REWILD + FREE - Decolonize Your Mind: Breaking Up with the Mind F*cks of Business, Motherhood + Neurodivergence w/ Tiff Dee (80)

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

What happens when you wake up to the lies you were raised on?  Welcome to the terrain of mind fcks we’re actively unfcking from LOL This “unf*ckery” has a name.. it’s called an ontological shock, a new-to-me word (thanks tiff) that describes what happens when our foundational beliefs about who we are and our place within the universe unravel leaving us exposed to the void. It's a dizzying and disorienting experience, but ultimately an important catalyst for profound growth and understanding.  Tune into this unfiltered conversation with Tiff Dee to unpack what it really means to decolonize our minds, especially as late-identified neurodivergent women navigating motherhood, business, and a world not built for our brains or bodies We get into the messy, layered truths of:Neurodivergence: nervous system disability or superpower?Postpartum sensitivity + sensory overwhelmGendered programming and toxic feminism Hyper-independence masked as empowermentRadicalization through motherhood, and witnessing a genocide front and centre on the world stage The grief we hold as former nurses/teachers unconsciously reinforcing an oppressive systemThe sneaky ADHD tax + time blindnessEvolution, burnout, and becoming“Bounce back” culture in matrescenceThe binary trap: “boss babe” vs. “barefoot and pregnant”The zero-sum game: if I win, you loseThis one’s tender, fiery, and full of nuance.Tune in with curiosity. Let it challenge you. Let it land!! ..Resources mentioned in this episode : Tiff’s blog Unmasking Autism (book) by Devon Price Telepathy Tapes (podcast) hosted by Ky DickensFair Play Method / Fair Play (book) Eve Rodsky Dumbing us Down by John Taylor GattoThe Message (book) Ta-Nehisi Coates The Neurodiverse Entrepreneur Summit by Claire Paniccia Hunter in a Farmer's World (book) by Tom Hartman MEET TIFF: Tiff D’Amico is a late-diagnosed AuDHDer, perinatal mental health specialist, and placenta encapsulator. After experiencing a second-trimester loss, navigating IVF, planning a home birth that turned into a C-section, and getting slammed with postpartum anxiety, nothing about early motherhood came easy for her. It wasn’t until her neurodivergent diagnosis that the puzzle pieces finally clicked into place.Now, she’s on a mission to help other moms avoid the spiral of postpartum anxiety—not with platitudes or Pinterest-perfect schedules, but with real-deal tools: placenta encapsulation, strategic postpartum planning, and consistent, judgment-free support throughout the fourth trimester. Tiff believes postpartum anxiety is not just a mental health issue—it’s a social construct rooted in capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism. And she’s here to help moms build a life they can manage - and enjoy.Connect with Tiff on IG @theplacentagirl or https://www.tiffdee.com/ Connect with Nicole on IG  (@nicolepasveer)All current offerings can be found here including UNRULY:  

You're listening to Rewild and Free. This is the go-to podcast for conscious and holistic entrepreneurs who are ditching society's to-do list for intentional living, freedom, and abundance. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pazvir. I'm an ex-nurse, turn-matrescence guide, and business coach, leading women just like you into the new paradigm. Keep listening if you're ready to unsubscribe from patriarchal motherhood, bro-marketing, and boss-baby culture.

Because in this space, we use nature as our framework as we move towards feminine embodied business development, cyclical orientation and slow living. Together, let's rewild and remember as we break free from survival and reconnect to what truly matters. Okay, friend, steep your tea and take the most loving breath you've given to yourself today and let's go. Welcome Tiff to the Rewild and Free podcast. We have been talking about having this conversation for I think actually months. I think it's been... Definitely months officially, but I've really wanted to like talk to you for a long time ever since the whole shebang with the other community.

All that stuff. Okay, well, before we even get into it, tell the people who you are. So I'm Tiff. I am also known as the placenta girl. I've been processing placenta since 2012. So that's my main jam. But recently over the past couple of years, I've been building in this like additional sort of, I don't really even know what to call it, coaching strategy, support, whatever for postpartum moms, because you know, there's not much out here for us. So I'm also a perinatal mental health specialist that are certified through Postpartum Support International. I just have been, you know, I've been a mom for, well, 2008, I lost my first baby.

So I've been a mom for a long time and had covered the gamut on like challenges and all the things. And then, you know, coming up with my realization a couple of years ago that I am Audi HD, everything suddenly makes sense. All the struggling, all of the... I don't know. I feel like my life has just been... like, well actually, yeah, just sort of roadblock after roadblock or speed bump after speed bump or whatever, but now it's, oh okay, I get it, I get it. And since, so I'm on this like unmasking journey and all at the same time is decolonizing my mind

so it's a total I'm sure you understand are we are we cool with bad words on here? Yeah bring them. It's a total mindfuck. As soon as it's my turn to speak I was gonna be like fuck because this is it's just oh my god like it's that moment of this makes so much sense. And it's like that, fuck, like that exhale, whoa, okay. Yeah. And then followed by like anger and sadness. And yeah, a lot of grief, right? I don't know if you felt that. But yeah, yeah, it's like for this, for this girl, you know, who, who was trying so hard, but like constantly, I don't know about if I would say failing, but constantly just in struggle with one thing or another and thinking it was all me, you know?

And then pretending that it's not, pretending that I've got my shit together because of this whole- I think that's where the grief is, because we're realizing where we've been pretending, where we've been performing, where we've been masking and recognizing that that performance, that mask was all survival, right? It wasn't conscious. It's what we needed to do to have love and acceptance. Yeah.

Yeah. We were in a state of belonging. Yup. Even though, I don't know about you, but I never ever felt like I belonged anywhere, you know? Like that was the thing I always said. I made different comments, constantly feeling like I'm at the edge of belonging. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can, nobody would notice. Nobody would think that. Yeah. But yeah, I always said it. Like I just, I always said I never felt like I belonged like on this planet. I thought I should have been born on a different planet or something because humans don't make

sense to me. Constantly disappointed by them. So constantly angry with them. And now I'm like, oh, I see why, because my brain is just not like theirs and it's not me. And I'm one of those people that I think I wish everyone's brain was like ours. I think that we're just, I don't know, if the world was ruled by neurodivergent people, I think we'd have a better world. Yeah. Okay.

Let's backtrack for a second. Just more context so that the people can orient to who you really are. Because obviously, I know more of your story than what you can share in 30 seconds, but I know you're a former teacher. I know divorce has been a big part of your story and you now have teenage children, right? Yeah, man, 15 and 10, yeah. Holy crap.

I know. And that's the other part too. Like, I was not prepared for the grief that I'm feeling now with realizing, especially with my 15-year-old, like, it's done. Like, he's done. I mean, of course I can still influence him and guide him and whatever, but like, all the work that I did is done as far as putting him out in the world and trusting he's going to be okay. And it literally happened overnight. And like I used to teach middle school so I know that that period is like a crazy time for change. But I don't know, I guess just the way I parented him, I didn't expect it to happen.

It's one of those things like, you know it's gonna happen, but I don't even know. I actually can't even imagine that feeling. Because yeah, it feels so far away from me, but obviously I know what's gonna happen. It's kind of like that, right? I know I'm gonna die one day, but I can't necessarily... Oh my god, dude. Yes, so let me say this because I you know I lost my first baby and I remember the intensity of the crying the sobbing of loss and that is the same cry that I do now when I'm really thinking about you know or if he has a situation that has happened

to him that I never expected would happen with him and it it's like this deep, like moaning, heaving sob that it's so crazy, but he's here. But I feel like he, yeah, he's not the same person anymore. And our whole relationship is different and it's still good, but it literally happened overnight without warning. You know, it was like one day he went to sleep and he was my baby. And the next day he was like a man. And I'm telling you, Nicole, that is how quickly it happens.

And it's like suddenly, like literally one minute there up your butt and you're like, when will you ever stop hanging on me? And then the next minute they don't need you. But you know, we post stuff. So hard to up your butt because Aubrey is now in this phase of and then the next minute they don't need you. But you know, we post a week. I'm laughing so hard at the up your butt because Aubrey is now in this phase of wanting to touch our butts. Oh my god. I'm with my husband and she's always loved showers.

So like we shower with her and of course the conversation is like when do we stop, right? Because she is just like now grabbing penises and we can't do that. How old is she? Three and a half. Yeah. Oh, it's innocent. But also the whole like boundary setting and consent around bodies, like it's not working. She's autistic and it's not working. I'm still breastfeeding. I don't actually want to still be breastfeeding, but the whole boundary body consent thing,

it's not working. We can't find the language to help her understand that. Yeah. Yeah. I nursed my first until he was like nearly four and I was going through IVF at the time and my doctor was really great. He wasn't this guy that was like, you need to not breastfeed so that we can do it. Yeah, he was cool with it, but we tried and it didn't work. And then he's, listen, there's no research or anything. But all I'm saying is if you

want to maybe try to quit nursing and like level out your hormones and see what happens. So I was dreading, I was dreading stopping because my kid, the first he was, he was still very much into nursing to sleep. And if he was hurt or sick and I was like really afraid of how he'd respond because because he he's ADHD I think he's autistic but he masks so well that I think that this neuropsychologist that I took him to who also told me like oh I could tell in five minutes you're not autistic which so I'm like I don't really trust you because you can't really tell in five minutes if someone's autistic so I think I think my older one is autistic, but he also has this weird mood disorder. So looking back now, like after learning about his neurodivergence, right, because I didn't learn about them either until a couple years ago.

So I was parenting neurodivergent kids as a neurodivergent mom, not knowing that any of us were neurodivergent, but I was afraid to stop nursing him because he was so intense in his reactions with everything that I just thought it was going to be hell. So I said to him, listen, if you want a baby, you know, the doctor suggested that we that we stop having milkies and he was like, okay. Yeah, well, and I guess like when you're almost four, you can sort of comprehend that yeah, I want a baby brother or baby sister, so I will make that trade. And it was so easy, Like it was that, like that was it that night. He, he tried to nurse that night and I was like, remember we're not doing it anymore.

He's like, oh yeah. Okay. Totally done. And I was like, I can't believe I've put that off for so long. Because it was one of those things that like you put so much weight on things. You've been so hard. Yeah. Yeah.

You'll, you'll get there, but like he, my next one is, is autistic, his diagnosis and ADHD too, and he nursed till five. And for me, it wasn't really, it actually wasn't a problem. For me, it was easy to get him to sleep and that's all I cared about. It was like he would nurse for two seconds and pass right out. That is not our story. It wasn't always, trust me. It wasn't always, you know, but it did get to the point, right, where it was literally just for nap and for sleep and if they're sick.

