EP. 158: ADHD and Women: Speak Your Mind, Embrace Your Too-Muchness and Make Some Noise with Andrea Owen
Jan 12, 2022
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Author Andrea Owen discusses embracing 'too-muchness' and empowering women with ADHD. They explore people-pleasing, taking up space emotionally and vocally, and self-compassion. The conversation delves into recognizing ADHD in successful women, embracing unique traits, navigating self-worth and symptoms, and reclaiming self-worth through feminist realizations.
Embrace your 'too-muchness' to overcome societal norms and diminish self-diminishing behaviors.
Prioritize self-compassion to navigate ADHD challenges and maintain balance in decision-making.
Advocate for embracing individual strengths, authenticity, and self-trust to overcome conditioning and societal norms.
Deep dives
Creating Blends for ADHD Brains
Blends, a coaching mix tailored for ADHD brains, offers daily 10-minute sessions. It's designed to ground, reduce overwhelm, and foster positivity. Tracy, the creator, emphasizes hope, optimism, and strengths, aiming to empower individuals to see their brilliance.
Navigating ADHD Diagnosis and Treatment
Andrea Owen shares her recent ADHD diagnosis and discusses related conditions like anxiety and impulse control disorder. She reflects on past struggles, including meltdowns and self-discovery through diagnosis, medication, and understanding her impulsivity.
Challenging Stereotypes and Embracing Feminism
Tracy recounts her journey to embracing feminism through a women's studies class, challenging patriarchal views, questioning conditioning, and advocating for women's voices and rights. She highlights the importance of self-compassion and self-acceptance in navigating societal norms.
Empowering with Self-Compassion
A key approach to successfully living with ADHD, Tracy underscores the significance of self-compassion. Applying self-reflection and consulting trusted individuals before impulsive decisions, like taking up new hobbies, helps maintain balance and self-awareness.
Encouraging Authenticity and Strength
Andrea emphasizes the value of embracing one's 'muchness,' overcoming conditioning, and fostering self-trust, love, and acceptance. She advocates for radical self-curiosity, challenging societal norms, and valuing individual strengths and authenticity.
Many ADHD women are known for being bold, outspoken, and strong-willed, but in a society where those attributes are often reserved for men it can leave us feeling like we're "too much." My guest in this episode, author Andrea Owen, used to let this fear of taking up space prevent her from letting her stand out. In her mid-30s when she started to embrace her "too-muchness" she realized just how much she had been diminishing herself for the comfort of others.
Since then, Andrea has taught hundreds of thousands of women tools and strategies to empower themselves and live their most kick-ass life. Her most recent book, Make Some Noise: Speak Your Mind and Own Your Strength, felt like I was reading something I myself had written; the things Andrea struggled with are exactly the things that I and many ADHDers struggle with as well. Join us for an insightful conversation where we discuss the impact people-pleasing has on ADHD women, the importance of taking up space with our emotions and voice, how to have compassion for ourselves and more. ______________