The @neurodiverse.voices.podcast I recorded with Andreia Costa just over a week ago will air in the autumn 🍁 more details to come.
 
I loved speaking with Andreia about the NdC Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach Course I designed & facilitate, the journey & impact of late #autism diagnosis, menopause & much more!
 
Grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to this super podcast 🤝
 
#educateevolveembody #bodymind #diversity #depathogise #rehumanise 

Oxford Health BRC Neurodiversity Conference

Friday 19 September at 9:30 am - Saturday 20 September at 4:30 pm

This two-day public event across two locations will bring together researchers, clinicians, local organisations, and the neurodivergent community to collaborate and drive meaningful change.

Conference Themes:

Strengthening partnerships across research, community, and organisations

Advancing mental health research and support for neurodivergent individuals

Promoting inclusivity, innovation, and long-term impact

Day 1: Identifying Gaps and Advancing Mental Health Research (Saïd Business School)

Identifying Gaps and Advancing Mental Health Research

Featuring flash talks, panels, and lived experience speakers across the lifespan.

Day 2: Community Support, Advocacy, and Lived Experience (Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital)

Community Support, Advocacy, and Lived Experience

Includes workshops, mindfulness, and discussions on practical support and research engagement.

The ticket sales webpage is now live on the Autism Champions @autismchampions website

Early Bird Tickets Now on Sale! £35 for a limited time (£50 after sale ends)

Each ticket includes refreshments and lunch.

Please contact event organisers with any queries: [email protected]

Thank you Andreia Costa @neurodiverse.voices.podcast for inviting me, as @ndconnectionuk Development Lead, to be a panel speaker on the Friday - looking forward to it.

#neurodiverdiversity #bodymind #diversity #research #livedexperience #coproduction #changemakers 

Guide to PBS and ABA for professionals, parents and caregivers - a Neurodiverse Connection Original Resource

As part of our #AgainstPBSandABA you can download the PDF for free here 👇 please share.

"Furthermore, PBS embeds the fawn response, which is a trauma response in which individuals comply, appease, and people-please to avoid conflict or punishment. This behaviour can lead to a lifelong pattern of compliance and makes individuals more vulnerable to coercive control, with serious consequences for both mental and physical health. When an external stressor or threat to our nervous system overrides our natural fight-or-flight responses, we may feel compelled to appease authority and "perform" for those in power. This can trap us in a state of functional freeze—a survival mode in which we disconnect from our authentic selves. 

The long-term effects of these interventions go beyond personal distress; they serve a larger societal function. By producing individuals who comply without question, who do not challenge authority, and who prioritise external validation over internal autonomy, PBS ensures a workforce that neatly fits within capitalist structures. This is not about empowerment or self-actualisation—it’s about creating sanitised, obedient individuals who do the bidding of those in power."

Extract from my Neurodiverse Connection blog 'Positive Behaviour Support: discovery, reflection and radical rethinking' which is part of our #AgainstPBSandABA campaign

The Interdisciplinary Witch Conference: Culture, History and Society
York St John University @yorkstjohn Friday, 20 June

Super excited to be delivering a presentation, Gender, Power, and Witchcraft: Women's ‘Spelling’ Lived Experience Storytelling, discussing the four @girlgodbooks anthologies I co-edited, at this progressive & exciting event

Interested? Details & how to book a ticket below 👇

Witches have occupied the academic imagination across disciplines and have in recent years become a rebellious feminist trope. From medieval trials to modern feminist reclamations, from folklore to popular media, witches embody resistance, transformation, and power. Whilst there is lively debate about the meaning and extent of the European and American witch trials and a burgeoning cultural milieu in which the trope of the witch is explored, there is also a growing interest in the practice of witchcraft as an individualised spirituality. This free interdisciplinary conference will explore the figure of the witch in all its historical, literary, sociocultural, political, and spiritual dimensions

#educateevolveembody #embodiment #spirituality #depathologise #rehumanise #interdisciplinary #witch #storytelling #livedexperience

​Someone asked me this week to comment on Neurodivergence being a difference rather than a disability.

My answer. It's both.

Neurodivergence is a difference - a natural variation of the human bodymind and is a disability due to the way society is currently structured, institutions and workplaces operate and the socially constructed attitudes of normal we collectively adhere to.

I can hold both realities to be true.

Being multiply Neurodivergent I am both disabled in the pathologising and dehumanising society and structures we currently live in

And ..