And so for me, you know, I know a lot of neurodivergent moms have a hard time with breastfeeding because of all the touching and the sounds and the feeling and the suckling, you know, it was like, luckily, I did not have that. that but I just yeah it was it was really made my life easier everything that I've done as a parent was I used to say lazy parenting but my luck you know it all was good for them too I co-slept because there's no way in hell I was waking up and getting out of bed at night I literally cannot comprehend how parents do that I can't you are you are choosing to put your child in a crib which means every time you want to be a responsible parent so that means every time they're waking up you put your feet on the ground? What? I would never have slept because if I get up out of bed and do things it takes me

forever to get back to sleep so then it would be by the time you back to sleep then the kids waking up again? No I'm not doing same with breastfeeding like I was like I know and again I wasn and again, I wasn't diagnosed, but I knew about myself. I was like, I'll never remember to bring the bottles or the formula. I won't remember to dream them. Or yeah, or get them in the fridge in time. Yeah. Exactly. All of that. I love that we're naming some of this because I think it's an experience that people are having. And just like you and I, you don't necessarily have the language for it in the moment. And then you start feeling like you're failing. You start feeling like you're lazy. You start feeling like, oh my God, like why is everyone doing things differently?

I must be crazy. Yeah. And that is how I felt. I felt like I was just so confused because everything, it seemed so much harder for me all the time than it was for everyone else. Like all my friends, I would always say things to them, you know, whatever I was struggling with. And no one else ever seemed to be having the same situation. And I was like, what am I doing wrong?

But in my gut, like I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong. I felt like I was doing everything right, you know? I want to say that again, right? Because it's that feeling of intuition got it feel right. So when, because for me, I would notice if I could just stay in my own little bubble, and I still feel this to this day, if we can just stay in our own little bubble, if we just stay home, if I'm not like looking outside of myself and seeing what other people are doing, things are great.

100%. It's once I start, well, and it's not even that I'm like consciously comparing, but just seeing how people do things differently it immediately like creeps into self-doubt territory for me. Yeah it's wild it's a wild experience especially when the other moms are people that you identify with in other ways right you're like they are similar to me the way they parent is similar but why is it so much harder for me? I don't know, like for me, I literally spent both of my kids' early years like just working really hard to make sure that they didn't cry. And at

the time, I remember feeling, you know, the judgment that you get from people, oh, you're spoiling that kid or this or that. And it was not about my kid. Yeah, it was about sensory. I couldn't handle the crying. Like it sent me straight to anxiety, overload, freak out, blaming anyone that I could blame for why are they crying? Why are you not stopping them from crying? And like then resenting because my ex, you know, he wasn't able to or trying to help. Right. And so it was all on me. So,

I mean, I remember being mad at him, like, if he was driving and it would hit a bump and the kid was asleep, and I would get so mad because I'm like, now he's gonna cry and I have to get him back to sleep. And I'm gonna be losing my shit because he's crying as if he's on fire. And it was just that's how I spent their early years. And it sucks, it does. It sucks because I look back now and I'm like, I feel like I missed it because I feel like I was never able to be present

because I was just worried all the time about the crying. I wasn't worried. Like a lot of moms with PPA are like, postpartum anxiety are like worried that something's gonna happen to the baby, you know, worried about specific things. But for me, it was just this constant fight or flight worrying about if they're gonna go into meltdown mode.

And because, you know- And again, like you just named, and it's not, this almost is selfish, but like recognizing that it's not because you're actually anxious about their experience. You know they're safe. You know they're okay. It's can I actually hold myself to my own discomfort? And I couldn't at all. I didn't know. Yeah, I didn't know. Even now, even now it is so hard for me like to manage my, to regulate my emotions. And it's insane because I'm sitting

here trying to teach my kids how to do it. Like, yeah, I don't know what else. Yeah, yeah. And it's, and it's terrible. It's, it's a terrible feeling to know that you literally don't have the skills that you need to teach your kids something that you know they need. Otherwise they're going to struggle just like you did. And it's the knowledge of that. At least I know why now and I can say it to them. I can say, listen, I'm struggling as much as you are with this. I don't know how to do it.

But you know, like from when they were little, I didn't, I just, I just was like, and then I was shamed too. You know, my, my ex didn't offer empathy. It was, oh my god, because I would literally like body slam my kid in the middle of the night, like from one side to the other. If they're nursing, I want to just sleep and just body slam. And he would say, oh my god, you stop doing that. Shaming me. And it was like, I do you think I- I'm nodding over here because that is literally what happens over here too. And again, I'm not hurting her.

I'm not hurting her. She's landing on a soft bed. Yeah, they're totally fine. Yeah, that immediate knee jerk response because our nervous systems are so active. Yes, yes. It's the worst. It's the worst feeling. Well, and then after that, even if you're not getting the externalized shame from someone else, there's the internalized like guilt of, oh, I should have responded more calmly. I should have been able to control myself. I should have been able to manage that differently, right? I'll tell you how funny it is. Like I wrote a blog post about yelling at my baby because

like I would yell at him to stop crying. And I work if did it ever work? Oh, goddamn, no, of course not. It was horrible. But I see now at age 15, I see him, I see him hold back his crying. I see him. And I wasn't verbally I always talked about we show our feelings we do. But what he learned was what he felt from a very, you know, from when he

was an infant, a newborn even, that I would hold him. He had his like cute fluffy cloth diapers and I'd be holding him and I'd be patting his butt real hard, stop crying, you know. And so I wrote a blog post about that and it is literally, I think it like ranks third of all of my pages that people search behind home and reserve services. So many moms are out there Googling, I yelled at my baby, what is wrong with me? And that story, that blog is breaking the cycle of silence for them. Yeah, I hope so because I remember searching for it and never finding what I needed because, you know, we who parent naturally we don't, we get mainstream advice all the time.

And so sometimes you'll find, oh, I yelled at my baby, but then the support you're getting is not in alignment with your values, right? So I felt so alone. So I hope, I hope that when people find it, they feel like, oh God, thank God, it's not just me. And you know, I think a lot of us are home alone, struggling behind closed doors, afraid to admit to people that this is how we're feeling and how we're reacting. And so we feel like it's just us. And lucky for me and everyone else that listens to me,

I don't really have shame about that stuff anymore because I understand why. I feel so sad for my kid, I feel so sad for myself, and I feel so angry with all the people that were in my life that why wasn't anyone saying like, hey, you seem like you're having a hard time, like, instead of the judgment, because that's what you get is judgment of, well, you're doing this to yourself, you won't put them down or you're, you got to leave, you got to go out on a date night, you got to do. And it's not none of that shit is going to help my anxiety. What I needed was somebody to like, just pick up the slack, you know? So I didn't have to worry about anything else. So there's our colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy stuff, right? It's because we're here alone behind closed doors. We used to see other women learn how to be moms.

You know, if we lived in a village like we're supposed to, if we had this village around us, we'd see people give birth, we would see people breastfeed. You would know what's normal if there's a normal, but you would already have an idea what you're getting into. But instead they have us all walled off and thinking that we suck and that there's something wrong with us and that we need medication, you know, which by the way, medication, I fought seven years, seven years of anxiety and stress until I literally had a meltdown and I passed out in Barnes and Noble in the

toy section with my two little kids. I literally fell to the ground and look, I'm gonna cry now. It was so long ago, but like I finally said, I need, I need meds. This is insane. And then I took the meds and literally in a week I was a different person. Now I'm not saying that I was perfect at all. I still struggle, but like that Lexapro literally saved my kids because they spent a long time dealing with a dysregulated mom. And again, I see the effects of it on them now

and I'm not blaming myself because, you know, I say this to people and they always just wanna say, oh, you were doing the best you could and then it, yeah, I fucking know, but it's still fucking sucks. Like it still sucks so bad to know what I put my kids through and to know what I went through without an ounce of help or support or even sympathy, not even empathy, not even any sympathy. We live in a messed up world and women having babies right

now, I can't even wrap my head around it. I don't know how I would be feeling, you know, and I work with these pregnant moms and it's just knowing the world you're bringing a kid into these days it's just got to be horrifying. My mind is going in so many different directions and I'm trying to like just pick one what's the thread that we go on next what's the thread that I want to pull. I know I'm impressed that you can think straight I just blab. I can't know it's like it's like this like very electric web. I think what's feeling alive for me is coming back to the nervous system response right and a lot of people might say that neurodivergence, the autism and ADHD, autism specifically is a neuro is a nervous system disability. What are your thoughts on that? specifically, is a nervous system disability. What are your thoughts on that? So I mean, I've heard that about ADHD too. Hold on, let's even zoom out. Let's just actually, I want to kind of riff back and forth and

play devil's advocate with each other. Let's actually just look at what autism and ADHD and neurodivergence as an umbrella is and talk about is it a neuro type, is it a what, is it a what, and obviously like in the current time today is what, April what is the date? April 24th 2025 and like in the states right now I'm in Canada but you're in the states. I didn't know you were in Canada. I'm in Canada. I'm not crazy, you crazy Americans. I like you guys. There's all the RFK junior stuff happening right now, right? Where? Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around it. And I'm trying to figure out like, where I'm just trying to make sense of it. So let's talk about it. Yeah, it's crazy because so I mean, what I say is that I am disabled by the world.

Yes, I say that. It's my environment that is disabled. Did you read on masking autism? Yes, by Devin Prince. Yeah, so in that, I think that's where I read it, maybe I heard it on a podcast or something, I don't know, but basically it's before there was reading, before don't know. But basically it's, you know, before, before there was reading, before there were words written that people were reading,

like if you had dyslexia, you were not disabled because there was nothing disabling you. And so I feel it's the same. I feel that, I feel that if I didn't live in this world, this type of environment, I'd be fine. With the demands of society and capitalism. Now what about, again, I'm gonna play play devil's advocate here, because I feel like that's easy for you and I to say as people that are, quote unquote, like, high functioning.

Yeah. What about the autistic people that are non-verbal and can't go to the bathroom and, right? What about that? What about that? What about that? So I don't know. Like for me when I think about people who have children who are, you know, what RFK described, the kids who will never go on a date or never this or that. Max's, you to write a poem. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, obviously that's a different experience. Before I forget, have you listened to the telepathy tapes? No. Oh, okay. You have to. You will love it. It's a podcast series.

It's all about just talking about telepathics and how it's in the autism community. And so these people that we think are nonverbal, they're not, they're just communicating in ways that we can't understand. So really, are we like, like it just makes you wonder what's superior here and who gets to find that. And I think that that's where my mind is just fully

blown about the colonization stuff because everything that I do now I really question like why am I doing this? Who am I listening to here? Yeah. Is this what I would do? Where did this construct, this belief, this rule, this should, where did it come from? Yeah. And so I think that that's a lot of what we all deal with as moms, right? Is if our kid isn't doing something that is normal, quote unquote, you know, we worry. And why are we worried? Because, oh no, what if they don't fit in? Or what if this- What if we're part of our little bubble? Yeah.

