had time to build up some stuff to release)… this doesn’t always go to plan. Rory said these timings are perfect. He encourages us to do one first thing before you get sidetracked - which you will, as meditation isn’t urgent. Then one later, but ideally not at night. However, because of life, these two timings don’t always happen. The reason for this is sometimes a genuine one - my son woke early, or I overslept. But sometimes, and in recent times more so as my practice becomes more bedded in and the novelty wears off, I have just skipped it in favour of having a coffee and - YIKES - looking at my phone! THE SHAME!! Now, I am not too bad here with this problem that so many of us have, but yes I do succumb sometimes. Then the morning one becomes the afternoon one, and then the afternoon one becomes the evening one, which isn’t as good. Basically the timing is important - and if you can stick to it, do.

Regarding interruptions, Rory teaches us to befriend and welcome them. Welcome them and then return back to the meditation. At first, I literally got so mad when someone interrupted me. LOL! I know, so un-zen right? But now, I open my arms, and welcome them in. I pause the med, I answer the question. OK, OK, so if they hang around and keep intentionally bugging me, seeing that I am clearly meditating here, then, yeah, I might get a little antsy… but mostly I can be chill and go back to it later.

The best thing about this approach and the reason I am still doing this and I genuinely think I will do this for life, is it’s ‘nonchalant’ nature. This is a word that Rory repeats often in his teaching and guidance. And I love it. I discovered in the course that I am a ‘Rebel’ in a profile quiz we took. And whilst that surprised me as I also think I do people please, I also remember that side of me from when I was young, and she does pop back up every now and then with authority figures. With this though, the flexibility and the autonomy, negates any need to rebel. With neurodivergent people there is a thing called pathological demand avoidance (PDA). I definitely show this - as does my Autistic son. If someone tells me what to do, I will respond negatively. It’s like a loss of Self. When someone gives me space - and autonomy - I LOVE IT. At the only job I ever had where I thrived in employment, at a creative digital agency, was one where the two bosses gave us such freedom and trust that I could cope - and also, I didn’t want to let them down. This is like that. I don’t want to drop the ball. I don’t want to let the team down. I love the accountability of leaving a tick in the WhatsApp group. If I was doing this alone, oh man I would’ve sacked it off weeks ago!

I am also someone who has a problem with consistency. I am a flake. It’s really hard to be consistent when my energies are so fluctuating and I cannot predict how I will be on that day. I make social arrangements when I am up and high (in my fertile phase of my cycle, and very much in my hyper ADHD state) and then, if I’m dysregulated or in my luteal phase I don’t feel great or I’m exhausted with ND burnout - I may very well cancel the plans I made when I was all high and happy. In my sobriety I have learned that this is OK sometimes. I have to prioritise myself if I am really tired for example as that can be a trigger to drink - and has been my downfall on many an occasion. However this med practice is proving really easy to stick to. In my ADHD brain, if there are barriers to something, I am way more likely to quit. So, a gym membership where we have to drive 30 mins to get there? Highly likely I will flake. A meditation where all I have to do is say a mantra in my mind, that I can do on the fly or at home? Perfect. I have meditated on planes, in my car, not in a cafe - yet, but I can see why this practice works for me: it’s low barrier.

The achievement is doing it. All the meditations are perfect, whether they are ‘communions with God’ as Rory puts it, or 20 mins of you reliving that conversation you had with another parent or a friend or a boss that triggered you. It’s process-orientated, not outcome-oriented, as he says.

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So, that is what I do and my mini reflections on each element. What about the effects, on me? My husband said in a petty snarking match the other day, when my meditation came up in the conversation, ‘well, it doesn’t appear to be working!’. LOL. I probably deserved it - don’t worry, I give as good as I get! Again, so un-zen. But this was an interesting - and annoying - comment. An old friend, similarly, when I told her about my spiritual journey asked, ‘is it working?’. On both occasions, I felt a bit put out. But this is the expectation. That it ‘works’. That is fixes our modern maladies. That we become perfect humans after doing it! Well, in answer to that, I guess it hasn’t fully ‘worked’; I am certainly not a perfect human: ask my kids! So, what has it done?

