Allison Freeman is the visionary behind Attuned Pathways, a support group for neurodivergent parents most of which are raising neurodivergent children. She is the first person that I know of in the world to run a group like this.

She joins us to explore the unique landscape of support (and the lack of) for neurodivergent parents. Our conversation reveals the underrepresented challenges ND parents face, spotlighting the relief and understanding offered by Allison’s vibrant community.

We discuss the transformative power of parents recognizing their own neurodivergence, and how such awareness can revolutionize family dynamics, offering a deeper, more compassionate support system for their children.

As the holiday season approaches, we also tackle the stressors that can arise during family gatherings. The invaluable support provided by Allison’s Attuned Pathways emerges as a beacon during these times, offering a sanctuary for brainstorming solutions, sharing, learning, and growth.

About Allison Freeman

Allison’s journey into therapy and coaching is rooted in her belief that deep healing for neurodivergent individuals happens in community. As a neurocomplex human with AuDHD raising two high sensitive, neurodivergent children, she’s learned that the most transformative growth comes not just from individual work but from being in the presence of others who share our experiences, creativity, and depth. See more about Allison and the groups she offers at  https://attunedpathways.podia.com

Or see her on IG:  @attunedpathways

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About Dr. Liz

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Winner of numerous awards including Top 100 Moms in Business, Dr. Liz provides psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and hypnosis to people wanting a fast, easy way to transform all around the world. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and has special certification in Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy. Specialty areas include Anxiety, Insomnia, and Deeper Emotional Healing.

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Listened to in over 140 countries, Hypnotize Me is the podcast about hypnosis, transformation, and healing. Certified hypnotherapist and Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Dr. Liz Bonet, discusses hypnosis and interviews professionals doing transformational work

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Transcript

0:00:02 – Dr. Liz
My interview today is with Allison Freeman. She created a community called Attuned Pathways where neurodivergent parents can go to get support and not just support as in reading stuff or many courses or that type of thing, but actual, live, meaningful community support, like these group calls, where they can really brainstorm and work through what’s going on with them as parents, as they navigate parenthood as a neurodivergent parent, which is different than navigating parenthood as a more neurotypical parent, regardless of whether your child is neurotypical or neurodivergent. Allison had emailed me to let me know about this community that she’s built and I immediately read the email and thought, oh my God, I’ve got to interview her and more people need to know about this. This is so valuable. There are support groups for parents of neurodivergent children that I’ve seen, but I have not ever seen before a support group for neurodivergent parents, and that is her focus. Now she does say very clearly that neurodivergent quote unquote is a very loose term, it doesn’t need to be anything officially diagnosed and during the interview, near the end, she tells about the type of thoughts you may be having that are cues of maybe this is a community for me, so that you can check it out.

Now I identify as highly sensitive, meaning all kinds of sensory stuff is processed differently for me. I’m more sensitive to light, sounds, textures, clothing oh my gosh. I can’t even tell you how many struggles I’ve had with clothing smells, oh man. Yeah, we talk about mother-in-law’s near the end of the interview and it’s like there was this one Christmas where we were driving up to my brother-in-law’s house and we were taking my mother-in-law with us and I asked my husband could you please ask her not to wear perfume? Gives me a headache. We’re gonna be in the car for 14 hours. It gets really awful for me and of course she wore perfume. I ended up with like a 10 hour headache or something. Love her these days, but believe me, that was a tough car ride for me. That’s just one example of many, many, many things that HSPs and autistic people deal with in terms of sensory sensitivities.

Sensory sensitivities is one  leg of the triangle that’s needed to diagnose autism. You’ve got to qualify for all three legs and I don’t. So I’m not autistic myself, but I do have the sensory sensitivities and often people will have the sensory sensitivities, not really know what highly sensitive person is HSP and think that they’re autistic. Sometimes I have to clarify that for them when they come in for an adult autism diagnosis. And, just so you know, I only do adults over 18 for adult autism evaluations and there’s two levels of that. So one is a far more formal level which someone could use that report to apply for disability. That takes a lot more time as well.

