When you hear the word growth, what happens in your body?

For many ADHD women, growth has become tied to pressure. Doing more, achieving more, and constantly pushing forward, even when your nervous system is already stretched.

In this episode, we explore how to reframe growth so it feels gentle, aligned and sustainable, not driven by urgency, but guided by self-trust. By relearning growth, we start to understand it's not about doing more, it’s about reconnecting with a part of you that feels fluid, authentic and open to possibility.

This conversation comes from a recent More Yourself live, where we explored what growth can look like beyond productivity, career or external expectations, and how to define expansion in a way that actually works for your brain and your life.

In this episode, we explore

1. Why traditional ideas of growth can feel pressurising, especially for ADHD minds
2. The impact of constant expectations on your nervous system
3. Reframing growth as expansion into authenticity, ease and possibility
4. The invisible blocks that can limit your potential, including fear, self-doubt and internalised beliefs
5. What the word "change" brings up for you, and the worries or resistance that may sit underneath
6. How breath and body awareness can support decision-making and help you tune into your desires
7. What could growth look like if it didn't mean doing more
8. Reflecting on what you may be holding onto out of habit, pressure or expectation
9. Learning what you might be ready to let go of

Want to go deeper?

This episode is taken from recent monthly More Yourself live, where we explore these themes together in real time, alongside a community of women who understand ADHD and the complexity that comes with it.

If this conversation resonates and you’d like more gentle, nervous-system-safe spaces for reflection, learning and support, we’d love to welcome you into the More Yourself community.

Inside the More Yourself Membership, you’ll be able to:

1. Connect with like-minded women who understand you
2. Learn from guest experts and practical tools
3. Receive compassionate prompts & gentle reminders
4. Enjoy voice-note encouragement from Kate
5. Join flexible meet-ups and mentoring sessions
6. Access on-demand workshops and quarterly guest expert sessions

To join for £26 a month, click here. To join for £286 for a year (a whole month free!), click here.

We’ll also be walking through The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Toolkit together, exploring nervous system regulation, burnout recovery, RSD, joy, hormones, and self-trust, so the book comes alive in a supportive community setting.

Links and Resources:

1. Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
2. Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

Foreign.

To another episode of More Yourself.

It's my solo coaching episode where I just share things that I hope will

make your day, your week or your

month easier, especially through a new lens of understanding yourself through neurodivergence.

And you may have heard about my community membership called More Yourself.

And through through these community sessions I often present, I do some coaching.

We also have some guest experts.

You may have heard them on the podcast.

And actually today I wanted to share with you a bit of a part from a workshop that I did on growth a couple of months ago in January.

And I wanted to share this bit with you because I think it's really pertinent to what we're all experience right now, where we're sort of slowly but surely emerging from maybe one season, one part of our life, a chapter in our life where we may be impatient or intolerant with ourselves, we might just feel like we should be hurrying up and the growth isn't happening fast enough.

And actually I wanted to share with

you how it's all in the quieter, calmer moments.

It's in those moments where we just

in that holding bay where we're not

quite sure what's going on, but we sort of having a bit of faith in what is emerging from underneath.

Perhaps all the stuff that we can't quite see, all the work that we've been putting in, we haven't quite quite seen the fruits of our labor.

So I wanted to share this bit with you about reflecting on the slow change in this season and I guess exploring our different gentle personal parts of our growth journey and putting this through this ADHD awareness as well as the many invisible blocks that can cause us to feel like we aren't moving forwards, that cause us maybe to shrink back again and feel like we aren't growing.

I also share in this clip a actionable writing prompt.

So I hope this is a very practical way for you to sort of get out of your head and just allow the words to come through of what is maybe feeling stuck in you, stuck in your body and your nervous system.

And we also touch on things like beliefs, like beliefs of fear of change and the things that keep sabotaging us, that keeping us stuck in these behaviors that we feel scared to change, scared to grow, really honing in on them so we can see it.

I mean, I always say we've got to name it to tame it.

And I think that when we do that, it allows our nervous system to calm down, to regulate and then allows us to notice, notice what feels good to us, what feels expansive, but also what feels like restrictive, what feels tight in our bodies that we're not wanting to take with us on this growth journey.

I really hope that today's episode gives you some food for thought and some actionable ways to move forwards without putting too much pressure on yourself.

Here it is.

Today we're going to be talking about growth and this is nothing to do with, perhaps if you work in the corporate world, what you might hear in, like, quarters and all things like that, where it just feels like we need to push, work harder, do more, let's pivot, let's change.

None of that, that comes from very sort of masculine energy.

And we really want to be coming from a place of.

This is all about gentle.

This is a gentle expansion of checking in.

So we are towards the tail end of January, and what's amazing about this time, it feels quite dark and gloomy and outside, you know, we can see as much going on within nature, on the trees.