And things look differently. It's the same, you know, you could have a parent with a child that has downsymptoms. or what if this- It looks like we're out of our little bubble. Yeah, what I mean- It's the same, you know, you could have a parent with a child that has Down syndrome and yeah, your life is not gonna be what you expected, but that child is amazing. And you know, an autistic child who will never write a poem is gonna do other things. I think part of being a mother is learning to accept that you don't get the kid you thought you were gonna have or the kid you hoped for. You know, I did. And then he grew up and he went off to high school and he became this kid that I'm like, I didn't teach you to care about that or this or that. And you know, so I think part of being a mom is accepting that.

That what, I don't know, I believe, you know, and from when I lost my baby, I believe that we have these deals with these souls that before we even come onto the planet, like, I made a deal with that baby that I lost and the baby was probably like, you sure this is gonna suck for you real bad? And yeah, well, I got this lesson to learn though, so let's do it. And so I feel like that's the same, like with any, any parent child situation. If you get a kid that, you know, your life is not at all what you expected it would be, that's, that's your lesson. That's part of why you're here. I love this because yeah, if we, if we buy into the belief that we're all souls and that we kind of consciously chose or I guess unconsciously chose the meat suit that we're going to wear in this lifetime,

yeah, again, it just has you wondering, right? And so with the RFK Jr. stuff, the whole conversation is, is this something that's preventable? Is this something that can be solved and cured and fixed? Yeah, so right, that's the thing. We don't even know enough to say if it can be or not. And honestly, you know, for people like us, like level one, autistics, god, I wouldn't want to change a thing. Right? I know that's where it's really hard for me because I can speak from my perspective and I can kind of put my line in the sand with where I stand and then it's oh shit but that's just my experience and it feels so much more nuanced and complex and I don't know what it would be like to be in a different meat suit. I don't know what it would be like to be parenting a child in a different meat suit. Right. Right. Right.

And I also want to say that there's just, again, knowing that the world that we live in, right? 2025, not just the constructs around capitalism and the patriarchy, but also like food dyes and vaccines and all the environmental stuff and the shit that we put in our bodies, right? There's just so many moving parts. Right. Exactly. And I think, go for it. Yeah. I don't think we should have food dyes. There's just so many moving parts. Right, exactly. And I think, go for it.

Yeah, I don't think we should have food dice. I mean, you know, it's gross and stupid and it's cancer causing. We know this, so why? We know also why they allow it in this country. But you know, so all of those things, like, are, let's find out. More information is always good. And if you are a parent with a child, I don't know. I don't know. Again, yeah, I'm not in that meat suit. So I don't want to say what I would do because I honestly have no idea what I would do. But to me, it's

like more research is always good. And moving more towards whatever is natural is always good. Right? I feel like capitalism has taken us further and further and further away from what is natural. So if we can get back to whatever is natural, like pre-colonial stuff, I guess. But yeah, get the, learn, just learn as much as we can. But I think that it's, you know, autism obviously is a spectrum just like everything else. But so maybe it is some environmental. Well, we already know we history has proven to us that there has been gaps in the research, right? I joke that I'm born in the 90s. And I joke that autism didn't exist for girls,

right? Even though it did. But like like the world made us believe it didn't. So if we know that, if we can agree with that, what else can we kind of put that viewpoint on? What else do we think doesn't exist but we just don't know about it yet? Or vice versa and yeah there's just already so much misdiagnosis and mixed diagnosis diagnoses right so we already know ADHD and autism the overlap and how one can kind of mask the other and the complexity there but what about like pans and pandas and like how that is really big in the naturally minded mom group with autism because the symptoms, the manifestations are so

similar. But the rationale there is like Pans and Pandas is something that can be treated and prevented. And I think for those kids, there's often a very, there's like a catalyst moment. There's a regression, right? And I know our family didn't experience that, right? Like, I truly believe that who my child is, the meat sushi's in, like it's been the same. There hasn't been a regression, there hasn't been a change. And when I look back on my life, again, there hasn't been a change.

There hasn't been a regression. So for me, it's easy to identify or self-identify that no, like that doesn't fit for us. But I wonder when RFK Junior's talking about this 25%, the non-verbal, the non-quoting, are they misdiagnosed? Are we not having language yet to identify this giant spectrum? Are we even talking about the same things anymore? Of course, right?

Exactly. And that's again- The things that keep me up at night to like this. Oh God, the things that keep me up lately at night. It's just, it's absolutely horrifying. Literally, I just imagine that scene in Handmaid's Tale all the time running, when she's running to Canada,

she's trying to make it to the border in the very beginning. That's my, that's what keeps me up at night. I'm like, I'm gonna be running. Is that your fantasy? Yeah, like with my 10 year old who's autistic and ADHD and will run for five seconds and be like, I can't have a cramp and I'm carrying my 10 year old. That's my fear. But I think that's a really incredible point to think about is, yeah, we don't know everything. We don't know nearly everything. We keep pretending like we do. Right, I know. Oh my god. Like

you think we'd know this by now. It's amazing to me. This is sort of like an off shoot but what amazes me is how many people are just not curious. You know you hear something new. But is that a neurodivergent thing? That's kind of what I'm recognizing like my brain naturally wants to know more and then it takes me on these rabbit holes right? The world world tells me that I'm, that's like tangential, I'm going in too many places and I'm too much, right? But I watch my husband, my husband is the least curious person I've met and it drives me nuts because I internalize it

as you don't wanna, you don't like me, you don't wanna know anything about me. No, he's just so calm and neutral in his own experience and like he trusts like his his rationales I just trust that y'all tell me if I need to know something yeah but even like research wise like he doesn't yeah that itch it's crazy go down a rabbit hole to me I hear something new and and if my if my immediate reaction is I'm I gotta go figure out why there must be something but a lot of people

are like, you're wrong. It's almost like in like the toddler, I don't even know what age, but like in that season where you're asking why, why, why, I never stopped. I never grew out of that. Oh my God, dude. I always need to know why. And this is really, it can be dangerous because I don't do anything unless I've been given a reason that feels valid to me. And so I've been taking I've been using an estrogen patch and taking progesterone, right? But the progesterone is a pill and I get ADHD. I don't remember taking my fucking pills all the time. So a lot of the time I don't take the progesterone because I don't I take my ADHD

meds in the morning. The progesterone you're supposed to take at night. So my doctor said to me, I just went for a checkup and she was like, oh, you have to take both because I mean, she gave me the reason. And I was like, see, you needed to tell me that. From the beginning. Because I'm not, I don't give a shit. I don't care unless I know there's a valid fucking reason for me to take the time to do that shit. I'm not doing it. And so the why is it's so huge and and Even with as a mom, I need to know why I should do this for my kid Yeah, why I should parent this way, but that that why that constant curiosity that demand to be informed

That's a huge threat to the world driven. Yes, yes. And it scares the shit out of me, honestly, because I feel like when will it ever change then, right? Because if we are a minority and such a minority, when will it ever change? Here's what I think though, too. I think that there are way more of us. I'm going to go to the extreme and say, I think probably there's only 1% of neurotypicals. And I think we know who those 1% are. They're the fucking owners, the capitalists, the assholes who are ruining everything. And I think the rest of us are neurotypical.

I think we are normal. Yeah. Well, yeah, I have a question if we're so like the this is what baffles me too, right, is we're just talking about the English language. So in the English language, we we use the word neurodivergent. Divergent from what? Right. And then you can go down that rabbit hole of, oh, well, okay, if I buy into that, no, this is actually kind of the, the, the pre-colonized mind. This is like the original neuro type. Then, then yeah, you can start to see that like the neuro typical side of things is just this like superior. It's, it's no different than what we see in every colonized story, right? The colonizer usually is the minority, but because they are able to be, take control and dominate

in some way, then they, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, I lost my train of thought. There we go. I'm so glad. I'm so glad because I do that all the time. I'm sorry. And I take the mic. Well, okay.

Cause I want to say as a teacher, a former teacher with a kid now, you know, in the grades that I taught. Yeah. And trying to help him navigate this system of education. I can see so clearly how it is so purposeful that people like us are not succeeding in school. Yeah. Now, I know a lot of girls do great in school because they are people pleasers and they have been taught to be people and all that. I wasn't that girl. I was. So I can very much relate to that. But looking back again there's so much grief there because I

can see that it was just like survival and it's what I needed to do to feel accepted and loved. And it sucks because I mean I can only only imagine the ideas that you probably had that you just kept to yourself because, you know, it would be weird or whatever. We miss out on so much. And so the thing that really clicked for me when I realized that this whole system is literally built to keep us down for eternity because so where we live if my if you could get a certain GPA and you can go to school the County College for free okay that was my goal because I don't have money and I don't want my kid in debt for college so

immediately as a freshman there's no way he's getting that GPA is is not happening right and so I've been fighting with the school district all year about his 504 plan and all the things. But so it's not even just like feeling like you're shitty at school, right? It's this is now affecting his college because he will have to take out loans now, right? Whereas maybe he wouldn't have if he was able to do better in school. And then because when you get loans, of course it affects every other part piece of your life if you start out in debt. And so it's, oh, oh, I see. They don't want our kids to succeed. They don't want our kids to feel like they belong. And that's another form of dominance to keep 100 and oppression. It's oppression. And I am,

to keep them. And oppression, it's oppression. And I am, I know there's probably a lot of teachers listening, but I now have a lot of guilt myself for the role I played in that system of oppression, unknowingly, but it is an oppressive system. Yeah, I relate to that very much as a former nurse. And so same thing, right? The oppression that I was a part of, because of course, as the people pleaser, I wanted

to follow the rules, I wanted to follow policy, I wanted to be accepted and approved and be a good employee and be a good colleague. And I was, but yeah, like looking back, it's so easy to see where I was constantly at friction with my own values and constantly at friction with my own curiosity and wanting to ask why and wanting to just be more informed. Right, I wasn't even allowed to go down. I wasn't allowed to go down the rabbit holes.

I wanted to go down. No, of course not. You shut down right away. There was something I wanted to allowed to go down the rabbit holes. I wanted to go down. No, of course not. You shut down. There was something I wanted to share though around like the school system. And so yeah, I am in Canada and I know Americans like to think that Canada is so different. We really aren't. We are your little sister. Things aren't that different here. So I'm already seeing it. Like I said, Aubrey's three and a half right now.

She goes to daycare because of my own unraveling and understanding my own neurodivergence, my own sensitivities, my own needs, we made the decision that I need extra support. And I hate that that looks like strangers looking after my kid. There's grief, there's rage there. Obviously, I wish I had a village. I wish there was sisters and aunties and blah, blah, blah, that my kid got to go hang out with all day because it's completely unnatural for me to have to be home alone 24x7 like we already named. So that's a whole thing.

So she's in daycare and our province has tons of funding allocated to early intervention. I already have a problem with that because what the fuck are we intervening on? I need to play the game. If I want to have resources and accommodations for her, I have to play the game. So she has access to extra support, but the only way you can get that support is if you get the formal diagnosis. So we did that. Now we get the support. But like I said, it's early intervention.