But I also offer an assessment session, quote-unquote, where we meet for 90 minutes to two hours and we’re reviewing the criteria of autism and and whether someone meets it based on their life experiences. What they’ve been through in the past and currently is all taken into account and I give my professional opinion and it can be very validating for someone either way actually to say, okay, yes, I meet criteria for autism or I don’t.

I am private pay, so none of that shows up on your insurance records, particularly if you don’t want it to. There’s some downsides that can happen sometimes. When someone has a diagnosis of autism in their records it’s a whole other episode and I’ve actually recorded it, so you can go listen to that one, search it up, because I don’t know the number off the top of my head.

All right, let’s jump into hearing from Allison and how she came up with this wonderful community and what it offers parents. Hi, Allison, welcome to the Hypnotize Me podcast.

0:04:37 – Allison
Hi, thank you so much for having me.

0:04:40 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, I’m so glad that you agreed to be here, because I think there’s some well needed information that you’re to be here, because I think there’s some well-needed information that you’re going to let our audience know. So we’re just going to jump in to that. Why don’t you give us some background about how you decided to be a therapist and then how you got into autism support, all of that good stuff?

0:05:06 – Allison
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So big question there. But I my my path was really something that was a felt sense, you know really from, from really, when I was younger I always had an interest in people and human psychology and so I was funneled there, naturally, like so many of us are. But I actually started my career as a school counselor. So the first 13 years after graduating with my school counseling degree I was in an elementary school and that’s where I really started seeing the need for neurodivergent support and it would start for me at the school level noticing the challenges that were chronic. There were so many patterns in children that were really high masking and those would trickle into the family.

So it was kind of a combination of an interest there, okay, and that led me into I needed more freedom. So being in the school system, you’re really bound by a lot of those system, those system, I guess, boundaries or just a lot of that. You know we’ve got to do it one way. There’s not a whole lot of resources to go deeper and to support these kids and families to the level that I really wanted to.

So I actually went back to school and I added on my clinical licensure and then I left the school system and now that is where my work is primarily. I work with either late diagnosed autistic and ADHD clients or adolescents who are high masking or adolescents who are high masking. So that’s kind of yeah, how I was funneled there. I myself I am an ADHD, adhd and autistic therapist and mother of an ADHD son who was in middle school.

0:07:30 – Dr. Liz
Okay, great. And when you say late diagnosed, you’re referring to an adulthood. Yes, anything after school age, okay, so like after 18, basically in the in the us we run up into 17.

0:07:34 – Allison
18 is when kids graduate from high school yes, that is, that is how we conceptualize that. It’s almost like you, a second phase of life into that early, early adulthood. So anytime after they’re really yeah, and that can be a wide span of years that some people will will discover that in themselves.

0:07:53 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, and when? Did you discover it yourself, or were you diagnosed as a kid?

0:07:59 – Allison
Bit of both. So ADHD was discovered in school for me and the big thing that was noticed was inattention. It was something that I began to notice as I was a little older, getting into secondary school and then others around me. I think it impacted. I think it impacted me to a level that the adults noticed that was the key for being diagnosed there. They had to notice that my potential wasn’t being met and that’s when they took me in for testing and I met that clinical threshold and it was helpful to a degree. I think it informed teachers and my parents and they were able to accommodate me a bit better. But it was not the whole picture. There were still a lot of pieces that were kind of a misalignment, I would say for me, and that was something I had to figure out. I wasn’t diagnosed with autism until I was 35.

0:08:57 – Dr. Liz
35. Okay, so that’s late. Yes, yeah, and how did that come about?

0:09:04 – Allison
That was a whole self, self exploration, self discovery experience and I think I had a little bit of a privilege there honestly just being being so exposed to or immersed in the world of high masking autism. It’s its own thing.

0:09:23 – Dr. Liz
You know, it’s not.

