ADHD, Neurodiversity & Yoga: Rethinking How We Practice with Becky Aten

I sit down with Becky Aten to explore neurodiversity, ADHD, and how yoga teachers can create more inclusive and supportive spaces. We discuss the origins of neurodiversity, common misconceptions about ADHD, late-life diagnosis, inclusive teaching practices, and practical ways to better support neurodivergent students in yoga classes.

Episode Highlights:

• Origins of neurodiversity
• Neurodiversity vs. neurodivergence
• Neurodivergent conditions and traits
• Innate and acquired neurodivergence
• Late-life diagnosis experiences
• Understanding ADHD beyond stereotypes
• ADHD in adults
• Gender differences in ADHD
• Hyperfocus and executive function
• Yoga and neurodiversity
• Benefits of yoga practice
• Recognizing student challenges
• Neurodivergence and hypermobility
• Inclusive yoga language
• Avoiding shame in teaching
• Creating neuro-inclusive classes
• Clear expectations and accessibility
• Resources for further learning

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Let's Talk Yoga Podcast. If you are listening to this on the day that it has dropped, it is yoga day. I want to take a moment to celebrate you, your yoga, and I hope the light of yoga continues to shine brightly within you, in your practice, in your life, and in everything else. We have a very special episode with a new guest lined up for you today. But before we get there, I want to take a moment to remind you that my Italy Yoga retreat, prana and presence, is happening September 26th to October 3rd. And I would love for you to come join me and we will enjoy not only yoga, the southern Italy sun, but also a lot of time in a pause and really connecting to our own prana and presence. And I cannot wait to tell you more about this another time. But all the details are in the podcast description. So you can click the link, explore. Just explore the details, even if you are not keen on coming. I'm not sure if I'll do it again, but if you are ready to jump on a plane and roll out your mat with me and our lovely yoga community, I would love to have you. Now let's get to today's episode. I have been wanting to do a conversation about neurodivergence and yoga for a very long time. And we finally got to it. Our wonderful guest is Becky Atin, who came on the show to have this wonderful conversation with us. And there are so many layers you will find this conversation informative as well as eye-opening. I learned so many new things from what Becky was sharing. So Becky wears many different hats. She is not only a neurodiversity advocate, she's also a yoga facilitator, and she's a spaceholder and a bridge builder for the neurodivergent community. She's the founder of Yoga for Neurodiversity and she is passionate about co-creating welcoming, accessible, and affirming environments that lend very well for self-exploration and community care, where diverse ways of being are seen and included. Becky comes on the show to share many different things about neurodiversity. We talk about what are the origins of neurodiversity? What does it actually mean? Where did this term come from? What is the history of neurodiversity? And what comes under the neurodiversity umbrella? Because most people think ADHD and maybe autism, but what else is under this? And how does a yoga teacher who's not trained in neurodiversity stand in front of a class? And what do we look for? How do we be supportive of people with different needs? And how does neurodiversity present in someone who's assigned female at birth and male at birth? And we get very nerdy in this conversation. We also talk about ADHD. We focused on that a little bit in this conversation. There's a lot more, but we could not put everything into one conversation. Then we jump straight into supporting the yoga teacher in a class. What does that look like? What are the different tools we could use? And Becky shares some very actionable items in this conversation. Becky is not a clinician. Okay. So what she shares is really from her own lived experience of being neurodivergent herself and also being a yoga facilitator. We talk about the brain and how the brain perceives specific things. We talk about languaging, we talk about so many things. I had such a wonderful time nerding out with Becky on this conversation. I am sure you will too. I also share where you can find Becky on the internet at the end of this episode. But you can also find all her links in our podcast description and in our show notes, which are at letstalk.yoga forward slash listen. Once again, I hope you have a wonderful time listening to Becky Atin talk to us about neurodiversity, ADHD, and yoga. Hi everyone, I'm Arundati, and you've just tuned in to the Let's Talk Yoga Podcast, your ultimate online destination for learning about yoga. Whether you're a seasoned yoga teacher or a curious yoga student, there's something for you here. Let this podcast be your virtual yoga school. We offer insights, inspiration, and loads of dirty exploration of yoga a lot to it. But first, who am I? I'm an Indian immigrant yoga teacher living in America for the past decade. I have my own yoga teacher in the app. And I'm also a Polywood choreographer, and I've nurtured a timing yoga community at my studio, as well as a global yoga audience to my courses at this podcast. Through this podcast, I intend to create a space for you, the yoga student and yoga teacher, to learn about yoga. Think of this as your online yoga school free teacher training coming to you every week. So grab your cup of chai and let's jump in. Hi Becky, welcome to the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad that you decided to reply to my very cold message on Instagram one day that said, Hey, do you want to come on the show and talk about neurodivergence? So, to give the listeners a little bit of a head start here, we're going to be jumping into understanding neurodiversity in a very simple, approachable capacity. And we'll also talk a little bit about ADHD. So, Becky, to set the stage for us, can we start at the very beginning? The word neurodiversity is something that we've started hearing a lot about. What does this mean? Where does it come from? And why is this distinction between neurotypical and neurodivergent? Why does that matter?