The Neurodivergent Experience

Episode: Mindful Mondays With Ashley Bentley: The Power of Presence & Radical Acceptance

Release Date: September 7, 2025
Host: Ashley Bentley (with regular hosts Jordan James & Simon Scott, The Neurodivergent Experience)

Episode Overview

This special Mindful Mondays installment is led by Ashley Bentley, a neurodivergent therapist and meditation teacher, who introduces listeners to the power of presence and radical acceptance—especially tailored for neurodivergent audiences. Ashley reframes mindfulness, explores constructs like “the second arrow” from Buddhism, and closes with a guided meditation, all through the lens of lived neurodivergent experience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing Mondays & the Purpose of Mindful Mondays

• Intent of the segment: Shift the common dread of Mondays into feelings of presence, peace, and purposeful beginnings.
• Ashley’s Role: Introduces herself as a neurodivergent hypnotherapist and regular contributor (01:11), sharing that her own experience with autistic burnout inspired her deep dive into the science and wisdom underlying the neurodivergent experience of mindfulness.

"Our unique brains and bodies are taking in so much of the world around us at any given moment, our poor nervous systems are so regularly overloaded that we are experiencing an epidemic of autistic burnout...But the great news is my own experience of burnout kicked off a new special interest for me."
— Ashley Bentley (03:05)

2. Making Mindfulness Accessible to Neurodivergent Brains

• Challenge with typical mindfulness advice: The phrase "be in the now" can be frustrating or counterproductive for neurodivergent thinkers.
• What Presence Really Means:
  • Not forced calm, emptiness, or even positive feelings.
  • Is: Noticing what is here without judgment or a compulsion to fix.
  • Cites Buddhist concept of equanimity and Ram Dass’s idea of "cultivating the witness."

"Be in the now. I am in the now! That’s my problem. My now is messy, it’s noisy and it’s full of tabs open in my brain."
— Ashley Bentley (05:51)

• Ashley normalizes that presence can mean noticing fidgeting, sensory overload, or randomness—the real content of neurodivergent minds.

3. Bite-Sized Buddhism: The Second Arrow

• Second Arrow analogy:
  • The first arrow: inevitable pain/discomfort.
  • The second arrow: our psychological reaction, resistance, or story (which often intensifies suffering).
  • Radical acceptance is choosing not to fire the second arrow.

"Most of us can’t avoid the first arrow, but the second one—that’s optional."
— Ashley Bentley (11:40)

• Acceptance Redefined:
  • Acceptance isn’t resignation or giving up.
  • It is courageously seeing things as they are and not wasting energy fighting reality.
  • Acceptance allows the nervous system to settle and moves us out of a reactive state.

"Now I see acceptance as something entirely different. I see it as a strength. I see it as courage. The courage to really see what’s in front of you without immediately trying to twist it, fix it, or run from it."
— Ashley Bentley (09:51)

• Self-acceptance:
  • Especially vital for neurodivergent people.
  • "Acceptance is not weakness. It is our path to power." (17:01)

4. Presence as a Neurobiological Pathway

• Neuroscience of presence:
  • When we accept, threat detection goes down, cognitive clarity goes up.
  • Moving forward gives us a dopamine hit ("We don’t wait for the dopamine first—the dopamine comes when we move forward." (13:52))
• Mindfulness simplified:
  • Not about loving every moment, but about not resisting or needing to fix everything.
  • Counterintuitively, letting things just "be" lets their power over us dissipate.

"The more we resist something, the more it resists us. But when we accept it, even if we don’t like it, we stop feeding it energy. And slowly, gently, it loses its grip."
— Ashley Bentley (15:34)

5. Integration: Lived Experience, Practicality & Hope

• Ashley’s voice is both validating and practical, repeatedly noting:
  • You don’t have to "master" presence, just visit it.
  • Presence means space for everything—the mess, the noise, the quirks.
  • Starts with micro-steps ("Microdosing Meaning") and adaptable to different neurotypes.

"You just have to visit [presence]. Like checking in on a trusted friend who doesn’t mind if you’re messy."
— Ashley Bentley (18:45)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On resistance and acceptance:

  "Acceptance doesn’t mean we like a situation, and it doesn’t mean we don’t act to change it. Just means we stop wasting precious energy fighting what’s already happened." (10:50)

• On the paradox of self-acceptance:

  "Without self-acceptance, peace remains out of reach." (17:10)

• Guided meditation send-off:

  "You are both the seeker and the sought. You are both the dreamer and the dream. And the path is the destination." (20:20)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:11 — Introduction to Mindful Mondays & Ashley’s Background
• 05:00 — Reframing Presence for Neurodivergent Minds
• 08:45 — Importance & Real Meaning of Acceptance
• 10:45 — Explaining the Second Arrow Story
• 13:30 — Neuroscientific Reasons for Acceptance
• 15:25 — The Paradox of Allowing
• 17:00 — Self-Acceptance and Neurodivergence
• 18:45 — Permission to Not Be Perfect with Presence
• 19:50 — Guided Meditation Begins
• 20:20 — Meditation Closing Thoughts

Guided Meditation (19:50–21:50)

• Practical, open, and nonjudgmental. Ashley invites listeners to notice whatever happens—sensory details, thoughts, and even resistance.
• Key focus: You don’t need to "do" anything, just let the present exist as it does.

Conclusion & Next Steps

• Ashley closes with:
  • A heartfelt invitation to bring presence and radical acceptance into daily life.
  • Teases that the next episode will explore the concept of time as a misunderstood "dance partner."
  • Encourages listeners to “start soft and stay steady.”

Perfect for:

• Neurodivergent listeners seeking a refreshing take on mindfulness.
• Anyone overwhelmed by “be in the now” advice.
• Listeners searching for neuroscience-informed, compassionate self-care tailored for atypical minds.

"You’ve just trained your attention not to eliminate chaos, but to stop feeding it."
—Ashley Bentley (21:45)