REWILD + FREE - Neurodivergence as a Rite of Passage (78)

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

In this episode, I share my story of discovering my own neurodivergence — through motherhood, through business, through breaking down and remembering who I really am.I talk about the internalized ableism and resistance many of us feel around the neurodivergent (autistic or ADHD) label… even while we proudly claim our Human DesignAnd of course, I introduce you to exploring neurodivergence through the lens of a rite of passage → Get instant access to the FREE Soft Ceremony + Self Paced Initiation Into Your Neurodivergent Nature by signing up here: https://www.nicolepasveer.com/ceremony → Learn more about UNRULY - the 8 week round table + biz lab for neurodivergent coaches, doulas, and healers here: https://offers.nicolepasveer.com/unruly/And as always, let me know what lands + stirs for you from this episode by sending me a note on IG (@nicolepasveer)

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-babe 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 T and take the most loving breath

you've given to yourself today, and let's go. breath you've given to yourself today and let's go. I really want to talk to or speak on this idea that I've been chewing on around viewing neurodivergence as a rite of passage and in case this is the first time you are listening to me speak and the first time you're learning about me and my story I want to start off with sharing a bit of my story and how I even landed here and landed in this seat, this chair right now, chewing on this idea, looking at neurodivergence as a rite of passage. And so it feels important to name that I have a background in nursing, but post-nursing, after leaving my job as a nurse, I got bit by the birth

bug and went on to pursue doula work. And in my deep dive into birth and labor and understanding the physiology of labor, I really appreciated looking at labor through the lens of a rite of passage. I'm also trained as a seasons of matrescence facilitator and within that body of work there's just a lot around motherhood and matrescence as a rite of passage. And so I really appreciate the perspective of looking at different identity shifts in our life, looking at different transitions in our life through the lens of a rite of passage and using the rite of passage framework almost as a blueprint and compass for us in identity transformation. And so as I've been emerging and evolving and unraveling and covering my own neurodivergence,

I can't help but see and relate it to a rite of passage. And I want to talk about that. A little bit about me, I am newly identified, a newly identified neurodivergent. I've basically spent the last 30 years of my life pretending I'm not autistic. I feel like looking back, there were many micro-moments throughout my life

where I had that thought, but I would just like brush it aside or really fall into the trap of this belief that I'm not autistic enough because I don't fit into the stereotypes. And then I had my daughter and she's three and a half now and so really around that two to three year mark, obviously that is an intense time for any parent. It's an intense time just to be a toddler and navigate the world as a toddler. But the intensity that we're experiencing felt very different. And some of the things that I was seeing in her were also big mirrors for seeing myself. And I started

making these connections and had this hunch like, oh my gosh, like I think my daughter might be autistic. And if she's autistic, then I'm definitely autistic. Like it really gave this like validation of some of the thoughts that I had been suppressing most of my life. And keep in mind in this entire evolution and emergence of even contemplating this idea, I was always struck by the online space that I'm in

and how ADHD in women is becoming more and more acceptable and more and more like normalized and almost like cute, depending who's talking about it. And I was turned off by that. I don't resonate with being ADHD. And also I know I'm not quote-unquote normal or typical. So like where do I fit? Because I'm still really holding on to this belief that I'm not autistic enough to be autistic. I don't fit into the stereotypes that I have understood autism to look like.

And so as we were trying to make the decision if we even wanted to get a formal evaluation for my daughter. It was a really big deep dive for me in understanding what autism looks like in girls and what autism looks like in high-suctioning or for achieving A-plus student women. And I finally was actually seeing myself for the first time and realizing, wow, holy shit, there's a whole chunk of the population just like me who have basically been highly masked their entire lives. They were potentially deemed as like really smart and know-it-alls in school, were people pleasers.

We absolutely put everyone's needs ahead of our own because we're hyper vigilant as fuck. And I feel this in my daughter too and bear in mind like when I started seeing this she was only like two, two and a half. And that is really illuminating, even to be able to pick up on. And I feel like that is a testament to my own, like nervous system sensitivity and empathy and pattern recognition that I was able to see that at that young of an age, because this is a tangent. I don't even want to go there.

