The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women
The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women is a safe space for trauma survivors and neurodivergent women ready to claim their voice, soften into their truth and feel at home with themselves.
I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), certified Life Coach, and 500-hour trained yoga instructor who understands this journey intimately as a neurodivergent woman, trauma survivor and as a therapist and life coach.
Each week, I offer soulful episodes where I intertwine my lived experiences with insights from my therapy practice all with the goal to help women unmask and find peace in their lives by healing trauma and learning how to accommodate their neurodivergence.
Through real talk, mindfulness practices, and gentle healing approaches rooted in trauma-informed wisdom and nervous system care, you’ll find practical tools to help you feel safe in your body, seen in your story and supported in your journey.
This is your sanctuary to soften, heal, and remember that you were and are never too much.
Work with me: Click the link to schedule a free 15 minute consultation.
The Awakened Heart: A Podcast for Healing Women
Unmasking: The Hidden Cost of Being “Easy-Going” and “Low-Maintenance”
We name masking for what it is; a survival strategy and will map out how to spot it, why it starts, and how to unmask without burning your life down. We share lived examples, body cues, and gentle steps so you can move from performance to presence.
• masking as trauma response and not only autism
• signs: exhaustion, mirroring, forced eye contact, lost preferences
• difference between flexibility and self erasure
• why it starts: family dynamics, sexism, neurodivergence, code switching
• hidden costs: burnout, anxiety, loneliness, blocked healing
• what unmasking is and is not
• low stakes experiments and sensory accommodations
• boundaries, capacity, and safe people
• grief and relief during identity shifts
• support through trauma and neurodivergent informed coaching
About Me:
I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas specializing in trauma-informed care for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors.
Therapy (Texas residents only):
I provide individual therapy in my private practice for women working through trauma, late diagnosis processing, relationship challenges, and healing from narcissistic abuse or toxic family systems. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming and focuses on helping you understand your patterns while building practical tools for nervous system regulation and authentic living.
Life Coaching (available anywhere):
For women outside Texas or those wanting support alongside therapy, I offer:
•Somatic Healing Coaching: Bridges the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement practices, and practical integration tools. Perfect as a complement to talk therapy or for those ready to work directly with their body’s wisdom.
•Unmasking Journey Coaching: Specialized support for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women learning to reconnect with their authentic selves after decades of masking. We work on identifying your real needs, rebuilding your sense of self, and creating a life that fits who you actually are.
Whether you’re healing trauma, discovering yourself after late diagnosis, or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body.
Subscribe & Share:
New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday. If today’s episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs to hear it or leave a comment—it helps other women find this space and know they’re not alone. Check me out on Apple Podcasts and many other platforms.
Work With Me:
Ready to start your healing journey?
Book a free 15-minute consultation: (http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub)
Listen to my DIVINE WOMAN Playlist (Apple & Spotify): Empowering songs for women healing through softness and strength - links are on the linktree link!
Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women. This is a place where your voice matters, where your body is sacred, and your journey home to yourself is honored no matter how winding the road. I am Anna Moran, licensed professional counselor, life coach, life coach. I don't know why that happens sometimes. I'm a life coach, yoga instructor, who ultimately specializes in working with late-diagnosed neurodivergent women and trauma survivors. But right now, today, this episode, I am here as your companion on this sacred path of healing. Today, ladies, we're talking about, we're diving into, we are exploring what masking actually is, how to recognize it in yourself, even if you've been doing it your whole life and think that you don't mask, where it comes from, what's what it's costing you, and most importantly, what unmasking actually means, and hopefully a few places for you to start. Because honestly, I like when I was thinking about this title of the episode, I want to share this information for people who are masking and don't know it, who have been masking their whole lives and have no idea they're doing it. And when they see the topic or see the word masking, they're like, oh, that's not me. So because I know you might be listening to this thinking, masking is just an autism thing, but it's not. It is a trauma response, it's a survival strategy, and it's keeping you from living your authentic self, your authentic life. So to help you, if you are someone that doesn't think they're masking, hopefully you made it here. Hopefully you're finding. Hopefully you're just curious, right? Because I want to give you some scenarios and see if they resonate and see if they don't. Have you ever gotten home from a social event? One that went well, where people seem to like you, where nothing bad seemingly happened, and you are absolutely