So it's only until she goes to kindergarten. So it's like the system is priming them so that they can be good little girls, good little boys and girls for the school system. And then by then, like our supports are dropped off, we don't get access to support anymore. We're left hanging. Yeah, it's one that you see that it's just so clear. Yes. I don't know, like I then that's when I feel sort of hopeless. Because it's it's like such a big system. And so many people still buy into it. And, and I'm like, we're fucked. Yeah, because even in my own world, people don't ask me.

I talk about learning on ADHD at this late stage in life and literally the only people that ask me are other people who are like, oh, maybe I am too. But I have friends and family members. But I think that's how it starts, Tiff, right? Because even this conversation right here, right now, we are breaking the cycle of silence for someone that's how it starts, Tiff, right? Because even this conversation right here, right now, we are breaking the cycle of silence for someone that's listening.

It's gonna crack something open for them. It's gonna give them, it's gonna widen the permission field for them to now go down a rabbit hole and ask more questions themselves. And so that gets to ripple. I do really believe that. The more that we are talking about these things,

the more that we are using our voices, the more that we aren't shushing and suppressing that innate desire to ask more questions and be curious. It's giving people more permission to do that too. So it's a slow burn. We have to talk about privilege in this conversation too. It's a privilege to be sitting here with you right now having this conversation.

It's a privilege to do all of the things that we've already talked about. It's crazy. So my partner that I've been with for five years now, he had no idea he was autistic when we met. And luckily when we met, I had really just started learning about autism the way I understand it now. And we went to a concert. Now he's a drummer.

He was a roadie. Like he's spent his whole life on the road, like in music. And we went to the show and his friend got us like pit seats or whatever. Literally the music started and he grabbed my hand and was like, we gotta go. And we like hauled ass out. And I looked at him and I was like, what's up? And he's got that pitch, like whatever it was, I couldn't stand. And I was like, did you ever think you might be autistic? And he was like, what? He had no idea. But, you know, he's a single man. So he gets zero support. And I see, like, how he struggles so much He struggles so much compared to me. Like he's poor. He grew up poor.

He lives in a not good part of Philadelphia. Like he's poor. And like you're saying with privilege, like our experiences even, it's so different for me because I have a whole support system. I have family. I have this and that. And so for him, it's like, I am an entrepreneur, because I don't, I'm not going to be told what to do by anybody. That's great to be able to have left teaching and start your own business. Yeah. I mean, my parents helped me so much and I am so grateful because if not, I would be living in poverty because I cannot, I cannot. And that's why I didn't go back to teaching.

It was not because I loved being home with my kid. It was because how the fuck do people do this? How do you work full time and be up with your kid in the night and be a good parent? It was unfathomable to me. That was just impossible. But yeah, the privilege of, you know, our experiences, the way we get to live our neurodivergent life is very different from the way a person who has to go work at a place for somebody

else because they have no choice. When again, that's, that's just kind of helping to illuminate how the systems are continuing their domination and their oppression, right? Yeah. I hate it so much. It just makes me so angry because again, it's like you look at the people who are upholding the system and none of their values align with mine. This isn't a world I want to live in, but here I am.

I'm stuck. I'm a big believer that if we use all of our energy to smash the patriarchy and dismantle the systems, that's not actually helping anyone. Our energy needs to go towards re-imagining and creating the world we do want to live in. And so again, I saying that, I am acknowledging my privilege and being able to say that, but I also don't want to take for granted my privilege and take for granted the situation that I have put myself in, right? The fact that I'm not stuck in the system still nursing I got out of

now I'm owning my own business I am having conversations like this I fucking have a podcast right like it's stuff like that that I I am devoted to putting my energy into because if I if I swirl and get stuck in the rage and the hopelessness and the yeah yeah, just like that. And I'm not serving anyone. No, it's the worst. When I first, you know, we'll tie in the Gaza conversation here too. Oh yeah.

Yeah. When I, um, I, I, you know, met a person very early on right after October 7th and he's Palestinian and like just meeting him and having conversation with this person literally changed everything about who I am. Like he jokes, he's like, I radicalized her. That's like when he introduces me to people. And I'm so grateful because, you know, I always considered myself an empathetic person. And, you know, I spent a lot of time always like feeling sad about the state of people in the world and stuff. But like when I met him, I remember talking to him and saying, I just feel so helpless.

What can I do? And he just said, the only thing you can do is educate the people around you in your immediate circles, your friends, your family, share what you've learned and that's the voice that the world is trying to tell you to shut up. Yeah, exactly. And so, I mean, I guess that's, you know, in alignment with what we're talking about with the neurodivergence and everything is I know, yeah, I know, I'm not going to change the world, but maybe I can change some people in my world, right? Because, and that's what I think about is, like, my mind was changed because of other people that I trusted and I was curious and I wanted to learn from them and I wanted to understand where they were coming from.

And it really hurts my feelings that people aren't curious enough about me and my experience. So that's a, sorry, that's a neurodivergent thing that drive that demand for social justice. Yes. That's a neurodivergent thing. And like those of us that feel that can't understand how people don't feel that.

Cannot understand. And then this ties into motherhood too, because from my personal experience, anyone, I know a lot of moms struggle with the partner, you know, not pulling their weight and stuff. I was just talking to my kids about this. You're thinking of the Fair Play method, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes, and I think Fair Play is incredible, and I encourage all of my clients to use Fair Play

when they still love each other. Like, they'll say, oh no, we're great, we're great, we share, he does, I do, da da da. Awesome, but you're not even parents yet. Like, initiate Fair Play right now, because some of us it's too late. You know for us, me and my ex- That's really good advice. Like it doesn't be once your parents like-

Yes. I think the best time to do it- Relationship 101. If you are with another human, fair one, that's who you are. If you are with another human, the fair play message should be- Even with my kids. Like my kids and I, we talk about it and stuff. But yeah, so I think a lot of women struggle with that. The man is not pulling his weight, you know, and we live in a world where they have to. I would love it if I could just be with other women and be a mom and do our... That'd be great, but that's not the world we live in.

So I think, oh shit, see, I lost what I was gonna say. Okay, I'll jump in, perfect, because I wanna jump in. I really wanna bring language to this, the binary that women are conditioned to kind of play in. You're either a boss babe or you're barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. I'm gonna tell the universe,

I'm gonna say this out loud right now, I wanna write a book one day. Right? And so I've spent my entire life trying to figure out, okay, I need to be in one of those camps. Again, I've spent my entire life feeling at the edge of belonging, right? So I felt at the edge of belonging of both of those camps. When I became a mom, I did feel kind of that urge to, I suppose, step more into my divine feminine energy. So I think I very naturally moved away from the boss babe kind of archetype into the barefoot pregnant in the kitchen archetype. I lived that life for a while and then I realized, fuck this, this isn't what I want either. But where was I going with this? I think I wanted to also name that as men in this day and age. Like they are also impacted by patriarchy and capitalism.

I look at my husband who is a very engaged father and he he he would actually love to be a stay at home dad. He says that all the time. I would love to be a stay home dad. You can just go be the breadwinner. But he also is feeling all the pressure of I would love to be a stay home dad. You can just go be the breadwinner. But he also is feeling all the pressure of, I need to be the provider of this household. I offer the safety and the security and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And the dude doesn't get to rest. He also sees me and knows my sensory needs and my like lower energy at baseline and is so selfless that like I get all the rest and then I feel guilty about because he never does and he will never ask because he doesn't want to take away from me when it's just this big spiral, what's your fuck, mind fuck of like how do we ever change the world around rest when it continues to feel like give and take if I. Yeah, that's a big thing what you just said because I think a lot of moms struggle with I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, Because I would say to myself, he worked all week. He went to see if he had any time for himself.

I can't ask for time off. But yes, I can, because I also worked all week. And I think that is a huge, huge problem that we women have to face, is that you are working and you do deserve rest. Yeah, you are working. You're just not paid for it. Right, exactly. And that's been ingrained in us.

And if women didn't offer all this free labor, society would collapse. It's not feasible. But we have to break free from this colonial capital's bullshit and recognize that there is value in all work. It doesn't have to be paid. And I'm out here this morning in my garden. I love working in my yard and I'm out there like cursing under my breath because I'm like, fuck capitalism. I just want to do this shit all day. I just want to grow food in my yard.

Have my hands in the dirt. this shit all day. I just want to grow food in my yard. Have my hands in the dirt. Yeah. And I just want to work for that. I want to work for myself and I want to work to just have a nice happy chill life. And you know, of course I'm glad that I do what I do, but at the same time I don't, I don't want to be like constrained by this need to like make a buck, you know? And even in the work that we do, it's of course I would love to be able to do this shit for free. I would. I don't I don't know. But then the boss babes are going to tell you no, no charge. And that's why I love your video that you taught. Yes. Like, yeah, that was fucking charging your words.

I go listen to listening, go listen to the playlist and go listen to the Mary Poppins episode a couple episodes back because I went on a little riff about charging. And I look back now too, and I don't know if you did this, but I spent so much money paying other women to teach me things or to, you know, this or that. And I look back and I'm like, Jesus. And I think it's a neurodivergent thing too. It was like, I listen to people. Yeah, that's how we look at it.

So again, we were just following, we were following the tangents, following the rabbit holes, following that drive to learn more, to be curious. And in this culture, this system, that means we have to spend thousands of dollars to do that. And then you look back and you go, holy shit. I just, wow, okay. And what did it get me? And yeah, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that this is valuable. And I did it. We've all kind of, there's this gross unspoken agreement that if, if it costs more, it's better. Yes. And that's, yeah, that's exactly what I reacted to when I, when I saw your, your video that time, because that's bullshit.