This is not my daughter's story. This is a tangent. I don't even want to go there. This is not my daughter's story. This is my story. The point is her diagnosis and us deciding to pursue that evaluation, get that diagnosis really was a catalyst for me in accepting and beginning to embrace my own neurodivergence. And I think the other context that is important to name here is I've also been on this journey of decolonization, of really dismantling the internalized systems of oppression within. And again, looking back, I can see the different catalysts of this journey. Being pregnant and having a home birth was absolutely one of them realizing just the dysfunction of the medical system and just birth as this medicalized the narrative around birth really detaching from that dismantling it. That was like chapter one of my dismantling internalized systems of oppression.

becoming a mom, navigating postpartum, realizing the systemic oppression towards mothers and women and just how undervalued mothers are in the culture that we exist in North America. That was chapter two. And then I see chapter three as this reconnection to my menstrual cycle. And again, realizing, wow, just how disconnected we've been taught to be as women to our bodies and to our menstrual cycle. And that I spent most of my teenage and adult life really trying to hide and pretend that I wasn't a menstruating human. More on this later because I absolutely see a parallel with reconnecting to your menstrual cycle and embracing neurodivergence.

So call that chapter three or wherever we're at. Chapter four being recognizing white supremacy in business and entrepreneurship in online coaching worlds, specifically in the female women's empowerment spaces. There's obviously not an episode about that, but it's important to name here because this really orients you to who I am and the journey that I've been on

to come to the perspective that I'm going to offer in this conversation. And after that I also was initiated into anti-racism work and really deep diving into just the white supremacist culture in online coaching space and seeing again just the different systems of oppression at first realizing that I was the oppressed as a woman and as a mother, and then realizing, oh shit, I'm also the oppressor in some context, right? And how am I perpetuating white supremacy? How am I perpetuating things like racism without consciously doing it?

Just the water that we're swimming in and potentially not actively and intentionally going upstream from it. And then from there, the unraveling of neurodivergence in our family really illuminated to me the internalized ableism. And again, another internalized system of oppression and construct that I had been holding onto, a belief system that wasn't necessarily mine, but was lingering in the background and orchestrating

like all of my beliefs and how I was viewing the world. I feel like where I'm sitting today, I am very passionate about decolonization and very passionate about exploring ways in which we've been colonized and what that colonized mindset looks like and what it's doing to not just like our self-worth and how we view the world and our perception of things, but also what our bodies are holding and potentially the trauma or the codes and the wiring that our bodies are working at baseline from. And so anyways, right now talking about neurodivergent as a rite of passage, I really want to speak to the three phases of a rite of passage, I really want to speak

to the three phases of a rite of passage, just in case you're not familiar with that. And so most simply, the first phase is separation. So that's that moment when you realize, oh shit, things aren't like they used to be. The ground beneath me feels like it's crumbling. It's like that awakening moment of, oh wow, things are different. It's disorienting. It is uncomfortable. I should name that I think all three phases

of a rite of passage have their own level of discomfort and vulnerability, but that first phase of separation, it really is the point of no return. It's like you literally have taken that leap away from something that was probably so familiar and safe, and of course our nervous systems deemed familiar as safe. So when you take that leap, when you cross that threshold, there's that moment of oh shit I don't feel safe because this is unfamiliar.

Separation can also be seen as an unraveling, that moment or season in your life when all of a sudden things just don't fit, like The things that you used to like, the beliefs you used to hold, the hobbies, the interests, things are just shifting. There's this evolution happening and that in itself is disorienting, right? Because there's that sense of unfamiliarity happening and also maybe a sense of feeling like you're losing control. So I just want to name that. The second phase being the liminal phase.

This is the messy middle. You recognize that you're no longer who you thought you were or that things aren't how they used to be, but you're not yet sure who you're becoming. It truly is like if you were a caterpillar, that moment where you're turning into goo before you become a butterfly, right? It's, again, this is uncomfortable, this is vulnerable. You are surrendering in this state. Things are changing. It's not that things are gonna change,

it's that you are in the change. So this is tender, this is foggy, you're full of questions, you're full of uncertainty. We call it the messy middle. It's also, yeah, like that crossroads, right? If separation is you're taking the step, you've crossed over the threshold, liminality would be like the bridge. It's getting you from where you were to where you're going, but you don't necessarily know

where you're going yet. And then the third phase being the return. So again, with that bridge metaphor, it's you are now taking the step, making the threshold to the other side. You've reached the other side. Return, this phase is all about integration. It's returning to who you are on that side. It's making sense of who you are on that other side.