exhausted. Like fall on the couch, can't even make the dinner, need to be alone in the dark, exhausted. Have you ever noticed that you're slightly different with different people? Not in a flexible, healthy way, but in a way that makes you wonder which one is the real me? Do I even have a real me? Maybe you've been told you're so easygoing or so accommodating, and it felt like a compliment, but somewhere deep down, it didn't feel good. It felt like erasure. Or maybe you've had this nagging feeling that your whole life is performative, that you're constantly calculating, adjusting, maybe even monitoring yourself. Maybe that you're playing a character in your life and you don't know how to stop. So if any of this resonates, you might be masking. And you might not even know it. One of the most common things I hear in my practice is I don't even know who I am anymore. To me, that's that's masking. Or I just don't know who I am. I've had to play a part my whole life. I've had to survive my whole life, I've had to be a parent my whole life. I had to care for someone my whole life. Like I don't know who I am anymore. That's masking. And if you were diagnosed late in life with ADHD or autism, or you're just starting to suspect you might be neurodivergent, chances are you've been masking for decades without knowing there was a word for it or that this that there was a thing. So I want to paint a picture of what masking looks like in more real life detail, right? More, more than what I've just asked, because the clinical definition doesn't capture the lived experience. Because masking is when you wake up in the morning and before you even leave your bedroom, you're already putting on a version of yourself that you think the world can handle. It's when you're constantly monitoring, monitoring your tone, facial expressions, body language, energy level. It's when you're making yourself smaller, quieter, easier. It's when someone asks, what do you want to eat? And you genuinely don't know because you spent so long figuring out what everyone else wants that you've lost touch with your own preferences. It's when you mirror people automatically, their speech patterns, their opinions, their interests. Not because you're trying to manipulate them, but because somewhere along the way you learn that matching them keeps you safe. They're gonna like you, they're not gonna push you out of the crowd. Maybe you rehearse conversations in your head, even casual ones. When you script your text messages and rewrite them five times before sending, when you calculate every interaction, when you review every action and replay it in your head after it's happened. You're just terrified of having needs because masking people pleasing, accommodating others, right? Like that's all it is for. Just a performance to stay safe, a performance to keep you in the tribe, right? You're not flexible, you're just trying to do the right thing so that you will be safe. And it's exhausting. All right. This is all masking. And the clinical term for for it is this masking is a suppression or camouflaging of your authentic self, your natural responses, your real feelings, your genuine reactions in order to appear more normal, quote unquote, quote, air quotes, right? Are acceptable to others. And here's what's important to understand masking is not the same as healthy social adaptation. We all adjust our behavior somewhat depending on context. You probably don't act exactly the same way at a funeral as you do at a party. That's appropriate flexibility. Masking is different. Masking is when the adjustment is constant, exhausting, and you've lost touch with who you actually are underneath it. Masking is when appropriate flexibility became complete erasure of yourself. And I said it earlier as far as like masking being associated with autism. And yes, that is very true. Many autistic people do mask, but masking is not an isolated autistic experience. Anyone can mask. People with ADHD who've learned to hide their hyperactivity, their impulsivity, or inattention, they mask. Highly sensitive people who learn to downplay their sensitivities, they also mask. Trauma survivors who learned early that their authentic self was not safe, they're masking. Anyone from a marginalized identity who code switches for safety, you guessed it, that's masking. People pleasers, chronic fawners, also masking. And also anyone who grew up in an environment where being yourself got you rejected, criticized, hurt, laughed at, like you name it, that's also breeding grounds for someone to mask. And if you're neurodivergent, especially if you're a woman or a socialized as female, you probably started masking very early because neurodivergent girls are often socialized more intensely to be accommodating, to read social cues, to manage relationships. So you learn to hide your neurodivergence, not necessarily conscience consciously, but as a survival mechanism. And if you were late diagnosed or still undiagnosed, you've been masking for so long that maybe you genuinely don't know that you're doing it. The mask feels like your face. This is just who I am. I just accommodate people. I just push myself aside for others because I'm such a wonderful human. I do all these things for all these people that they expect all these things from me, even though it doesn't feel right to me, because they still expect it, because I'm so good. No, no, no. That is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I don't know if I'll say it again, but I say it now as I'm off on a tangent with a thought. If you have, let's say, cornered yourself into a personality, someone who is like the holiday person, the vacation person, the whatever person, right? In your group, in your family, in your tribe. And it exhausts you and it stresses you out. It keeps you up at night, it interferes with your daily life and our relationships. That's