It's total bullshit for me. I charge based on what do I have to make to sustain my life to make sure my kids have a good life and that we can go on a trip every now and then. That's what that's what my basis is. It's not I'm gonna charge $2,500 because people are gonna think it's worth that then and then I can be rich and make six figures. No, I don't give a shit about that, but I so bought into it for a while and it makes me, again, it makes me mad. Oh, I hear you. You know I hear you. Where my mind is now going is just how I continuously kind of anchor back to

what I'm coining as pre-colonized rhythms, right? So looking at things or trying to understand how things might have been pre-colonization, pre-yeah just- arbitrary rules, norms, all of that. And I mean it's really tricky because obviously, I mean there's some incredible books to help kind of illuminate some of this, but it goes so far back, right? We like to think that it was just when the boats came to North America, to like Turtle Island, but like we saw it in like the Roman Empire and like religion, right? It's so far back but where my mind wants to take us is like just the Indigenous cultures and this kind of just the indigenous cultures and this kind of just the community aspect and how like you lean on each other's strengths and there is no mindset of every man for himself and if I win you lose, it's if I win you win and like the together we rise like we need to anchor back into that and

I don't actually know what that looks like in this day and age, but I continue to hold that vision and I'm gonna continue to play around and experiment with different ways to kind of replicate our own modern day version of that. And it gets really, really sloppy and muddy trying to figure that out in like the business coaching, entrepreneurial space, right? Because we are still living in the system of capitalism, we do need money, we can't just trade beads. And also, are there different ways to exchange

energy? Are there different ways to be compensated and resourced? Maybe. Sure. Yeah, of course. There definitely are. Actually, you say, I just want to garden. I don't actually want anything else. I just want to have my hands in the dirt and garden. Way back when, you would have been to do that because you would have been like the village gardener and you probably would have been like the weird witch lady that people come to you like to make my tinctures out of my herbs. Right. You'd still be that person but there wouldn't be a monetary exchange you would just be supported by your village. Exactly. Yeah, I have this conversation with my friend who's a midwife in training and, you know, she's a little behind me on the decolonizing her mind, but she's she's on the journey, but she can't wrap her head around it. She's like, what would people do? Why

would people like people wouldn't work? And I'm like, I think that's not what I'm working. Right. Exactly. I'd work. Yeah. We're all it's because we're if we can all agree that there's this ginormous pool of unpaid labor. That is work. Right, exactly. It would create. Yeah. Because if we can all agree that there's this ginormous pool of unpaid labor, that is work. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's crazy. You were talking about how patriarchy affects the men too. And I think about my dad a lot because my dad was a worker. My dad was a bricklayer. He literally would work like seven days a week. Like he would work weekends. If there was jobs, he would work. And he gave us like an amazing life, you know,

on a bricklayer salary. My mom was an ed assistant. Like she was making minimum wage, which, you know, $8 or $9 at the time, whatever. But they did it. They did it. They gave us this amazing life. But, you know, like my dad was never home. My dad was working and when he would get home, because he would work, you know, seven to three or whatever, because they'd start early if it was going to be 100 degrees or whatever, and then he'd come home so tired and he would fall asleep on the couch. And so it makes me really sad the way that men, my dad in particular, missed my childhood. And he sees it now too. It's amazing, my parents are in their 70s and they are decolonizing.

It is amazing to watch because at first they were very resistant and, you know, they were like having a hard time breaking through their propaganda. But he can even say it now. He sees the neighbor of his across the street who they have like a two-year-old and they just had twins and he'll tell me, I saw him. Wait, wait, wait, wait, they have three under two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so but my dad watches like he you know he's retired so he like watches the neighborhood all the time but he's like this he's he cannot believe he goes and he takes the twins he puts them both in the car and he takes the twins out like

he's literally mind blown and he's like he goes is that is that what women expect these days and I was like yeah yeah dad because this is not we don't live in a time where women don't have to do all the other things too that's not cool right you can't expect one person in the relationship. And like he literally gets teary-eyed about it because he missed out on so much and he knows it and he did it because he was convinced by patriarchy, by society that this is your role, this is your job, and he did it and he did it well but he missed out on so much and it and it's like when we whenever you talk about patriarchy you know so many people get their hair up it's you know some women are defensive and men of course they come come at you and it's this sucks for you too dude

like why do you what is good about this for you? It's crazy, and it's- it is really shitty and again, I feel, ugh, there's just so many people who are still so dug into this concept of, you know, he works, I- I'm home with the kids, I get to be home, and yes, yes, it is a- it is a privilege to be home with your kids, 100%. And it's not fucking easy. I was a teacher, my ex-husband is a teacher. We did the same freaking job. And I can tell you, there's not a single day that he walked out that door that I knew his

day was easier than mine. Don't you come home here trying to pretend, you know, that your day was, I did your job. It's not this. This is fucking hard being alone all day with a child. You did the same job, plus the mental and emotional load of being not even just a mother, but being a woman, right? That's why I love that you were like, the Fair Play method needs to be even like pre-kids, right? Because those gendered constructs are in our blood. They are. They are. And I always say I accidentally became like that traditional stay-at-home mom.

It was an accident. I didn't. That wasn't my intention. I was a feminist Been a feminist my whole life. I wasn't gonna have this gendered marriage like this traditional It happened and wow and my ex was the same like what you said about yours He always was like, oh, I would stay home in a second if I could and then enough but for him I know that's not true. I know that's not true because you know how hard it is and now that we're divorced you know how hard it is because you're not managing well because when you got a divorce you lost your your support. Yeah right now you're both yeah now you're both having to hold it all I mean you already were but now he gets to see what you have to do. Yeah, he gets to see. I still do a lot of it. I want to go back to, I guess, the Palestine thing, but not in the sense of,

I don't even know where I want to go here. I think coming back to the comment of what radicalized you and maybe, yeah, maybe just answer that comment of what radicalized you and maybe yeah, maybe just answer that question. What radicalized you? Well, so for me, I don't like being lied to. And so my first love of my life was an Israeli fucking so hot, like the typical Israeli soldier guy, you know, came here to go to school and he was just amazing, right? And I was in love with this guy. He went back home to Israel. I went to visit him when he

was on break from the army. He let me shoot his fucking I.O.F. rifle. Like, I was bought in. Israel's amazing. I love Israelis. Israeli women are this and that. So when October 7th happened, like I knew a little bit, right? When I used to teach my students about Palestine, I would just give them the idea like, hey, imagine, I mean, we live in New Jersey, right? I would say, imagine we live in South Jersey, what if somebody came in, some foreign government came in and was like, hey, guess what, you got to move to Camden, which is like one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, and it's 10 minutes from us, you got to move to Camden, they're gonna put a wall around

it, and you're gonna live in there for the rest of your life, like how pissed would you be? Right? And so I knew a little, I knew a little, but I did not know there was an apartheid situation, I did not know how horrible it was for the people in Gaza. So much that I didn't know. I did still believe that Hamas wanted all Jews dead, you know, all of the propaganda. And so when it first happened, I just started sharing things,

like not thinking I was gonna get any blowback. That's how naive I am. So it was a real wake-up call for me to see how people actually were responding to this stuff. And the guy that I met that I was talking about earlier, I was just posting to my stories. And he messaged me and said, thank you for helping me feel like I'm not alone in my community. And I was just like, I'm sorry, I don't know. And so I started asking him questions. All the questions that didn't make sense to me.

But what about this? And how about that? But why, what? And he was more than happy to share everything he knew. And that's when I was like, we've been lied to our whole lives. And I was literally in it. I just I couldn't believe how much I didn't know, you know, and I used to work at the Disney store.

I used to be that girl. I worked at the Disney store for a long time and you know, I remember it was the time when the Arab Arab, I forget who it was, but they were like trying to make, they changed Aladdin, right? They changed the song lyrics and this and that because it says making Arab hate Arabs, it's making us be scared of them. And, and I remember at the time being like, oh shit, that's wow. But I'm telling you the truth, like up until October 7th, I, up until October 7th, if I heard Arabic being spoken, I still would be nervous. Like I bought in.

Our bones, it's in our blood. Yeah. And I mean, this is, oh, we could go on so many little tangents here. Have you read the book, My Grandmother's Hands? I love that book. I wanna do a book study on that book. So I think it's a book that needs to be done in conversation and in group, but that's beside the point.

But just opening my eyes to he talks about white body supremacy, right? And how it's not just something that we intellectualize. It's in our body. It's in our bones. And obviously in that book, he's talking about like black and white, but the perspective in it can be translated to all of these different, yeah, all of these different forms of oppression, right? And oh shit, where was I going with this? I think yeah, just to echo that yeah, of course your body reacted to the sound of Arabic

voices because you've been conditioned to respond. And it made me mad. And that's what he said to me, this guy that I was talking to. I said, he goes, well, they've spent a lot of money making sure you feel that way. And that pisses me the fuck off. It makes me angry that my mind was colonized. It's like a disease that someone gave me on purpose. It's a virus.

It's about this. It is. And it just really pisses me off. And I think the injustice of it, right? Again, with our neurodivergent brains, it's just no, there is right and there is wrong. And there's no, some things are no in the middle. And I was laying in bed when I couldn't sleep last night thinking about this. I think that there are just some people that, that care about people collectively.

And for some of us, there's no but. There's no line ever that we're gonna go, oh, well, but or except for. There's no line for me. There's never ever, ever gonna be anything that anyone could do or say to make me say, oh, yeah, but, right? So when I talk to people about this genocide is I get, yeah, but right there that tells me you're not a good person. I'm sorry. saying is even even the phrase like free Palestine doesn't have enough nuance to it because we're wanting a free Israel and a free Palestine. We're wanting like all people to be free.

We're not again. It's not a I win you lose. It's I you win. Exactly. Exactly. But but people aren't curious enough to even get themselves to understand that. And that's what drives me nuts. I recently was in a space with an Israeli woman and virtual space and she was on zoom and was just sharing her experience and all of this and saying that I feel like I can't even share my name because I automatically am put into this umbrella. And it's just so interesting to recognize the stigma and the stereotype and what our human brains do.

Our brains are literally meant to see things as black and white. Our brains are meant to compartmentalize and put things in buckets, right? Make sense of things. And again, just kind of coming back to the conversation of we're souls in meat suits and trying to make sense of, so why did these souls choose those meat suits and just, ah, it's so complex. It's so complex. Yeah. I think that's the thing that people can't see though is it's, it's almost

like what we're talking about with patriarchy. Patriarchy harms men too, right? So colonialism has harmed everyone and until you can really see that that's what Palestine is about, yeah, then maybe it won't matter to you. But so many people are so far away from getting to that point of understanding that. But yeah, I mean, that's the thing is when Palestine is free, we will all be free. And that's the moment. When when Palestine is free we will all be free and that's the moment when I realized that when I really internalized that that's the moment that I was radicalized I guess because it was like oh I see yeah yeah we got there we got there but I see yeah I see the pieces of the puzzle yeah and how they all fit together and I also now can see what needs to be done to make it so that that puzzle doesn't fit together anymore

because this is not good for the planet. It's not good for any of us. It's good for the people at the top. And that's it, those who are winning capitalism. But when I realized, I realized oh okay okay so the United States needs Israel in the Middle East and the United States has been brutalizing the entire world for you know decades through colonialism it's crazy it is absolutely the whole. I Nicole I have a history degree a bachelor's degree in history

I taught history and The amount of shit I didn't know and even just the fact that I can think of Puerto Rico and other US colonies I literally never put together what that even meant. Oh, we can go to Puerto Rico without a passport. It's a colony. Never ever thought what that means. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And like, I was talking to my kid once and I, you know, I said something about, well, the U S empire and he was like, we're not an empire. And I was like, yeah, dude, we flip an R. And I didn't realize it until a year and a half ago. This is an empire and I was like yeah dude we flip an R and I didn't realize it until a year and a half ago this is an empire we were living in the imperial core and once you realize that I don't know your whole worldview changes and I was saying this to my partner the other day

you go out hold my thought are you sure yeah I got all. Okay. I think that feeling I asked him, I said, what is the word for when you just... Everything is different. I don't see anything the same way anymore. There is a word. I looked it up. Oh, what is the word? I want to know the word. It's something-

Back to the old? You say the thing that you were going to say and then I'll look at it. I was going to go down another rabbit hole of yeah, what you're describing once you see it, you can't unsee it. And so for me, I can see so clearly these different like chapters, these different catalysts in my life, where I'm, I'm waking up to something, right? And it's just a different layer. And I can't see it once I've seen it.