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yes. Happy to delve into the history. I'm a little bit of a nerd about this stuff. So I'm hoping people will be interested. The term itself, so neurodiversity, was originally conceptualized back in the 90s, so like the mid-90s. And it was conversations that were happening online amongst autistic activists. So this was autism rights, part of the civil rights disability rights movement. And just to provide a little bit of background context, back in the 1990s, autism was looked at a lot differently, I think, than it is now. There was less known about it. The folks who'd received diagnoses were primarily male and whites, middle to upper class. And it was really looked at oftentimes as something that affected children and families. And for many, many people, it was seen as a tragedy, something that people might even seek to fix or to cure. And of course, children grow up to be adults. So the autistic children grew up to be autistic adults who then started to connect in the early days of the internet, having conversations about the perspective of autism at the time. And I'll I'll kind of offer a quote. So this was a forum online that was primarily autistic activists speaking together. And one of the posters, his name was Tony Langdon, wrote that neurological diversity of people. So for example, the atypical among a society provide the different perspectives needed to generate new ideas and advances, whether they be technological, cultural, artistic, or otherwise. And a lot of this quote, curing needs to be applied to society at large rather than to autistic individuals. So that was kind of the start of this conversation about neurological diversity. You can think of it kind of parallel to biodiversity. When you look at a forest, there's mosses. I love moss. There's trees, there's all the animals, the fungi, everything that works together to create a functioning ecosystem. So similarly, um, neurodiversity, so neurological diversity kind of shortened to neurodiversity was really a way to say that we need all different types of minds, all different types of body minds in order to have a healthy and functioning human society. So if you if you take the word and break it down, neuro pertaining to the nervous system, diversity, variety or differences. And so that's that's neurodiversity in a nutshell. It's the situation. We're all different. We all have different ways of thinking and feeling and moving and connecting, and there's really no one way one right way for a human being to express wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Thank you for that. What typically comes under the neurodiversity umbrella? Because in my own naive understanding, I know ADHD comes under it. Maybe autism also comes under it, but is there more that we are talking about?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Sure. So the neurodiversity umbrella, if you if you will, it actually includes all of us. So it includes all human beings because we are all different. We all fit within that lens of neurodiversity, because you know, no two people have the same genetics or the same lived experiences. Our nervous systems develop differently, we're affected by trauma or the experiences that happen to us throughout our lives. And so that affects our brains. And so I think, you know, if you're if you're looking at neurodivergence, which I haven't defined yet, but I'm happy to do so now, that that is also an umbrella term. So neurodivergent as a as an umbrella term was coined around the year 2000. So this was a separate conversation from neurodiversity. And the person who coined the term, their name is Kasyani Asasumas. They're a multiply neurodivergent activist. And their their purpose in coining this term was to essentially describe anybody who is, quote, neurologically divergent from typical. That's all. So somebody's neurocognitive style, the way of thinking and feeling and moving and connecting with the world around them was significantly different from kind of dominant social or cultural expectations, they might decide to identify as neurodivergent more as a social or political identity, not a medical term or a diagnosis. So it's actually interesting that this language of neurodiversity and neurodivergent has kind of seeped into the clinical world, but it actually didn't originate there. It originated in the lived experience community. So neurodivergent as a term of inclusion for anyone with a nervous system that significantly diverges, means it encompasses a lot of people. We're looking at folks that have what we would consider innate differences. That would be like autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, Down syndrome. There are others. So that's you're you're born that way. You're born differently, you develop differently. Also, it encompasses acquired differences. And these folks with acquired differences are often left out of conversations about neurodivergence when this language is adopted outside of kind of the communities it originated and the original meaning gets lost. So when we talk about acquired neurodivergence, this would be things like PTSD or dementia or you know, what we might call quote like a mental illness. So depression, anxiety. And then there's there are differences or neurodivergences that are both. So if you're familiar with the concept of epigenetics, there might be a genetic component that then gets turned on at some point in a person's lifetime by an event. So thinking about things like schizophrenia is an example, bipolar can be an example of that, where it's sort of like dormant, and then there's something that happens, and the person starts to experience these traits or symptoms. And all of that is considered neurodivergent, even things like fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. So there's actually there's actually quite quite a lot, and some differences come along with a diagnosis or a disability of some kind, whereas other forms of neurodivergence might not. So, example could be synesthesia, if you're familiar with what that means. So it's where the sensory experience kind of gets the wires get crossed in the brain. So somebody might, for example, see colors when listening to music. So there's that's a kind of common example that some people have experienced. Maybe listeners are having that experience. And I think the other thing I want to mention that's really important to know is that folks might fall under this neurodivergent umbrella and not realize it. So you can you can go a long, long time in your life with or without difficulties or struggles or disabilities and not receive a diagnosis like those we've listed, or recognize yourself as neurodivergent. Some people are what's called self-affirmed or self-identified, where they don't get a formal diagnosis, but they recognize that they meet a lot of the criteria.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

