Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham

I so loved talking to Sue Reed about her books, trauma recovery, late diagnosis of ADHD, graveyards, blackberries, nana naps, sea swims, trees and so much more.

What part/s of your story have you been told others don’t care about?

What might you be able to alchemise if you give yourself permission to care about it and trust that others will too?

You can watch or listen wherever you podcast and access full transcript, show notes, links and more here

le grá (with love),

Ev3

#sue...

I’ve been sober (alcohol and drugs, mostly alcohol) since 2001. Quit smoking in 2001, too. Became vegan in 2017. And (drumroll) it’s nearly 7 weeks since I quit the crisps!

In this episode, I share what may sound like a silly example of dorsal vagal (aka Freeze! with the Polyvagal Purrs approach – journal and planner coming soon!) numbing and yet it was challenging. I remember contemplating quitting crisps in 2008 doing my NLP master practitioner training but not wanting to be “crisp sober” so not going ahead.

I hope this episode will help you untangle some of your own numbin...

From dogs to isolated cabins, graveyards to comedy, late diagnosed ADHDer and Wayward Women co-author, Tracey Davies, was an absolute delight to chat to for episode 130 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD.

If you're a late diagnosed AuDHDer (autism and ADHD), autistic or ADHDer, did your school report cards help in the process?

I only had one school report to hand over and it was very helpful.

I hope you enjoy this episode and thanks again for being here.

le grá (with love),

Ev3

Am beyond delighted to share this conversation with the magnificent Mattia Maurée of AuDHD Flourishing.

I can’t believe I’ve gone from literally sobbing on my kitchen floor a few years ago (when I came across their podcast when I was going through my own late diagnosis. Listening to all the episodes, I felt like they were inside my head) to sharing their ideal and actual self-care.

Mattia shares their love of camping, awe-inspiring nature and more.

le grá (with love),

Ev3

#audhdflourishing

#audhd

#neu...

Happy Autumnal Equinox and International Day of Peace!

However you’re honouring either or both on Monday 21st, Your Autumn Equinox Balance Audit: Episode 128 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham offers some ideas to help.

This solo episode includes some:

*breathwork to balance the nervous system

*yoga to support physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance

*journal prompts to help you audit your entire life and more

To let me know how you’re getting on (and what you’d like more o...

Such a delight to chat to the fantabulous Louise Lucas about her brand new book (out next week!).

From finding compassion for herself through pandas to her Two Spiral Model for working with neurodivergent clients, I loved every moment and hope you will too.

Le grá (with love),

Ev3

CHAPTERS

00:00 Values-based intentions instead of goals

05:54 Ideal self-care vs actual self-care

09:40 The panda pause: what do I need right now?

12:17 Reconnecting with the ever-present Self

13:04 The healing power of the sea

Ever wondered why certain sounds feel unbearable while others soothe you instantly (cats purring, maybe?)? Or why a scented candle can wreck your whole day? (Or a steam cleaner revolutionise your entire LIFE?)

In this solo episode of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD, I explain all nine senses (yes, nine!) as part of the FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework, exploring how sensory sensitivity shapes life with AuDHD and trauma.

Owning your sensory differences, rather than fighting them, can be genuinely life-changing.

We’ll cover vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, intuition, interoception, pr...

Welcome back to Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD! This week I’m joined by psychotherapist, supervisor, energy worker and Equine Assisted Psychotherapist, Louise Yourell.

I met Louise a few months back at an IACP walk-and-talk supervision session she was facilitating in Mullingar and I’ve been looking forward to this interview ever since.

We talk about:

· what happens when a horse becomes part of your therapy team (spoiler alert: they help regulate your nervous system before you even realise you needed it)

· how knitting and crochet help her overwh...

Welcome to Excitement Without AuDHD Burnout: Episode 124 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham.

Today, we’re looking at living life to the full. Not simply trying to calm your extra sensitive nervous system (although that is a wonderful way of bringing it into balance in this 24/7 society) but enjoying the lifted states.

Doing the things that energise us, that excite us and bring joy more deliberately and frequently while also recognising that our extra sensitive nervous systems need more rest before and afterwards and building those buffers in.

Welcome to this brand new episode: Reducing Cortisol with Neuroscientist Dr Manish Tomar for Episode 123 of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham Podcast.

Two of my favourite things about our conversation were:

1) his pointing out that the brain benefits from teeny tiny self-care, Self care and collective care practices – it’s all about intention and

2) teeny tiny breaks every 60-90 minutes, even to have a quick stretch or delicious sip of water help us reduce excess cortisol by reminding our nervous systems that we’re safe

H...