I will answer honestly here. I feel as if some stuff is shifting. Processing. One big thing that has lifted, almost entirely, is my ‘hustling for worthiness’ problem. And this is HUGE. This has been one of my biggest life problems in recent years. A constant, tortuous presence in my life. I needed external validation. I didn’t feel enough. As a homemaker. As a stay at home mum. I needed to PROVE to people, who I don’t know, that I was capable, knowledgeable, able to earn money. Not just run of the mill, a nothing, a no one. Conversely I have always craved normalcy. I remember having this feeling since teenage-hood: I just want to be normal. The oscillation between those two opposing and equally unhealthy desires is clear. And it reflects the tussle inside me. I have suffered with cognitive dissonance around drinking for example for years. You could also call this black and white thinking. And it speaks to my ND nature as well: my ADHD side and my (undiagnosed but highly suspected) Autistic side (people with AuDHD cite feeling in a constant wrestle between these two ‘states’, the former being hyper, friendly, extrovert, energetic, and the latter being organised, quiet, introvert and rigid). The hustle for worthiness shows up in my business - and the need to do something mega, to GO BIG!! And that is at odds with my need to be homey, small, quiet, introspective: grow veggies, walk the dogs, bake, be present, stay home, prioritise rest. In this sense, it has been about redefining what success means.

I saw a post yesterday by someone talking about this and it resonated HARD. My kids are still young, especially my littlest who is only 6. These years are going so fast. I need to be here, now. That said, I do also have my dharma, my life purpose, and my creativity: my need for something just for me. And that’s OK too.

I have never wanted to be the full time Career Mum. I have ALWAYS felt, viscerally, the impossible battle of wanting to create, work, shine, outside of the home. But ALSO to be 100% present within the home. When I was a ‘mummy blogger and YouTuber’ this was perfect. It happened so naturally. I did what I did, snapped a pretty picture, or made a video and I shared it. And it went so well. People loved it. When I did it consistently I grew fast. I didn’t have shadows around this then - in fact I did, I lie. They were there, but just different. It was about me not being enough - was it unintellectual that I was sharing mum life? Was I letting the feminist side down? Now I can see that I was still hustling for worthiness, even when I had ‘success’ (brands reached out to work with me and I earned a decent bit of money from my content creation days as a ‘mummy blogger’ - I hate that term btw!).

So, what has all this got to do with VM??? Well, I have noticed that a lot of this has dropped away.

I just can’t be bothered to go on Instagram. LOL! I am putting my work out there, in the form of this newsletter (that, btw I am going to really focus on now); my podcast (same); and my yoga classes, day experiences and retreats. And I honestly have released the attachment to outcome. Mostly.

Do I want my retreats to be a success? Yes.

But do I tie it to my worthiness. A little, probably if I’m honest. But not in the soul crushing way I used to. Rejection, failure. They used to kill me. But now there is so much more lightness there. My spiritual work has helped me release attachment to the outcome (vairagyha), to realise I am a sacred being who is innately worthy, to get so much joy from right here and now, to be calmer (sometimes), to be a more grounded person. I am following the breadcrumbs and I remain open to God’s plan for me. He knows best. So if something ‘fails’, it’s meant to fail.

As Gabby Bernstein says, obstacles are detours in the right direction.

Recently my head has been turned by the idea of working in the field of Autism. I even applied for a job. I don’t think I’ll get it, maybe not even an interview. But I allowed myself the process of applying and that has helped me, weirdly, realise how much I love what I do NOW. The universe has sent me enquiries, synchronicities, new people into my life and is saying, loud and clear: this is your dharma. STAY HERE.

So I listen. And meditation is helping me listen.

