In this week's More Yourself episode, we explore the connection between personal growth, guilt, and the nervous system and the impact this interaction can have.

Many women carry guilt quietly in their bodies. It can show up as chronic illness, pain, and other physical sensations. Over time, these emotions can settle into the nervous system and begin shaping how safe or unsafe change feels.

In this clip from a recent More Yourself episode, we explore how learning to notice the physical sensations in our bodies can help us understand what we’re holding onto, and where growth might be trying to emerge.

In this episode, we explore:

1. Why growth and change can feel activating for the nervous system
2. How guilt can show up physically in the body
3. The emotional weight many women carry without realising
4. How guilt can quietly influence our decisions
5. Why being a woman can add extra layers of expectation and pressure
6. How to recognise the blocks that can appear when we start thinking about change
7. How recognising sensations in the body can help release stuck emotions
8. Creating space for new intentions, possibilities and directions

This episode is a reminder that sometimes growth doesn't come from pushing yourself harder, but by gently noticing what your body has been trying to tell you all along.

Why not start by asking yourself this question: If guilt wasn’t leading the way, what might growth feel like instead?

Timestamps:

1. 00:10 - Exploring Growth and Change
2. 03:31 - Understanding Guilt and Growth
3. 07:44 - The Impact of Guilt on Decision Making
4. 11:57 - Releasing Emotional Blockages
5. 14:39 - Exploring Self-Sabotage and Personal Growth

Want to go deeper?

This episode is taken from a 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.

Today's episode sponsors:

If you’re looking to deepen your understanding and create meaningful change in the ADHD community, today’s podcast sponsor is for you! The Neurodiversity Training Academy is on a mission to empower professionals working to help those clients wear their ADHD with pride.

You can download the brochure or book a call here:

https://neurodiversitytrainingacademy.com/pod/

Links and Resources:

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

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.

Welcome back to another More Yourself episode.

And you may remember from the last episode I did on a Monday we touched on growth.

And I'm still, it's still part of this journey that I want to explore because we are in this spring season, we're at the beginning of spring and it does have this feeling of hope and growth and evolution and change.

And I did a workshop on this a few weeks ago and I wanted to share with you a second part of this workshop that we did in the More Yourself community.

And this time it's going to be looking at what growth feels like in our bodies and letting go of these old beliefs that often get stuck.

They get stuck in our body, get stuck in our nervous system.

We're not quite sure why, but when we get to the root of it, we understand the that these emotions that have been so deeply rooted in our psyche have been creating the same outcomes over and over.

So we want to be able to change the outcomes.

We want to be able to move forward.

This growth doesn't come from doing the same thing over and over.

We have to change the foundations a little bit.

We talk about clearing this stuck emotion through somatic tools such as EFT or tapping or this voice activation of really recognizing the throat chakra and seeing how we can clear that so we can remove or release that stuck emotion.

And then we work towards a visualization practice for looking at guilt and asking what growth would feel like in our bodies.

So I really hope that you find it of help today.

It helps give you that nudge towards perhaps what you're looking to feel, that change, that evolution that you are ready to step into, whether it's with regards to your career, your family life, just you, just yourself.

It doesn't even have to be anything exterior.

It can just be something within you.

And we do this all through this neuroaffirming lens.

We always do this through this compassion, this deep acceptance of who we are and who we've always been.

And we drop that mask and we drop that need to present ourselves in a different way and allow whatever is naturally intuitively wanting to come out.

While also recognizing that we're all growth in process, we're all naturally evolving and that there's no perfection, there's no just done and dusted.

We're all moving through this.

And so I hope that you listen to this with compassion and it helps

you with whatever you're going through.

Here it is.

And don't forget that the More yourself

community is is there, it's ready and waiting for you.

Wherever you are on your journey, come and meet us.

There's so many different incredible women navigating different things all, all through this understanding of who they are through a neurodivergent lens.

So all the information on More Yourself is on my website, which is adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk have a look, see if it's for you.

Give it a go.

We've got such incredible resources as well on there.

Lots of past workshops, lots of voice notes and all sorts of things that you can get stuck into right away.

You don't have to wait for the live sessions.

And if just being accountable live is what you need, then every month we have at least one, one live session often, too.

And we're going to be building in things like body doubling and perhaps some journaling workshops as well.

So it's going to be all there for you.

Take whatever feels good.

And I hope to see you, I hope to see you within the community.

Here is today's podcast episode and I

want to talk about guilt, actually, and go back to that feeling in your body of we do know as women, we do have this intuition.

We do have the feelings in our body when things aren't right.

And even if we're not consciously aware of it, it'll show up in neck pain, it'll show up in a migraine, it'll show up in poor sleep or hormonal issues or back pain and eye infection.