not who you are. That's performing. That's playing a part. And you can take that costume off at any time. Everyone will be okay when the dust settles. You don't have to play a part during holidays or for family ever again. All right. I'm getting back to my notes. So a little bit more about masking, what it looks like. I want to give as many examples because I think I think it's just typical to see masking and autism. Masking and someone just not being themselves. And I just want to, I'm just gonna go a little deeper, okay? All right. So again, that exhaustion after socializing, even when it goes well, it's depleted, bone-tired, right? Like you ran a marathon because you have. You might have monitored yourself for hours before the event, during the event, and now after the event, before you crash. Again, rehearsing conversations, even casual ones. You anticipate responses and prepare reactions, not just for interviews, not just for job interviews, but like more like ordering pizza, texting a friend, calling a doctor's appointment, mirroring people. Sometimes I can still catch myself. I'm an excellent mirror. I learned I learned that I I mirrored a lot to stay safe. That was one of my masking go-tos was to mirror people. It was how I had so many different fronts from so many different backgrounds. Yeah, I would mirror. Mirror is one of those things. If it's if it's mannerisms, if it's jokes, if it's like certain ways that people say things, I I not that I start like I will just repeat it. So it's more like a mass stem, if you will. When I'm sitting in my session, sometimes, like if the other person has glasses on and they adjust their glasses, like I will automatically sometimes adjust my glasses the same way. And I'm like, get it together. What are you doing? It's like it happens automatically. Like I know I have to adjust my glasses. And I typically adjust my glasses in a certain way. But then when I see someone else do it differently, I'm like, oh, let me try that. Uh it happens so fast you don't even notice it. It's just a way you become a chameleon. You may not know what you actually like, want, or think. When someone asks you your preference, you draw a blank. Not because you don't care, but because you might have possibly lost touch with your desires. Suppressing natural responses, suppressing stems, tapping your feet, rubbing your hands, picking your hands, playing with your hair, doing something with your face. You know what I mean? You might force yourself to make eye contact. Side story. I had someone in my life that wasn't a good person when I was little, and they did this. Mind you, I've been neurodivergent my whole life. I mean, I think I've been neurodivergent since birth. Like, yeah. So I was different. I've always been a little different. But that person educated me that eye contact meant you were a good person, and no eye contact meant you were a bad person. What a lesson to learn from someone that was a bad person. So now I don't really give a shit if you wanted me to look in your eyes or not. Like it it was something that haunted me well into my 30s of fucking paying attention. Am I making the appropriate eye contact? Or am I being respectful? Am I making them feel comfortable? If I'm looking at the ceiling and I'm still talking to you, just let me look at the ceiling, right? Like, practice eye contact. Like, no. A little bit of a trauma response. And also, I don't want to stare at your eyes if I don't want to stare at your eyes. Sometimes it gets uncomfortable. Sometimes I want to look away. Sometimes I want to look around and listen. Like I, you get it, right? Maybe staying in overwhelming environments. Like I see this a lot with, I work with neurodivergent women. So I'm just going to use women. My the my clients I work with working in jobs that are overwhelming, but they are like jobs that are socially acceptable, make good money, have like good status behind it, right? So they're good jobs on paper, but like in the lived experience, they're soul-sucking. They're not neurodivergent affirming environments, but you stay because that's your career, that's what you got. Your student loans, debt for. You have family, a mortgage, children, friends, people expected of you. This is who you are in your family. If you're ADHD, you might force yourself to sit still. Maybe not interrupting, even when your brain is bursting, right? Maybe you're the nice person who is secretly resentful. People call you kind, easygoing, flexible, but inside you're possibly seething because you say yes when you so, so want to say no. And an aspect about this nice person, sometimes I find that it's hard for the nice person, persona, to even acknowledge that they'd like to say no. Because saying no is absolutely not an option for them. Maybe for you. But I want to tell you right now, it's a fucking option. You can say no, you can change your mind, you can be a new person, you can do whatever you want to do, as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, or skirting your responsibilities. Maybe you have difficulty making decisions, maybe not just big ones, but what to wear, what to eat, what to watch. Maybe you've just lost touch with your preferences. I don't care what we watch as long as it's not loud. I don't care what we watch as long as it's not scary. I don't care what we eat as long as it's not spicy. I don't care what we eat, as long as I don't have to go get it. Like you just, it's too much because you spend all day scanning, scanning, scanning, performing, performing, performing. That these decisions, it doesn't fucking matter. Just let me exist. Let me dissociate. Maybe you feel fake. Maybe you feel like you're performing. Maybe there's this sense you're acting in your own life, that if people knew the real you, they wouldn't like you. Like the real me, the real me is, I think, a pretty badass person, right? And I've