The very act of carving out not one, but two 20 min sessions of sitting, processing, tuning in, realising how much my body is holding tension. It’s like a beautiful, sacred act of self love. I WITNESS myself doing this and that feedback loop is powerful. Like, shit, girl must love herself to do this. To commit like this.

It does totally often feel like, well, that was basically just me sitting and thinking for 20 mins! I definitely have those ones. But I was thinking, you know when your head hits the pillow and you ‘try’ to go to sleep. When you are successful, you don’t actively try, you just let go. When you ‘try’, it’s like herding cats. Say you have to get up for an early flight, or it’s a big day the next day - it’s always so hard to sleep. That is because you are trying too hard. This is what meditation is like. If we let go, but use the mantra as an anchor to bring us back, the ACT of bringing ourselves back is the muscle. It’s loosening the grip. It’s allowing. This reminds me of relationships, and parenting. We have got to ALLOW. Or else we are codependent. When we hold on too tight to anything, it kills it.

Also, you know that mind state, the one that you get into just before you drop off? When I had insomnia I would self sabotage and notice I was entering that delicious drifty mad world of pre-sleep, and I will cruelly pull myself back, in an apparent act of self induced torture. It was awful. This was when I was in a a state of such inner turmoil, drinking to mask, drinking to treat trauma. Then having such bad anxiety I couldn’t sleep for days. My body was rigid; I was in fight or flight and my body thought it was dangerous to let go. So it didn’t. It was trying to protect me, but it was self sabotaging. Well, that pre-sleep state is like Nidra. We are awake, but we are also kind of asleep. This is the deep state that we all want to get into when we are meditating. When it happens, realising you are there, you’re like ‘No! Don’t end!” But also: “Yes! I got there”. This isn’t the correct approach, as I say all meditations are equal. But OF COURSE because we are human we all want that lovely dream like state. And it really DOES feel, much like a ‘successful’ Nidra session, that you have had a nap - it’s like a massage for your mind.

What’s actually happening in this mind state is: we are processing. This reminds me of EMDR therapy, where you process traumatic events, whilst talking, in a somewhat removed, dream like state that you enter using movement of your eyes. I signed up for some, but in about the 4th session where we were soon to start the act of EMDR as opposed to just chatting, I quit. I made up an excuse about it not being the right time as I was so busy. The truth? I didn’t WANT to go there. Who would?! This stuff is sticky, icky, and horrible. NO ONE wants to go there, to relive the trauma. One day I think I will revisit EMDR, however for now, I feel that this VM practice is helping me to process current and past events without literally GOING THERE. Is this spiritual bypassing? No I don’t think so, as I truly feel some distance from what happened. I can watch things on TV now that may have previously triggered me. I can see tangible effects.

Lastly, an effect I have noticed is, I simply want to ENJOY life more. I feel glimmers. I have arranged with my musician friend to teach me guitar and piano (which I used to play as a kid). I want to sing (something I used to do, only ever drunkenly with my muso Dad). I signed up to a flower growing course where they send you seeds and you grow together, the idea being you will grow way more than you can possibly keep yourself so you give them away. I EVEN DUG OVER A VEG BED TO PREPARE FOR THIS!!! This is huge. For years my husband and mother in law have been trying to get me into gardening. Finally, I arrived there myself. (A true sign of middle age, if ever there was one). I am trusting the breadcrumbs of joy. Suddenly, I can’t believe how much I love where I live, how much I love the nearby city, even the scruffy bits - especially the scruffy bits. I have started to see with a lens of love. Storytime: I parked my car yesterday, early for my little one’s drum lessons with my musician friend. We parked in a ‘rough’ area of the city, in a camping shop car park. I wanted to go in and look as I have promised him we can get into camping. He asked if he could stay in the car as he didn’t feel well and play on my phone whilst I went inside. I looked around at all the people as I perused his idea. A small gaggle of un-helmeted white teens cycled past, pulling wheelies. Old Indian ladies ambled down the street, their bags laden with ingredients for that night’s dinner; a group of Somalian mothers gathered with their babies, seated on a wall. A Chinese couple looked lost. I contemplated his idea for a few seconds, and considered going in. In the end, I didn’t because, honestly, I didn’t need to risk leaving him in the car whilst I looked at tents! But here’s the thing: I felt if I had wanted to do that, he’d be totally safe. I saw these people as people. Not separate from me. Full of love. Mothers, brothers, grandparents. Previously I may have seen through a lens of fear and separation - especially the people from different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. But I didn’t. I just saw people. I honestly feel different. I’ve always been a very trusting person, but there’s another layer coming off me.