And I can see that it started back when I was pregnant and really just learning about birth and birth in the medical system, right? That was the first moment I go, Oh, shit, this isn't quite right. These things are in the medical. That's the thing, right? Is because I was completely bamboozled. Everything that had been taught in nursing school was not actually fact. Or even like reflecting on, yeah, I didn't actually learn really about natural birth until like, physiologic birth, until I did my own research as a mom. Isn't that something you should have learned in nursing school? Or like my menstrual cycle? Like I didn't understand any of that until I actually went on to reconnect to it naturally. I spent my entire life on systemic birth control. Again,

you'd think you'd learn about that in nursing school. Nope, I didn't. So just the waves of grief that come with that, the waves of frustration, the waves of rage, the, it's like that moment of, okay, well, I can't actually trust everything I've been taught then. So now I'm going to be extra vigilant and discerning, right? As I'm moving forward in the world. And then that just continued to open me up. So it started, what radicalized me is birth. I can very clearly say that what radicalized me is birth, my own birth experience. And then, yeah, like it's just continued to evolve and deepen.

So then the next thing that radicalized me would have been, yeah, just the Palestine stuff. And you know my story there. I don't need to repeat it here. It's been on the podcast somewhere, but yeah, like that was a whole shit show for me. I spoke my truth. I got fired.

It really illuminated a fracture within a system that had already existed. And that fracture in that system really opened me up to white supremacy in the coaching space. Right? So then that was a whole other tangent that I got to explore and open my eyes to. And then now this whole neurodivergence piece is opening me up to ableism. What's next?

I don't know what's next. I know. Isn't it crazy? Yeah. I'm excited to know what's next, but I'm also a little scared Yeah, the word though. It's a it's two words. It's ontological shock. Oh, wow. That's a big word I don't even think I can repeat that here So it says ontological shock happens when our foundational beliefs about who we are in our place within the universe unravel Leaving us exposed to the void. It's a dizzying

and disorienting experience, but ultimately an important catalyst for profound growth and understanding. Wow. I feel like I'm hearing you say that and I'm visualizing an earthquake and I'm seeing all the little earthquakes in my life. Yes. Yeah. And like you were saying, like all these little cracks. What is it? Yeah. Like the tectonic plates. Yeah. And all those cracks are connected. When so many cracks connect, it's just shatters. There's nothing going to hold it together anymore. And yeah. And yeah, that's a hundred percent what you said about birth, like realizing that, oh wait, this system isn't here to help us either. And then that takes you into all of health care. Yeah, it's yes.

So every system, police, you know, and then the more you learn about the history of these systems, it does it all comes back to white supremacy. Yes. And that's one thing that really in the beginning of the Gaza thing that I heard right off the bat was like Israel is a, you know, it's a white supremacist, you know, settler colonial project. And in my head, I was like, how can it be white supremacy? But see, that's where the difference is. Yeah, but that's the difference.

Oh, he's from Palestine. They forgot to teach us that. Yeah, forgot to teach a lot of things. But that was the thing for me. It was like, how can that be? But I'm going to question it and I'm gonna go find out whereas I think a lot of other people are like meh and then they just drop it and I'm like no you gotta keep learning you gotta keep learning and it is I mean honestly like sometimes I wonder if I had the choice to go back you know and be ignorant again would I because god it's so Because God, it's so much easier. Yeah. Ignorant is a bliss. Yeah. But I mean- But I think what the thing is, is once we lose our ignorance, once we start learning,

once we start unlearning, once we move down that path, there is empowerment there. Oh, yeah. That is what we're talking about. But the empowerment also brings responsibility. And the responsibility is heavy and hard and crunchy and annoying. And the same thing like what you're saying about with how birth kind of, you know, your eyes were then open. That's how I think about... Oh, shit. Now I just totally forgot what I was going to say.

You said in nursing school you... Nursing school really didn't learn anything The connection of I was taught I very much believed that doctors deliver babies Yes and and so for me it was like the next thing that happened after I The birth thing blew my mind and then it was I read dumbing us down. Have you read that one? It's about it's about well, it's more about the American education system, but I don't know, you said you guys are pretty similar to us, so maybe it would apply also, but about how this is very purposefully, the system has very purposefully

dumbed us down. And that was, that was another shift for me that was like, oh my God. I mean, I, you know, I, that was a teacher and I didn't realize and it's that feeling is just a, I don't know. Again, I'll just say mindfuck. It's what I'm going to title this episode. I think it will be like, well, yeah, the mindfucksucks of our, like something about its time. Like there actually there's a post that I love that I've saved. It's like we've been, what is it? We've been mindfucked and now it's time for the great like unfuck or something. Can you hear my little baby chicks? Like I just really want to know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, can you hear my little baby chicks? Like, I just want to know. I have baby chicks in here because they're, you know, too little to be outside yet.

And I was like, oh, they're going to hear chirping the whole. I don't hear them, but I want to. If people hear chirping, that's what it is. Little baby chicks. But yeah, so many mindfucks. And then with the neurodivergent thing, too, it's so I will just say to people, oh, you're probably ADHD, you're probably autistic, and my kid is mom.

People don't hear it the way you mean it. You should probably stop saying that to people. But this is how I am. It's like when I'm in the world and I have this knowledge, I forget that everybody doesn't also have that knowledge. And I'm always coming from a place of love, always. And the number of times I've pissed people off or made people think something bad about me just because I'm literally saying how I feel and I'm just so sick of it. I'm so sick of having to tiptoe around things.

Yeah, it's a constant form of self-censorship and dilution. Constant. Constant. And I think, I guess it's neurotypicals, like when you say that this is how I'm experiencing things, they can't, they want to argue with you and tell you that you're wrong. And I'm like, you can tell me all day and all night, but this is how I feel. I was talking to my mom the other day about, I literally, so I have a friend, it was a mom friend, and I'm realizing this now too, a lot of the people I met as when my babies were babies, like these are all white stay-at-home moms, they had a lot of money. So a lot of the people I was spending time with were very white privileged women.

And so one of them reached out to me recently and she's like, I haven't heard from you in a while. How you doing? And she tells me, oh, I'm at Lockheed and da-da-da. And she says that she's very proud to be working for Lockheed Martin. And in my head, I'm like, yeah, I'm not impressed by that. And I said to my mom, I don't respect people who have jobs like that. I don't. If you're harming the planet and you're harming other people, I don't respect you. No. And my mom's yeah, but people have to make a living in this.

And I'm like, no, to me, this is black and white. And I don't, you don't have to try to change. I'm not saying you have to think the way I do. I am literally just telling you this is how I feel. Do not tell me I'm wrong. I'm just going to demo-sack it for a second because you're not wrong. I'm totally here with you and your experience is valid. Let's start with that. Your experience is valid. And also just this language of respect. I want to ask, who are we like where is that belief in that construct coming from that we get to measure our our like relationship and our perspective on people through this

lens of respect? What the fuck does that even mean? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, because I'm gonna I'm gonna argue that she's probably unconscious to her impact, right? So do you actually not respect her if she doesn't know it? She's a victim.

She's a victim of the world we're in. I'm totally playing devil's advocate. Should I lose respect for you because you were a teacher and you were perpetuating the systems of control and oppression as a teacher for how many years? No, yeah, yeah. I mean, I get that. But also, I think the difference is, I think that, like I keep saying, some people are open to learning.

Like if I was a teacher still and somebody said to me, oh, you know, this is an oppressive system that you're working under, I wouldn't just get defensive. I would say, what do you mean? Yeah. Tell me what you mean. The lack of respect is for the lack of curiosity. Probably, yeah.

But even- Because they're closing their eyes to it. Yeah. Yeah, and which shows a certain level of privilege too. But I guess it's more that I don't want you in my life. You know, like I don't have time or energy for people like that anymore. Boundaries.

Boundaries are important. Yeah. Yeah. And again, we've been conditioned to not have boundaries like that and be everyone and everything for everyone. So it's very easy to internalize shame by you saying, I don't respect this person. I don't want this person in my life. Yeah.

Yeah. And I guess that's where I am. And this is my partner and I, like, we're both doing the unmasking thing in a very different way. Like, he's more reserved and more cautious, whereas I'm like, fucking bust out the gates and let's do this shit, you know? And that's where I'm like, I've really just been cutting people out of my life because I can see that you don't actually care about this thing that is really, really important to me. And I don't want to be around that. And I, you know, Ta-Nehisi Coates, you know him, the author, he wrote, now I'm blanking on the name of his book, but he's been, he's been talking a lot about Palestine because

he went to Gaza and he wrote, the book is about three different experiences he had in the world. But anyway, he's really an amazing person from all the interviews I've seen. Did you say the name of the book or did you say you don't remember the name of the book? I don't remember the name of the book, but Ta-Nehisi Coates, I think is how I always say his name. I'll text it to you. But he, shit, now totally forgot why what I was saying

What brought me to him what was right before that you're you're good at that it seems I know what you were about to say something about three Three something and I Like I wasn't completely listening because I was trying to pick up the name so I could write it down. This is hilarious This is literally like just nerddivergent. I know. Oh, it's great. I'm not going to edit this out. I love that whenever I'm talking to or working with other neurodivergent people, it's so much easier because you know you get a pass. They're not going to be mad at you for being you. I want to say something else here again, just the grief from nursing.

I remember I worked in mental health and I don't even know if that needs to be part of the story or not. The point of the story is that we would really like when I was doing my charting, you would basically label patients as like too somatic or too tangential or too and it's just crazy, right? Because it's helping me see where the constructs are and like what's right, what's wrong, what's superior, what's inferior. And so if you felt too much in your body, we would have charted like plus plus plus plus plus plus

somatic. Or if you didn't have organized thoughts and you went all over the place, like plus plus plus tangential. And it's just, right? It's just, or plus plus plus anxious, right? It's just so interesting to see, again, like we mentioned in this conversation, like kind of looking at where is this belief, this rule, this should, this construct, where is it coming from? Is it mine? Do I want to actually still attach to this anymore? And I think if someone were to say what does it mean to decolonize your mind? I think that's it. I think it's asking those questions and giving yourself the permission to, to begin exploring what it would feel like if you didn't, if you didn't continue to wear that belief and tried something different on for size.

Huge, huge. And that's something I do say to myself a lot, and I will say to clients too, who told you that and why do you believe them? And I think for me, this is something that seems silly, but it really showed how I was so... I was functioning under a system of beliefs and expectations that had nothing to do with my own personal values.