It can be seen as a coming home to yourself, but it's not the self that you were before, it's a coming home to a deeper sense of self. It's a very vulnerable space to be because it also requires being witnessed. And I would argue that in a lot of identity shifts in our life, this is where we're experiencing incomplete rite of passages because we're not necessarily getting that deep, genuine, real raw, sacred witnessing that we need on the other side of that return. We are still clinging on to the old identity in the sense of clinging on to the people

that have felt familiar and safe to us. And I'm not saying you need new people, but you need to allow yourself to be seen in that new identity. And I think for a lot of us, we hold on to trying to maintain the identity and the reputation and the way that we feel like we're being perceived. We try to maintain that because it creates this felt sense of safety in belonging and having connections with people. It makes it feel like if people truly saw us for who we are, who we're becoming, we might lose that relationship, we might break that connection. And that is a very

tender and vulnerable space to be in. So witnessing is really important here because witnessing is how to complete that end stage of a rite of passage, being witnessed in who you're becoming. And so I'm going to put a pin on that because that's really important in this conversation. Now if we go deeper here and actually begin to explore these three phases alongside neurodivergence and the journey of unraveling and accepting and embracing neurodivergent and the identity shift that comes with that, we start with separation. Separation is that moment of oh wow, like I am starting to recognize that I don't fit

into who the world maybe thought I was. I don't fit into the constructs that have been defined for me or I'm recognizing that my brain truly does work differently and I want to take that step to stop trying to pretend that's not actually a thing, right? It's like that moment of yeah, things aren't what they used to be and I'm finally ready to see it. I'm finally ready to deepen and explore my sense of self in the context of understanding my brain. This is that moment where you are recognizing where you've been and where you've been pulled away from yourself. You're noticing those moments of potentially micro subtle moments of self abandonment and

self betrayal. This is also the moment potentially in motherhood or business or something somewhere in your body. You're just feeling this like point of friction. This isn't quite right, like I'm being pulled in a different direction. There's often like a catalyst, I would argue, where you begin to see yourself differently. And so I'm going to share a bit of like my story and what my catalyst was because for

me, a part of it was motherhood and for you, it might be something different. But it's that catalyst is something that cracks you open and says, I'm different. And it's that start of the unraveling. It's you taking the first step to cross over the threshold and move into likely a season of deeper exploration. And so for me, I would say that this wasn't just like an overnight thing. It wasn't like I woke up one morning and I'm like, oh my God, I'm neurodivergent. Looking back, there was a series of events that happened. I'm not even gonna speak to pre-motherhood

because I think they were just like fleeting thoughts of, oh, I wonder if I'm autistic, and then I would shove it down. But once I became a mom, I really started to recognize that I was already at capacity in so many aspects of life. Being a mom really stretches you in a lot of ways. If you're a mom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But being at capacity meant that I wasn't able to mask in ways that I had most of my life.

And so my ability to keep it together just wasn't as accessible. I really wasn't able to perform in ways that I had before. And I think in realizing that I was able to see that it was performance. Like I was almost forced to drop the mask because I could only hold so many marbles, right? And that was the marble that lost priority. And so I really began to see like where my struggles were with executive functioning, where my struggles were with sensory sensitivity and where my struggles were with things like the mental load

of, we always hear about the mental load of motherhood, but I would argue that for a neurodivergent mom, this just intensifies. I couldn't hold all the marbles anymore. I had to drop some. And I think the other catalyst here was, again, seeing it in my daughter. She really is a mirror for me. And again, people talk about this all the time that their children are mirrors, especially when we're talking about like trauma and wounds and like re-parenting and stuff like that. But I think a lot of people have this experience they don't necessarily have

the language for it is they might see neurodivergence in their kids but they don't necessarily know what they're seeing they're just seeing how different their kid is and they don't want them to lose that spark they don't want to squish them or smoosh them and I know that's what I saw in my daughter right she's fiery she's spirited she's a. And I never want her to feel like she's too much. And being able to see that in her really was this invitation for me to see it in myself too, right? If I refuse to smush it and squash it in her, if I refuse to dim her light, how dare I continue dimming my own light? So that really was a big catalyst for me, is having my daughter as a mirror.

