Reframing Neurodiversity - ADHD Support For Women – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Reframing Neurodiversity, Melissa explains how parents can begin shifting generational cycles through nervous system self-regulation and the powerful practice of repair. She offers insight into how even imperfect parenting moments can become healing opportunities, and how showing up differently—especially in moments of disconnection—can change everything.

What you'll learn:

• What the "gift of repair" means and why it’s vital in parenting
• How self-regulation helps interrupt inherited patterns
• Why difficult behavior in kids often signals a deeper need for connection
• How validating a child’s experience helps prevent trauma
• A real-life example of healing a strained parent-teen relationship
• Tools and resources to support emotional regulation

Questions answered in this episode:

• What do I do when I repeat the parenting patterns I swore I wouldn’t?
• Can I still be a good parent if I mess up sometimes?
• Why is it important to apologize to children?
• How can I hold space for my child when I’m triggered myself?
• What does it look like to shift cycles in real life?

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode of Reframing Neurodiversity, Melissa sits down with Anat Peri—inner child expert, emotional mastery coach, and founder of Training Camp for the Soul—to explore the root of perfectionism, emotional overwhelm, and why so many women with ADHD struggle with being truly seen. Together, they unpack Melissa’s personal breakthrough during a recent retreat, and how Anat’s methods help expand our nervous system’s capacity to handle uncomfortable emotions and heal core wounds.

What you’ll learn:

• Why many women with ADHD carry survival-based patterns from childhood
• What it really means to reparent yourself and work with your nervous system
• How your nervous system reacts to fear in 0.2 seconds—and what to do about it
• The power of inner child work and riding the 90-second emotional wave
• How to build a greater window of tolerance and feel safe being your authentic self
• Practical tools to stop self-sabotage and start embodying the life you want
• Why healing the adult supports healing the child—especially for moms

Connect with Anat:

Anat's Safety Meditation:

Instagram: @anat.peri

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode, I explore the powerful connection between people-pleasing, self-abandonment, and autoimmune disease. Inspired by Dr. Gabor Maté’s insights, I dive into why 80% of autoimmune conditions occur in women and how the societal conditioning to be "good girls" can take a serious toll on our physical health. I share my personal journey of developing and healing multiple autoimmune conditions—without medication—by addressing the emotional wounds and nervous system dysregulation that kept me stuck. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve lost yourself to meet the expectations of others, this episode will help you understand how returning to your true, authentic self can be the key to healing both emotionally and physically.

What you’ll learn:

• The connection between people-pleasing, self-abandonment, and autoimmune disease
• Why women are disproportionately affected by autoimmune conditions
• How suppressed emotions, especially anger, contribute to chronic illness
• Why nervous system regulation is a crucial piece of healing
• The role of authenticity in reversing autoimmune symptoms
• Small, tangible steps to start reconnecting with your true self and healing your body

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode of Reframing Neurodiversity, I chat withMegan Barnett, an Executive Function coach, to dive into the holistic ways we can support neurodivergent children and their families. We discuss the importance of addressing ADHD, anxiety, and other challenges from a strengths-based and compassionate lens, rather than focusing solely on behaviors. You'll hear us explore how nervous system regulation, emotional connection, and rethinking traditional systems play a pivotal role in helping neurodivergent kids—and their parents—thrive!

What you’ll learn:

• How emotional regulation and nervous system awareness are key to supporting neurodivergent children
• Why addressing root causes, like trauma and chronic stress, can transform executive function strategies
• The challenges of navigating traditional school systems for neurodivergent kids
• How parents’ self-regulation and support can positively impact their child’s success
• The benefits of a holistic approach that combines neuroscience, emotional connection, and family collaboration

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

In this episode, I reflect on the energy of the new year and how it can often feel like a time of pressure to change quickly, especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. Let's talk about moving away from rigid resolutions and embracing a gentler, more intentional approach to creating the life we want. Together, we explore the core wounds many neurodivergent people carry—like feeling unseen or misunderstood—and how these can lead to patterns like people-pleasing and perfectionism.