+++++++

Now, of course, we cannot say that all of the above: the hustling for worthiness; the apparent softening around some traumas; the newfound zest for life is ALL down to Vedic meditation. Some of it will be that I am back on HRT! Some will be that I feel good at the minute, having come through a bit of a funk recently. But I feel like I recover quicker from funks, too. OK, so you got me on a good day. You can normally tell it’s a good day if I am creating. One day I will create from my darkness because that state is important too. But I just naturally WANT to create when I am in this more social, good feeling part of my cycle.

However, I do think that the VM is the thing that has had the biggest impact. It’s been a steady, constant force in my life. 40 days of VM has softened and healed me. If nothing else, because of this: setting aside 2 x 20 min sessions daily to just SIT and BE is a message to myself that I am worthy, I am enough, I am perfect just as I am. That’s massive. It’s a huge act of self love. A wet-fish-around-the-chops declaration of compassion and commitment to myself; a wake up call to love. When you love yourself, ALL of you: the material and the non material, you see that in others, too. The miracle of life is visible. You remember. Aha - this is what it is all about.

I’ll take that.

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Oh, and I launched a podcast about Spirituality

As we women get older, I have found in myself and in others that at around the 40s there seems to be a common experience. Menopause is a window of transformation. We can choose to step through it as a metamorphosis. I do think men have their own version of this too, as their hormones do drop considerably. We used to called it a midlife crisis, and I think there is some truth there that we go, shit, we are half way through if we are lucky, am I doing this life thing right?

We reassess. Even if we aren’t spiritual. We look around and go, huh, is this who I am, is this what I want?

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So many of us 40 somethings are being late diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. This is because of cultural reasons such as patriarchy and expectations of how women behave; scientific understanding of neurological ‘disorders’; and so on. But remember, we used to die at this age, so maybe this midlife meltdown and reinvention is part of the human evolution story: we are literally meant to evolve and explore new realities at this point in our lives so that we can leave the world a better, more diverse place with a chance at surviving. To enable the next level of human development and evolution - as we begin to live longer we will require bigger vision to help create a more peaceful and sustainable world. A more diverse vision.

So what does spirituality have to do with this? I keep coming back to this (as my ND brain loves to make links and patterns). What is the spiritual view of ND people? Well, firstly they weren’t recognised for a long time, again this is due to scientific and psychological progress. So, say in the last 100 years we have made this huge progress forward but also it is flawed and so fast moving. The DSM-5 (the US manual for psychological disorders is highly criticised by the ND community and, even though it’s the best we have got, it’s accepted that it can only be taken as part of the story).

Spiritually and religiously are, obviously two different. things. After a quick Google, I found a few things on religion and ND. Here is what the bible says about different brains:

“As believers, we acknowledge that God created each brain uniquely. The Apostle Paul describes this diversity within the body of Christ, emphasizing that each member has a distinct role (1 Cor. 12:12–27). Source.

There is also some interesting views on the disciples out there in the old web, and this one hypothesises that Matthew was Autistic!

Although the Gospels give us relatively little information about who Matthew was or what his personality was like… [we find] Matthew quite distinctive as a person with Autism or Asperger's Syndrome and [he has] a variety of accompanying tics and anxieties. Source.

