NEURODIVERGENCE COACHING

I grew up acutely aware of the impact of disability on work, life and personal agency. My father was BiPolar, a condition which wasn’t adequately managed until my late teens and eventually led to the end of his career as a barrister. My younger sister has pronounced intellectual disabilities and is autistic. 

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I was the Gifted One in my family, the only one of my four siblings to achieve academic excellence in their teens, and I was praised and given special treatment for this. Although in my family in the 80s/90s we didn’t use that word Disabled at all, the message was clear: Clever = Good, Disabled = Not Good.

 

By the time I got to university, the executive function challenges and slow processing speeds which had been overlooked during my school years began to take over, but I didn’t know how to ask for help.

 

I didn’t know I was ALLOWED help. I had my first burnout experience and left one of the best universities in the world with a 2:2 degree, disappointed and at a low ebb of confidence in myself.

 

I fell into a career in multi-stakeholder Arts Management at a London-wide level, first focussed on disabled artists then on excluded audiences. Both jobs immersed me in the politics of privilege and marginalisation. I didn’t realise that I was already laying the foundations of understanding on which I would later build my career. 

 

In addition to a growing social consciousness, I was learning how to create a vision and bring it into reality. My first job involved 6-figure fundraising. My second job allowed me to evaluate and oversee innovative projects and make the link between good design and successful execution.

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Piecing it Together

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In my spare time I was following the breadcrumb trail of personal enquiry which would eventually lead me to where I am today. By 28 I knew two things: I wanted to raise confident, self-actualised children, and I wanted my work to focus on bringing out the greatness and creative force in individuals.

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I deliberately birthed both of my children without any medical staff present. It wasn’t a difficult choice for me (and I had a wonderful team available for my first child if I wanted it.) I simply knew that it was the right path. In taking radical responsibility when the stakes are - literally - life and death, I discovered the liberating power of crystal clear intention and confidence in my ability to partner with the flow of life.

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I trained as a coach and began seeing clients part-time while raising - and intermittently home educating - my two boys, who it turns out are both neurodivergent (surprise!). ​

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By 2016 I was confounded by how hard I was finding day to day life when I knew my IQ to be near genius level smart. I began revisiting previously dismissed questions around my own neurotype, which turned out to be the missing piece.

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​​A time of change​

 

By 2020 I had an autism diagnosis and was beginning to help a number of clients come to an understanding of their own neurotype as part of the natural flow of our conversations.. 

 

What I was noticing - both in myself and my clients - was the dissonance between intelligence/giftedness and day to day capacity, the confused sense of self that resulted and the profound struggle that this was creating in terms of moving forward.

 

I read everything I could about neurotype, and immersed myself in the science of Flow, seeing this as a crucial “way in” for my brain and life to operate well. Within a year I had shifted my practice to focus exclusively on this area, seeing a gap in the conversation around neurodivergence, giftedness and ambition.

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Where I am today

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I believe that the differences in functioning we experience as autistic/adhders - while challenging at times - are not the most disabling aspect of the neurotype. 

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We learn to adapt to our environment in ways which put us at odds with ourselves. Over time, we forget how to function in harmony with our natural easeful way of being. To the extent that this is true for you, the friction this creates will slowly wear you down and may, in the long run, lead to burnout and even chronic health issues.

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It's a myth that you have to be perfect in order to be able to succeed. You do not have to wait til your timekeeping is impeccable or your to-do list is ticked off to be allowed to move to the next level of engagement and fulfillment in your work.

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You already know how to do the things you love doing - and do them wonderfully well. Success depends on finding the conditions (internal and external) that allow you to operate at your best in a consistent way. Maybe that’s a three day week. Maybe that’s a change in workplace.

 

Maybe it's a long series of small-but significant tweaks which stack, one on the other, to enable you to operate from a place of ease. Or maybe that’s a big leap in your sense of self and your belief in your own ability.​​