0:09:24 – Allison
it’s not quite the same as the stereotypical autism that people have been learning about over the last couple of decades. It is its own thing, and so working with my son definitely was the beginning of it, where I, as we, were supporting him, I had these moments of well, but I did that, you know, like hold on, I don’t are we sure. And then it was it was through therapy, my own therapy, that I was able to have patterns reflected back to me. So a combination of, of, of some luck, you know, being exposed to the populations that could mirror, mirror those things in myself back to me.

0:10:03 – Dr. Liz
Got it, got it, yeah. Mirror those things in myself back to me Got it, got it, yeah. And I have quite a few parents that come in that contact me because I do just adult autism evaluations I don’t do childhood and often people will contact me as adults saying, hey, my kid was just diagnosed and I want to know if I’m autistic too, because I see all these similarities in me.

0:10:29 – Allison
Yes, yes, it is a pattern, for sure, and that’s very similar to what I notice in my practice as well, and I think that’s so important to that we listen to that we so important to that we listen to that we that we are able to tune into, turn inward and do exactly what you just described. Yes, slow it down, be with what you’re noticing, get curious and then seek out some information outside of just yourself. I think that is a huge, huge piece. It’s so worthwhile.

0:11:05 – Dr. Liz
Yes, yeah, it is, it really is, and I think when people identify that, parents identify it. I think the support can also change for the child. Like the child’s experience of support is actually what I’m trying to say Like the actual support can change too. Right, but I tend to assume that people are empathetic parents and both my kids laugh at that because they’re like no, most people are not empathetic, most parents are not like you and I’m like well, you know, I don’t know. I guess I like to assume the best of people that they’re going to support their kids no matter what, but I think that I don’t know. There’s some qualitative change in there If the child knows oh my, my mom or my dad are autistic too and they just didn’t know it before this. So I think there is a different experience of that as a child, I would assume. What do you think?

0:12:10 – Allison
Absolutely. I think that’s so important and even having that as a an important reframe, because for me and I think a lot of the time when we are trying to really support our children and we’re doing it out of sometimes, it’s this skill we don’t even realize is unique to us as neurodivergent people, which is, you know, really like hyper-empathy and attunement, where we’re really tuned into our children and we see things, we have a sight that is sometimes beyond what neurotypical parenting can look like, right, and so we we noticed these things that may fly under the radar for others and it turns out okay. So, yeah, my child has what we call low support needs, autism possibly and it is something that’s a little bit more nuanced to catch and you’re having to be their biggest advocate in those situations. You know, if they are in these places like compliance based systems and the school system, right, yes, those needs are misaligned, the needs the school system has misaligned with what the needs of the child are, because compliance and that flexibility and all of the approaches we really need to have for neurocomplex kiddos, it doesn’t really, you know, it’s not something we have right now.

So, as you were the parent doing that advocacy work for your child. I mean, I remember just this really intense pull between wanting and needing and knowing I needed to be there for my child and I saw his needs and I saw the things that needed to be tweaked or accommodated and it was simple to me. And then I would get pushback from the school right and that pushback would trigger all of this internalized shame and ableism and all of these things. You know, you’re taught don’t rock the boat, be a good girl, right, we need to make sure that we are being compliant. It would just flare all of that up. But when we talk about bringing in or weaving in the possibility of our own highly masked autistic identity, there is a easier we have an easier time there deconstructing some of that internalized shame, internalized ableism, getting really introspective and showing up with more fervor and more confidence for our child. As we’re broadening confidence for our child, as we’re broadening our entire perspective, this becomes less laser focused on my singular child’s needs and it moves into this global space.

So yeah, absolutely so. To that point, I think it is incredibly worthwhile to slow down and be curious about that in yourself, and the reframe would be it is going to only deepen that support and help you with clarity as you’re navigating how to do it.