Am a different but natural variation of human bodymind.

#educateevolveembody #embodiment #spirituality #depathologise

​This coming Tuesday I will complete the 8 week evening facilitation of the first spring/summer Neurodiverse Connection NdWA for Individuals Cohort & begin facilitating the 4 week half day NdWA for Practitioners Cohort 🎉

There's one cohort left with a few spaces to book this season - NdWA for Individuals - which starts Tues 27th May & runs on a Tues evening for 8 weeks 👇

What is the Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach course?

The Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach is a holistic, Neurodivergent-friendly wellbeing curriculum that offers education and practical strategies for Neurodivergent individuals, their family members, friends, caregivers, and professionals who support them.

This programme is based on the concept of ‘experience to share’ and is designed to promote the wellbeing of participants, which they can then share with those they care for and support.

Find out more or book now 👇
https://ndconnection.co.uk/ndwatraining

#educateevolveembody #embodiment #spirituality #depathologise #rehumanise #neurodivergent #wellbeing

The alternative.

Reflecting on this month's series of posts addressing the intersection of consciousness, psi & psychic abilities, ESP, neurodivergence, trauma, nervous & sensory systems (yep it was lot ...scroll back through my feed), I've been considering what an alternative support, health & education service would look like.

The alternative to the mind/logic dominant, top-down, medicalised, pathologising, dehumanising, paradigm we have been operating & living within.

From my lived personal & professional experience, the alternative would include:

Earlier appreciation & understanding sensory (&extra sensory) processing & perception differences

Acceptance, validation, role modelling & mentorship around how to live well regardless of bodymind human diversity &difference 

To be neither labelled superhuman & gifted nor medicalised & pathologised 

To be taught from preschool through to university:

physical, sensory, social, energetic & psychic boundaries (& have them respected)

how our nervous systems work & how to support regulation

how to safely release survival energies & stress

how to ground - energetic & psychic hygiene

how I can contribute to society & where our skills would be valued

conflict management & resolution skills

To receive a holistic education that integrates mind, body, energy, & spirit—encompassing a variety of worldviews and accommodating different ways of knowing—from externally regulated, trained teachers who have both academically studied this modalities & possess lived experience mastery.

Rehumanising spaces across society - making places humane, hospitable, humanitarian, low-arousal, sensory-friendly

Integrating relational & regulatory principles into workplaces, along with the values of connection, belonging, creativity, flexible working arrangements, role carving, & strengths-based recruitment.

This would be a start.
​
#educateevolveembody #embodiment #spirituality #depathologise #rehumanise

Do I think I'm special, gifted or 'superhuman' in experiencing clairvoyance, claircognisance, clairsentience & clairtangency? NO!

Do I think that I have clear & direct access to these (very human) psychic abilities because I'm multiple neurodivergent? YES!

Do I think they are a pathology? NO!

Do I think that humans have a diverse range of bodymind experiences, abilities, skilled, senses across neurotype & life circumstances? YES!

Do I think they need 'treatment' or 'curing'? NO!

Do I think that trauma can 'activate' people's psychic abilities? YES!

Do I think they are a medical or psychiatric 'problem'? NO!

I could go on ...

Yes, psychic emergence can cause a huge amount of distress & destabilisation but these abilities are not inherently a problem or pathology.

It's societal attitudes & a lack of support that is the problem.

And the spiritual 'industry' - that's a BIG problem (for another post!) But unfortunately that's the only place people can go outside of religion and psychiatry at the moment - also the problem.

So, what to do?

Depathologise and rehumanise. Educate the person about what is happening. Help them make sense of the experiences & find meaning. Deescalate & normalise. Support regulation & embodied, felt-sense safety. Resolve trauma & educate about the nervous system. Ground & stabilise. Teach the person boundaries in relation to these abilities. Support mastery.

Bridge, anchor & root these abilities & skills into the mundane.

Encourage people & workplaces to integrate these abilities into their daily lives in practical, innovative ways - to support societal change & systems evolution.

Education, health, mental health, spiritual & community care services - DO ALL OF THIS 👆

#educateevolveembody #embodiment #spirituality #depathologise #rehumanise

​Our human need for & experience of meaning, purpose, belonging & connection (to something greater than ourselves)

The quality of being concerned with the spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things

I depathologise & educate about our spiritual needs & experiences & advocate for them to be met across society & institutional spaces.

#educateevolveembody #spirituality