Is Elle Woods autistic? Legally Blonde 2 is one of my all-time favourite films and I’ve been adoring the new prequel series Elle on Prime in Ireland.

While I’ve seen the films several times and I saw the musical in London, it’s only now watching Elle that I’m like, oh my god, is she autistic?

Might she be autistic?

Might that be why, even though we don’t have much in common, I’ve always adored the character so much.

What they’ve done is they’ve put her in the 90s...

Happy Lughnasadh!

In Harvest Your Shame and Trauma this Lughnasadh: Episode 121 of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD Podcast, I (your host) Eve Menezes Cunningham invite you to experiment with a reframe of all you’ve survived. Rather than focusing on getting rid of what you can’t change, what if you harvested it instead?

Using the Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasadh as a lens, we explore how the hardest parts of our lives (trauma, undiagnosed AuDHD, the years spent just trying to survive) can become sources of strength, resourcefulness and even purp...

There’s a huge correlation between trauma, AuDHD, joint issues and other chronic pain conditions.

I hope this new episode will help ease your pain by helping you find movement that works for YOU, your body and your brain.

le grá (with love),

Ev3

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction: Why movement matters

02:12 Meet Sarah Mottram and the Healthy Movement Programme

04:56 Finding joy in movement and everyday self-care

09:41 Making space, self-compassion and slowing down

14:22 Community care and supporting each other

17:31 Building connection through onl...

Do you ever feel like, even if you've been formally diagnosed with autism and ADHD, that you're somehow making it out to be worse than it actually is?

That you somehow, even though you waited for years and answered all the questions truthfully and all the forms and everything, that somehow you don't deserve your diagnosis?

You don't deserve potential support?

Episode 119 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD is a solo episode where I share some personal reflections (including my lived and professional experience) around caring for ourselves, our Selves...

Welcome to ADHD Late Diagnosis and Writing with Flic Everett: Episode 118 of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham Podcast

It was such a delight to interview journalist and novelist Flic Everett. I’ve been aware of her writing long before I even became a freelance journalist in 2004 but we’ve been online friends for a good while and was inspired by her move to Scotland when feeling scared about my own move to Ireland a few years later.

In Late ADHD Diagnosis and Writing with Flic Everette: Episode 118 of t...

The feet are the most distal point from the brain, so anytime we’re working with the feet in yoga or giving yourself a massage, you’re kind of waking up the whole body, you’re treating your whole self. So just notice for yourself which of these things feel friendly to experiment with.

Welcome to episode 117 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD. Learn to love and care for all your parts from the soles of your feet to your soul. I’m Eve Menezes Cunningham and I’m your host and the producer and you ca...

I’ve done it again and got the dates mixed up so this one’s going out EARLY in order to give you the SUMMER SOLSTICE benefits for this (gloriously sunny here in the west of Ireland – I swam across the Shannon and back today in just my swimsuit. BEST SWIM EVER) weekend.

This episode offers ways of working with the solar plexus chakra and more to get that sunshiney, powerful and JOYFUL vibe even if everything feels stormy.

What helps YOU?

How might you make life easier for yourself?

As you re...

I recorded this before the racist mobs inflicted terror in Belfast. It’s even more important to look after yourself. And this may feel impossible when fascists are running amok.

The weekend I talk about in this new episode, less than two weeks ago (at time of writing this) was bookended by the fantabulous Panti Bliss’s If These Wigs Could Talk at Westport Pride and the parade then Dublin for the amazing Kimberlé Crenshaw, Backtalker. It went a long way towards healing the heartache I’d been feeling about racism in Ireland.

I’m facilitat...

It was SUCH a delight to speak to the fantabulous Dr Karen Ward again for this episode. She’s moved from Dublin to Cork and reminds us that we have everything we need within us. Yes, she’s now immersed in magical, Sacred Ireland (I love that oracle deck she created as well as her Brigid deck) but even in the midst of a city, you can connect with nature and the Divine.

I hope you enjoy listening (or watching) as much as I enjoyed catching up with her!

le grá (with love),

Ev3<...

In Healing Sexual Trauma with Erika Shershun: Episode 113 of the Soles to Soul Care with Eve Menezes Cunningham podcast, I’m delighted to introduce the somatic psychotherapist who specialises in helping trauma survivors reclaim the life they were meant to live.

When you think about what YOU’ve survived, how does it feel to imagine, however outlandish it may feel, that you CAN heal? When you read or hear those words about the life you were meant to live, how does it feel to reconnect with potentially forgotten dreams and goals?

le grá (with love),

...

