Speaker - Saundra (host)
Welcome to Fantabulously ADHD, the podcast! I'm your host, Saundra Brodkin and I teach you how to embrace all of your ADHD to create a thriving life without getting stuck in analysis paralysis, overwhelm, and emotional hangovers. Living a full and beautiful life with ADHD IS possible.
Listen on to learn how!
I'm here with Sorcha and Sorcha is an expert on women and periods, hormones, all PDD, those things that we struggle with and how hormones affect us a lot more than, than our male or non-female counterparts when it comes to our ADHD.
So welcome Sorcha. Can you tell us a bit about yourself before we get into the questions that I have?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah, sure.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so I, I realized I had ADHD last year and a big part of that was, was, was through cycles.
So we can kind of dive into that, but yeah, I come really from more of a yoga background, meditation and I just really love traveling and eating all the different kinds of foods that you can have and just learning about different cultures, meeting different people, connecting and community.
And I've just found that has gone even deeper and deeper as I've been diving into the wormhole that is ADHD and hormones.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
Oh, I can totally get that. My, my ADHD symptoms go way up when I'm on my period. Okay. I'm super excited.
All right. So what you said you were in the yoga meditation field prior, or perhaps you still are, are you still in that field as well?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
I'm kind of navigating more into all of this work because I just feel the yoga and meditation brings it all into that rather than it kind of being my main structure.
So I'm kind of restructuring everything at the moment in my business and yeah, that's been, it was very daunting for quite a long time and it's just started to really get very exciting and yeah, that's sort of hype again.
So I'm kind of falling back in love with my business.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
That is very, that's awesome. So what excites you about working with women and periods and hormones, PDD, all of those things?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah, I think the biggest part is that as I am at the moment, I'm taking a course called, Menstrual Leadership Program with Red School, Red School are amazing.
And they wrote this incredible book called Wild Power by Ashani and Aleksandra. And I really like, I can't recommend it enough, everyone I meet I'm like read this book, it's the foundations for everything.
And I am just really grateful to be taking this course with them because I was studying this for well, I mean, self exploring, I suppose, for about four years, I just felt like this year was like the year to dive deep into it and hold the space for other people, which is what it’s allowing me to do.
And so, yeah, one of the biggest things is that I feel it's very, very aligned for me and it just, you know, how we have all the ADHD kind of dots everywhere and we're kind of connecting them.
I feel like this is like the dots like connecting and I don't have to know the full picture or outcome yet.
I just know that I'm actually, I feel that I'm, I feel so intuitively strongly that I'm on the right path or not the right path, but the aligned path for me.
So that's been a huge part of it. It just feels so good to kind of realize that a lot of the challenges that come with ADHD that come with just life stuff, that come with PMDD and other, you know interesting times in our cycles, those times that have been really challenging are at my lowest, I just felt like there must be, I must, I must, I must learn how to navigate this so I can help other people because it can't just be me, can’t just to me.
And that was like my hope, right. When I was just really, really at rock bottom on the floor with it all, that was like a hope.
And now I'm like, ah, I'm, I'm practicing what I preach. So that is a huge thing. Because yeah, we were, you know, I've had the, the Madonna material girl song stuck in my head, but in my head, it's like we are living in a linear world and I am a cyclical girl.
That's just, that's just been going around in my head for like two weeks. But I feel that we're, we're very cyclical beings and we do live in a very linear world.
So any way that we can help with that, any way that I can help with that through ADHD, through cycles, through PMDD, maybe all of the boxes you have checked.
Then I want to help with that because it just, it just gave me a lot of hope and I was really, really miserable.
So yeah. So both for myself and also for other people yeah, it feels good to like share this knowledge.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
That is awesome.
Tell us a bit about how you got into discovering the connection between ADHD and the connection to cycles? I mean, I know you just mentioned about it and you discovered you have ADHD yourself, and that was about a year ago, and now you are diving into the whole wellness factor for women with ADHD.
So how did you get into discovering the connection between the heightened symptoms that come up during these times?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
I love this question because for me, the menstrual cycle awareness was like the missing puzzle piece into getting my ADHD diagnosis.
So I lived in South Korea for three years, and that was where I discovered yoga. That was where I did my teacher training.
I got really obsessed and interested in the chakra system. And I also did some other training in Thailand. And I remember just kind of sitting on my couch and I remember this couch because everyone wanted it.
When I left. It was like very vivid by in my memory. So I was sitting on this couch and I had been doing a brown rice cleanse, it sounds probably really awful, but it was amazing for my brain.