You just packed so much in there. I love it. I know you said you're nerdy too, but there's so much in there which is wonderful. I had no idea about this difference between neurodivergent and neurodivergence. For me, they were, to my, for my naive understanding, they were the same. So I'm glad you clarified that. And it's fascinating that how much there is in this entire world. And so you touched upon this. I just want to clarify. So a person can be born neurodivergent, can it can be triggered with some sort of a traumatic event, and or the environment itself can create it. Correct? Am I understanding that? You're 100% correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

And just to add a little bit more nuance to this as well, it is possible for somebody to intentionally become neurodivergent. So this could be, for example, somebody who maybe uses psychedelics heavily and changes the physiological physiology of their brain, changes the physiology of their nervous system to the point where they then significantly diverge from what's what society or or culture considers normal functioning.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

You also mentioned that you know a lot of people don't realize that they are neurodivergent. And we were talking before recording, my husband's neurodivergent, got diagnosed in his mid-40s that he's neurodivergent. I I remember reading your bio that said you also were diagnosed much later in life. And some people do to self-diagnose. They read a bunch of your my my husband got to know about, you know, he went to get it assessed because my brother-in-law was talking about a bunch of things who's also neurodivergent. And he's like, wait a minute, I'm also like that. And that's when he got his diagnosis. And it's been wonderful since, like he's learning how to work within the world very differently. And it's been very nice to witness that. So when I think of neurodivergence, this world of neurodivergence, I think of ADHD. And I've noticed, and also my husband has ADHD, and maybe that's why I'm in those conversations a lot more, but I also think it's kind of the entry point for a lot of people. So growing up, I thought ADHD was, you know, a kid who's very restless, someone who can't sit still. I believe the world has moved considerably from that understanding. So, would you be able to help us understand what is ADHD? And are there any less obvious signs than being restless and hyperactive?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah. So I I myself have an ADHD diagnosis. I was actually in my mid-20s when I was diagnosed. And it was, this was now, oh my goodness, almost 20 years ago. So there wasn't a whole lot of information out there about it. And I also had that same kind of stereotype in my mind of like, you know, kids in school that I knew who had gotten into trouble a lot because they were jumping out of their seat and causing distractions. And for the most part, that didn't describe me. So the way that my the psychologist that I worked with originally back then tried to explain it to me was that my brain had difficulty staying online. And so my so, in order to stay online, stay present, stay focused, I was constantly seeking things that would kind of hold me back in, pull me back in, hold me to the the world that I was sharing with the people around me. So in the ADHD world, in the clinical world especially, there's there is a distinction between hyperactivity and then what is considered more of the inattentive type of ADHD. And when people are diagnosed in childhood, often, and especially if they're assigned male at birth, they're more likely to have those more hyperactive uh sort of behaviors. Whereas as people get older, or for even younger folks who are assigned female at birth, there may those kind of the hyperactivity may be more internalized rather than externalized. And and so that would be more of like the the kind of the lesser understood or appreciated ways that ADHD impacts people. And it's really we're looking at differences in executive functioning primarily, especially when we're talking about difficulties that affect adults who have an ADHD diagnosis. So having that capacity to organize your thoughts and then coordinate that with action, which you know may be relevant for as this conversation carries forward, but like it's bad for capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And so that so we have then those labels that get placed on people of, you know, like they don't pay attention, they're not productive, or they're not productive in the right ways. And then that gets that gets called a disorder again because it's bad for capitalism, but there is a trend. I don't even want to call it a trend, but there is a movement, and that's part of the neurodiversity movement, to shift away from pathologizing differences like ADHD. Instead of calling them disorders, some people will prefer to drop the disorder and just or call themselves an ADHDer rather than a person with ADHD. There's a lot of different preferences around that. But but again, like if we're looking at especially with adults, you're gonna see a lot of challenges just with like daily life for folks who who may not have had the support or haven't yet been diagnosed or self-realized.