But spiritually, it may be said that some people view ND folk as coming from a different place in a previous life (as some spiritual people do have re-incarnation as a core belief) to teach us new and better ways of being:

I have always had the sense that children presenting on the Autism spectrum have been sent in to show us a new way of being. That these are especially sensitive and spiritual beings, who have lived many lifetimes and do not fit into our current systems because they know that there is another way to live; one which speaks of greater ease and freedom. Source

I have heard of the idea of Indigo children, which was a kind of paradigm shift in recent years, one attempting to understand kids who were ND; instead of seeing it as a disorder, seeing them as sensitive and gifted.

Could it be that the universe is intentionally creating ND people to help forge forward and evolve humans in a better way? I personally love this idea. I saw it today, again, on this Insta post by the fab account Neuroberrie.

In this excellent article, another author postulates that through the lens of the spiritual idea of reincarnation we can see a possibility where the Autistic person is literally having a tough time in this reincarnation as in previous lifetimes the surroundings were different:

The reincarnation perspective can offer a compassionate and understanding lens to interpret the challenges faced by individuals at different autism levels. This hypothesis suggests that, rather than being defined by their autism level, these individuals are brave souls at varying stages of a spiritual journey, gradually adapting to the profound challenges of a new environment in each reincarnation. Source

To the scientific thinker, these ideas will seem totally way out! I know that. (And, the trouble maker I am - I love it!!) But to my mind, it’s entirely possible. The article above cites several academic books that look at reincarnation from a lens of trying to disprove it, then eventually coming around it is possibility…

The future of the planet in terms of sustainability. The end of war. The cures for disease. The end of famine. These are all going to require next level thinking. And I think we can agree that many of these thinkers are going to be ND.

But what has all of this got to do with midlife unmasking?

I think it is becoming a key part of human evolution. We used to die at this age. Now we don’t. So we have to evolve if we are to move the needle forward. The status quo, as humans, is death.

Coming out - whether that’s sexually, spiritually, in your gender, in your neurodiversity. The unmaskers, if you like. These people are leading the way in human evolution. There are going to be people who resist this change, this honest growth of the human condition. But they are holding humanity back. AI, even, is a key part of this growth. (One day I said to my Reiki Master, “AI isn’t spiritual, it isn’t natural. It doesn’t have a frequency... right?!” “Why not? She said. God created it.” Mind. Blown. Guess that’s why she’s a master.). Also - see Deepak Chopra on AI - not read his new book yet but suffice to say he’s basically pro it!

They say we only use a small part of our brains. Well, by unveiling our truth, by exploring paths that are new, is surely the only way to start tapping into what is possible next?

Paradoxically, it’s often by looking back we can see timeless truths that can take us forward.

Through reconnection to the divine, through embodiment and earth based wisdom, we can go inward and find our collective conscious. One that is, despite ALL of our differences, ONE. This is why I love yoga so much. It unites us all. When we chant, or OM, or move as one in a yoga class, we are all one, despite our differences.

Isn’t that wild? That we can be this gender, that sexuality, this neurotype, etc etc, but essentially we are one consciousness. It’s an oxymoron: the more we see how different we are; we can also recognise our sameness - shared truths are what bring us together and make us feel less alone. By allowing people to express, and explore, we can stay connected. When we force people into one mould, one truth, we kill their soul, their uniqueness and that will make people sick. This causes a soul separation and trauma - and through trauma come separation. Show me a war mongering leader who isn’t traumatised!

These are some big ideas, and I only scratch the surface. But I knew there was something there to discuss about this Unmasking experience. BTW I am reading Devon Price Unmasking Autism (funny story: I saw it online and listened to a few of their videos and like them, thinking, oh, I’ll buy that book maybe when I get home. Go to my Kindle, search for it, thinking, huh, maybe I’ll buy now and read it now - I read half of it a few months ago!) Anyway, it’s excellent. Much food for thought in there - about my own story, mainly.