I met Claudia Cahalane nearly 20 years ago on an online forum for freelance journalists. I had started my coaching and complementary therapy practice at the same time as going freelance as a journalist with no contacts and, pre social media, it was a brilliant forum to get (and give) encouragement and support.

Since then, I’ve added loads more therapies, counselling and supervision and Claudia has retrained as a Qi Gong instructor.

It was such a joy to reconnect and catch up and I hope you find our conversation helpful.

You can watch or...

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EV3RYTHING - email eve@solestosoul.ie

It’s an utter delight to share my interview with the fantabulous Zeenat Ahmed-Peto for this week’s episode. The cognitive hypnotherapist and author (Too Kind: A Survival Guide for Sensitive Souls) shares her journey to extreme self-care.

I met Zeenat through Suzy Walker (see links for her interview and gorgeous Heartleap community) and hope you are as inspired by her story about learning to receive care and love as I’ve been.

le grá (with love),

Ev3

CHAPTER...

It was so lovely to revisit my London Bridge psychosynthesis training roots and talk to the delightful Allan Frater for Episode 110 of Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham.

He shares some of the ways in which he honours his imagination and integrates self-care, Self care and community care into his whole life.

LINKS

Buy Allan’s latest book here https://amzn.to/4d5XSmk (affiliate link)

Website:

https://wildimagination.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Allan-Frater/100073610989149/

The Psychosynthesis Tr...

Am feeling a bit morto – two mistakes with this episode:

The Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD normally goes out Tuesday morning 7am Irish time but because I just realised (AuDHD brain), next week’s ep – this one – is OUT NOW so you can actually make USE of it in 2026!!!

Self-compassion, giving myself grace, a thousand DOH!s etc…

Still, I hope you enjoy it as we welcome the start of summer. As I write this...

At time of writing, am aching in the best possible way from the first of Aakriti’s regular Bhangra dance classes at Grit Fitness and Dance – if you’re local enough to Westport, check them out. I’m planning to be there as many Wednesday evenings as possible because SO MUCH JOY!

And, to my astonishment, while feeling like a monster during one of the moves last night, I did improve. I’d loved the taster workshop in February (before this interview was recorded) but had no confidence in my ability to actually manage the (simple!) steps but… I hav...

Episode 107 is a really unusual episode of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD because my guests for this one are Peadar and Danny, a couple of very young entrepreneurs from Atlantic Valets. Not technically self-care professionals and yet, when I met them recently, something they said made me realise they’d be delightful guests and they were.

I love their energy, enthusiasm and desire to help their customers. If you’re in or near Achill, check out Atlantic Valets and wherever you’re based, I hope this episode reminds you that you deserve clean, organi...

Have you ever wondered how we’ll ever have peace, freedom, justice, SAFETY and equality when half the population has been systematically erased from what most people in this society consider divine?

Since hearing from much younger women that the Divine Feminine – such a healing force in my own trauma recovery and life these last 30+ years – has been co-opted to be used against women as “Divine femininity”, this episode shares some self-care, Self care and collective care ideas for people of ALL genders to experiment with.

There are SO many Goddess archetypes, from around the world, tha...

Today’s episode builds on Episode 48: Cattitude: Purr! Hiss! Freeze! and the Polyvagal Purrs approach I developed years ago to include MORE of the Divine. More of what inspires awe, love, hope and other transpersonal – beyond the person – qualities. Nature? (Cats are part of nature and so are you!) Great art? What helps you connect with suPURR (super ventral) energy?

How can you do more of these things on purpose?

If you’re a trauma survivor and AuDHDer like me, or you simply find self-care more of a ‘should’ than a joy, this podcast is for you.

ACCESS 100s OF FREE BODY-MIND PRACTICES, POLYVAGAL-INFORMED JOURNAL PROMPTS AND SO MUCH MORE AT HTTPS://SOLESTOSOUL.IE

What does self-care look like when you’re 25, newly independent, and realising that taking care of yourself is up to you? In this week’s episode, I’m joined by one of my favourite yoga teachers and youth worker, the delightful Emily Rosenkranz.

As with all my guests, we get into the ideal and ACTUAL daily self-care, Self care and collective care.

Since recording this episode, I (twice her age) was inspired to keep MY phone outsid...

Are you curious about how ADHD medication might work for you? Maybe you’ve already tried it? Or you’re happy with your prescription and it’s changed your life for the better? I’d love to hear from you.

My journey with ADHD medication (and ADHD and AuDHD) is still very much unfolding but here’s Part 2 of my evolving journey and some of the ways in which I’ve been using self-care practices as medication on days I can’t take it.

Both AND.

If you can take it daily, brilliant. If you’re not...