0:15:11 – Dr. Liz
Yes, absolutely Okay, great, I’m glad to hear that you see it a similar way as I do, because often I will see parents just not understand, will see parents just not understand. I’m just going to put it very simply. So I’m in several Facebook groups of parents of autistic children and they’re they’ll post questions where they’re assuming that the child is doing something out of obstinance, let’s say, versus like I don’t know if they had a deeper understanding of that, and that’s always the goal is. I think they’re wanting a deeper understanding of that. That’s why they’re posting the question and, honestly, the communities are great that I belong to about providing that for them. But it’s like, with a deeper understanding of that, then that negative bent on the child, I think, dissolves. So instead of feeling like, oh, this child is doing this to bug me or because they don’t want to do something, or they’re just being obstinate, like those types of things, it’s like, no, this is this, is like asking them to grow an extra toe or something. You know, like it’s not going to happen, like it just no, you know, like they’re not doing this just to be a certain way. They are a certain way and that’s what’s difficult for them. It’s funny.

I’m going to give a more specific example for the listeners. But somebody had posted recently like my child cannot be on time to school and she’s really frustrated about this. This was a mom about this. This was a mom. And I responded and said, yeah, I face the same thing. The best thing that I recommend is change your work schedule and arrange with the school that you won’t be punished Like. This is not something that she just can do, quote, unquote. And it’s still as a parent. It doesn’t make sense to me why you know 915 is any different than 845 or something right.

But I faced that with my kid too, and you know I tried everything under the sun and finally I was like well, I’m just going to push my work schedule back so that I’m not anxious, right, getting to my office, that’s it, because she is going to be late, my office, that’s it Because she is going to be late period, it doesn’t matter what I do. So to me it’s like all right, as a parent, you modify your behavior and luckily I have the opportunity to do that. Like I understand, not everyone’s workplaces give them the opportunity to do that, and then it really is stressful for them and you keep trying to look for solutions and do that type of thing. I don’t know. I just thought like that’s a common example where, yeah, yeah, for a neurotypical kid I think you can set alarms and do this and do that and do all the standard stuff.

But when you get into parenting a child who’s not neurotypical, a lot of that stuff doesn’t work. A child who’s not neurotypical a lie, that stuff doesn’t work. You have to figure out something different for them. Yeah, it’s it really is that.

0:18:26 – Allison
You know, when this comes up in in sessions, I do coaching for the parents of the children or adolescents that I see as well, if they’re interested in that. So when we go into those spaces and they bring these concerns, like you’re reading or getting in these communities, they bring these concerns into those sessions and and a rigid mindset that we are, I mean it’s programmed into us if we’re in mainstream school, I mean just in societies in general, in our capitalism, you know way, it’s all about productivity and individualism and I think that just funnels us into this rigid, closed mindset that you know it’s just one foot in front of the other and so if we have those blinders on, because our number one goal has been to be, you know, successful member of those systems, it’s almost like we’re on this extreme end of a spectrum without realizing it right, like we are just kind of going through the motions.

So, what we do in work one-on-one is just do that introspection and we go to the drawing board and it doesn’t really, you know, have any real end goal. We are creative, we’re flexible with where we want to go. The only real goal that I always have clients lean into is can we drop just a little bit of that rigidity, that tension, that must you know, that really really intense drive? For you know, these are our options, one or the other, that’s all we’ve got. That’s all. That’s the best we can do.

We’re going to kind of force this force, this round, peg into a square hole. It’s really about looking at the fear there, what would happen, what’s the risk, you know, and getting deeper out of the logic, deeper into that emotional space. And then, once they see it right, once we tend to go there introspectively, especially with a professional or community that can mirror back to us what’s going on for us. You know that that perspective shift is usually what opens, opens my clients up, and then, once you open that up, I mean you know the world is your oyster. It’s really about finding what those limits are.

Like you said, if you can push back your work schedule. Oh, my goodness, there you go. It was. It was really a simple shift right in front of you, but you had to be open enough to see it right. Yes, you had to be trusting enough, or you know, maybe it’s going to be harder, maybe it’s going to be we’ve got to tap into something we haven’t really considered, or maybe it’s something that we need to tap into that we’ve just been resisting for some other reason. But that exploration it’s going to show us. It’s going to show us what’s behind the resistance.

0:21:28 – Dr. Liz
It’s going to show us what our options are. It’s really beautiful. Yes, I love how you put that like just an opening up, a brainstorming, and then it shifts that perspective. So tell us how you did create this community where you have the opportunity to support parents in that way.