But what we do know, we do know that this is the first inklings of spring, that the roots are starting to open up and wanting to start nourishing, you know, get the nourishment end, because we might start seeing those first buds and the bluebells are going to be coming out and nature is almost gathering up speed all beneath the surface.

And we don't question any of this.

We just know it's happening and we accept it and we see it for what it is and we allow everything just to take its course.

We allow nature just to happen in the way that it's always meant to, without hurrying it up along.

You know, it's not like we're in the end of January and it's like, well, come on, guys, we need to be seeing apples on the trees, we need to be planting our tomatoes and strawberries should be coming out, you know, what's going on quicker, faster.

We just allow and we accept and we.

We know that beneath everything that's going on and the, you know, the twigs that look bare and empty and barren, but there's tiny, weeny little buds growing.

And it makes me think how much we put so much pressure on ourselves, so much expectation, so many expectations that we need to just keep going.

And we don't listen within and we don't listen to our nervous systems and we don't listen to the part of us that might not be ready, might not be wanting to do more.

Some people here today might be like, yes, this is going to be like 20, 26 is going to Be the year where I do this and I do that and I've got amazing big plans.

For some of us, it might be the year that we want to slow down and pull back and strip back and simplify.

For some of us, we might just be not wanting to grow.

Like we've done the growing, we've done all the hard work and we just kind of want to just sit and enjoy with what we've got and not have to push anymore.

And we just have to be able to be okay with where we are right now.

And the reason why I asked for you to bring a pen and paper today is because I wanted to challenge you a little bit with, with this and the understanding of all of this through a neuroaffirming lens.

Because we can do all the coaching in the world, we can do all of this work.

If we're not understanding it through the lens of late diagnosis, you know, neurodivergence, ADHD or dhd, whatever, you know, that, that is for you, then we're not doing any of this justice.

And what's interesting, this week I spoke at a, an in person event which was really fabulous, a book event in Manchester in a fabulous bookshop, like an independent bookshop called Simply Books.

And the, the sole sort of contributing factor of the conversation was that so many of the women were exhausted.

You know, so many.

We talked about burnout, the burnout chapter.

And it was just like everyone was nodding, everyone was resonating, everyone was recognizing how much grit and hard work and resilience and determination and pushing they've had to do to get to where they've had to, you know, they've got to.

Whether that's from a career perspective, a family perspective, relationships, whatever that looks like, how exactly how exhausted they all were.

Because that's all through not knowing and not understanding their brains and not understanding the limitations and the challenges that they've had without even knowing them.

They're like invisible blocks.

And it's kind of like, you know, it's like a video game and there's blocks that you didn't even know they were invisible.

So it's more energy, more exhaustion, trying to navigate the world and trying to navigate what we're doing because we didn't have the language and the articulation.

And I think it's so validating and so important that we stress this and we bring this to our, our attention because we are in some ways really limited in perhaps what we've been able to achieve or do because of this unknown, these unknown blocks.

But we've also perhaps held back or we shrunk or we've limited ourselves because we've known that there's a potential there, but there's stumbling blocks along the way.

And we've not been able to achieve what we want to achieve because there's been these.

These.

These difficulties, these invisible difficulties that you've not had support for, you've not had help for.

And now I want to be able to acknowledge all of this because we are deserving of thriving.

So I'd like you to just write on a piece of paper, just think in your head when I say the word growth, what happens in your body, not in your brain.

What happens in your body and your nervous system.

What does it feel like?

Does it feel exciting, expansive, fun?

Or does it feel perhaps like unsafe?

Feels scary?

It feels like.

I don't even know what that.

That feels like.

I don't know how.

Or does it feel like an opportunity, adventure?

Or perhaps you don't even.

You can't really articulate it because it can just feel like another job.

It can just feel like another thing that we have to do.

And I want it to almost feel like possibility and opportunity to you.

Where your nervous system, if you think about it, it might have, like, closed.

It might have sort of put a wall up towards anything like this, because it does feel unsafe and overwhelming.

And I want your nervous system to start almost feeling a little bit curious as to.

Okay, so you're talking about growth.

What does that look like?

And it's interesting that we're able to accept it from nature, but we're not able to accept it.

For us, now we're getting this awareness.

Now we're understanding ourselves a little bit more.

What if I chose growth?

What if I chose expansion?

So let's go back in because I don't want to start going there yet.

I want you to start having a real dig around.

And if it does feel unsafe to you, what is it that is feeling unsafe?

So if it feels like that's scary or that's overwhelming, what is the message or the belief that you're hearing?

But is there a fear of judgment?

Is there a fear of what people might say?

Who am I to do this?

Is there a fear of visibility?

Is there a fear of leaving certain people behind or changing?

Because very often we like the status quo.

The status quo is safe, even though it's stagnating us.

And this is time to be really honest.

Because when we don't address this, it just stays there.

It's like the elephant in the room.