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I want to tell you a funny story here before I go back to another question, is I love making lists and I'm very on top of it. And that's just how I've operated forever. And now I notice, and I've I've told my husband so so many times, we've been married for like 13 years, known each other for a very long time. And I would always be like, make a list, and he wouldn't. But ever since he's found certain tools and how he works with his ADHD, he makes lists of to-do lists, and he's so excited about it, and he'll talk about it, and he's so he celebrates this, you know, him making these lists, and to me, it's a wonderful thing. And and I and I can catch my own bias in that and being like, it's just a to-do list, but it changes his whole world, and it's so empowering. And we talk about imagine if you got this when you were younger, how how different life would have been. So to me, it's just it when you were talking about that, you always reminded of, you know, every time he makes a list on a weekend and he's like, wait, wait, wait, I gotta put on my list. And I take a deep breath because I've always made lists, but it's also a wonderful thing to celebrate. Can you talk a little more or clarify for me? You mentioned this that uh anyone female assigned at birth, it uh presents very differently. In many ways, it's almost hidden, isn't it? Because it manifests, because I know some women, and even my niece has ADHD, and I I believe it's also hereditary. You can uh get because her dad has it, she has it, it presents very differently.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So, are there any obvious differences between boys, girls, or you know, folks assigned male. female yes so yeah I think and I'll just kind of add a caveat with any of any of this you know we're talking about complex human beings and so so none of these you know kind of profiles if you will are going to be universal they're not always going to apply to everybody so these are just kind of trends or or commonalities that we see with so with boys and we're talking talking about young you know kids they are more likely to be diagnosed I think the last dat I saw is is they're twice as likely to receive a diagnosis as girls because typically they be they get sent to a clinician for assessment due to behavioral issues in school that's kind of the or at home that's kind of the most common way that people get looked at. Whereas when you're looking at so that's more the externalized hyperactive behaviors, the things that are creating we'll quote I'll call air quotes problems for the adults and whereas for folks assigned female at birth girls the experiences that they're having are are more internalized. So it's more of that hyperactive imagination that draws somebody inwards rather than maybe focusing on um again in school maybe focusing on what the teacher is sharing they're creating a world and I'll I'll just kind of speak for myself because that was part of my experience as a child. I had very very rich inner environment that I like to spend a lot of time in because often I was assigned gifted in the gifted classroom and I was often bored in school and so I needed a way to stay awake and of course it also created issues for me because I wasn't paying attention I missed assignments I missed instructions I had to ask over and over and over again you know to repeat instructions. And so those were maybe some hints but nobody picked up in in my childhood that there was ADHD happening. It was just more of yeah I was introverted maybe a little bit flighty. There's a lot of stereotypes that get placed on folks yes yeah and because of that I think the statistic I last read for for women adults who were assigned female at birth I think 60% of those assigned female at birth who are adults with ADHD received their diagnosis in adulthood. So 60% got late diagnosed which is kind of staggering if you think about it just because unless somebody asks you the right questions, how would they know what's happening inside your mind?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