0:21:44 – Allison
Yeah, yeah. So the community that I have, that I’m hosting right now, we’re currently a small group of just about all late diagnosed, all DHD parents and the the goal we have currently. So there’s about, let me see, 11, 11 of us right now and the goal that we have currently is being in a space, being in community with one another online, and so these are participants from all over the U S right now and we come together with a focus each week where we are getting a little bit of that learning on the front end, something that surrounds the specific experience of high masking or late diagnosed autism and ADHD, because there’s an ongoing deconstruction right Just what we talked about going from the rigid compliance-based programming right and trying to move into the flexibility in a world that does not have that same site that pushes back a lot right. Constantly, the group members are running up against that, that internalized shame coming up like oh, I’ve rocked the boat see, this is why this is why we can’t do that, you know, and when.

That is the dominant narrative and we are trying to step outside of that to create this beautiful equilibrium but, we don’t have community behind us, we don’t have meaningful community who can mirror back what we are experiencing.

Talk about hard mode you know, I mean it is so difficult and confusing and our partners may disagree with us and it’s just this slog to try to do and a lot of the time, you know, people will throw in the towel, they’ll give up without community. So the idea behind this was to give a space, an option for not only learning but also to be able to share. So participants will come each week, we do about 20 minutes of learning on a topic and they have the topic ahead of time so they can kind of pick and choose how they want to participate and then we leave the end open for community support conversation. I will ask about a specific event coming up that week or something that they had experienced, and we’ll tie it back into a reflection on what we learned this last week. A great example was we talked about the difference between typical anxiety and the typical treatments of anxiety and we compared that to what atypical or more neurodivergent anxiety looks like.

And they’re very different, but our society doesn’t have this context. So it’s. It’s the difference between, like a fear of the unknown, you know like what, if I go, you know, drive on the highway and suddenly I’m stuck in traffic and I have to go to the bathroom, and you know that’s typical anxiety. It’s this fear of the unknown, and so we avoid. But there’s a difference, right? So we talked about how more neurodivergent anxiety is actually dread. Right, it’s informed knowledge, experiences that have informed us. Like I’m about to go, maybe have to sit into a meeting that doesn’t have an agenda and the lights are going to be blaring in my eyes. I don’t know when I’m going to get out, I’m going to have to deal with all the sensory overload I’m going to have to be on.

You know, that’s not really anxiety, that’s dread about a real thing that you really do know about.

You know, yes, so we’ll tie that in.

We have that, that education, and I’ll ask them you know, go ahead and give me a time where you felt that you were anxious about something and you overrode those anxiety cues in the name of you know, exposure, in the name of we’re going to be brave and we’re not going to avoid this.

And so then at the end of it we’ll go, we’ll revisit that, what they shared, and they’ll realize huh, yeah, I’m pretty sure that was dread actually, and this is what I was actually dreading doing over anxiety and have an experience shared about what we’re dealing with at the school level and get this entirely. You know this empathetic and engaged and informed group of people going through and they know what each other is going through, people going through the same thing and being able to say absolutely, you’re absolutely on the correct path, even if there is no one else to validate you. We can. And here’s what we know and here is why it is valid what you are doing. And every week it’s just leaving with this sense of relief and lightness and just this felt sense that, even though we’re challenging a dominant narrative, it does not take away from the validity there and from the importance of it.

0:26:53 – Dr. Liz
I love it. It sounds wonderful. Honestly, it really does, because even as you were talking, I was thinking about different friends that I have and some are more neurodivergent affirming than others because of their own experiences and their own neurological makeup as well. Like we were saying, you know previously, if you, if you face that, you understand it at a deeper level sometimes. So I was thinking about that and the brainstorming I think even that neurodivergent parents come up with is very different than what a more neurotypical parent would come up with. You know, sort of like the the lateness example is like, well, you just make them do it Like you and it’s like, well, that’s, that’s not going to work with my kid. I can’t make her do anything very little, you know, particularly at this age, even when she was little nope, you can. That creates so much like overwhelm, conflict, you know, hour long tantrums when she’s a little bitty creates all this negativity around it, trauma it goes into trauma for some children, even trauma it goes into trauma for some children. Even so, you know, I prefer not that exact parenting strategy of making, but my point here is that what a wonderful way to create support and access support for parents. What an incredible resource you could access. There is what I’m thinking Brainstorming information that’s not being presented in other areas.