At the current time there is so much agginess over anyone who wants to reassess and then assert their new identity. It really triggers folk! Like, either one way - pro unmasking. Or against - the ‘oh everyone is non-binary, or ADHD, nowadays!’

I do understand the latter to some degree. I myself, have had moments when I had to examine my own prejudice around such things. They are based in fear and nostalgia. Ideas, through rose tinted glasses, that the better days were when boys were boys and girls were girls and everyone was either mentally well or mentally ill. But really, there was a lot of problems in the old days. People who say, but God made you perfectly. Yeah, I agree, he made you perfectly - EXACTLY as you are in this state right now, so go explore what God made! We are souls, travelling in a body. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. These are Earth Suits and made for the journey. We must respect them but we must also have agency over them. The body is our own to care for, nourish, explore. It’s what I believe, anyway. I personally think it’s your job to live as authentically as possible, without harming others. Diversity as a rule is good for society. It’s good in nature. It’s good in evolution.

When we embrace change, and explore who we are, I believe we are moving things forward. We each have our role in that. Whether we are unmasking, or supporting others in their unmasking, we can see it as part of human evolution. When we resist it, or deny others’ experience we are digging our heels in, fighting momentum, pushing back against the search for truth.

Exploration of what’s true, is at the essence of spirituality. And it’s also at the heart of the human experience, whether you are ND or not. It’s not like, oh, we’re ND so we are special. People are just exploring what is true for them. There’s a kind of arrogance and censorship when we say, no, you can’t explore what’s true for you. You are wrong for saying you are this, or that. WTF? When people say that you are experiencing illness or dysphoria, rather than expressing your own experience, that is subjugation, that is shutting the person down.

Whoever you are, I think the greatest thing you can do is express your truth. Can we disagree? YES. And I think it’s important to discuss, and get it wrong, and explore respectfully. As important as it is to say ‘this is me’ I think unpopular or maybe even offensive ideas need to be aired, but - and here is where the difference is - we need to listen to others whose views are different to our own.

As a yoga householder (still figuring out what that means, but I found an excellent article here), I feel like it’s my job to explore yogic spirituality in the real world - and that this be the backdrop to everything: my ND, my parenting, my career etc. A big part of this is non-attachment, known in yoga as Vairaigyha. Staying humble; not seeing material gain as the goal (it can be part of it as we need it to live!) But not the main reason). So I try to stay humble in this journey of exploration. As I explore who I am in this capacity of ND (which is my current focus in my little world, due to my son being diagnosed and now me considering my truth), I also should think: how can I give back? How can I use my experience and skills and spirituality to help move the needle forward? This has got me considering working with kids again. Working with late diagnosed adults. I know there is something here in my work specifically with other ND folk.

For now, I’ll go about my day, I will go do my Asana practice. My Sadhana, which means spiritual practice. This keeps me grounded. By the way, if you sign up to my mailing list you get a few guide to creating a Sadhana.

What do you think about my post today? How do you view Neurodiversity through the lens of Spirituality? What’s the connection? Do you think it has a place in our evolution as a species? Phew, big topic. I’ll write something silly and fun next I think!

What I currently offer:

Explore my seasonal day retreats in the Peak District | Come to Cornwall with my for The Embodied Queen Retreat (6 nights in Nov) | Visit me in the Peak District for The Wild Connection Retreat (3 nights in June) | Yoga with me (online and IRL) |

Oh, and I launched a podcast about Spirituality

Thanks for reading The Yoga Householder! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This Autism realisation (yet to be confirmed, but in the Autistic community many people do self-identify and that is viewed as OK - for me, I am going to explore a diagnosis as it will help me going forward to explain to others)

One of my parents is also probably Autistic; we have all said so for years although they dont want to seek diagnosis, they also concur that they may well be as they show many signs.

