ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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Have you ever tried to fix your spouse? Push a little harder, remind a little more, explain it one more time, and eventually they will just get it?

Jackie Kelley did that for years. Then she realized the thing she kept trying to change was often just a brain that worked differently from hers.

Jackie is a neurodivergent content creator, illustrator, children...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with my this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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“Why can’t I just?” was the question Clare Edwin kept coming back to.

Why can’t I just answer that email? Why can’t I just leave the house on time? Why can’t I just do the ordinary things everyone else seems to manage?

Clare grew up in Nigeria, studied aeronautical engineering, earned a master’s in mathematical modelling, worked as a quality engineer, an...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start with this training: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
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About one in nine adults is on a GLP-1 right now. And women with ADHD kept telling me the exact same thing after starting GLP-1 medications: they expected to lose weight, but they did not expect their brains to feel different.

The brain fog lifted. The food noise got quieter. Energy felt steadier. Emotional reactions became easier to interrupt. For some, inflammation, pain, bloating, cravings, and compulsive behavior...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
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Faye Lawrence got blackout drunk at 13. What she remembers is not the drinking. It is the relief.

She started drinking heavily as a teenager and kept going for decades. From the outside she looked successful and high functioning, right up until late 2017, when the wheels came off the cart and she found herself in inpatient detox.

She got sober. Then she waited five more years to find out why...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
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Some brains cannot sit still long enough to be careful. Ella Fielding found a machine that runs on exactly that.

Ella has a BA in Fine Art Sculpture, a Masters in Fine Art, and a chainsaw operator's license, and she uses all three to turn whole trees into monumental sculpture. But she left school at 14 because it was too traumatic to stay. She was quick with her hands and slow to...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Start here: Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
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She was good at the job. She just kept bombing the people.

Dr. Shannan Palma has a PhD from Emory, founded a master's program, and taught as a college professor. Then, in midlife, she found out she was autistic. ADHD turned up right behind it.

For decades she had followed the rules exactly as they were written and could not work out why that kept failing...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up
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Laura Pasley is a child and youth worker in Ontario, Canada, who has spent more than a decade in intensive mental health and dual-diagnosis treatment programs for children and adolescents. She is the person who runs toward the crisis when everyone else is running away from it.

After postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, complex trauma, and her sixth concussion, Laura started questioning whether ADHD had been part of her story all along. At 32, s...

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
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How many times have you told yourself, “I’ll do it when I feel more confident”?

When I feel ready, I’ll apply for that job. When I feel more confident, I’ll start the business. When I believe in myself more, I’ll have that hard conversation.

We spend so much of our lives waiting to feel ready. More...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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Your kid got labeled the “problem.” The defiant one, the behavior kid, the one who couldn't sit still or keep up. What if the room was the thing that didn't fit?

Beven Byrnes is a neurodivergent educator, nonprofit leader, and a mom of four. She's the Executive Director of Bridges Middle School in Portland, the only middle school in Oregon built specifically for students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and anxiety...

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
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Have you ever noticed that the harder you try to think your way out of feeling overwhelmed, the more overwhelmed you become?

You replay conversations. You worry about the future. You analyze every possible outcome. You keep thinking that if you can just solve the problem, you will finally feel better.

But what if thinking is not the...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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You have heard of art therapy and talk therapy. Charlotte Hastings does therapy in the kitchen, and it opens people up in a way the usual chair never quite does.

Charlotte Hastings is a psychodynamic therapist, founder of Kitchen Therapy, and author of Kitchen Therapy: How to Become a Conscious Cook. Trained first as an anthropologist, she taught drama to neurodivergent teenagers before building an entire therapeutic approach around t...

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
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Have you ever had a really productive day and still felt like you didn’t do enough?

You answered the emails. You made the calls. You went to the meeting. You finished the project. Maybe you even did the thing you had been putting off for weeks. And still, by the end of the day, your brain was already moving on...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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You bought the planner. You loved the planner. You were absolutely, positively sure this planner was going to change your life.

And then, by March, you forgot it existed.

When we moved out of our family home of 25 years, I found boxes. Boxes and boxes of barely used planners I'd been saving for who knows why. For a long time I thought that meant something about me. That...