Like, I don't know, one woman who, unless it's like a really contagious illness that's going round, you know, like a sickness, bug or flu or whatever, typically if something just happens out the blue, there's something emotionally related to it that we're holding something emotionally.

You know, there's a statistic that 80% of people who suffer with autoimmune conditions are women.

And that, again, is women holding things in our bodies and having things being suppressed and guilt and resentment and all things that shrink us and hold us down.

And even now, just talking about it, it just feels so restrictive in your body, like you're almost like your growth is capped.

We talk about the glass ceiling and all of that, but this is, this is like something that feels.

When women are strong and women are powerful, that can be very scary for a patriarchal system.

And I'm not talking about.

This is not about men hating and, and everything.

This is just a system that has been built into our psyche and our consciousness that is not made for women to question and get curious about their own growth.

And their own expansion and their own possibility and opportunities and desires and what ifs and doesn't create dialogues that allow us to shed and release and change and expand and grow and challenge generational patterns and all of this.

So I'm just trying to create a bit of a picture for you, which is why sometimes this might all just be feeling a bit like, ooh, no one's really talked about this.

Like, who am I to want to change and grow?

And who am I to want to decide that this is not working anymore?

I'm going to create a new framework to my life.

No one talked about this to me in my family.

No one has ever discussed this, especially from a female perspective.

This is not a conversation that I would have in my family right now because it's just a bit sort of, well, you do this and you do that, and then you've got that, and then that's it.

And then just be grateful for what you've got.

And I am very, very grateful.

And it's not like.

It's not like I want to blow

things up or make a huge change.

It's a lot of his internal.

But when we do that internal work, the people we love and the people we care about and the people that are meant to stay in our lives and the people that we want with us on this journey come with us as well.

And they mold and they adapt and things shift for them as well.

And that's what I really love about this.

And then you might notice that the people that you are no longer that align to the people that you are kind of have this feeling with every time you with them.

You think they really have that much in common anymore.

Like our mindsets are quite different.

Or you might just notice that those relationships start ebbing away naturally.

There's no sort of drama or anything.

But it's really important now that you put some intention and attention to this and start putting the attention of what you want for you and putting a little bit more focus on that.

What's coming into your body When I talk about this, do you feel, oh, this is exciting.

This feels possible.

What's the block as well?

What blocks are coming up for you?

What still feels.

No, that's not possible.

Imagine how life would feel if we just removed guilt.

Like, there's guilt and it's there and it's here and it's all over our bodies and it's all over our lives and everything we do.

There's.

I will feel guilty if I don't do that.

I feel so guilty if I don't respond or I don't feel so guilty if I don't get back to her.

I don't feel so guilty if I don't do this.

If we just took that draining energy, like the most draining energy, the most sort of dark, restrictive energy, and we just removed it.

Men don't feel guilt.

I mean, some, they might feel guilty, but suddenly they don't get driven by guilt like we do.

Their decisions aren't made out of guilt.

Women's decisions are made out of guilt.

Like, I notice this all the time.

I speak to friends, I notice my own decisions.

It's like I feel really guilty if I don't do that.

Well, I don't want to do it, but I still feel guilty.

So I do it.

Imagine how much depletion would be taken out of us and how much energy we would have if guilt was just not a driver, the front seat driver.

So if you're feeling that in your

body, allow it, allow it.

Whether you need to move out somatically, if you need to shout out into a cushion or go into a forest and shout, if you need to just kind of like sometimes with your body, it needs to come out, do some tapping and literally just tap and say, this feeling in my chest, this feeling in my chest, this feeling in my chest, it needs to, is pushing out, it's pushing out.

I need to get it out.

This feeling in my chest, do some tapping around that.

Because eventually that feeling in your chest, you might feel it moving and you might be like, that feeling in my chest means I know what that feeling in my chest is.

This is a person, this is a situation, whatever that might be.

It was interesting, is that when we take things away, when we strip things back, when we release things, when we make space, the growth happens, the growth happens, the expansion happens.

Get back to the garden, you're weeding, you're clearing the grass, the leaves have gone.

And all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can plant a beautiful plant over there, or I can put a vegetable patch over here.

And all of a sudden you see opportunity.

Oh, I can put some pots in that space or a little pond over here.

I think about this is it gets exciting, but you can't do any of that until you do a little bit of clearing.

And this, this belief work that we're doing now is clearing the decks a bit for you.

A glimmer of possibility, that's all it takes.

It doesn't have to be an earth shattering bolt of lightning with this is how everything's going to be from now on.

This is how life is going to be.

It's like it's never that.

It is always just a little glimmer.

It's just a little seed, a little grain, and then we move from there.

And we often think that we have to feel ready to do the thing, to take action.

Like we're never ever going to be ready.

So we have to just pretend that's not, you know, leave that there.