never pretended or masked to be someone shitty. But I always felt, even when I was masking, that I was like, they really don't know me. They don't know the real me. Like, no, I don't like that blueberry or whatever I had agreed to, right? Just to not be the one sticking out in the gal group. So, like it's just like you feel like you're playing pretend. Wish you could talk to him deeper. Wish you could be yourself. Maybe you can't even relax, even when you're alone. Like you're always on, always monitoring. Even at home, you can't let your guard down. I see this a bit when it comes to like neurodivergent trauma experience women in partnerships. Where either there's a relationship dynamic at play, some sort of agreement of roles, or the client is just putting the pressure on themselves. But either way, it's kind of like the idea of their partner coming home and it not being clean or something not being done, or them to just be found on the couch or in bed reading or watching TV and not have done all the things that they always do. Like that just seems so scary, so petrifying that they they can sit and do a craft, they can sit and then piddle, sit and then clean. Like they just can't relax, right? That's a sign you need to unmask in your relationship, my dear. Allow your partner to accept you for who you are and not who you're pretending to be. And just to be honest, sometimes that unmasking, people don't like it because they're getting what they want with nothing to give in return. And that sucks and that's shitty, and that's a hard fucking truth. But you don't deserve to live a life where you have to play, play, pretend to be someone, to perform for someone, to be someone's entertainment. The fuck, right? Maybe you struggle with identity. Who am I actually? You might have tried on different identities, looking for something that felt like you. I don't know if this is unmasking or not. This is just my current experience is that I'm not satisfied with my haircut, no matter where I go, no matter how much money I pay, no matter what referral I get. I walk out not getting what I want. Maybe it's me. I don't really care at this point. I'm just convinced that what I'm looking for can't be done where I'm at. So I find myself looking at wigs and it's like trying on personalities because they all look different. I'm not there yet. I'm gonna grow my hair out, but you know, it's just it's fun. I'd like to play the Bond, fluffy type, big curly hair. All that seems fun, right? I don't know. Just a tangent. My bad. I'm back back to the topic. Maybe you have physical symptoms like chronic fatigue, headaches, tension, digestive issues. I mean, like your body is carrying the load of constant performance. So that that's that's some of my examples. That's what I have as far as like when it comes to masking and like what it might look like. So now that we know what it might look like, I like I think the why is important in a sense, right? Like, what's the reason or what's the motivator? So let's just dive in a little bit about where this comes from. Because masking is a learned survival strategy that usually starts in childhood. Maybe you had a critical parent that just somehow gave you the message that your authentic self, who you were, was problematic in some shape or form. So you learn to be quieter, smaller, easier. Maybe you had a parent who was unpredictable or volatile. You learn to read moods, adjust your behavior, become whatever kept you safe. Maybe your parent was fragile and overwhelmed, or overwhelmed. You learned your needs were too much, so you became the easy child who didn't make weights. Maybe there just wasn't space for you to be fully yourself. Your needs, your feelings, your personality were all just inconvenient. So you tuck them away. For neurodivergent ladies, maybe you got the message early that something about you was just wrong. Meltdowns got punished, stems got stopped, no eye contact meant you were rude. Too many questions made you annoying or combative or sassy, disrespectful. So guess what? You learn to hide those parts, you learn to mask to avoid rejection. And being a woman, this is often more intense because girls are socialized more heavily to be accommodating and to manage relationships. So neurodivergent girls who experience trauma become incredibly skilled maskers, maskers. They don't get diagnosed because they're doing fine, but they're only doing fine because they're working three times as hard as everyone else. And masking is a part of the fawning process when it comes to trauma. When you can't fight, when you can't flee, when freeze doesn't work, you fawn. You keep other people happy to keep yourself safe. So when you're powerless, dependent, or someone needs something from you, you fawn. This happens in childhood abuse or neglect, but also in any situation where you learned your authentic self puts you in danger. If you hold marginalized identities, you might have learned to mask for safety. Code switching, hiding queerness, masking disability or mental health struggles, you learn showing up fully could cost you. You didn't choose masking. Your nervous system chose it as a survival. You did what you had to do to survive the long and avoid pain. Masking served you once, but it's not serving you anymore, sis. And if you're late diagnosed or just now suspecting your diet, you're neurodivergent, unmasking is particularly complex because you've been masking for decades, maybe since childhood. The neural pathways are deeply wired. This is your default. You don't even know you're doing it. You have built an entire identity around the masked version. Your sense of self was built while masking. So unmasking can feel like losing yourself when actually you're just finding who you are. And you know, as beautiful as that can be, it sounds freaking terrifying. And it is. Because what if no one likes the real you? What