And we can walk over it, we can climb over it, we pretend it's not there, but it's always there.

So important we address this, you know, let that perfectionist part of you come in.

Let that people pleasing part of you come in.

This is the time to welcome it all.

Because we can say, yeah, I want to grow, I want to, I want to choose to expand, I want to choose to change.

But what, what if.

How am I going to do this?

The.

How the house stops us so often?

The steps in front?

Well, yeah, I want to do this, but how's that going to look?

Who's going to help me?

How am I going to afford it?

I get all of that.

But we have to address the beliefs and the messages and the things that are there.

This, this is uncomfortable.

Like we don't love addressing all of this.

Like it's really fun to think about all the, the cool stuff and the business plans and the vision boards and the ideas and all of that.

But actually that fear of judgment or that perfectionism or the shame or having to explain yourself to that one family member who's always really cynical is the thing that holds us back.

That thought of that one person seeing you do that thing on Instagram, talking about it or having to have the conversation with somebody that can just shut it all down.

And it's so interesting because your nervous system knows all of this and then you make excuses that sound like, well, I haven't got the skills or I haven't got the qualifications or that's not possible.

If there is anything coming up for you and you are noticing things that perhaps that you've not quite addressed before or you've kind of, you had there maybe sort of in your ear, but you've tried to sort of bat it away now, the brain part of us.

So remember, we've been taught to go top down.

So brain down, always use your brain.

And that's why we struggle with decision, fatigue and worry and overthinking and rumination and all of that.

Because it's our brain having to do 90% of the, you know, and sometimes we'll be like, oh, I don't like that my stomach hurts, or oh, I've got a sore neck.

And I'm not sure I've got a sore neck.

What I'm trying to teach you is that we have to feel this in our body.

We have to feel it in our body and our nervous system.

So when you are in that place of lack of self trust or, or indecision or not quite knowing what feels right, what doesn't feel right.

It's like going back.

Go back to those breaths.

Go back to your hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly, breathing in and tuning in to what feels in your body like an expansive move.

Even if you don't quite understand it, even if you don't quite understand why or how or what.

It's just that, oh, that feels quite nice, you know how.

I don't know if I've used this example before, but I think we're quite good at knowing sometimes what we feel like eating, especially, you know, women and hormonally how we're feeling.

Like sometimes we just really craving a cheese toasty.

I'm really craving a jacket potato or whatever that might be.

And then someone says, oh, I've got a salad or a bowl of soup for you, or I've made X.

And you're like, oh, I really don't want that.

Like, it's so visceral, isn't it?

Sometimes what we crave, like food wise or music wise, what we want to listen to.

Like, sometimes you'll get in the car and you'll be like, I need to play this playlist and another song.

Oh, I don't want to listen to that.

We have to be able to tune in to our bodies in a way that we can figure out about other things as well.

That to do with us, that to do with our own decision making, that to do with our desires and to do with how we want life to look and feel like.

I'm just thinking, don't let, don't be stuck in the word growth.

Because sometimes that happens to me where someone would say, we're talking about this.

I'm like, no, I don't want to relate to that.

I don't want to do any more.

That's absolutely fine.

Because this isn't about doing more.

This really isn't.

This is about connecting to a part of you that feels gentle, that feels like possibility, that feels fluid, that feels authentic.

I'm not necessarily just talking about career or work.

I'm talking about what you are ready to be germinating under the surface right at this moment.

You might not want to see any of this until the spring or the summer.

You might just be putting the little tiny plans in place.

You might just be planting the seeds to what potentially you are ready to feel like further down the line.

We have to clear the, Clear the decks.

So again, using sort of like an analogy of where we are right now, you know, our gardens may have not, we might not have touched our gardens since like October, you know, clocks.

For me it was the clocks changed, the evenings went dark, the afternoons went dark, and that's it.

And we haven't seen our garden.

You know, my dog has, but we haven't for, for a while.

And I'm now looking at my garden and it really needs a clear out.

Like leaves everywhere, weeds, this, get rid of things.

I want to start thinking about the summer, but I need to make space.

I need to clear things.

And the clearing and the making space is you guys deciding what beliefs are in my way.

What am I holding on to I don't need to hold on to anymore?

What are you willing to let go of?

And if you really liked the concept of this and you like the idea of having these kind of countable monthly sessions where I come in and we do some live workshops and also bring in different guest experts.

We also chat to each other and communicate and connect on these calls as well as on our community platform.

Please do go and check out the More Yourself community.

It's on my website, which is adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk you just search for More Yourself.

You'll see all the information and it'll

meet you wherever you're at.

People are coming in at all walks of life, all different parts of their journey, asking lots of questions, connecting.

And I really hope that if there

is something that you're looking for a more cost effective, more affordable way of getting some answers and asking those questions and learning and understanding it also evolving, evolving, then please do check out More Yourself.

I really do hope it's something that will be of interest to you.