This conversation with Kristina Kyser, PhD (brilliant brave neurodivergent mother of three, former psycho-therapist turned somatic-spiritual educator), came at a moment when all of our nervous systems are feeling deeply rocked by what is happening in our country. It feels (increasingly) impossible to talk about “mental health,” “normalcy,” or “healing” without naming the water we are all swimming in, so we won’t.

In this conversations, we talked about late-in-life neurodivergence many women are waking up to in mid-life, about why so many women feel like something is wrong with them when, in truth, something is deeply wrong with the systems we’ve been shaped inside of.

Her statement that will stick with me: “Normal is a colonial spell.” We explored how the idea of “normal” was built inside patriarchal, colonial, productivity-obsessed systems that require disconnection to function. How those systems pathologize attunement, they medicalize grief, how they call regulation “compliance” and call sensitivity “disorder.”

We talked about what it costs women (especially neurodivergent women), to live inside that distortion. How many of us were trained to mistrust our perception, to override our bodies, and to take responsibility for everything and everyone, while staying endlessly stuck in a cycle of self-improvement.

We talked about trauma, spirituality, the inner child, ancestral memory, midlife awakenings, and the strange moment many women reach where the old strategies simply stop working.And how at its core, healing is not about becoming more tolerable to broken systems. It’s about becoming more loyal to ourselves.

I deeply feel the tides shifting and we’re needing to answer the call to the Collective Care we always needed and deserved. In a time when truth is being distorted, bodies are being policed, and entire communities are being dehumanized, reclaiming our inner authority is not self-indulgent, it’s resistance, protection, and how we stay human. Enjoy the episode, I love us all so much!!

You can access Kristina's incredible work here, including her Neurodivergent Rising Course and Community: https://www.kristinakyser.com/