This week, for the Spring Equinox and World Oral Health Day, I’m sharing some self-care ideas for supporting yourself through dental treatment with sensory differences.

I’d been feeling quite proud of myself for handling the gum surgery and all it brought up (flashbacks etc) but then, boom, dental claim rejected.

So this whole episode about advocating for yourself, with sensory differences and other AuDHD traits and symptoms, while helpful, didn’t help me with the finances of it all as I’d thought I had been advocating for myself and don’t know enough abo...

It was such a delight to talk to Therapy Growth Group and Good Enough Counsellors founder and fellow ADHDer Josephine Hughes again for Episode 101. Josephine hosts two podcasts (there’s a link to an episode I was on with her in the links below), Good Enough Counsellors and Gloriously Unready.

Previously, the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, you’re listening to what’s now the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham podcast. Learn to love and care for all your parts, including your AuDHD and trauma, from the soles of your feet t...

Happy 100th Episode to Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham (formerly Feel Better Every Day)! Am sorting all the links to ensure my biggest rebrand since 2010 and some aren’t there yet so while I’m hoping you can watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts, please let me know if you have any issues (as well as any feedback, comments or questions!).

Am so delighted to have the fantabulous Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas back with me to talk about how his self-care, Self care and collective care have evolved (since epis...

This week’s episode follows on from Episode 98 and the seemingly endless trauma triggers from the news. It feels like it’s been getting more triggering for years and years but amping up even more recently. I keep telling myself it’s all coming up for healing and sunlight is the best disinfectant. That, ultimately, we are in the process of remembering we’re all connected, we all deserve safety, connection, love and the potential to thrive and we’re creating a new, more peaceful, free and equitable – for ALL – world.

And we can do nothing to help ourselves...

This is an unexpected episode on account of the pain the news is causing so many survivors (myself included!). How do we continue to function let alone thrive when the messages we keep on getting is that perpetrators rights to do whatever they feel like doing trump our basic human rights including safety?

I realise that this is a very sensitive topic and it is also a topic that impacts an enormous amount of people, huge amount of people, not just women but predominantly women and girls.

An enormous amount is coming up for healing...

“We get a lot of meaning from creating spaces where people can come and connect, and feel like they’re in a place where they’re welcomed, and that some good things can happen.” ~ John Wilson, Co-director, Online Events

It was SUCH a joy to talk to Online Events’ co-director, John Wilson. As well as talking about his own ideal and actual self-care, Self care and collective care practices, he shares some of what he’s learned through co-creating such a nourishing online community for therapists, counsellors and supervisors.

Chapters

0:01–2:26 Introduction, movement and nervous system...

Sensory Soothers for Trauma and AuDHD this Brigid: Episode 96 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast

Do you want to learn to soothe and support your extra sensitive (whether through trauma/s, AuDHD (autism and ADHD) or anything else) nervous system?

The Goddess Brigid (we had a bank holiday yesterday to honour her, as well as her namesake, St Brigid, yesterday) is associated with so many wonderful qualities. Use her inspiration, healing and wisdom energies to protect and work with your sensitive nervous system instead of pushing through.

I share some of my...

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD) can feel debilitating when you’re living with AuDHD (autism and ADHD). In this episode, I share some of my personal journey with RSD - even at age 50! - and introduce some practical tools that help me and which can support you in stopping rejecting yourself.

CHAPTERS

0:00–2:22 Introduction to RSD and nervous system–informed support

2:22–5:23 Why RSD is so excruciating and how self-rejection develops

5:23–8:15 Early criticism, negative conditioning, and the ADHD/RSD cycle

8:15–11:47 RSD in creativity, work, relationships, and self-worth

11:47–13:45 Self-acceptance, self-love, and healing RSD in...

Am delighted to be sharing this interview with the fantabulous Dr Emma Bede. We met online when we were both presenting at Online Events’ Living and Working with Neurodivergence Conference last year and she is SUCH a joy.

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Here are some of my favourite quotes from our conversation:

“These are the structures I need to have in place. I think as someone with ADHD, I think if I think of that as like, ‘Come on, you’ve got to do this every day for...

GET YOUR FREE POLYVAGAL-INFORMED JOURNAL PROMPTS HERE

If it hadn’t been for the immediate pain relief from the endometriosis, I’d have run a gazillion miles in the opposite direction from yoga, breathwork and meditation. Back in 2001, I didn’t understand about the impact my trauma history had on my capacity to feel safe around other humans, let alone my differently wired brain and extra sensitive nervous system.

I’d adore elements (was getting up for 6.30am classes in London at one point) but be full of angst – which I blamed myself for – around many other s...