You'll learn:

• Why traditional New Year’s resolutions may not align with neurodivergent minds and how to set more intentional goals
• The core wounds many neurodivergent people carry, such as feeling unseen, misunderstood, or alone, and how they impact our lives
• How survival mechanisms like people-pleasing and perfectionism develop and keep us from living authentically
• The importance of befriending your nervous system to break free from old patterns and feel safe being your true self
• Practical steps to shift self-limiting beliefs and create more aligned, meaningful connections in your life
• Why showing compassion and curiosity toward yourself is key to embracing your unique gifts

Schedule a complimentary consultation call with me!

Take the FREE quiz: What Self-Regulation Technique do you need right now?

Join the community: https://neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/about

Connect with Melissa:

Website: https://www.theneurodiversityadvocate.com/

Instagram: @neurodiversity_advocate

Watch or Read this Episode Here.

I'm so excited to have my friend, Alissa Boyer, on today- who is a mentor and coach for highly sensitive people.

Alissa is a personal friend who's helped me on my journey as a highly sensitive, ADHD mom, and I just can't wait to dive into:

* Finding your self-worth in your sensitivity

* And helping you get to the root of living your best life.

High sensitivity is a common characteristic of ADHD and neurodivergence. While that neurowiring can be a challenge, I feel like it's so easy for us to fall into that victim mentality around life is hard, things are hard, things are harder for me.

And I feel that we are so aligned in how we empower people to see this high sensitivity as a gift. That it's actually a strength and an advantage.

P.S. Craving a safe space to reparent yourself, self-regulate and cycle break with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

Connect with Alissa

The Sensitive and Soulful Show

Learn more about her coaching

Follow her on Instagram

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

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Hi guys.

I have been working on something for you that I think you're really going to love.

A Quiz to Help you Find the Self-Regulation Technique YOU need right now

It's practices like these, that I'm still bumping into on the daily.

The difference just is I now have the tools to meet myself there. And to bring myself out of it.

This is what I want to share with you guys, because it's so empowering.

Whether it's:

* Trying to move through procrastination

* or perfectionism

* or overwhelm

* or if it's trying to show up differently and not be in that state of fight when your kid has big feelings and it dysregulates you

You need space to show up for yourself so you can show up for them and co-regulate together in a way you feel good about.

It really is the foundation for all the things you guys.

So I'm very excited about this quiz.

It's literally three questions. It will take you all of a minute to answer.

* And it will tell you what state of your nervous system you're predominantly in.

* And a specific self-regulation strategy that would support you best in your current state.

* So that you can bring yourself back to feeling safe and grounded in your body.

And it's something you can take multiple times because our nervous system goes in and out of these states of: fight, flight, freeze and fawn…. multiple times a day.

Because when we come back to the mother as the root and can heal her and her experience and her relationship with her nervous system…. We then automatically heal the kid.

And we get to hold space for our children in these new ways of compassion and curiosity and understanding, and co-regulation that literally changes people's lives.

And so doing this for ourselves and then doing this with our children alongside us, is truly cycle shifting at its finest.

And that's why I just think this work is so incredibly powerful.

And it's really foundational to many other strategies we'll dive into later in the Reframing Neurodiversity course, which is for ADHD, moms who are looking to show up for themselves so they can show up for their kids in new ways.

But to get started now…

this quiz and these tools available to teach, not only yourself, but your kids, is such an easy first step. And just the beginning to shift the cycles within our families that have been passed down unconsciously, unintentionally, generationally. So if you're looking for an opportunity to shift things this quizzes for you.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

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Hey guys.

I'm really excited to talk to you today about the state of flight in the nervous system.

This might be you if when faced with confrontation or conflict:

* Your go-to response is to avoid.

* To retreat and self-isolate.

* To hide.

* You may experience a lot of anxiety or hypervigilance.

A lot of times this can happen…

* when we grow up in families where it's glorified and praised to self-sacrifice.