Here are some things that I have bene thinking about recently that I ponder about in terms of my possibly being Autistic (a completely, haphazard and stream of consciousness list, so sorry about that!):

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• Always getting into trouble, but not knowing why (and others questioning ‘what’s UP with her’?)

• Saying the wrong thing: ‘foot in mouth disease’

• Being completely obsessed with truth and authenticity

• Saying too much and oversharing; not clear on social norms

• Sensory struggles - I hate two noises at once; or strong smells; or itchy jumpers

• Over sensitive to movie violence

• A need for routine and structure; but my ADHD making that really hard

• Inability to deal with things not being really clear

• Not being able to maintain friendships

• Pissing people off and not knowing why

• Feeling like Autistic people are my people

• Having to drown out intolerable feelings or thoughts with alcohol

• Trusting people implicitly OR getting a very strong bad vibe from them

• ‘Seeing’ people - rather than not noticing people’s expressions or reactions, I have a strong sense of what others are feeling and thinking - and it’s a LOT - I often have to tune out or leave

• Social exhaustion - I really struggle being with people for long; I cannot room share and even going on holiday with people is a massive deal for me (which is why we don’t do it)

• I have to have a lot of alone time

• I have emotional meltdowns that seem a lot considering what they are about

• I relate a lot to animals and nature

• I experience very strong reactions to music and remember lyrics and nuances or note changes in music

• I have no strategic or Machiavellian abilities, even when needed - I cannot be political, it’s just not in me

• I feel like I didn’t get the rule book, like life is so raw - I had to learn how to act, from confident people around me, like my husband

• I feel like I have a voice and a way of acting that I have cultivated through things like being on YouTube etc and that it serves me well but that I am masking

• The only people who know me truly are my immediate family (husband, kids): I mask to some degree in front of everyone else

• I am severely affected by my hormones; my perimenopause and also PMS have been really hard on my emotions

• I find it hard, if not impossible to identify my emotions. Other than: really sad, really happy, or really tired. It’s mostly really tired. Which I know isn’t a feeling.

I think a lot of women, particularly those my age, who have realised that they are autistic, feel like the ‘symptoms’ or defining characteristics of Autism relate specifically to men / boys in particular. Girls are masters of masking. We are very good at working out how to act and then learning it and performing it, to fit in.

As we women age and feel more capable of authenticity - and thankfully the rest of the world, too is waking up to how not-that-rare Neurodiversity is - we are feeling more free to say, yes, I do relate to a lot of that. I oscillate between being sure that yes I am Autistic, and having major self doubt - which is why it’s taken so long to coe round to this being my truth.

I know what it feels like to be me. And I identify strongly with the features others talk about when describing their experience of Autism. I also think ADHD and Autism combined, so called AuDHD, is a very specific type of experience. One that feels like a rollercoaster, and full of cognitive dissonance:

• I want to be routine and tidy and structured, but my crazy internal chaos makes that very hard ;

• I love being on my own, and feeling peaceful and regulated doing my things, but I also feel like I am drawn to so many things and my energy is sometimes very hyper - so I will make plans that, on the day when the time comes, I just cannot do;

• I have self medicated so many times, when socialising or fucntioning is required and also desirable but my inner struggle is also so high, then the next day I have felt so awful as the symptoms of a hangover heighten things that Autistic people struggle with.

• I have a desire to connect with people, but also an inability to follow through sometimes

• I am in hyper-arousal a lot of the time; my nervous system needs caffeine to GO in the morning and then I do, and I burn out quickly. My nervous system actually craves slowness, less input, less demands. But because I have 3 kids, 4 pets etc etc I dont get that chance, so I am often in fighgt or flight mode. Since being in Spain with just one kid to look after I cannt belive how much more regulated I am.