if you become the real you and everyone runs away? Friends, partners, family, coworkers, they all know the mask version. They fell in love with her, hired her, built relationships with her. You're terrified if you're unmasked. They won't like the real you. You might be in lives built for the mask, you might be in lives built for the mask person. Like this is where I say about the careers. Careers that fit the mask, but not you. Relationship with someone compatible with the mask. A whole life that requires masking to maintain. And the thought of dismantling that might be a little more than just overwhelming. It might seem impossible because it might feel like you'll lose everything. The grief is enormous. Grief for years spent performing, grief for the childhood where you weren't allowed to be yourself, grief for the decisions that you've made based on who you thought you had to be. Grief for the life you might have lived if you've known this sooner. This terror is real. What if people don't really like me? And underneath, what if I don't like the real me? What if she's too much? Not enough. Disappointing. And then there's this other thought. But I'm successful and I have friends. Why would I unmask and risk all of that? You want to know your why, my dear? Because I'm gonna be a freaking for real. Why? Because you're dying inside. Because your exhaustion is unbearable. Because you're realizing that functional isn't the same as being alive. Because you've spent your whole life being who you thought you had to be, and you're running out of time to find out who you actually are. You deserve more than survival. You deserve to actually live. Because if but but then you then you might say, well, if masking has gotten me this far, why rock the boat? Why? How about chronic fatigue, burnout, autoimmune issues, headaches, tension, digestive issues, sleep issues, your body breaking down under constant pressure, suppressing all your traits all day makes them worse when you finally let down. Anxiety, depression, burnout, imposter syndrome, identity confusion, and dissociation. You attract people compatible with your mask, not your authentic self. You can't have true intimacy when masking. Vulnerability and authenticity require being seen, but you're showing people a character you're playing. Some other costs. Maybe you resent people even though they haven't done anything wrong. Because you're exhausting yourself trying to be what you think they need. You lose yourself. You don't know who you are, what you like, what you want, what you think, what you feel. And another thing, deep loneliness, surrounded by people, but completely alone because none of them know the real you. Because you may not even know the real you. And you can't heal trauma while masking. You cannot heal while in survival mode. And masking is survival mode. Healing requires safety. Letting your guard down, assessing authentic emotional experience. You cannot do that while masking. The longer you mask, the harder it gets, the more deeply wired, the more your life becomes built around something that you're not. And then the more terrifying it feels to unmask. Well, I'm already 50. Let's just keep on going. I don't, I'm just, I just don't, I don't got an in me no more here. So the best time to start unmasking was years ago. The second best time is right now. Yeah, right now. So what is masking? No, I'm sorry. What is unmasking is where I'm getting at. My next section I'm going into is what unmasking actually means. But I want to tell you what unmasking is not first. Masking is not becoming rude or boundaryless. It is not trauma dumping on everyone. It is not never adapting to context. It is not letting it all hang out chaotically. What masking is, is gradually reconnecting with authentic responses, authentic feelings, and authentic preferences. So let's talk food. If you don't know your preference, burger. Sorry, you could do vegan burgers. It just came to mind. If you could do a burger, if you don't know your favorite burger, then eat a fresh one burger a week from a different spot until you find your preference. Apply that to other things. Unmasking is learning what you actually like, want, need, think, and feel. You. Not what other people like, want, need, think, or feel, but you. Unmasking is allowing your natural self to come out in safe relationships first. Unmasking is setting boundaries instead of shape shifting. Unmasking is tolerating the discomfort of being seen. Unmasking is understanding that this is a process. This is not an event. You don't just say, hey, I'm unmasking starting right now. Like it's going to take time. These are ingrained behaviors, these are ingrained beliefs about how you should perform and act and be. And other people may be involved. So if you're changing or taking things away or not doing things anymore, other people are involved. That's other emotions. It's a process. Not everybody will take it and embrace it. That comes with its own level of grief and healing. Unmasking is giving yourself permission to take up space, to have needs and to be quote unquote difficult. Please ask questions. Please take up space. Please have needs. Ask for help. Ask for accommodations. Ask for respect boundaries. And if you're neurodivergent, unmasking is allowing your stems. Shake your legs, shake your hands, have a fidget, choose some gum, eat some candy, whatever your stem is. It's about accommodating your sensory needs, not forcing eye contact for one. I've said that a lot about eye contact. I want, if anyone has had that experience where that was their rule growing up, where like eye contact meant good, no eye contact meant bad, like let's just chuck that in the fuck it bucket. You know when someone's respectful or not. You don't need all the eye contact in the world to know that. Unmasking is saying, I don't know, or let me think about that. Unmasking