* To ignore your own needs in order to take care of other people's

* and can even become a bit of an expectation that, if you don't meet, then you're mean, wrong, difficult, bad, all of these things.

These messages can become our internal voice, right?

Our harsh self-critic that, if we stand up for ourselves or we set boundaries or we say what we need, that that will be unsafe. That love will be withheld, that we’ll be judged and criticized and maybe seen as selfish or mean, or wrong or bad.

These are a lot of the narratives that I've personally had to work through with the help of internal family systems, inner child work and parts work.

It's really helpful to better understand these narratives and find safety in our body.

And we get to choose to step out of the old cycle.

So here are 4 techniques that have helped me step out of the flight state

Heel Drops

Heel Pushes + Heels Up

The Tense + Relax Sequence

Visualization

Taking off the armor does feel scary because it's not familiar.

And when we have trauma, as many of us ADHD moms do, we often find ourselves stuck in one of these protective states, whether it's:

* Flight

* Fight

* Freeze

* or Fawn

But as you begin to learn these tools and how to self-regulate and how to better understand your nervous system and meet yourself in that space.

You'll find that it naturally starts drawing in healthier dynamics with people who honor your boundaries, who appreciate your honesty, who are curious about your experience, who can hold space for what you're going through.

But it all starts within us…

If you're interested in this work and want to dive deeper, I would love for you to join me over on the paid side.

And if you're a mom with ADHD and you are struggling with these things…

I'm creating a course called Reframing Neurodiversity to support you.

Add Your Name to the Waitlist here

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

Read and comment on this episode here.

Hi guys.

Today, we're going to be talking about some specific strategies that we can apply when we find ourselves in the state of fight in our nervous system.

This is when we feel:

* Annoyed

* Irritated

* Angry

* Frustrated

* And oftentimes when we're in this state, you’ll notice, you kind of feel this way about everything.

A few weeks back, we started at the bottom of the nervous system ladder and really got into what it feels like to be in shutdown, dissociated, in that disconnection state. We then talked through what it feels like to be in the fawn state where we’re people pleasing, masking and self-abandoning.

As we begin to support ourselves in these states and move up the nervous system ladder we’ll move into the next rung, which is fight or flight.

The best way to approach this is with so much self compassion and curiosity and with the right tools to process these sensations in a slow titrated way.

When we're feeling activated in the state of fight, we're going to want to do things that move towards that activation and allows us to release those survival hormones that are going on in our body like these 4 techniques:

- Clenched Jaw

- Air Scream

- Clenched Fists

- Wall Pushes

This is a way of building capacity to be with our anger because we're pendulating back and forth between finding safety and being with the feelings of frustration and anger in our body. And the more we can go back and forth in this way, the more we build this capacity within our nervous system to be with these things that are uncomfortable.

I'm here for you.

Drop me a note, I'd love to hear if you relate to this at all? And if you're liking any of these techniques, drop them in the comments.

I really, really would love to hear from you guys.

And if you want to reparent and self-regulate in community, with fellow ADHD moms who get you- join us here.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe

Read + comment on this episode here

I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling really good lately, and to be honest it feels a little weird because I'm realizing feeling good is not a sensation I'm super familiar with.

I started doing this work with Brit Piper, my mentor and friend. She has this wonderful program called Body First Healing and she is who introduced me to what it feels like to truly be in my body.

So for the last four months, I've been on this journey of slowing down…

* feeling into my sensations

* getting curious

* not judging the way I feel

* and honoring where I am.

And I have to tell you guys, my mind is blown.

I've been on this path for so long, of self-healing through:

* traditional talk therapy

* coaches

* programs

* degrees

* and all the things

* Thinking, “I can think and do my way into finding safety in my body.”

* And it never worked.

I feel like I've been let in on this little secret and I just have to share it with you.

P.S. Craving a safe space to reparent yourself, self-regulate and cycle break with other ADHD moms who get it? Check out my community here on Substack.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit neurodiversityadvocate.substack.com/subscribe