What if the “missing piece” of your story isn’t a flaw to fix but a new lens that finally makes everything make sense? Katie sits down with coach and community builder Natalie Sharp, who’s preparing for her own ADHD assessment at 40, to unpack why so many women are getting diagnosed later in life and how that knowledge reframes everything from school memories to motherhood.

We talk about the realities of assessment access—like the UK’s right to choose pathway and long waitlists—and the quiet ways inattentive ADHD shows up in girls who are praised for being “good” while struggling to focus, initiate, and finish without a deadline. Natalie explains how perimenopause can unmask symptoms, why rejection-sensitive dysphoria hits so hard, and how unmasking can feel messy before it feels free. The conversation moves from grief and validation to practical emotional regulation, kinder self-talk, and relationship language that lowers the stakes when tensions spike.

Then we go bigger: smashing boxes in education and work that were never designed for nonlinear thinkers. We explore interest-based motivation, hyperfocus, and the value of autonomy, plus the ADHD–autism overlap that can either balance or battle inside one person. Natalie’s support group for neurodivergent women defies stereotypes with its surprising calm—proof that being fully understood is a nervous-system balm. Finally, we turn to intuition. After years of outsourcing decisions to rules and experts, rebuilding self-trust becomes the anchor. Pair the brain’s brilliance with the heart’s whisper and you get alignment—strengths like empathy, creativity, and pattern recognition working on your terms.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re “too much” or “not enough,” this is your invitation to step out of the box and into a life that fits. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the moment that resonated most—we’d love to hear your story.

Connect with Natalie on Instagram Here @intuitive.adhd and links to @step.outofthe.shadows

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Holiday magic feels different when you’re the one stitching it together. We open the curtain on the unspoken rules that push many of us to overfunction through December and show a livable way to trade performance for presence. From the drawer that won’t open to the calendar that won’t quit, this conversation moves from home organization mindset to holiday expectation triage, with practical steps for choosing what matters, skipping what doesn’t, and releasing guilt when you make things smaller on purpose.

We dig into how expectations get installed—family traditions, social media, cultural scripts, and our need to make it special for everyone else—and why midlife is often the first time we question the job description. You’ll hear a simple filter for decisions: non‑negotiables, simplifiable, or skippable. We talk about kid‑centered traditions where your presence isn’t mandatory, the power of naming invisible assumptions before they ruin a moment, and the difference between a meaningful ritual and a habit that just survived. Along the way, we get honest about disappointment, like a beloved Nutcracker outing that didn’t match the picture in our heads, and how speaking needs out loud can rescue the feeling we’re chasing.

If you’re craving calm, you’ll find scripts and strategies: set earlier end times, share hosting, buy dessert guilt‑free, protect sleep on the big nights, and let a half‑decorated tree stand as a love letter to real life. We model for our kids what adult holidays can be—warm, flexible, and human. Schedules change, bedrooms shift, traditions evolve, and that’s not failure; that’s growth. You’re not behind; you’re redesigning a season to fit the life you actually live.

If this spoke to you, share it with a friend who’s feeling the holiday pressure, then follow the show and leave a quick review. Your notes help more 40‑ish listeners find a calmer path through the season.

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A stranger’s outrage in a parking lot shouldn’t have ruined our afternoon—yet it did. That jolt of unfairness, the shock that steals your words, and the endless replay afterward can trap even the most grounded among us. We pull the moment apart with honesty and humor, tracing what actually happens in the body when confrontation hits out of the blue and why silence might be the smartest choice your nervous system makes.

We walk through freeze and fawn responses in plain language, explaining how the thinking brain goes offline and why the perfect clapback arrives hours too late. From there, we explore the deeper layers—midlife confidence colliding with old social scripts, the ache of not correcting the record, and the sticky mix of humiliation and anger that keeps the scene looping. If you’ve ever Googled the rules just to prove you weren’t wrong, you’ll feel seen.

Most importantly, we offer a practical five-step framework to stop letting strangers live rent-free in your head: state reality out loud, separate their behavior from your worth, give yourself credit for staying safe, practice closing the loop, and choose peace over being understood. Along the way, you’ll pick up simple nervous system resets, time-boxed rumination, and language you can use in the moment or on the walk back to your car. Share this with a friend who needs a calm, clear plan for the next unexpected confrontation. Subscribe, leave a quick review, and tell us: which step helps you reclaim your peace fastest?

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