It really just got rid of a lot of brain fog. And obviously, you know, don't jump into a brown rice cleanse when you hear about this.
I went into it with someone that had done it many times. And so in a nutshell, I was feeling really clear.
I was doing this really great thing because I had been eating a lot of dairy and sugar and just was such a sugar fiend.
And there's a lot of sugar in South Korea in everything, including garlic bread. And I just remember I was sitting on my couch and I had been doing exercise every day.
I was working about six hour days and I was teaching really creative, fun kindergarteners. So I really enjoyed that job.
It was really fun and really engaging and really creative. And the kids are really cute. I just kind of had all of the, all of the things I'm kind of air quoting in place that were right and just had this moment on my couch, where I just burst into tears.
And I was like, my brain's broken, like what is going on? Cause it still felt like there was, I think someone said one, one day that it was, it's like loads of tabs open and you can't work out which one is playing the music.
I think I've heard that it was like as a good kind of analogy and, and that's how I felt. And so fast forward quite a few years, and it was kind of my interest in the chakra system.
When I came back to England, I held some workshops for the chakra system over seven months, we focused on a different chakras.
I invited collaborations. So I invited a different teacher to collaborate with me each month to learn more, to keep it fresh, to just kind of integrate myself back into England.
And it was through this, that one of the well a couple of the ladies, that practice womb yoga, practice yoga with the, with the moons with, you know, the moons moon phases.
And so to cut it all kind of short, is that, yeah, that's kind of how I, how I started learning about this, when I started tracking cycles and I started charting my cycles and it was through this that I really started to see, oh, we'll call it flare ups of symptoms, but really where I was struggling, more specifically in different parts of my cycle. And that was mostly in the beginning through journaling, which for me was a great place to start because I was already journaling a lot.
But for some people, you know, maybe they love the data.
So it would be like temping, like taking the temperature first thing in the morning, you can see where it goes up and down where it fluctuates when you're ovulating, when you're going to be on your period, et cetera, it changes.
So there's different kinds of ways in, but that for me, the journaling, and then seeing, yeah, kind of how it would unfold that then kind of led to me being, realizing, having some conversations and thinking, Hmm, I had that, niggle, you know, I have that niggle and I don't know if you, if you get this, but I feel like with ADHD is we kind of have a niggle and it's really, it's our intuition like screaming at us like, Hey, that's this thing that you need to have like a bit of help with and you know what it is.
And I think you know, we see it all the time in the ADHD community where people are like, I have my diagnosis, but what if I just fooled myself and my therapist or everyone else?
And I don’t really have ADHD, and I don't know if you've seen this, but, you know, we, it's almost like we have to ignore our intuition.
I think maybe more so than the neurotypicals, I'm not sure, but, so it's, yeah. So, so when, when I think when I see this written down, or maybe you see the data or whatever it is, it's, it's there in black and white, and it's been hard to ignore it.
So, yeah. So the menstrual cycle awareness and what I mean by that, I mean, sort of charting, obviously I was already doing yoga and meditation practices, so I felt like I knew my body very well.
But that was like, what I, yeah. Kind of what I call the missing puzzle piece. How about with you, because I know you were kind of saying that you notice it do you find that as I think sometimes as well, if you, if, when I was living alone and traveling, you know I kind of, you could be, I guess you could be whoever you want to be, cause you're traveling as part of the fun of it.
But I think when you have those relationships, relationships are such great mirrors, right. If you're living with someone, then they may might be like, Hey I noticed you get more stressed around this time, or do you want me to pick tonight because it's overwhelming or X, Y, Z.
So I'm just curious to know how you've kind of noticed the differences, I suppose, throughout your, throughout your cycle?
Speaker - Saundra (host)
Yeah.
I love that because I've actually noticed that probably since I was a teenager before I was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I would get physically, my blood pressure is naturally on the lower side.
And so it would drop even lower during my period and I get very dizzy and so everything just felt harder.
And I always attributed it to that. Then I started to realize as time went on and I went through a couple of pregnancies and different hormonal fluctuations, I noticed that, and I don't know if you've heard this expression, but like the slow cognitive tempo, it's basically every, everything is taking longer to process than it already does.
There are more thoughts flying around. Everything feels more overwhelming, like you're being suffocated. And once I started the process of coaching and medication and therapy and just, I ended up not continuing therapy and just focusing on coaching for myself, it made a big difference because it helped me realize that I was able to come up with strategies during those times work rounds based to get through ways to prepare.