is letting people see you struggle, mess up, and be human. That might be a tough one, right? Especially if you have people that might criticize you if you are human or are messy or do struggle. Unmasking is experimenting with authenticity in low-stakes situations. Maybe wearing a different color, a different outfit, a different hairstyle, new makeup, reading a different book or different music, going to a different place, like being yourself, something that just piques your interest, something you've always wanted to do, right? Or that just makes you feel fun in that moment, whatever. Like experiment with low-stakes situations. And if you're neurodivergent, also unmasking might mean saying I need a break before you become too overwhelmed and start spiraling or burnout. Maybe it's wearing the same comfortable clothes because they feel right. Get one in the same color. And if we're talking clothes, ladies, if we're talking what we wear, this is my I if I was your mother, this is what I would recommend. I don't care what the label says. Look at what it is made of. Cotton, no, polyester, recycled polyester, lyric, all these plastics. It's all plastic. So if you're gonna buy clothes, I don't care what the cost is, I don't care what the brand is. If you're gonna buy clothes, look for something that's majority, if not 100%, cotton or linen. Plastic clothing, especially tight plastic clothing, disrupts your endocrine system, is not good for you. Let's not feed into a hundred dollar pair of plastic pants. Like it's fucking stupid. Treat yourself to some good pants with the same price range if you want to use the same price range, but just get real quality clothes, self-care, self-love, even on that level. All right, I'm sorry, tangenti. Unmasking might also mean info dumping about your special interest with people who care about you. Well, my dears, I hope you care about me because I just special interest dumped a little bit about fabrics and clothing. Special interest of mine, I I I like to look for good clothing, and I just learned some new stuff about bamboo. You won't catch me wearing bamboo. Ah thought I was doing good. Was not, was not, was not. Okay. What about unmasking as asking for accommodations? Headphones in loud spaces, breaks during long events, written instructions instead of verbal. Maybe it's letting your ADHD brain be bouncy and creative and nonlinear. You've seen me be unmasked so far. Like I am bouncy today, and I'm not mad at myself for it. I want to come here and share me and be me, but also help you learn and grow and heal. And unmasking might mean being honest about your capacity instead of pushing through until you burn out. Please, if you're gonna unmask about anything, start there. Honor your capacity day to day. Trauma experience, neurodivergent, or maybe just a woman, because we are hormonal and sometimes we just don't have the spoons. We don't have the capacity. So each and every day, if you have the capacity, do it. If you don't delegate, reschedule, cancel, say no. You do not owe anyone neurotypical performance. You don't owe anyone masking. And I I know that we often get punished for being neurodivergent, for being authentically neurodivergent. And I know there are contexts where some degree of masking might be necessary for safety or survival, but you get to decide where and when and how much. You get to build a life where you need to mask less and less. When you surround yourself with people who can handle the real you, where you honor your neurodivergent needs instead of constantly overriding them. That's what you get to do. And there is a song by is it Moonlight Scorpio? Moonlight Moonlight.scorpio or Scorpio dot moonlight. It's on my playlist, Apple playlist. And it is called Go Find Less. It was her, it's her latest album, one of the songs of her latest album. Yeah. Get people that can handle you. If someone tells you you're too much, like, okay, cool. Go find less. Like, go go be small. Let people be small without dragging you into their small world. Because unmasking is living from the inside out instead of the outside in. Instead of monitoring external cues and adjusting, I want you to start with external internal experience and let that guide your behavior. So, first steps. What are some first steps? Step one, notice when you're performing versus being. I just want you to pay attention. I don't want you to change anything right now. I just want you to notice when you feel on versus when you can exhale. When you're monitoring versus just existing. When you're just saying what you should versus what you think. Notice sensations in your body. Are you tensed or relaxed? Are you holding your breath or breathing deeply? Are you calculating everything in your mind? Or is it quiet? Just pay attention, maybe once a day, in the morning, in the afternoon, midday, maybe three times a day. Whatever feels good to you, just stop and ask yourself, what's going on? Where's my brain? Is it busy? Is it calm? If it's busy, what's it doing? Where's it at? What's it thinking? And then tap into the body. Where do I feel it in my body? What's going on with my shoulders? My back, my chest, my stomach, my legs, my face. Gosh, the tongue. Because if you catch yourself like where, like, check your tongue, your tongue placement. So if it's like pushing pretty hard on the back of the teeth or the top roof of the mouth, like really hard on there, that's a good sign of anxiety, which is a good sign that your mind is racing. aka might be indicative of masking, monitoring. And then step two, I want you to practice alone first. Ask yourself questions and access honest answers without jumping to what you should think. What do I want for dinner? Not what's healthy or what I should want, but what do you actually want? What do I think about this? Not what's the right opinion, but what do you really think without anyone