So this is an example that I give a lot of the times when I work with clients. I used to get so angry that my ex-husband, his one job was to bring the trash cans to the curb and bring them back in the house. Like everything else in the house was mine. That was his one job. And so I would get so angry if he didn't bring them in right away. If they were out there for a day or two even, I would fucking so mad. And then we got divorced and he left and I now I leave the trash cans out for days and I'm like, hmm, why am I so mad about it then if I'm doing and I'm like, oh, well, my parents, they would never and they would talk trash about neighbors if they

left the cans out of the, I don't give a shit about that This internalized belief that you are a piece of shit if you leave trash outside Exactly. Yeah, and so now I'm like always asking myself who told you that? Why do you believe them who told you that all your clothes have to be folded neatly when they go in a drawer? Yeah, because if it's causing you stress stop it bringing you joy then yeah stop ask yourself Who told you this and why did you believe them and it with the kids too, right? Who told you that you shouldn't have your baby in the bed with you? Who and why did you believe that person who told me that first time mom shouldn't have home births and thank goodness I didn't

believe them. Yeah, good for you. I'm always impressed because I think like all of those, those are such good examples, right? And I think it's easy for us because we're both in kind of the birth and motherhood space. So it's easy to think of those examples, but this gets to translate into every facet of your life. And so obviously me being in kind of the conscious entrepreneur business space, like it translates there to ask

when you're doing something, why am I doing this? Why do I think that I need to say that there's no refunds because I see everyone else say that this is like non-refundable cause it's like an online thing. What the fuck? You actually want that person's money if they're not actually doing your thing? Like, what?

What? Yeah, you have to always figure out what makes sense for you. Who says that you have to use a proper microphone and headphones and stuff when you're doing a podcast recording? And who says that you need to tell your listeners that you're gonna release the episode every Tuesday.

What? No. I love how you're like, I might send you something in the mail. Can't promise when that is what we have to. We have to just be super honest because it takes the pressure off of us. You know, do you, are you familiar? Now I can't remember her name, but it's the Neurodivergent Entrepreneur Summit. No, what's this? Yeah, so Claire, her name is Claire something. So it's like a free summit,

you know, they have all these speakers that you can then pay to do their things, of course. But like I participated last summer and it's all neurodivergent entrepreneurs. You definitely have to get on there. You definitely have to get in touch with Claire. I'll send you her link. But that for me was really the first time that I started to shift the way I do my business because I learned from all these other neurodivergent entrepreneurs

that you don't have to follow those stupid fucking rules. And ever since then, I really don't follow any rules anymore and I don't make my kids either. You know, like we're always late to school. We're oh, he's if they want to stay home, they stay home. I don't care. But I I know the judgment I get when I walk my kid up to the door late again by the woman who opens the door. Oh, you're late again.

And I just want to say to her we we don't do your neuro-typical social construct nonsense. Like late for what? Exactly. Late for what? Get a letter, you know, you've missed this many days. It's really important that you're learning it and you're at school learning. The kid learns more when he's home with me

because we have actual conversations. No, I don't buy into any of this anymore. And I am totally fine to say that. But the problem is they don't ever give us the opportunity to say it. So either you have to like purposefully go out of your way to say, hey lady, let me tell you this, you know, or just suck it up and have the conversation in your head. I do a lot of talking in my car. I do a lot of conversations in my head too.

And then I forget if I had a conversation. I do. So my thought is like like I will literally think especially when I'm like launching something I will I will make the the piece of content or the email in my head I will think that I have published it I will think it's out in the world and then I realize I didn't I'm like oh shit no wonder people don't know what I'm selling right now because I only did that in my head. But what I'm recognizing too is because I've spent a lifetime of feeling like I have to script everything before I do it. So that's what's going on there, right? I'm actually scripting it

and then it teeters into rumination, of course, because why wouldn't it? Did I do it right? And all of that. But oh, I know. And the scripting is huge because I mean the amount of times that I say things and then learn later that it was heard differently mmm it really sucks because that's not how I meant it no wonder you we all of us are so conscious of trying to say the right thing. Yeah, which sometimes then makes it even worse because then you're using too many words and you're over explaining, you're making no sense at all. And it's, I'm just so over it.

So that's why I really, I really just want to work with like neurodivergent people. I just want to be around neurodivergent people, I just wanna be around neurodivergent people. It's so much easier. And what I've realized is the people in my life that I really enjoy being around, because when I go home, I'm not physically drained. Like they're all neurodivergent. It's when I have to be around neuro-typicals

that I come home and I'm like, oh, I need to nap for three days and drink a beer. I can't be in those circles anymore. It just drains me so badly. And it's knowing all of this has been amazing, but also I think it's like a blessing and a curse in some ways because, you know, if I know I need to be around neurotypicals now,

oh my God, the anxiety is even worse than it used to be when it was just like, oh, I don't like typical. That really kind of articulates the experience of the unmasking journey, I think. Because it's almost like you are witnessing yourself from an outside perspective and you can see so clearly what the real authentic you would do or what she needs. And then you're also seeing what the masked version of you would do. And then it's exhausting because you now have this choice point of, well, who do I want to be in this moment?

One actually feels more natural in a fucked up way than the other. Cuz it was really vulnerable to choose the unmasked version. Especially around people that you've known. Yeah. That have known you masked. And now you're gonna unmask and then Especially around people that you've known. Yeah. That have known you masked and now you're going to unmask and then it's like they're confused and then you got to do work to make them feel better. You know, make them feel comfortable and it's yeah, the unmasking thing has been crazy because it's, yeah, it feels good,

but it's also, again, I don't know what the word is for the feeling. What comes up for me is like just vulnerable. There's that fear of perception, fear of being misunderstood. Fear of having to be defensive and almost like over knowing that my tendency would be to over explain fear of having to go there knowing that it's exhausting as fuck

i think for me it's embarrassment and it's weird because i don't get really embarrassed but i feel embarrassed for because now I feel like I never used to... I never knew what people thought of me. Like I never knew... That people thought it was this, that or whatever too much or this or that. I didn't know. But when I started to tell people, you know, my one friend that I've had since I was five, when I told her that I, you know I got the diagnosis, she was like, oh yeah, I always knew something. I always thought,

you know, you were quirky or whatever, but I would just say, oh, that's just Tiffy, that's how she is. And I'm like, I didn't know people thought of me that way. Yeah, yeah. At all. Yeah, I can actually really, people that I have had conversations. It's the same kind of response. Oh yeah, they almost don't bat an eyelash. It's not a surprise to them.

And I'm like, wait a minute. You mean like you could see through me the whole time? I thought I was doing a really good job. I thought I was doing a really good job. Or also there's this, now I can't figure out what the word is, this I feel like you don't see me because this feels like such a mind fuck for me and you're not seeing me in the mind fuck. Yes.

Yes. Yes. And then you feel alone. Yeah. And then it's now what do I do? Because everybody that I know, knows a different person than who I am. So what do you do? And when you're already an adult,

you know, wow, I mean, it's my kid. So I, you know, I have the two kids and they're five years apart. So the oldest one, we homeschooled until he wanted to go to middle school. COVID happened and he was like, we don't, I don't have any friends. And I'm like, it's homes, it's COVID. Nobody has friends right now. But he wanted to go to school. He's home now. Hi. So I sent him to school and, you know, we didn't know anything about our brains at the time. And he had a really hard time. He went to school, he had rainbow hair, rainbow color hair.

And he had no idea what the rainbow flag meant. That wasn't why, he just liked rainbows. So he, and he thought he was so cool. He loved it, he was so proud of his hair. And then he goes to public school and it becomes a thing, right. But he didn't tell me because he's ashamed. So he's gone on this major during middle school totally masked up and I watched it happen. It broke my heart. Now he's like sort of leveled out and he's back to okay, I see who I am. I see who they are. And he's like really discerning who he's going to hang out with and stuff. But the difference between him and my little one, who's 10, and has never

had to mask because he didn't go to school either. He was homeschooled and he went to nature school and all the things, right? He never had to mask in his entire life. And then when he started school, he already knew. And this is a kid that when I told him, oh, you know, we got the diagnosis, you are autistic. And he was like, yes, like fist pump everything. He is so proud of it. Doesn't mask, doesn't care to, he is straight up with all his friends. He's like, well, I'm autistic. And when you're doing that, it's really pissing me off.

So he's very vocal about it and empowered. And it's that's the huge thing that's for me is, wow, some of these kids like your kid, she's going to grow up never having to mask. That really is answering a big question that I've been floating with is like, what's the meaning with the label? Do we need this label? Right?

And you just articulated so beautifully the benefit of it. And sometimes my concern is like, well, okay, cool. If we're running around kind of excusing our behavior, and I know even me saying that is ableism and capitalism and patriarchy speaking, right? But where I take that is, am I then becoming a victim to the label? Right. So I always say, you know, it's not an excuse, it's an explanation. Yeah, that's it. That's it, right? And that's what I feel because I don't feel it as an excuse for us.

What I feel in my body is this is widening the permission field. This is giving us the permission slip that I wasn't able to give myself because of all the conditioning I'm holding on to. Yeah, but beyond that, I feel what you're saying because I did, I just said this the other day, I find myself saying, well, he's autistic, so we need this. Like, why does he have to be autistic to respect what he needs? That's how I feel too, but I think that's the game we're playing in the system. Because those resources, those supports, those accommodations are gate-capped. You only get that level of support if you have the label.

And that's colonization. That's colonization, that's ableism, when actually these supports, these accommodations that we're talking about should be accessible for everyone. Everyone. Exactly. And the best example I have for this is we all benefit from the rampy thingies on sidewalks, right? Even though those were meant for wheel wheelchairs but moms with strollers kids and bikes right like it benefits everyone yep exactly and that's what i say with school is like most of the accommodations i'm trying to get in my kids 504 plan it just should be good teaching practice yeah and i see that too like the supports that aubrey gets in daycare are like wait a minute this

isn't normal she wouldn't get this way. Oh, I thought every, every kid should get this when you see it. And it's the support is gate kept. So exactly, exactly. And yeah, so it does a label for sure. It serves two purposes, right? It's like the, like you say, excuse, or it's like the, the reason, but it's also. I just think why can't we respect people?

And if they say, cause this is my partner's experience throughout his life. He's had trouble with bosses and, you know, basically humans in general, because his needs are so intense that he comes off like an asshole. But now that he has the label, he's able to say, look, I'm not just being an asshole here.

This shirt is too scratchy. I cannot wear it. You know, and still people don't sometimes buy into that either. You know, a lot of people I think still think a lot of this is just made up, you know. Well, we all feel that way, but we got to suck it up. You know, there's another thing that I want to weave in here. And that kind of this, again, it's a mindfuck in my head. The debate of is, is this a superpower? And I think in a lot of the online spaces I'm in, people will say yes. And I can see where that's coming from. And I know even in my own story, I have leaned to that side, because it's been my

crutch to unlearn and move away from ableism. If I tell myself this is a superpower, then I'm not gonna see kind of what's wrong or bad or needs to be fixed with it. Yeah. What I realize in all that is then I'm just gaslighting my experience, I'm gaslighting the real challenges, I'm gaslighting the real moments of time that I do need accommodation and different level of support.