And then I think there's this mix of seeing the strengths and seeing kind of the quirks and like the parts of her that society celebrates and wants more of. And then there's also like the challenges and the parts of her that like society wants to squish and tone down. And again, that was just a mirror for me to see those parts of me and myself for basically the first time and really inviting an energy of love and compassion and non-judgment and curiosity. And then we got a diagnosis and like I said, that for me was another catalyst of, wow, okay, if she is autistic, then I can probably stop doubting if I am. And I want to name that I think for those of us that don't have a formal diagnosis,

this is always going to be an edge that we're sitting on of almost imposter syndrome. Who am I to identify as autistic? Or who am I to identify as someone with ADHD if I don't have a formal diagnosis? And I just want to name that that in itself is a symptom of the systemic systems of oppression that we live in and the way that our culture and our medical system has pathologized these things and made us feel like we need a diagnosis for it, right? Because that diagnosis has all this very scientific, although maybe not

even that scientific, list of criteria and it's just putting us in boxes, right? Which is ironic when you think of neurodivergence as basically you can't put me in a box, yet the diagnostic criteria is trying to put you in a box. And I think this also speaks to why so many women and girls are falling through the gaps in the medical system when it comes to neurodivergence because we don't fit into those boxes. So where was I going with that? Just the imposter syndrome of not having that formal diagnosis and also like the mindfuck that that is because that formal diagnosis really is just putting you in another box.

And so I don't even know that I ever want the formal diagnosis. It was a bit of a different story in making the decision for my daughter because obviously she is much younger and she's gonna be moving through systems that potentially will squash her if we don't have the right language.

And here in Canada where I live, it's like access to resources and certain accommodations are gate-kept unless you have that formal diagnosis. And I hate that. I hate that that's the story here. And also we chose to play that game because we want her to have access to supports and resources and accommodations. It's also really important to us that she grows up with the language to understand herself. And again, that's been a huge mirror for me is because if I want her to grow up, not shaming or suppressing the part of her brain that's different, I also realized I need to model that for myself.

And so that was in a sense, its own initiation. And so anyways, this was a lot just talking about separation. So basically for me, separation really was this season of motherhood and exploring my daughter's diagnosis, having that reflected back to me. And then I think the cherry on top here is as I've really gone deep into building my business and being a coach and being an entrepreneur in the online space, I'm also beginning to see so clearly like what mold I just do not fit into, what molds were not created for me, not just in the context of my brain in

a neurodivergent sense, but also in the context of being a woman, being someone with a uterus who menstruates almost every 28 days, being someone who is a mom, being someone with a uterus who menstruates almost every 28 days, being someone who is a mom, being someone who is a projector in human design, right? There's all these molds that society kind of create. And I would say like the mainstream business model, the bro marketing is set up for neurotypical white dudes who are managens, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on. So it really was illuminating for me to see all the ways I am diverging from the norms. So moving on to the stage of luminality, that kind of in between, I would say in neurodivergent

that's the moment where you're like, okay, I'm going to begin to accept or try on for size what it feels like to accept my neurodivergent. This might not even mean you're coming out of the closet yet. I would argue that like this phase is actually more internal. And like I said, this is this is that like messy middle. It's the in between. You're like on the bridge, the waiting room. It's awkward in-between, you're like on the bridge, the waiting room. It's awkward, clunky.

But this is also the phase where the magic really happens. Even though in the moment it doesn't feel very magical. Like I said, this is when the caterpillar is turning into goo before they emerge as that butterfly with neurodivergence. This is a phase of a lot of questioning and a lot of research. This is the phase where you are potentially going down rabbit holes and maybe even obsessing with hearing the voices of other autistic people

to begin to find meaning and make connections and see yourself. There's a lot of questions. So you are actively and intentionally seeking out answers, even though you might not get the answers, it's that active exploration. This is also where you might begin noticing internalized ableism at play. The society we live in has a way of telling us that being different is wrong. And so there's this sneaky feeling of shame in a way, and this phase requires like an unshaming

and that happens intrinsically. In separation, you're beginning to recognize where you might be self abandoning and self betraying, but now in the liminal phase, you are repairing that with yourself. You're attending to yourself, beginning to explore how do I accommodate myself in this moment? How do I choose self-honouring over self betrayal? And yeah, this is clunky because it's not a one-size-fits-all approach, there isn't a book or a handbook or a TikTok page that tells you exactly how to live your best neurodivergent life. Although there are a lot of like helpful hacks and voices out there helping

us to play around and discover like new ways of meeting ourselves, but this is so unique and personal for each person. And to pile on the potential decades and generations and like ancestral lineage behind us that we're holding, that our bodies are holding, that makes us feel like being different is wrong, that makes us feel like standing out is unsafe, because in previous moments of history, it was unsafe. And I wanna name that, because that's a really tender realization to have, that there was a time not that long ago

that to stand out, to be different, literally might've meant death. So of course your body has been protecting you from this. Of course your nervous system has been doing everything to try to keep you safe. I actually invite us all to just take a deep breath and even place a hand on your heart or give yourself a pat on the back

because our nervous systems, our protective systems, our protective parts have done such an incredible job at getting us to this point where we are alive and well. And it's also 2025 at the time of recording this, the world is a dumpster fire and times are changing. There is increasing acceptance around neurodivergence, right?