else's opinion or without anyone else hearing? Maybe how do I feel right now? Not how you should feel, but how do you really feel? You know, I hear this one often where it's like, I have a good life, I have a good partner, I have great kids, I have a good house, I have money, I should be fine. I this is how I should be happy. Don't don't listen to me. Nothing's wrong, everything's fine. I should, everything. The fuck is that? Just because you have money, just because seemingly things on the outside are checking the boxes doesn't mean you always have to feel fine. Because all those all those things may be nice and helpful to make you feel happy. You'll never, ever, ever, ever feel happy if you're constantly running away from yourself and pretending to be someone you're not. Full stop. I don't care how much money you have, I don't care how many cars you have. I don't care how great your husband or partner is, and don't give a fuck. It starts with you, in you, ends in you. You have to be good to you and be yourself. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing? You're gonna be miserable. I want you to journal without censoring yourself. Let real thoughts and feelings come out. F this, F that. I can't believe that. That person, I want this, I want that. This stinks. I want you to keep doing that. Write it all out. If you don't have a safe space to keep a journal, or if you have a lived experience that makes you not feel safe to have a journal, you can write it out, then burn it, then tear it, throw it away, shred it, or you can write it on your phone and then delete it. And then there are plenty of apps you can get that you can lock that no one can have access to. And if you're in a relationship and you're like, yeah, but I don't want my partner to know my password, and we share everything, that's not healthy. You're allowed to have a password-protected journal. You're allowed to have private thoughts that no one in this world is privy to but you. Anyone telling you otherwise is wrong. Go talk about it in therapy and come back to me and tell me if I'm wrong. I'm gonna guarantee you that. All right. I say this to say don't be afraid of anybody. If you are in danger, get help in all the ways you can. But if you're not in danger, stop censoring yourself. Be the real you. Let yourself stem however your body wants, makes the sounds, accommodate the sensory needs. Just do this all alone first. Maybe you only fidget in private for for right now. Maybe you maybe you swing and sway around and breathe wildly when you're by yourself, in your car, just in a safe space by yourself. Step three. Then I want you to find safe people to practice authenticity with. So people that can handle your realness, people who don't need for you to perform. Practice small, authentic moments, like saying, actually, I don't want to do that. Tell them what you want to do. Share a real opinion that differs from theirs. Let them see you struggle instead of pretending you have it together. See what happens. Safe people usually respond well, they appreciate realness. Step four, get some support, therapy, and coaching. If you're a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman or realizing you've been masking for decades, you need support. Do not figure this out all alone. Find a therapist who understands neurodivergence and trauma, someone who gets that masking is survival, and unmasking requires rewiring your nervous system, not just deciding to be different. And this is exactly the work I do with women in my life coaching practice. I specialize in helping late-diagnosed neurodivergent women navigate the unmasking process. We work together to help you connect with who you actually are underneath all those years of performing. This is not about reconnecting to your true self because I understand that maybe we were never allowed to honor our true self. So right now we are trying to figure it out. We work to build a life that fits your authentic, neurodivergent self, not the version you thought you had to be. Step five, give yourself permission to be difficult. Start in small ways. Have a preference, disagree, say no, maybe express a need, maybe be inconvenient sometimes. Like don't, if you are one of those that have to be on time, can't have anybody waiting on you, blah, blah, blah. Slow the vote down. Be five minutes late. Be 10 minutes late. Not all the time. Don't piss people off. But just give your nervous system a few opportunities here and there to see that the world will not end. You will not be unloved if you're running late. Notice what happens. Usually nothing catastrophic. People can handle more of your realness than you might think. Step six. Grieve, grieve, grieve. Maybe grieve the childhood where you weren't allowed to be yourself. Maybe grieve the years you've spent performing. Maybe even grieve the life you might have lived. Because this grief is real and it is heavy and it deserves space. Step seven, which I want you to learn and use all the time. Be patient with yourself. This is deep work. You've been masking for decades. It won't happen. Unmasking won't happen overnight. There will be days you mask more, days you mask less, and that's all normal. I'm not asking you and I'm not encouraging you to go from 100% masked to 0% masked overnight. I want you to go slowly, gradually, baby steps, turtle pace. What to expect, right? Now that I've given you some steps, what to expect? When you start unmasking, some things might happen. It might feel wrong at first, like you're being selfish or difficult or too much. And that's all normal because your nervous system has been trained for decades that masking, masking, masking equals safety. Unmasking will trigger anxiety. Some people might not like that you unmask. Some people in your life have relationships with your mask, not with you. And when you start showing up differently, they might