We'll never going to be ready because it's always going to be scary and there's always going to be a reason and there's always going to be an excuse.

But if we can take a tiny piece of action and tiny step, then that action creates the motion.

So the formula, and I, I'm not a formula person, but is like you lean into it, you accept it, you see it and you just, you just get curious.

And then something will come from it and there will be a release and then this space and then that space is where the possibility lies.

But we can't.

You think of, you can't build.

Like, say you go to a building site and you think, right, and there's loads of crap everywhere in this plastic bottles and not tidied up and there's wires and all of that.

Anything.

I'll just put some grass seed down.

No fertilizer, no compost, no nothing.

Maybe some grass will grow, but it's not going to be nice and there's still going to be loads of stuff underneath the surface and it's going to be, you know, it's going to be there.

This is all about stripping, about getting rid of the things that you've been holding on to for a really, really long time.

Allowing wherever you are in this discovery process, your diagnostic process, to really, really sit with you.

Anger, grief, resentment, feeling like a victim.

Allow it, sit with it.

So I hope that today, even just you are noticing any of that repressed energy and noticing what it's been, what's been doing in your body, noticing where it's been sitting and lying dormant and stagnating and sometimes comes out maybe in irritability or impatience or intolerance or just annoyance or resentment, whatever that might be.

Notice can do like throat activation where you can use your throat even if you don't know what is being restricted or constricted or repressed.

Sometimes just doing the somatic work, somatically you can move things.

So you can go onto YouTube and just put in throat clearing exercise, throat somatic exercise and that can clear things.

I'm sure.

I've got on my website a free download for a throat chakra eft tapping exercise.

I did it a few years ago, but I remember doing it and thinking oh my God, that was so, so effective.

And it's literally, you can again, you can tap on this feeling in my throat, this blockage in my throat, something stuck in my throat, this thing in my whatever that might be.

And you can, you don't have to be specific and just be like this tightness in my throat, this tightness in my throat.

It feels blocked, it feels constricted.

You'll know what it is, whatever, it might just be something like I'm not speaking my truth, I'm not allowed to speak my truth.

Truth.

Sometimes we don't need to understand it and our body is just happy to clear, clear it for us.

And we'll just be like, oh, that was a really helpful, useful exercise.

And I'm not quite sure what it was, but I just knew there was something there.

What I want to close with is now that we have recognized the certain blocks, we've recognized there's belief systems is recognize what those potentially those self sabotaging behaviors might be.

And maybe I don't know if you have, but if you, if there are certain self sabotaging behaviors that you tend to do, write those down as well.

Because we want to be able to spot them, we want to be ahead of ourselves a little bit here.

So an example of my, what I notice my self sabotaging behavior might be is to go into over productivity, work overworking or over productivity.

I try to outwork myself a little bit.

And then now I want you to put all of this, what we've just talked about to one side.

We've seen it, we've acknowledged it, maybe we know what it feels like in our body as well.

And for a minute I want you to pretend that all of that is just in a box somewhere.

The guilt, the resentment, the fear of judgment, the shame, the people pleasing, the perfectionism, all of that.

I want you to just put it in a box.

And if you want, sometimes I think it's quite easy to close your eyes and just imagine all of those and you just literally put it in a box and you put a lid on it and you move that box into

the back of the room

and you just tell the boss, you just stay there for a minute.

It's quite a nice way to sort of compartmentalize it.

And that's there and it's just sitting that box for a little bit.

And if you've got a free reign, you've got a magic wand, what would growth feel like to you?

And if you feel like you want to say, look like you can.

I was going to go with feel like first, your most natural, authentic thing, that whatever comes up for you right now, there's no judgment.

You don't have to please anyone else apart from yourself.

This is your vision.

What's amazing is that when we allow ourselves, we give ourselves permission to park all of the stuff that we hold on to.

We give ourselves permission to just put it away for a minute.

Because that is such heavy, dense, toxic wearing energy that takes over the other stuff that's coming through.

Like you're saying, the warmth, the energy, the possibility, whatever that might be is just lying there, ready to be discovered.

It wants to be discovered.

But all the other stuff just keeps

pushing it down, pushing it down.

But we want to create some cracks now.

We want to create some movement and some fluidity to let things start coming up from the surface.

So when I started this session in the beginning and it was like growth, it's like that, it did feel scary.

I was like, oh God, are they going to, you know, is this going to be something that I'm going to be adding another, you know, another thing to the pile of the to do list.

But as you can see, this is more about allowing you to expand, allowing you, giving you this permission.

Sometimes we need that, this permission, as crazy as women, to put ourselves first, to prioritize what we want, what we desire, and make choices from that lens instead of the guilt and the people pleasing and the perfectionism and the judgment and the fear.

And

if this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.