There's more and more understanding of what this actually means and what it actually looks like and we're beginning to see ourselves in different places. And so there's a deeper level of understanding, and within that deeper level of understanding, it's widening the permission field for us all to really reclaim our truest nature, our truest rhythms, and our natural and organic pace. Before we move into the third phase of our rite of passage, which is the return,

I want to speak on label aversion and I want to speak the internalized ableism that comes with label aversion. And so maybe you are at a point now where you've been on this rite of passage journey, you're like, yeah, I know I'm different, you've crossed the threshold, you're exploring yourself, you're asking questions, you are in that messy middle of beginning to become someone new. And maybe that someone new isn't actually new, it's actually a reclamation of who you always are. Really, the butterfly analogy here isn't correct. I feel like we should be looking at it through the lens of a snake going through transformation. It's a shedding of things that were put on you,

the masks, the skin. So it's the shedding of, instead of the caterpillar becoming butterflies, blah, blah, blah, but the butterfly example's cute. So yeah, liminal, liminality, you're shedding the skin, you are now this like naked and bare, vulnerable, and you're like, who the fuck am I? That's what liminality is,

it's that question of who the fuck am I? That's what liminality is. It's that question of who the fuck am I? And I think what happens here is there's this label aversion for two reasons. One, I think a lot of us are fearful that if we accept or identify with that label, we're going to become a victim to it. And I think the second thing is because all we've ever been shown and modeled around neurodivergence

has such a negative stigma to it, we're holding that negative connotation. And so if we accept the label, then we're seeing ourselves in that negative light. And that's the internalized ableism, right? That's believing that being different, being disabled or able, that one's better than the other, that an able-bodied is superior to a disabled body. And there could be a whole conversation here on whether neurodivergence truly is a disability or not, whether autism and ADHD are disabilities.

But what I would like to offer here is that these are disabilities in the context of the environment that we're in. I can tell you that if I can just be home all day and in control of my environment and essentially accommodating myself, I don't feel autistic at all. The days that I'm feeling most autistic are when I'm trying to be a human in a world and an environment that really wasn't made for me, right? And I likely don't have control over, I'm not able to access resources or accommodations to support my needs. So it's not necessarily

that me and my way of being, my innate nature, my neurodivergence is the disability, it's the world and the environment around me. So if you buy into that, let's still use kind of the words disabled and abled. So if we're neurodivergent, we are disabled because of the world that we live in. If some part of us is holding on to the narrative and the constructs around ableism, we are feeling less than because we aren't the superior able body that has been modeled to us. Okay? So that's really big, right?

Like when you begin to realize that's a story that you're holding up the belief system, that's literally been coded into your body, it makes a lot of sense why there's that label aversion. It also makes sense why there's that fear of becoming a victim because we're seeing one thing as superior and one thing as inferior. I want, okay, this is where I want to go next. I'm inviting you to see the parallels of what this looks like in relation to a menstruating woman. Okay, and I'll share my own story. My own story, when I got my period, when I was like 12 or 13, I remember, first of all,

thinking it was like the worst day of my life. It was not something to celebrate. It was something that I was dreading. It was something that I wanted to hide. My parents were divorced, and when I would be at my dad's house, I was so embarrassed and ashamed of him knowing that I had my period,

that I would literally hide my used pads and tampons into a bag and bring them back home to my mom's house because I didn't want my dad to find them in the garbage. That really speaks to the level of shame I was holding around menstruation and how badly I wanted to hide it. And then I remember growing up in school and then in my job, always feeling like I had to act tough when I was experiencing symptoms related to being a menstruating woman that made my reality harder, right?