I mean, I think there’s a lot more information nowadays than there was even five or 10 years ago, but it’s not always interactive, right? If you’re thinking about videos or TikTok or something like that, it’s not a conversation often where it’s you could be like what about this? Okay, I tried that, and now what about this? You know, and then also talk about the effect on you, like how it affected you, or thinking about I, I just can’t do that, I’m not able to do that, like that type of thing. It’s sort of going on here, but I’m just picturing how wonderful that is.

0:29:17 – Allison
Yes, yeah, it’s that there is a statistic that pops up for me so often when I think about exactly what it is you’re talking about. Right, there’s value in learning, and there’s value on TikTok and in podcasts and YouTube and getting this information because it starts to open us up and it gets us into a reflective mindset. Right, and there’s that’s so beautiful and so necessary. But there’s this statistic that comes up when trying to sort of conceptualize the value there, in taking it a step further into things like community. Right, it’s this study that was done.

That shows that talking out loud about a topic that you are kind of ruminating on and trying to make sense of talking out loud for I can’t remember the exact number of seconds, but it’s seconds right. Talking out loud and having it heard right and being in that, it’s a very human experience. We’re social creatures, right. Talking out loud and having it heard right and being in that, that’s a very human experience. We’re social creatures, right. Even with even with neurodivergence there’s still. It’s just a difference. It’s a difference in social need and the way we do it. But in doing that we get the amount of relief that comes with doing that out loud talking and taking it from our mind and verbalizing it and having it mirrored back to us or processed with us. It’s almost like this you know, you go from 50% support through the education modalities, through watching videos and through learning and informing yourself, and it’s this additional, almost like closing a loop, like another 50%, and there you have it, you’ve closed or you have fully processed this entire nugget of information, this entire topic.

0:31:26 – Dr. Liz
So I believe it. Yeah, I haven’t seen the study, but I believe it because, even like support groups on Facebook let’s say which or Reddit or anything like that um discord you are interacting but you are missing that out loud piece. And you’re also exerting a lot of energy, sometimes explaining yourself, like when people misinterpret, like you know, I didn’t mean that you know, or, of course, I’m not doing this, you know? Or what about this Like and there’s the delay, too right, as you wait for responses to come in and you read them.

0:32:08 – Allison
So different yeah, and you’re also they’re so different.

0:32:12 – Dr. Liz
They are.

0:32:12 – Allison
They are, and you also know there’s always a risk of being attacked and so in some way, some shape or form, and so then, where we tried to go for support, we can end up really questioning ourselves more than we went into to begin with, and that is defeating the purpose. And there you go, like your energy has now been spent in a place that couldn’t nurture it, it couldn’t, it couldn’t create a safety place for it. So this is yes, that’s another, that’s another piece to this too. So you know, when I think about how this differentiate, or is differentiated, um, you know, from from Facebook support groups and Reddit support groups, and that’s typically where members have found me, because I have always been in those spaces. I think you know my journey definitely started on Reddit and with books and trying to connect that way, and so that’s just very natural for me to be in those spaces and trying to connect that way, and so that’s just very natural for me to be in those spaces.

I think a lot of us, as neurodivergent people, we’re data collectors, right. Yes, we’re just constantly trying to make sense of our experiences and it’s so beautiful and it can be so exhausting too. But yeah, coming out of those types of forums, I think that until you do it, you don’t really know what you’re going to get.

You don’t really understand that power in being in a place that is safely moderated by an expert who is able to maintain complete safety for as much as you can in a group, but being able to be protected and making sure that members are vetted, and yeah, it’s a totally different experience. You don’t have to put as much energy into it and you get so much more of that need of being felt and seen and understood.

