Celebrating 21 years as a professional writer and in practice, I (Self care coach, supervisor and trauma therapist, Eve Menezes Cunningham) share 21 lessons I've learned in hopes of saving you years or even decades in your own trauma and ADHD recovery journey.

From my early days discovering "you're not broken" to advanced insights about nervous system regulation and embodied healing, I reveal what really works (and what doesn't), why your body's wisdom trumps any technique, how trauma healing can be gentle, and why following your life force is the ultimate GPS.

These aren't just textbook theories. Whether you're a practitioner, on your own healing journey, or simply curious about what actually creates lasting change, this anniversary episode offers ideas to help you transform how you approach your own self-care, wellbeing and personal growth. And, if you have one, your own practice.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

It might be joy, it might be gratitude, it might be anger, it might be pain, it might be sadness, it might be jangly anxiety, it could be anything at all, but the more you get into the habit of connecting with your life force, connecting with your energy, connecting with your charge, connecting with your prana, your chi, it makes everything much easier.

You don't need all the theory, you don't need all the tools, all you need to do is connect with yourself and ask yourself, what do I need? What will help me right now? What am I feeling? What is that an indication of?

And it becomes a beautiful, exciting language, learning your own body, learning your own energy.

Hi, you're listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast and I'm your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham.

To find out more about the podcast, access free resources, find out different ways in which we might work together, events coming up, the book, full show notes for each of the episodes, including transcripts and links, you can go to thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com or selfcarecoaching.net and let me know if you've got any questions.

There's a lot there, but I hope that all the resources are easily accessible for you. Whether or not you get in touch with me there's loads and loads you can do yourself. And with that in mind, I want to start today's episode, which is celebrating my 21st business birthday today.

And essentially, you don't need me or anyone else to remember how to trust yourself. That being said, I can help. I love doing these podcast episodes. I love sharing through my writing, through all the different ways in which I work, sharing some of the things that have helped me as well as many of the things that I work with in my private practice and with groups. Because we have access to a world of resources and ancient wisdom being proved by modern neuroscience.

We have so much available to us. And I thought with that in mind, I would share 21 of my lessons and blessings from 21 years in business. I hope it helps you, but I also never want you to forget that you already have everything you need within you.

You don't need me. You don't need anyone else. And what we listen to, what we watch, what we pay attention to, it helps us. It can, where we put our attention has quite a big impact. So I am hoping that my work does help you, even if we've never met or I've never heard from you.

1) I want to start with number one, which is something I wish I'd known when I was starting out. I had a suspicion and everything I initially trained with was to save my own life. But the fact that you're not broken, no matter how much your trauma history or your ADHD brain tries to convince you otherwise, you are not broken. You are worthy. You are lovable. You're not too much and you are enough and you deserve all the goodness life has to offer. So if you stop listening now, I hope you remember that.

2) I've made a note of Cheryl Richardson, who was, she still is one of my favourite authors. She was booed on Oprah decades ago for having the temerity to suggest that the audience should be taking care of themselves. She kind of popularised the idea of self-care and yeah, she was booed by lots of mums who had been conditioned to say, No. Now, everyone talks about the oxygen mask and on an aeroplane, you sort yours first, you make sure you're OK. You can breathe before you look after any dependents. Great.

Of course, everyone wants to make sure that other people are safe as well. But I want you to also consider the fact that you, even if you don't have dependents, even if you're just getting your oxygen mask for yourself, you are worthy. I love Cheryl Richardson's approach and she was an enormous inspiration to me early on.

I wouldn't have believed that I'd still be doing this and I'd be loving it even more 21 years later. But I just had a bit of a flicker of the light behind. So yeah, easily distracted ADHD brain.

She is such a gentle presence. Her books are so lovely. And I think for me, even though she was on Oprah, and obviously I was starting out as a coach and complimentary therapist back in 2004, it was her gentle approach. I didn't have the words for it then, therapeutic coaching. And I trained as a coach before I trained as a therapist. So I wasn't doing that yet.

It became what I call self-care coaching. Where I integrate all my offerings, including the yoga, the NLP, the EFT, all of it. But back then she was the only one who... I thought I knew that my coaching was working. I knew it was helping me. I knew it was helping my clients. But when you'd see coaches in the public eye back then, they tended to be very Tony Robbins, who I also love, but very much not my vibe. So yeah, I just wanted to name her as an enormous lesson and blessing.

And also Martha Beck, who I later got to interview, which remains one of my favourite interviews, but just their gentleness and their wisdom. And I'm not suggesting that the more dynamic coaches weren't like that. But I think Martha Beck also was my introduction into working with the body long before I actually started working with the body, because...

This is Mighty Meadbh. I don't know if she's going to say Hello.

I remember her having me and other people in the group identify a really simple, basic way, I'll go into it with the Sole to Soul Circle. To just listen to the body's wisdom, which is always there. This was before I trained as a yoga therapist, before I did any of the somatic work that I do, but it was a real revelation.

So definitely there.

3) And that's what I'm saying, really, when I say number three, you know yourself best, you can trust yourself, you may well have, especially with trauma, especially with ADHD, have been conditioned into believing that you need outside information and outside dictators, like kind of didactic, telling you what to do, how to do everything. Learning how other people have done it can be really helpful, checklists, body doubling, all sorts of things, all of this can be really helpful.

But you don't need it, you know yourself, you know what feels good, you know what doesn't. And the more I've learned, and the more... can you hear her purr?

The more I understand about the nervous system and Polyvagal Theory and how we're wired to thrive when we feel safe, welcome and loved. And with trauma, with ADHD, you may well have been conditioned out of it, but it's never too late to relearn, to notice what feels good, move towards that, what doesn't, move away from that.

4) Feel Better Every Day. I liked the name because it had my name in it, Eve, and it just felt positive.

But I was always careful to avoid toxic positivity, encouraging people to welcome the full emotional landscape. And recognising it's a bit like when you go to the gym, or if you're doing anything fitness-related. As we build muscle, we're breaking muscle down. With personal development work, with trauma recovery, with the Self Care Coaching, with befriending your ADHD brain, a lot of the time you'll feel better after watching a video, or listening to a podcast, or doing one of the exercises I shared, or for people who work with me one-to-one or in groups. But it's not always the case. Healing isn't linear.

It's not like Woohoo! But I think for me, even knowing that I was learning things that were helping me enjoy life and want to be alive, Feel Better Every Day just felt like a lovely name.

5) Following your life force, your charge, your prana, your chi. Again, it's so body-based, and it's energy-based, and it's recognising, in any given moment, where you feel most alive. And it might be joy, it might be gratitude, it might be anger, it might be pain, it might be sadness, it might be jangly anxiety. It could be anything at all.

But the more you get into the habit of connecting with your life force, connecting with your energy, connecting with your charge, connecting with your prana, your chi, it makes everything much easier.

You don't need all the theory. You don't need all the tools. All you need to do is connect with yourself and ask yourself, what do I need? What will help me right now? What am I feeling? What is that an indication of? And it becomes a beautiful, exciting language, learning your own body, learning your own energy.

6) The embodiment, the embodied wellbeing element. And I think it was a huge lesson and blessing to learn that it was safe for me to be in my body. Like I say, all the things I trained in initially, they were to help me.

Start however small you need. There's a