Whether it was PMS or cramps or just low energy or irritability or cravings, whatever it was, I always felt like I just had to pretend it didn't exist and try to fit in and keep up. And yeah, just pretend that that part of me wasn't real. And I remember I went on birth control and I intentionally chose to be on a birth control that made me only have my period every three months. And then later on I had an IUD

that made my period almost non-existent and I thought I was winning. I thought that was the goal. I was like proud and brag about to my friends, right? That was the goal is we didn't want to have periods and it's just so interesting looking back because that narrative, that belief system that I was holding is the social construct that was passed down to me, right? It was the world telling me that having a period is inconvenient and it gets in the way and you need to basically do everything that a man can do, so cough it up and pretend that it doesn't exist. Also, like, it's gross and so if it's gross then you're gross and like all these stories that just absolutely aren't real. And so if we look at reconnecting to your menstrual cycle

as a rite of passage, right, the separation phase being like, oh shit, that's not actually what I believe. I actually wanna have a relationship with my menstrual cycle and I wanna feel good. And so for me that happened, again, after I became a mom, when I got my period back postpartum, I for the first time felt what it was like

to be a cyclical menstruating woman without synthetic hormones running through my body. And I will admit, like, the lows were low, but the highs were also high. And I feel like before that, I was just running at this flat line, right? I was just numbed out. And so, reconducting to my menstrual cycle allowed me the opportunity to actually feel things for the first time. Yes, it meant that maybe PMS was more intense, maybe my flow was heavier and the days were longer, right? But it also meant that I got to feel what it felt like to ovulate and have an increased libido and have an increased surge of creativity and motivation and then in my late luteal phase experience what it feels like to

have that motivation to follow through on things and complete things and tie loose ends up, right? I never experienced that before. I never experienced the cyclical nature of my truest nature. the cyclical nature of my truest nature. And so having the aha deciding to cross the threshold to separate from the old identity and begin embarking on this new journey of cyclical embodiment that teed me into the phase of liminality which is holy shit. There's waves of grief here where it's like how have I been betraying myself for this long? You begin to recognize all of the systems and constructs around you that have potentially made you believe certain things, and now you're unlearning those beliefs. You're also asking questions and exploring how to meet yourself.

You're learning, like, how do I tend to myself when I menstruate? How do I tend to myself during my follicular phase and then ovulation and then luteal? It's this exploratory phase. And coming to the return is you're actually embodying it, right? And it's something that you are more confident in owning and naming and it becomes easier to, I don't know, for example, I'm able to tell my husband, like, when I have my period, when I'm in my period on these, like, there's different needs and he knows what they are. And that's something that I'm really looking forward to getting to model to my daughter, right? It's something

that was never modeled to me. And again, growing up in the world and the culture that I grew up in, it really was something that I thought I had to hide and shame. And anyways, the point is, the identity shift that came in reconnecting to my menstrual cycle, I would argue is very similar to reconnecting to my neurodivergence. Because again, I see so clearly where the shame and the motivation to hide or suppress was outside of me. It is society's stories and narratives that were passed down to me that I absorbed. And it's not my truest nature. And I'm recognizing that my truest nature, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just how I am. And with my menstrual cycle, there are parts of the world, there are cultures, there are narratives out there that say that

it's gross and bad and wrong. And I believed those for a long time. And I'm now recognizing that no, this is actually the most natural thing my body could be doing and I actually see it as like sign of health and right I could go on and on. I invite you to make your own connections right now and maybe even explore what your relationship is with your menstrual cycle and what it was like during adolescence and now because that could help you soften into building a relationship with your neurodivergence. The other piece I want to offer here before we move into the third phase of return is

the other parallel I see and that's when we are either doing like personality tests and learning about ourselves, maybe like the Enneagram or even like back in high school doing like Cosmo magazines and doing the quizzes right? We love that shit. Humans love that shit. Humans love to understand themselves. I know in my own experience learning about my astrology like my natal chart and learning about my human designs has been so empowering. It's so validating. It helps me see myself and it helps me grant myself a permission slip to potentially do things differently. I'm a projector in human design, I'm able to understand that my energy moves differently,

my motivation is differently, the way I respond is different than say a mani-gen. And beginning to understand those differences and celebrate them really helps me to lean in, accept and embrace who I am. Do you see where I'm going with this? Can that not be the same as neurodivergence? This is just an invitation to really explore why is it that it's so hard to accept and embrace the label of neurodivergence yet we celebrate and feel so empowered by the label of human

design. Nobody bats an eyelash or challenges you in your identification of your human design or your astrology, right? It's just something that we all, it's literally something on the internet, a form on the internet that says this and we just believe it as truth. It's so wild, it's interesting, yet there's just, it's a whole other story with neurodivergent. Again, I just want to offer that there as a point of exploration for you. It's something that I'm witnessing, it's something that I find really interesting, and it's something that I've sat with myself, why is it so empowering to see and understand myself through tools like astrology and human design, yet neurodivergence sometimes feels a little bit like crunchy and disempowering. And when I sit with that,

I recognize that it's the internalized ableism and it's the way the world has portrayed neurodivergence and autism in ADHD to me, right? So it's me not necessarily even seeing myself. So having that self doubt, like I don't feel like I'm autistic enough because I don't fit into the stereotype, I don't fit into the box that's been modeled to me. Yeah, it's interesting. Ah, take a deep breath because I

feel like that's like a lot if you're like, holy shit, I've never thought of it that way. I know it is a lot. And I think the systems that we live and play in, they are working marvelously, right? All by design. They don't want us to see ourselves. They want us to continue to feel shame and to suppress this part of ourselves because this part of ourselves is a threat. Just like being in connection and in embodiment with our menstrual cycle and our cyclical nature is also a threat.