I know everyone has these issues; this is often the criticism of the ‘over-labelling’ of ‘everyone being neurodiverse nowadays’ - I hear these responses a lot. I try to give everyone and everything a fair hearing. And I understand why this is coming up. It does seem like everyone is ND nowadays! But really, they aren’t. Think about it; in a class of 10 students, maybe two are? I would say that is probably about right. ND is about diversity, not extreme rareness. Also, I think we have all, always been this way, but only now we have the language. We also tend to find each other, so I think groups of friends often have several ADHD-ers, or ‘weird’ or kooky characters in there! I say that with love, as I definitely think I am one!

I love that now, both my elder kids’ best mates are ND - and they counld’t care less. It’s just not a big deal to them. When I was at school, I really struggled. I truanted a LOT. I couldn’t get my shit together to get on the bus, which I missed every day. When I was at school I couldn’t bare it. I used to sneak off and smoke, or just saunter off the back field and walk home. Or hide under the stairs in the home economics block. Nowadays, I would have had a SENCO look at me, and would ave been diagnosed, had support (as would my parents). I know, today we struggle with not good enough support - but at least there’s something. We had nothing 30 years ago. The language wasn’t there, or the support.

Over the years, as I have found my voice and been able to seek out answers and a toolkit - I have seen doctors and also read a lot on different experiences of mental health and so called disorders. I went to a psychiatrist and basically convinced him I was Bipolar and also had Borderline Personality Disorder. He couldn’t quite say I fulfilled either diagnosis fully, so agreed that I could say I had traits of both. Well, it’s very common to be misdiagnosed with both of those things - but actually be autistic. This is a story I have heard many times.

Someone once said to me, you cant be Autistic, you are too charming. Which basically is an example that we all think of Autistic people as monotone speaking, or humourless, or devoid of imagination - or something like Rain Man. But that’s just not true. There are comedians, writers and really charismatic people who have Autism. My son has a rich imagination, as do I. Some of my favourite writers are Autistic, like Katherine May. Her book actually was a turning point for me in realising that you could be a funny, smart, high functioning woman AND be Autistic.

There is so much I could say about this. And my experience of being ND. But I dont have to say it all in one post. So I wont try to.

For now, as I lay in bed the last two nights, I realised, as flashing memories popped into my mind, that the feeling I have of being different. The deep inner knowing. It doesn’t need a diagnosis. It doesn’t need acknowledgment. I know who I am. SO why seek a diagnosis. Well, it will reduce people’s questioning. It will validate my suspicions and help others to give me some grace, which I have so needed over the years. I’ve lost friends and sturggled a lot trying to be me in a wolrd that isn’t geared towards that expereince. It’s not a sob story by any means. I am a priviliged white middle class woman! But also, I have a voice, and a platform, as sall as it may be, so I want to advocate for myself - and others. My ADHD video on Youtube has had 45K views. That was just a quick decisions to share with others MY experience and recent diagnosis. Well, I will share the process of trying to get a diagnosis on here, and hope that for someone, it helps.

Lastly, I think that there is definitely a link between spiritual people and ND. Are we from another planet??! From a previous life? Not even joking. I truly think that one reason we are so confused as to what ‘causes’ us to be different to others, may indeed be that in a previous lifetime, ou souls came from another realm. And yes, it’s OK if this doesn’t resonate with you! Gabor Mate hypothesises in his book Scattered Minds, that ADHD is caused by trauma and attachment issues. I loved that book, but I’m not sure. They also say that ADHD brains do show up differently - as do Autistic brains. Is this caused by Epigenetics? Or are we literally a different breed?! Ultimately we are ALL human. Being ND is PART of that human existence. Like having red hair or being brown or black skinned. We are all sharing this life experience. And all trying to understand each other and ourselves.

The more I do this, in my work and in my life, I think one thing is true:

To seek to understand one another is the greatest thing we can do.

Listen more; speak less.

Try to see their perspective. Even if it’s wildly different to yours. That’s how we repair, that’s how we respect each other.

I also plan to offer something in my business for ADHD and Autistic women. Maybe a yoga course and a circle. Something to bring other spiritual and ND women together.

Let me know, are you ND? Do you relate to my post?

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