Oh my God. And like just the, the tax, the ADHD tax you know the amount of money that we spend because we're more impulsive or like there are a lot of ways that we get our lives are harder because of it right I mean the number of times that I say out loud oh god I sometimes I hate my brain sometimes you know I can't remember things that I need to remember and yeah so is it a superpower I don't yeah I mean in some ways it can be right but in some ways it's an anchor and would

I change it would I want a neurotypical brain if somebody said to me do you want a neurotypical brain we can do the change today no I definitely wouldn't do it but I also don't know that it's a superpower I mean it's a superpower in the fact that like literally yesterday I spent the entire day in my yard and the amount of work I got done because my time blindness and my hyper focus and I got to check it off the list has got to be done. Yeah, I can bang out some shit. But that also is for my business. I can spend a week on some shit that doesn't matter. Because I got to get no this is my idea. I got to get it matter because I got to get no this is my idea I got to get it out I got it done and like then you know the amount of work that I've

done in the last three years I don't know probably six months of it was like actually gonna make me any money you know like I'm always creating but it's not always bringing me money but they're fuck capitalism yeah my partner I'm gonna share this with you because like I know we're probably gonna wrap it up soon, but this, I love this theory that he talks about. I think we just are two different species of human. There were two species of human living on this planet at the same time in the past. Maybe that's what it is.

But then the question is, well, which one is evolving out then? Which one's going first? Are we new? Are we the next species? Are we the next evolution of human? Or are we the one on our way out? Because, you know, if you talk about hunting and gathering, like that's the neurodivergent brain is going to do great. There's a book called, it's by Tom Hartman and it's called Hunter in a Farmer's World. And it's all about how the neurodivergent brain, yeah, in the back in the day times,

pre-colonial times, like our brains were gonna be superpowers for real. So are we the ones now, are we being evolved out? Because our brains aren't really useful in this fucking crazy technological world that we live in. Yeah, if the demand is to be like a cog in the wheel. Yeah, right? Or are we all coming to this awakening now and that's what's gonna save the world? I'd like to think that one. I like to think that one too.

I do. Like the neurodivergent revolution. Because if you see in all the activist spaces, it's majority of people are neurodivergent. When it comes to that demand for social justice. Yes, Yes. Gosh, this has my mind just going in so many directions and I love it. I love it so much.

Me too. Oh, I needed this conversation. Yeah, the theory of different species is perfect because I'm running Unruly, which is a roundtable and business lab for neurodivergent weirdos who want to have conversations like this. It's not me on a soapbox. It's not me telling you how to live your best neurodivergent life because I don't have a fucking clue. But one of the metaphors that I use on my sales page is you're a fucking zebra trying to live in a world for horses. Right? Like, if you can kind of anchor into and I was just thinking when you said species, I was

thinking about dogs and we have border collies. And I was like, could you imagine if I had, I'm trying to think of a golden retriever and I was asking it to do what a border collie does? Right. Yeah, exactly. What? Right? Yeah, well what is that quote?

It's a perspective. Yeah. There's the quote about if you try to teach a fish. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what school is, you know? And then we tell these kids, you know, oh, you're just, you have to focus more.

You have to try harder. And no, dude, I'm doing my best here. It's you're not teaching in a way that's gonna work for me. So I've said this in other spaces already, but I want to say it again, because I think it kind of just softens the, I don't know, the, there's some charge in this kind of conversation, right? There's anything because it is so closely tied to

identity and sense of belonging and survival, of course there's charge. But to lighten it up a bit, like I relate this to the sense of empowerment I get when I read about my astrology or I learn about my human design. That just helped me see myself. I'm a projector. So it helped me realize, well, no wonder I can't do the things that like a man-e-gen can do. No wonder my energy is different. I also relate it to how the world kind of has shamed women for menstruating and how we're supposed to run this 25-hour cycle.

Again, there's nothing wrong with being a menstruating human, we're supposed to run this 25-hour cycle. Again, there's nothing wrong with being a menstruating human, with running on like a 28-day cycle, with anchoring to the moon. It's just one day someone deemed one cycle superior to the other, and we've spent our entire lifetimes thinking that something's wrong with us because we don't move that rhythm. And then that's what happens, you know, in postpartum. It's like you're expecting to continue going about your life the way that you always have because that's what's expected of us, right? And then it's really hard, you know, I'll say to women like, you have a wound inside of you the size of a dessert plate. If you have that wound wound on the outside, would you be running to Target and bragging about it two days postpartum? No. And people would tell you you're an idiot. So no, we we have to slow down, we have to

respect these natural cycles. But that's the thing is we are so conditioned to believe you got to get back up, back on the horse, keep going, keep going. It's crazy. The linear growth mindset, right? I think that's what it is. It's, yeah, it's the straight and narrow and up, up, up, up. And the only thing that like consistently grows is cancer. Yeah.

Back to that, whatever that definition, that word, the tectonic plate visual that I got, that's matress word, the tectonic plate visual that I got, that is motherhood. That's matressence, right? And it really speaks to resistance around bounce back culture. Right, fuck that. Yes, bounce back culture. It's so infuriating. And I remember when I was still working, so this was 15 plus years ago, one of the moms, because I had already lost my baby. So everybody in the building, like whoever was already lost my baby, so everybody in the building, like whoever was pregnant, you know, was tiptoeing around me and this and

that, but one of the girls, she was pregnant and she needed, they told her like, you're probably gonna need a hysterectomy after this. And they suggested that she go out early, like to start her maternity leave early and she was so ashamed. She was like, I should stick it out. And I was like, what the fuck? Why? Like, why are we thinking we need to work until the day we give birth?

And that's something to brag about. We get bragging rights for that. No, no, this is crazy town. That was me. I remember actually having so much shame about needing to go off early and again comparing myself to other pregnant women that I was friends with and thinking like, how the fuck are you going on hikes right now? I'm literally crawling on my hands and knees when I get home because I have such bad like

SI joint pain. I vividly remember I was nursing, I was at work, and one of my male colleagues, he was older, he was, so his wife had probably had baby, like he had been a father, right? And he wanted to lift a chair for me that I was about to move. And I remember feeling so almost, what's the word, belittled almost? Like why do you think I can't do that? Of course I can do that yeah and really interesting because it's no actually he was right he's being me

through transition that I was going through but I wasn't ready to see myself I feel like that's what do we call it do we call it like feminist toxicity because I think sometimes our feminism that hyper independent things on yes absolutely yeah and and I think that happens you know in postpartum too like in my book that will be the boss babe archaic there you go yeah because people women do not want to ask for help

they do not want to admit that they need help you know I work with clients and it's like they're struggling so hard but people are offering and they're not accepting again in my own story. I had paid for a doula I had paid for postpartum support and I I I was proud of myself for doing quote-unquote so well that I said I don't need you I want you to go give yourself I'm gonna donate my support because I don't feel like I'm actually worthy

of having you see me. I don't wanna see, I don't wanna be vulnerable. I wanna talk up. I wanna take up your time. I'm gonna act tough. I'm gonna pretend like things are good. Yeah. And you go help someone that's more worthy.

It's, yeah, it's deep. You know, it's deep inside of us. It's been vulnerable one group to another. As I'm saying that out loud, I realize that pattern is still showing up now in our divergence in autism. And even with Aubrey, I'm constantly thinking that we're not autistic enough. There's other autistic people that need support and funding and resources more than us. Who are we to get this support?

Yeah, I think about this a lot because again, you know, I work with clients and a lot of times they're struggling financially and I will say, hey, you know, do you, if you guys qualify for like SNAP food stamps or health insurance, people are like, oh, I don't, I don't want to take that. I don't want to. Well, again, because it's that mentality of if I win, you lose. Yes. But we feel like if we are taking, because again, that's how the world has operated. If we take, then the other person is losing. It's like the thing that's pie, you know, it's, it's not pie.

There's not only eight slices, like it's infinite. I mean, of course, serve it like public. Yeah, that's a different, but yeah, the energetics of it. Yeah, exactly. It's unlimited. Yeah, it's like, yeah. And also it's just this being ashamed of, I can't do it myself.

And this is a thing too with neurodivergence because again, I was in my yard all day yesterday and with the time blindness, I didn't plan to be out there all day. So I didn't put sunblock on. And of course I come in and my entire back out of tank top. So my whole back is just fried.

And I text the picture to my partner and I was like, and I also I didn't eat or drink or pee. No, why would you do any of those things? No, you forgot me. Exactly. And I said to him, I obviously am not capable of taking care of myself. And I'm not. And my mom still texts me every month or whenever income tax or property taxes are due. She'll text me and then she's, I'm sorry, I'm annoying.

I know. I'm like, mom, I appreciate it. I need people. And also my car, I blew my car fucking engine because I didn't get fucking oil changes. That's the tax right there. I didn't do it. And I said to her, I need someone to say, all right, let's go. We're going to get the oil change today. Yeah. And I'm a grown ass woman.

That circles us back beautifully to the beginning of the conversation around like, it's, we're not disabled. It's the world and the environment and the demands around us that are disabling. Hell yeah. Yeah. Cause if I was just gardening all day, I'd be fine. I'd be sunburned. Your village would bring you lunch and right like it would yeah. Yeah exactly. Yeah yeah yeah. I don't like this. The world we live in isn't is definitely not built for us and I mean I hope I hope we're at least moving in a different direction. I mean obviously like your generation and the younger people are definitely more aware and more open.

Well I think I mean just the story that you shared about your 10 year old, right? How he's able to move through the world and now my daughter is going to get that experience as well. So I think we're going in the right direction. I do too. I do too. I just hope it doesn't get squashed. Yeah.

Okay. How do we wrap this up? Any final thoughts? Are you feeling complete? Is that even a thing? Yeah. Okay. How do we wrap this up? Any final thoughts? Are you feeling complete? It's not even the thing. Yeah, I mean, I think we could probably keep talking for hours, but we'll wrap it up and we'll just say we'll have to do this again sometime.

Where can people find you if they're not already following you? So the placenta girl on Instagram, which I'm honestly trying to get off of all meta platforms. So I'm still there just to have a presence, but I'm not really active posting. I'll comment and I'll see your stories and stuff but I open it and then close it. But I am there if they want info and then my website is tifffdee.com and that's where they can find info about my services. So the placenta encapsulation is obviously local. Some people do ship placentas all around the country, which I think is just ridiculous and a money grab. But, um, so I only do local placenta work, but my postpartum support and the

coaching and the strategic planning and all that is virtual. So I work with people everywhere for that. And yeah, beautiful. Yeah. And quite literally like people can probably find you in the front of your house gardening. Literally. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, I love it. Okay. Thank you so much, Tiff. This was a pleasure to meet you in the light. And just truly like food for my soul. We'll stay in touch as always. Fantastic. And yeah, for the listeners, please connect with Tiff. Let us know what lands and stirs from this episode. We always love to hear from you.