It's a threat to the systems that currently have control. And I just wanna offer that too as an anchor point. And is it really disempowering then? Or is it just that the world has wanted you to believe that it is? Okay, moving into the third phase, the last phase, the return. The return, like I said, is that integration,

that coming home to yourself. Obviously, you can see there's blurred edges here, right? It's not just overnight you enter a different phase. This is like just organically happening. And so the return phase is what I would say, like when you begin to step into that full expression of who you really are, of your neurodivergent health.

It's where you stop seeing it as something wrong and start really seeing it as something brilliant and something that you're not trying to shame or hide anymore. And it might not even be that you see it all as brilliant. I want to speak on that because I think there's a lot of people out there that are all like, oh neurodivergence is a superpower, autism is a superpower, ADHD is a superpower, and yeah, parts of it are. But I think when we ride that train too far one way, we end up gaslighting the parts that are still really hard and challenging. And again, this is a sneaky way that internalized ableism comes up because I think we tell ourselves, this is a superpower, these are the strengths, this is my brilliance, like this is all I'm going to see, I'm only going to look at the brilliance and the

superpower side of me. It's because you're still shaming the parts of you that aren't a superpower, you're still shaming the parts of you that are facing real challenges and that need accommodations and help and resourcing. It's a sneaky thing but beginning to just see all parts of yourself and not even naming them all as brilliant but really just that acceptance, that tender love of like non-judgment and compassion the same way we would give a child. And again this is why I think my daughter has been such a beautiful mirror for me, is because I see her challenges and I just meet them. I tend to them, right?

It's not about fixing or pretending they don't exist or changing her so that she's like less of a burden. Like that just is not even vocabulary in my world right now. That's not how I see it all. We just meet her. And I'm wondering, can we do the same thing to ourselves? So anyways, this return is about reconnecting to your trueness, your body's natural wisdom, your natural pace, your natural rhythms. And like I said, it's not all going to be hunky dory. There's going to be parts that feel really clunky. There's

going to be parts that feel like they're a real challenge. And I also want to come back to this idea of a disability where it's not that you are disabled. It's not that parts of you aren't working. It's that the world around you, the environment that you are trying to live and exist in, isn't supportive of your needs. Right? It right? This sounds like such a stupid example, but it'd be like you're trying to put a piece of bread in the microwave to toast it. It's just not gonna work. It's gonna heat it up,

but you're constantly gonna have this soggy bread, and are you gonna get mad at the bread, or are you gonna get mad at the microwave? The environment needs to support the thing that we are doing. I told you that was a really bad example. What else do I want to say here? I think my own story. So for me, beginning to return to, and I wanted to use the word return really intentionally here, right? Coming back to the caterpillar to a butterfly versus like the snake shedding its skin example. This really is versus like the snake shedding its skin example.

This really is more of a snake shedding its skin. You're not becoming someone new. You are returning to who you've always been at your core. It wasn't like late onset neurodivergent, okay? It late identified. You are just realizing later on that holy shit, this is who I am, but you've always been that way. And that in itself carries a lot of grief. You are just realizing later on that holy shit, this is who I am, but you've always been that way.

And that in itself carries a lot of grief. That in itself is a huge clusterfuck, confusion wave to hold and navigate. For me, the phase of return really was about, or I shouldn't even speak to it as if it's over. I think this is going to be a lifelong phase. I think all three of these will continue to come up in different facets. But for me, the return is beginning to make the accommodations in my life, beginning to allow myself to be seen in this identity, kind of coming out of the closet and saying,