I know I know one of my very good friends she got late diagnosed again in her 40s and she she is I mean she says how I would she was like I wouldn't have struggled so much in life had I known earlier you know and so it is it is very that 60% is a big number. I've also noticed that at least I've noticed with my husband is there can be often I think I think the old stereotype was ADHD you can't focus but I also know there is that they can hyper focus like if he zones in nothing else will come into that zone and I think that's so brilliant sometimes I wish you know we could tap into those super focus zones a little more what's that paradox about yeah well that's that's one of the reasons why some ADHDers reject the idea of the disorder because a disorder essentially has no positive features whereas the ability to hyperfocus really can be a positive thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I hesitate to call it a superpower I don't know know some people who do. And so and it really depends on how interested or passionate a person is about a topic hyperfocus tends to be reserved for things that are really intriguing. People have a lot of curiosity about it and so you go down that you know like the the infamous YouTube rabbit hole is a popular experience for ADHD folks myself included where if if I am interested in a topic I will shut down my a kind of awareness of the environment around me including my internal environment my interoception I will ignore hunker cues bathroom cues I will it's this happens so often in my household where my partner will come up and like have to like touch me or in some way get my attention because he's been calling me for five minutes to let me know dinner is ready and I had like just no idea I'm smiling because that's as you were saying that like you ignore hunger cues, bathroom cues it's literally what I've noticed like I go physically drag my husband out of his his office room because nothing else matters and he'll say five minutes but an hour would have passed you know so so I can completely relate to what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

If we can turn the conversation to yoga okay you said something that I think is really really powerful is you said somewhere that yoga is inherently neurodivergent diversity affirming and it's not always presented that way. Can you unpack that folks?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah I think this conversation has to begin with how we're defining yoga what what are what do we mean when we say yoga because it's can context dependent so in the sense that yoga is inherently neurodiversity affirming but not always presented that way I am I am thinking of yoga as a state of being a state of that connection to true self rather than necessarily talking about kind of the umbrella of practices and traditions and lineages because when you go to a yoga class where it an approach is being offered that's saying for example this is going to fix something about you or if there's a very rigid way of presenting it that isn't going to work for everybody and you're kind of left feeling like that yoga's not for me because this doesn't work for me. That's what I mean by it's not always presented that way. But the the state of yoga is for everyone and I think even more than that like I was just looking through the yoga sutras the other day and I was reminded that like I think it's like book one is somewhere like 32 maybe 32 and beyond there's like a whole list of ways that you can achieve the state of yoga which to me is very neurodiversity affirming because it's not like there's one right way. It's like you can engage in this practice through all these different ways you can focus on this or that or this or that and anything that's uplifting. It kind of like patajally kind of leaves it hanging like whatever works for you. So that's that's in a nutshell what I mean when I say it's inherently neurodiversity affirming just not always presented that way.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