be confused, disappointed, or even angry. That's information about whether those relationships can evolve or whether they need to end. It's not a bad thing. Let it be what it is. Maybe it's a sign that now you can take some of that energy back that they take, some of that power back that they take for your own self. You might feel more, not less awkward initially. When you've been on autopilot for decades, consciously choosing authentic responses can feel clunky. That's normal. You're building new neural pathways. Be clunky. You might grieve relationships, opportunities, or parts of your life that were built for the mass version. And like I said earlier, this is real grief. But you also might feel deep, profound relief. Like you can finally breathe, like you're coming home to yourself. And you might discover things about yourself that you didn't know: preferences, opinions, feelings, foods you like, needs that were buried, buried, buried. Buried? Buried under the mask. And you might feel angry. Angry at the people or systems that taught you that you had to mask. Angry at the years you might feel you've lost. And just like grief, this anger is valid. You're allowed to feel angry. Please express it. Write it out, scream it out, scream into a pillow, punch a mattress, get a bucket of ice and throw it on some concrete outside. Go to a smash room, like let it out. Hit some baseballs, golf balls, target practice. And you'll probably have some setbacks, my dears. Days where you slip back into heavy masking, and that's normal because progress isn't linear. As you unmask, you might realize certain relationships, jobs, or environments require too much masking to maintain. And the good and the bad news about that is you'll need to make decisions about what's sustainable, what's doable. It might mean a career change. It might mean some friendships lost. It might mean some environments that you might not visit too often, or environments that you live in that might have to change. None of this is bad. All of this is good. You are allowed to have needs, relationship needs, job needs, and environmental needs. All right. So that was a lot about unmasking. If you want me, I don't know what I'm saying. If you're listening to this and recognizing yourself, first off, I want you to know I see you and I hear you. Second, this awareness is the beginning. Because I don't think I've said this once because it was kind of like the difficulty and the things that might happen. But like the thing about unmasking is like, yeah, the profound sense of relief. But it's like a finally, finally, I can just be me. Like, yes, I want to scream out loud. Yes, I love hot pink and want to wear it all day. Yes, my favorite thing to do is this, this, and this. And yes, I want to do it every day on my free time. And yes, I like, you know, it's just like it is a big sense of relief. It is a beautiful thing to give yourself the opportunity to just explore the world through your lens, not anyone else's lens. It's fun as hell. It's really good. But you don't have to figure out how to unmask overnight. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to start noticing. Start asking yourself, is this what I actually want? Or what I think I should want. Maybe ask yourself, is this how I actually feel? Or how I think I should feel. Your authentic self is there, my dear. It's just buried under years of survival strategies. And that's they're worth excavating. You spent decades becoming who you thought you had to be. And unmasking isn't about destroying that person or just doing it overnight. It's about gently, safely peeling back the layers and discovering what you've been all along. And this is sacred work. This is the work that changes everything. If you're late diagnosed, female, and you're realizing you've been masking your whole life, you don't have to figure this out alone. Like I've said a couple of times, this is exactly what I help women navigate in my life coaching practice. Because you deserve more than survival. You deserve to actually live. And as scary as it seems, you deserve relationships where you don't have to perform. You deserve to feel safe and at home with yourself and in your home. And I'd be honored to support you in that journey. You can click on my link tree in the show notes and fill out the consolation form. Consolation. I'm not giving a prize. Consultation form for a free 15-minute consultation. I'd also love to hear from you. Do you got a question? Please message me. If you want to help more women hear this episode and support me by helping my podcast grow, because if you didn't hear a couple episodes a while ago, I'm off of social. I got off of social media. It was complete social media burnout for levels of reasons that I think I went into in this episode. But I'm growing this or trying to grow this podcast without social media, without the performative. I want it to be as authentic. So if you can help me, if you like what you hear, please leave a comment or leave a review. This helps me show up in searches without me having to sell my soul to the algorithms. And yeah, I appreciate you so much if you could do that for me. Share it with someone that you know, share it with a lady, talk about it. Like word of mouth is my favorite form of marketing. If you like what I gotta hear, please share it. Please give the gift of mental health for free, right? Outside of the prescription you pay for the platform you use. All right. That's that's my marketing. That's my spiel. I kind of went off tangential. It's the theme of the day. Why not be completely unmasked in the episode that's called unmasking? Oh man. I hope this helped. Until next time, my dears. Take gentle care of your awakened heart and maybe, just maybe, start letting a little bit more of your real self out. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of you, and I'll see you soon.