myself to be seen in this identity, kind of coming out of the closet and saying, I'm neurodivergent, or voicing my needs to friends and family and saying, I need help with this, or I don't know, like passing off the grocery list to my husband because I know my executive functioning when it comes to grocery shopping and cooking and stuff literally is non-existent. And so instead of shaming and judging myself for really struggling with that, I just allow someone to help me. It's accommodating myself. Going downstairs and all of the lights are in the kitchen is overstimulating as fuck. I turn the fucking lights off. Wow. What a mind blowing moment. Like that would have been something that I would have just swallowed up because someone else had turned the lights on and didn't turn them off. It's like those micro moments of how can you meet yourself in this moment. And again, this is like a lifelong

journey. You are constantly learning more about how to meet yourself each day. But the important piece here is that witnessing aspect. And I put a pin on this earlier in the conversation of how important it is to be witnessed in this new identity, because identity is twofold. That's how you see yourself, but it's also how others see you. And I think to be able to fully step into the identity, we need to be witnessed by others so they can reflect back to us and confirm and validate what we're feeling inside. This is really huge. Like, okay, when you look at like traditional rite of passage work,

which by the way, we don't really even have in our culture, depending on if you like white mainstream North American culture, what I live in, like we don't really have a lot of rite of passage work anymore. What we do have would be like a wedding, right? That's a rite of passage. That's a ritual and a ceremony

of being single to being married and it's celebrated. There's the witnessing, people see you getting married and then they're able to now see you as a married woman. Same with birth, right? People see you pregnant, they are probably not witnessing your birth, but they're then witnessing you with a baby on your hip instead of a baby in your belly. There's a witnessing there. And so that witnessing part is really important in an identity shift. Staying in the closet keeps you in a peripheral phase.

And so why I'm naming this is I think this is potentially the most uncomfortable piece for a lot of people when looking at neurodivergence as a rite of passage. It's really hard to be seen in this new identity because for most of us we've been masking our entire lives. And so again, my story, my husband and I have been married for a long time. We've known each other since grade four. We have a core friend group that has been with us and witnessed our relationship and us as individuals since literally like elementary and high school. And so my core community of family and friends

have known me for decades. All they've known though is the masked version of Nicole. And again, there's grief that comes with that, right? Because I'm recognizing all the times and all the places that I've betrayed myself and abandoned myself and put on a mask to try to fit in or be accepted or be perceived as someone that has their shit together. But I can't fully become that new identity if I'm not allowing the parts of my unmasked self to be seen. And again, I want to say this is not an overnight thing. This happens probably over a lifetime. But I do want to name that in the context of entrepreneurship, if that's where you're

at, this is exactly why I've created Unruly. Unruly is an eight week roundtable and business lab for coaches, doulas, and healers. And I've been thinking about my own journey and looking at neurodivergence through the lens of a rite of passage while creating this and realizing that, wow, so many of us are in this phase of liminality. We're still sitting with all these questions. We're still working through internalized ableism. So the roundtable aspect of Unruly is really meeting us there. It's meeting us in that introspection and those questions, but it's also weaving in the phase of return in the sense of having a community to witness you in.

Right? That's where it starts. You don't have to go full on like scream out of the closet, have a t-shirt made saying I'm autistic and I've been masking my entire life. That is edgy as fuck to your nervous system. Don't do that unless you really want to. Don't feel like that's how you have to return. What's actually more gentle and soft is surrounding yourself with people that are going through something similar to you, who are also going through their own rite of passage and their own becoming and return of their truest nature. Because that feels safer to

the nervous system to be seen by other people who get it. And that's where you actually begin to see yourself too, by other people folding up a mirror. So that's really what the core of Unruly is all about. It's specific to coaches, do-los, and healers because I'm really interested in how do we weave in and integrate our neurodivergent part into our business? How do we create businesses that actually align and support our truest nature instead of constantly asking us to self-betray and self-abandon?

Because I would say that in the online space, like masking happens, whether you're neurodivergent or not. But as a neurodivergent person, you are probably more susceptible to masking. You're more hyper vigilant. You're more in tune to how to fit into this world and how to be successful in the online space. And so I think it's really important that we are grounding into our true sense so that

we can fully express and not be abandoning ourselves online because that's ultimately how we can create safe and genuine connections and attract the right people into our offers and into our business ecosystem. We don't want people being attracted to our masked self. We want to be able to show up as ourselves in relationship to our community. That feels like a mouthful. I didn't want this conversation to become a pitch into my program and also this is it, right? This is why I created Unruly and I want you to know that it's there for you if you feel like this is where you're at in the season of life, the season of business, and the season

of coming into a relationship with your own neurodivergence. Unruly begins on May 1st, it's eight weeks. The links are in the show notes. So I invite you to check that out if that resonates for you.