No that's so true and it's so that's so powerful because even the yoga margas, the paths of yoga not everybody can go in only one path. So some will be on the bhakti path some will be on the karma path even the Bhagavad Gita says there are so many different lanes pick your lane so so that kind of lands really well what do you think yoga offers that that other modalities doesn't um well I think inherently especially when we're talking about yoga and neurodivergence there is a tendency for the culture that we live in the society that we live in to instill this message in folks that there's something wrong with us that we're broken or need fixing that that we need to change the way that we are to kind of fit into neuronormative expectations or you know it's just kind of what people expect us to think and feel and remove and connect like and when yoga is presented in a way that does affirm the fact that we're all different and that there's options for everybody, that does I think offer an opportunity for some healing to happen because we're reminded of our wholeness to me to me that's really what the practice of yoga is all about.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

It's it's reconnecting to my wholeness to the fact that I am just like one little teeny speck of a huge universe and it's everything's connected and that's really exciting to me. And I feel that sense of completeness when I'm in the practice and everything else falls away and I'm not focused on my identities or the labels that have been put on me and all those value judgments. And so to me that's the most powerful part of yoga that I think does get missed unfortunately in certain classes studios that are more focused on the physicality the postures asana which you know you can get that from a gym class in a lot of ways you don't necessarily need to go to yoga for that but what you don't get in a gym class is that that connection to spirit to true self to whole yeah beautiful that's very powerful most yoga teachers are not trained in your neurodiversity at all so are there any signals in a group class that students can you know that students that are struggling with how the class is presented can can spot okay is there any anything so so yes I think again a caveat is when we're talking about neurodivergence it's not something that you're necessarily going to be able to see from the outside because so much of that experience is internal. So to to some extent though that there are external cues there are things that you can look for to know that somebody is struggling possibly due to neurodivergence whether or not they are aware and you know and again this also depends on the type of yoga class you're talking about you know the practices that are being offered but if we're talking about the kind of the mainstream modern asana based kind of physical yoga class you might notice some differences in coordination one of the things I think that is probably especially more maybe more so now than ever really important for yoga teachers to know is the overlap between neurodivergence and hypermobility which there is a huge overlap. It's with autism, ADHD and Tourette's it's at least 50% of folks with those diagnoses also are hypermobile and that affects proprioception that affects joint range of motion and so you might see people who either look like they're really really good at yoga naturally because they look like they're flexible but really it's joint hypermobility. Or on the flip side you might see people that really struggle with proprioception. So they might appear clumsier they might have challenges with starting stopping and kind of scaling the movements so they might be looking just different from the people on the mat next to them in the way that they're executing the cues that they're hearing you might also see and this is really common especially in the autistic community people who mirror the instructor exactly with everything just kind of ignoring the verbal cues and just looking at what's happening and following along. So like you know even if I stop to stretch on my own like I'm not necessarily demoing a pose I'll notice the people in the room who are following along and doing that with me. And so that kind of tells me there might be a learning disability of some kind because there's focused more on the visual than the verbal cues. And then you might just also see people fidgeting having a difficult time sitting still during periods of meditation or shavasana. There can be excessive sighing or yawning when the nervous system gets overstimulated you'll see that difficulty with breathing people turning red in the face I'm sure yoga teachers out there have seen plenty of that so it could be for other reasons but neurodivergence is one possibility no that's that's very helpful.