And it helps so much more than I realized because my cycle is, even though I am on birth control to regulate my cycle, I still get those breakthroughs.
And I still get those those times where it shows up unexpectedly, even though I'm still taking the pill, like I'll, I'll get those symptoms, that those increased symptoms.
And I'm not expecting them. I'm not ready for them, but I've because I have come up with these strategies and put these things in place.
I now know, okay, if something shows up when it's not supposed to, period shows up, then dinner tonight might just be a pizza for the kids.
It Doesn't end The world doesn't end anymore. I know that in my business, I could maneuver things. I've become much less strict in my deadlines, just in general.
And that makes it all easier to around those times. And it's just structuring my life around knowing that things could happen unexpectedly.
Like my dryer breaking my dryer broke last night And I had just taken all the sheets off the bed. So, and we had gone swimming.
So we have all the towels and it's like, right before we have my, my daughter's having a party this weekend, she's five and having a bunch of kids over.
So I'm like, oh no, I can't hang all the laundry everywhere. Cause there's going to be kids. And I did go into that overwhelm, but I was able to come out of it so much faster.
And just to say that my, my period did show up this morning. So unexpectedly again. And that actually leads perfectly into my next question for you Is What if someone is on birth control that controls their cycles, their cycles are coming every 28 days or every three months.
If you're on that form. From your knowledge, how are they affected with their ADHD symptoms?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
So I have a few notes on this one because otherwise I could go into a whole, whole podcast episode on it.
But I, I would say that when it comes to, yeah, when it comes to the pill, there's a few things I actually have.
I actually have a workshop called with ADHD PMDD and the pill. Cause I was getting asked quite a few questions even about the pill.
Just even from people that don't have ADHD that were just curious you know, messaging, mostly some yoga students I've had for a while back.
And I thought, yeah, I should do a bit more on this because other people will probably have these questions. I would say, first of all, that I think that if you, if we look at the pill and we kind of just delve a little bit deeper into some kind of, you know, truth bombs about the pill, one of the things I find really interesting is, is having that, that break for our period.
And really, I think back in about, I think it was back in the 1960s, that break, that break was added in to make people more willing to take the pill.
So really the it's an arbitrary number and sometimes it's irritating because I feel like some people I've worked with or just, you know, held space for, or even in trainings I've been in you know, we can get quite hung up and I was myself, a walking back, we can get quite hung up on, but my cycle is longer or shorter.
Then this time, especially if we're going into sort of, you know, para perimenopause territory and have those longer there's longer cycles.
And so I think first of all, it's good to know that that isn't a real period. It's just, it's just an arbitrary number.
We've put it in there, kind of goes with the moon. And it's just, just to make people more willing to take it because at the end of the day, I have also taken the pill.
So I'm not like someone who's like venomously against it. I just feel like there's so much that we don't know about when we go on it.
When I went on it, when I was younger and it's almost like, take the, take the pill, but have, have the consent, how you're taking it consent, you say, you want to know like the full picture of it.
If I went back on it now I would at least know the full picture of it because I've done so much exploration on it, but I just wanted to say, say that first of all.
And then when we do have our period and I’m air quoting again really it's to do a lot of the hormones because the pill, one of the roles of the pill is to prevent your ovulation.
So yeah, I won't go into all of it, but it's basically, it's, it's, it's not really a real period. And when I, when I heard that, I was like, WHAT, cause you do think that's it.
And you're like, well, I'm on my period, this week. And it's like, no, it's not, it’s just a bit of hormones.
So I, I find that so interesting, but in terms of wanting to track your cycles, because some people will maybe be listening to this and that they're pregnant going into peri-menopause, they’re on the pill, maybe they don't have a bleed or maybe they are you know, not assigned female at birth and they're going through transition.
And I really like to practice inclusivity. So I I'm really glad you asked this question because we can use the moon cycle, the phases of the moon to kind of give ourselves a cycle.
So it might be that you intuitively know, oh, this to me, my energy levels, even like you were saying, when, even though you take the pill, you can still have those moments when your hormones are just so strong.
And it's like, oh, actually I know where I've been. It's like, we'll say moon wise, it might be that it's a full moon and that's ovulation and it's inner summer, but you might be thinking now, I mean, it's the way it's waning mood because it's waning moon because my, my energy is waning and I'm in my inner autumn, my luteal phase.
So we can use the, the moon to back up. So you would have you’re, If we go with the new moon, when it's at its darkest, that would be your inner winter, so your bleed. The new moon would be day one. And then you would have your waxing moon would be the inner spring.