Stuck in an ADHD pattern that keeps repeating? SHIFT is a collection of 120 guided audio experiences designed to help you see yourself and your ADHD brain differently. Explore SHIFT here: https://tracyotsuka.com/shift
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Have you ever noticed that some tasks feel impossible to start, even when they are not actually difficult?

Maybe it is an email, a budget, a project, a decision, or one small thing you keep avoiding. From the outside, it looks like procrastination. But what if the task is not the real problem?

In this first Monday Shift...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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You know what to do. So why can't you make yourself do it? If you have ever stared at one small task and quietly wondered what is wrong with you, I want to offer a different possibility.

Nothing is wrong with you. Your brain already made a prediction about how that task was going to feel before you ever started, and a lot of the time you are not avoi...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Stop Trying to “Fix” Your ADHD. You’re Not Broken: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/sign-up

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You look like you have it all handled. So why are you so exhausted?

Kristen Baird-Goldman is a licensed therapist, ADHD specialist, and author of The CBT Workbook for Adults with ADHD. She has spent more than 15 years working with high-achieving neurodivergent women, and she is the owner and clinical director of the Neurodiversity Care Center in Los Angeles.

Diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s, and someone...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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As women with ADHD, we are not only dealing with executive dysfunction. We are also dealing with medical systems, gender roles, and social expectations never built with us in mind.

In this episode, I’m talking about why ADHD in women is so often missed, misunderstood, and shaped by gender bias.

We’ll start with Tiffany McIntosh’s story of growing up “too much” in a world where she was expect...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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A lot of ADHD women are not using executive function to get things done. They are using anxiety. If panic, pressure, or shame is what finally gets you moving, this episode explains why.

Dr. Tamara Rosier is an ADHD coach, founder of the ADHD Center of West Michigan, and author of Your Brain’s Not Broken. Through her work with adults, families, and students, she helps people understand the emotional side o...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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You worked harder than everyone around you and still felt like you were falling behind. This episode unpacks why the workplace was never built for your ADHD brain.

Meghan French Dunbar, author of This Isn’t Working, is an entrepreneur, former business journalist, CEO, speaker, and workplace consultant. After years of building and selling a company, going to grad school, launching a media career, and burning out more than once, Meghan...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if your “motivation problem” has nothing to do with discipline?

In this episode, Tracy sits down with Liz Tenuto, better known as The Workout Witch, to talk about the body, trauma, neurodivergence, and why so many ADHD women feel stuck even when they know exactly what they need to do.

Liz’s work focuses on somatic healing, using small, accessible movements to help the nervous system release stress and...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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In part one, we talked about her story. In this episode, we go deeper into what shame actually is. She explains that shame is not internal. It is a social emotion that forms when we feel like we have violated someone else’s standard, and for many ADHD women, that correction starts early and happens often.

That matters because ADHD creates what she calls the perfect storm. A sensitive nervous system, frequent correc...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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The hardest part of ADHD is not the symptoms themselves, but the shame story built around them?

Dr. Shawn Horn is a licensed clinical psychologist and the author of Thrive Socially with Adult ADHD. Known as The Shame-Busting Psychologist, she helps adults understand the painful stories they have carried about being “too much,” “not enough,” or “bad at relationships.”

Growing up, Shawn was constantly corrected for talking too much, interrupti...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if the hardest part of friendship isn't meeting people, but knowing when a connection is real?

For a lot of ADHD adults, friendship still feels confusing, painful, or just out of reach. Not because they don't care, but because the actual steps were never clear. How do you move past an acquaintance? How do you know if someone genuinely likes you? How do you stop rushing in and ending up h...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Are you on the right medication but with the wrong dose?

Maggie Alexander is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who has spent over a decade treating ADHD in teens and adults. Since 2013, she has worked with hundreds of patients using a holistic but grounded approach that includes medication, micronutrients, and targeted strategies.

When she first entered the field, she did not even believe in ADHD. That changed after a pati...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What happens when someone who helped build attention-grabbing tech decides to help people get their focus back?

Dr. Nodira Khoussainova is the CEO and co-founder of Focused Space, a body doubling platform for creatives, business owners, artists, and freelancers, many of whom are neurodivergent. Before Focused Space, she was an early co-founder at Streamlit and led the experimentation team at Twitter.

She built her career in high-performance tech, but...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Clutter is not just about stuff. It is about how your brain processes what is in front of you. In this episode, I walk through the connection between clutter, overwhelm, and how ADHD brains track what matters. 