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I'll tell you a story something that happened 12 years ago and it was when my studio was I was new to America studio was new and I was leading my first hip opening two hours some intensive something I've never done again but something like that. And I remember there was a student who walked in late and I'd never met her she was just driving by and till today you know that entire episode still stays with me because it was very unique. There were so many so many different signs I I won't go into all the details but one of the things was what you were mentioning. Like she would literally follow what I was doing. So if I went next to her I clearly could tell she needed something different and I was too new back then to everything in yoga teaching not teaching but yoga and I didn't expect this to happen. So I didn't know who I was dealing with. And I would demo something next to her I'd get up and go back to my mat and I would notice she got off her mat and was doing it in the same spot that I was doing it in and it threw me off. And I was like what is happening and I noticed like in Shavasana she was in tears and afterwards back this was back in the day of paper and pen. So when she filled her form her address was it mentioned the local freeway and she kept telling me some traumatic life stories and and and there were many different confusing signs to me. She was even hitting her head while talking to me and I was honestly puzzled by it because I was just caught off guard. And I didn't I remember going back and thinking after that class like what was that? I wasn't able to unpack it. I said maybe some brain injury maybe some other deeply traumatic event that was presenting in a certain way but it stays with me you know but for the one thing I remember she would demo everything in the spot that I did it in. And I just held space for it and I know everybody in the room also just held space for it. But it was today a lot of those things make sense to me 12 years later I never saw her again. She was just driving by and walked into the studio. But yeah I mean there's no there's no question here but just more a sharing can we uh talk about uh language because that's such an important part in the yoga room like I think it's one of our strongest tools are there any words phrases or cueing habits that can accidentally alienate someone or even worse shame a neurodivergent student would there be some better languaging advice that you could share?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah I think one thing we haven't talked about yet in detail is the kind of the social impact of living as a neurodivergent person in a world that isn't necessarily made for neurodivergent folks. So so shame shame can be a big big deal when people are kind of being as I'll give an example of you know from my own experience um I was in a very small yoga class once and this was while I was actually had completed my 200 hour yoga teacher training but I wasn't teaching yet and I sometimes struggle with right and left cueing. I will find myself facing the opposite direction of the rest of the class frequently and most of the time it just it goes by unmentioned or unnoticed nobody says anything. But in this particular class I think because it was a small group and we were kind of chatty throughout the class the teacher called me out and said oh you're on the wrong side and then she added I I'm she's like it's no big deal you're fine I'm just I'm so used to teaching yoga teachers who just know which side to start with and like that added like this kind of moment of like yeah I'm like how do I tell I don't want to say now I'm a yoga teacher because I feel like now I'm supposed to have known which side to start with and you know I recognize that like I know she didn't mean any harm by it but those kind of little comments for somebody like me who was already embarrassed about regularly mixing up my right and left like that just kind of you know hit me right in my my tender heart. And I definitely felt a wall go up where I was a little bit less open after that a little less vulnerable and engaged in the class because I just felt a little bit like a need to protect myself. So um so that's one thing I try to avoid calling anybody out or naming anybody in a class for any reason whether it's you know to to praise or to correct because I I think it's just we just want to be really careful about the messages that we're reinforcing that somebody might also already be internalizing because of past experiences. And along with that I think to neurodivergent folks because of some of the things I mentioned already about differences and awareness of body may be more likely to receive attention from teachers who do physical adjustments, which isn't a problem if it's consensual, but it is a big problem if people aren't being asked if it's okay first. And so I really think it's important for people to have some kind of foundation and understanding and trauma informed approach because so many neurodivergent people overlap with like have overlapping kind of co-occurring experiences and conditions and trauma is a big one. So a lot of people with innate forms of neurodivergence also have like complex post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms that they're dealing with. And so we want to just you know just give people the space to have their own experience without instilling either verbally or nonverbally any sense of value judgment on what that person is practicing or doing on the map.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

So so that would be one example not necessarily language per se but just no it's an important call out yeah yeah yeah yeah I I do not believe in putting your hands on anybody else so so it's a very important call out yeah yeah as far as language goes I part of my work part of what when I say neurodiversity affirming I'm talking about seeing and supporting all ways of being to the best of my ability but we don't know what we don't know and we can't imagine what we can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