So follicular phase that the estrogen starts to rise again. Then you would have your inner summer as full moon ovulation and then waning in inner autumn.
The luteal phase, the phase where I think can be the most problematic because we want to slow down and society doesn't really make space for that.
So we have to make the space for it. So yeah, we can use the moon as a great way to track as well.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
That is so cool.
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah, it's amazing. It's like, wow. At the moment, I'm in sync with the moon, which is really fun because for a really long time, I was ovulating with the new moon.
And now I am ovulating with a full moon. So it's like all of this energy. And then, like you say, when we bring in those, those work arounds, it's not only with the ADHD work arounds, but it's also like the cycle syncing.
So if we, I like to marry those together. So almost like a cycle coach, but with, with the ADHD kind of lens on it.
Cause that's my experience. So when we have all of that energy in, in the inner summer, when we’re ovulating, that could be amazing, but it's also like that's a lot of, we already have that scatteredness probably with ADHD, we don't have that grounding or, you know, there's workarounds in place. It's almost like I have all of this energy, but I don't have the aligned thing to be working on.
And that's where I was struggling earlier this year because I was like, I have a lot of this energy, but I don't have the thing concrete enough to put it into.
And now I'm having that, ahh, game changer.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
It's really fascinating to me because I don't know much about that topic. So as you're talking about this, I'm like, whoa, that's so cool.
And now I'm going to, I mean, I have this moon book that I read with my my kids and it's about the phases of the moon and how they go.
So when you're talking about like the waning moon and the waxing moon and the new moon, and I though I'm like, okay, I know exactly what this one looks like, but that's the extent of it for me.
And now it's, and it just, it goes back to like prehistoric times.
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah, this is ancient wisdom, you know, that's that, it's just, we need to remember it.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
It's so fascinating. I am like a little mind blown right now and I'm not going to lie. I am definitely going to be looking this up even more after, after we get off this podcast because it's so, it's so cool.
Now you talked a lot about how the phases of the moon and the surge in different hormones and all, all the ovulation, how all of that could affect us.
And I think that there's obviously so much more here, like you said, you could go on for a full podcast episode, but I I'm actually assuming that you could go on for like 10 podcast episodes or more. Do you have somewhere that people can find you for more information or if they, if they're looking for a coach that can help them with this, where can they come find you?
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah, so they can find me I guess the easiest place at the moment is Instagram. I, I also have my, my Facebook business page, but that is the space between, because that was my yoga kind of brand.
So you can you recognize me? I have a very orange hair. Sometimes I wear a very bright blue wig, but I have a really great couple of resources, one’s called, ready steady chart, introduction to charting using the moon, temping, which is the temperature.
And just come do your basics. And I'll have another one that I'm doing at the moment called ADHD, PMDD, and me because I really noticed a lot of, kind of co-morbid morbidities with PMDD, which is like really strong, almost like a stronger version of PMS is, it’s different, but this, the easiest way to explain it.
So I'm really passionate about that and yeah, I have some guides and workshops, and I also do have some spaces for a one-to-one availability at the moment.
I'm excited to just dive deeper and yeah, bring it, bring it with the ADHD lens, because I think that's kind of a big gap.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
I'm going to share all of your links, everything that you sent me. I'm going to share all of that in the show notes.
So for anyone who's listening, if you didn't write it down. Absolutely. No worries. I always say that to everyone who I'm working with because I record it and transcribe everything.
Yeah. So it'll be all in the show notes. And if anyone is looking for more information on ADHD, PMDD hormones, all of that jazz, you can find Sorcha’s information in the notes, as well as the transcript to this conversation.
And if you want any more information on me, those links and social media handles are going to be in the show notes as well.
So everything is there for you, Sorcha, thank you so, so much for coming today and for exploring this topic with me, because I know how many women really, really would love to just devour this information.
Speaker - Sorcha (guest)
Yeah. A hundred percent. Thank you so much for having me. And like you say, other people, the more we talk about it, the more that people like, oh yeah, yeah, me too resonate.
So, you know, it's not just for you and it's really satisfying and exciting. So thank you so much for having me.
Speaker - Saundra (host)
If you enjoyed that and you're looking for more, make sure you check out my additional resources at saundrabrodkin.com/freestuff. You'll find a fully done for you and customizable daily planner that you can use as is, or completely make it your own without all of the hard executive function steps.
It's been known to take people from spending endless amounts of time and money on planners to finally finding something that works for them.
And Hey, you can print it at home. So ADHD tax averted, it's also linked for you in the show notes.