For a lot of us, clutter builds up not because we do not care, but because when something is out of sight, our brain stops tracking it. So we leave things out. Papers on th...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if the problem was never that you were bad at learning, but that no one ever taught you how to learn in a way that fits your brain?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer is the founder of Awakened Learning, bestselling author of Feel Good Learning and Raising Well Learners, and a learning strategist who helps students, families, educators, and leaders build systems that work in real life.

Her work...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Most of us never actually choose our values. We absorb them from parents, culture, and community, and then wonder why our lives feel like a scratchy sweater we can't take off. That works for a while until something starts to feel off. Nothing is technically wrong, but you have the sense that the life you're living may not actually fit you.

Procrastination lives in the same neighborhood. It's not about the task. It's...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if the problem was never you… but the tools you were handed?

Dani Donovan is an award-winning ADHD creator, bestselling author, designer, and founder of the Anti-Boring Project. Her book The Anti-Planner: How to Get Shit Done When You Don't Feel Like It has sold over 100,000 copies.

Dani was diagnosed with ADHD as a freshman in college after years of being told she was too smart to have i...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Your ADHD brain is one of the best storytellers in the room. The problem is it doesn't always know when it's making things up.

I'm recording this two days before movers arrive, from a house I no longer own, in a t-shirt, with dilated pupils. Classic.

I sold Bullfrog Farms, my six-and-a-half-acre country home, and decided to do the most opposite thing possible: move into a high-rise in San...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if the season that feels the most destabilizing is the moment your brain is asking to be understood differently?

Dr. Anupriya Gogne is a board-certified addiction psychiatrist specializing in perinatal and reproductive psychiatry at Brown University Health. She recently authored Neurodevelopmental Disorders in Adult Women.

When Dr. Gogne became an attending, her caseload doubled overnight. She stayed late finishing notes while colleagues went home. Around the same time...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Many neurodivergent women are not struggling because they lack ability. They struggle because the systems around them were never designed for how their brains actually work.

In this episode, Tracy talks with Stephanie Ray, a neurodivergent lawyer, coach, and founder of Growthset Coaching. Diagnosed with ADHD in her early 30s, Stephanie spent years succeeding on the surface while quietly struggling with memorization, rigid study methods, and performance pressure in law scho...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Many kids aren’t struggling because they lack motivation or discipline. They’re struggling because their nervous systems are overwhelmed.

In this episode, Tracy talks with Lyndsay Morris, a former teacher and school counselor diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, about what actually helps ADHD brains learn and regulate. Lyndsay shares how masking as the “good student” kept her ADHD hidden for years and why school only worked when learning felt engaging. Wh...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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If you feel busy, stimulated, but still oddly unsatisfied, this episode will explain why. 

ADHD isn’t a dopamine deficiency. It’s a regulation problem. Tracy breaks down what dopamine actually does in the ADHD brain and why chasing it through scrolling, shopping, sugar, urgency, or constant stimulation leaves so many women feeling flat or burned out. ADHD brains don’t have a broken gas tank. They have a sticky accelerator...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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What if the most ADHD-friendly “plan” is simply following what lights you up?

In this episode, we’re talking with Clare Adams, a British-Canadian artist, poet, community builder, and humanity advocate who was diagnosed with ADHD at 50, after both of her kids were identified. Clare’s story is full of movement and reinvention: 24 moves, a career that spans law, healthcare, finance, airline operations, marketing, and fundraising, plus a strong pull toward creat...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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Wanting to be understood is completely normal. Especially for ADHD women. But there’s a moment where that need quietly shifts, and suddenly we’re not trying to connect anymore. We’re trying to survive.

In this episode, let’s talk about why feeling misunderstood doesn’t just feel uncomfortable. It can feel unsafe. When that happens, the nervous system takes over. The brain speeds up. We explain more. We repeat ourselv...

Tired of ADHD strategies that don’t work? Here’s what actually does. FREE training here: https://programs.tracyotsuka.com/signup

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New Year comes with a loud promise: new goals, new habits, new you. But real change does not come from flipping the calendar. It comes from changing the lens you look through, especially if your brain defaults to “I’m behind,” “I’m failing,” or “I should be better by now.”

In this episode, let’s break down the simplest framework that explains why you feel stuck: you...