So it's like you kind of have to have the experience of listening and talking to people who are different to understand what their experiences are and then you'll start to get a sense of just how different some people are experiencing a pose or a practice. So leaving space for people to have their own experience by avoiding cues that might promise how somebody will feel so this is going to feel really relaxing. I try to avoid that as much as I can because somebody might feel the opposite they might have a paradoxical response and also I you know I don't know how often this would come up in a cue but I also avoid any kind of pathologizing language which might be something words like deficit or disorder or dysfunction. Oh yes and and instead I I focus on more strength based language or neutral language very big on neutral language.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

So not disorder but difference not a symptom of a disorder but a trait of a difference like it gets a little bit these are very important because these things like like that story you were sharing it was probably a long time ago but that that thing of right and left stays with you. So I believe these these small things actually become so meaningful the student may never verbalize it to you directly but they are very important that neutral languaging that strength-based languaging and not promising that this is going to feel great this is going to feel delicious. No, those things are very subjective you know someone will have to probably work through a lot of effort in something so so I think it's very very powerful you mentioned something about neuroinclusive environments right are are there any small practical things a studio could do because we have some studio owners listening a lot of teachers listening even if they have say zero budget okay to make their own classes a little more accessible like this.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah, I think the first thing to do is to just to know who you're trying to serve, which means you have to educate yourself to some extent on who's already showing up and who isn't, but who you'd like to show up so that you can make sure when they do show up that you're prepared for you know what you might see or what kind of supports folks might need. And so, you know, so education by this is and this is my personal opinion, but I have learned more from listening to my students than I have from attending a training that I paid a few hundred bucks for. So I I think that that goes a long way, and it doesn't cost anything to have a conversation or build a relationship. Otherwise, one of the most helpful things for me and for many of my neurodivergent friends is being really super clear about what to expect. So in your class descriptions, in the studio, like when somebody is coming to practice in your studio, is it really clear like what the etiquette is, what somebody, what process somebody is gonna have to go through to check in? Are you are you required to take your shoes off? Can you wear socks on in the room? How many people are gonna be in the room with you? And how close quarters is it gonna be? What is the class expectation? Is it expected that you come in, you sit and you do exactly as the teacher says until the class ends? Or is it is the is the culture of the studio such that it's no big deal if you need to get up and leave early or come late? Or can you engage in your own personal practice off to the side if what's being offered isn't serving, as long as you're not distracting other people, or is that gonna create a problem where you're gonna get called out? So those are, you know, and I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way for teachers to hold a container or the rules that you set, but just making those really clear because one of the biggest things for neurodivergent folks is social anxiety a lot of times. And if there's gonna be any kind of social expectations, we want to know about it ahead of time.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

No, that's wonderful. I think those are also such practical, and honestly, you can do them. We should be doing them in classes, and it builds a studio culture of support, and I think that's wonderful. I could ask you so many more questions. I'm looking at my screen on the side here, and we could go on and on about this topic. There is so much here to explore, but this has been wonderful, Becky. It is so helpful, and there's so much in here for people to explore and develop more understanding from this point. Where can the listeners connect with you directly if they have more questions about these topics?

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Yes, so I have a website that has all of my offerings, which are primarily online. So that's yoga for neurodiversity.com. And I'm not sure when this podcast is gonna air, but I do have a workshop coming up on June 23rd that's online for folks interested in cultivating a neurodiversity affirming approach to yoga. So you're welcome to attend. I also I'm on Instagram, yoga underscore for underscore neurodiversity. And you can send me an email at yoga for neurodiversity at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Wonderful. We'll make sure to link everything in our show notes. This has been absolutely uh it's been informative, it's been clear, it's structured, and I hope we can get you back for some other topics that do a deeper dive into some of this. Thank you so much, Becky.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah, thanks. I'd love to nerd out again anytime.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to receive these podcast episodes in your email inbox and some other free yoga resources from us, please make sure that you are on my monthly mailing list. We send no spam, we just talk to you about all things yoga, and you can find the link for that in the show notes below. I have also left all of Becky's links in the podcast description. And once again, I hope you have a wonderful week and I hope to see you next week with another guest, another conversation. Until then, enjoy your practice. Take care. Bye bye.