0:34:00 – Dr. Liz
So yeah, yeah, yeah, great. I want to know two things One, how can listeners find it and how can they join? And two, what is the? How do we put that criteria for joining? Like I know, when you originally emailed me, you said it’s for educating, empowering neurodivergent parents. But do you have to have even a self-diagnosis of ADHD or autism? Can you be highly sensitive? Can you be an artist? I put that under neurodivergent umbrella, like you just think a little differently. Like, yeah, who can join that community?

0:34:42 – Allison
Yeah, so great questions. I am the spirit of making or meeting that need of neurodivergent or you know, yeah, like you said, detailed thinkers and creatives. My website is an absolute wealth of information. I have attempted to put every single bit of information that I can on there that will be helpful for people who are interested in checking us out or joining to be able to learn more. You do not need any formal diagnosis. I find that is a huge barrier to getting the support that we need.

So this is going to be for when we’re dealing with things like systemic labels and those processes that can be so difficult. I think the number one thing is really learning to tune into ourselves. So, for any parent who is noticing there’s a pattern of struggle and when I say struggle, it might be in parenting itself it was way harder than you had expected and the textbook approaches are not working, or the burnout was profound and you did not expect that either. These are all cues to listen to and they are all great telltale signs that there may be just a different you have a different, you know neuro profile than maybe the majority of society, and that’s beautiful and this is a place to explore that. So, yes, highly sensitive, creative artists.

Right now, the group is made up of a lot of moms and dads it’s all types of, you know, we’re different gender but also a lot of people who are already in some either helper spaces or creative spaces. We’ve got therapists, we have social workers, we have yoga instructors. It’s it’s a lot of those types of personalities just incredibly empathetic. So it’s a very safe space to be a part of. And if you are interested in, you know, maybe that’s there’s this whole thing of like hush, you know I’m a parent. It’s one of the most demanding roles that we could have in our society. How?

do I know if I can make time for this or how do I do I know if I want to commit to it. It’s really month by month participation. So let’s say that you have a month that is just absolutely chaotic and coming up on the holidays, you know, I do anticipate that. You know our meetings are going to be a bit different, but if you have a month going to be chaotic, you can kind of pause a month and come back, and I try to make it so that payment is not a barrier either. So this is just kind of the payment to participate. It’s very low. We’re $45 a month and there’s a parenting course that I have up there too for highly sensitive children and parents. So, yeah, it’s really neuro-inclusive. The biggest thing is that you are noticing this is kind of like parenting on hard mode. This is not what I noticed my friends are experiencing. I get a lot of feedback from others or judgments on how I’m doing things and I am spent. Something is off. That’s really what I want people to look for. That’s it Okay, great. That’s really what I want people to look for. That’s it, okay, great. That is enough to listen to.

Yes, and what’s the website? And the website is attuned pathways. It’s the name of the group. It’s attunedpathwayspodiacom it’s got. It’s a course hosting site as well, so we have courses you can delve into that I have created if you’re interested, but it’s completely optional. So that’s the website I also have. If you would just like to connect and stay in touch. I also have an Instagram page that is called Attunement Method, and that one is where I also share just a lot of free resources. You can get some nice community support there as well for completely free.

0:38:50 – Dr. Liz
Great, great Thank you. So, listeners, you can always access those websites or the Instagram on the show notes too, so they’re always in the show notes. Show notes are always on my website, even if they’re not appearing in your podcast app Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t there so you can always go to the website and look for them there too. So thank you so much, alison, for sharing your wisdom with us and telling us about how this all came to be, and I would think your enrollment would go up during the holidays.

0:39:24 – Allison
Honestly, it’s so hard know, it’s so much to navigate.

0:39:31 – Dr. Liz
Yeah.

0:39:32 – Allison
I would not be surprised, because we are getting close.

0:39:35 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, I know a lot of questions during the holidays are how do I navigate parties? I’m seeing this with my own autistic clients. How do I navigate holiday parties for parents of smaller kids, like, how do I handle the grandparents, or you know aunts and uncles who are gonna criticize me or say you should right, you should do this, you should do that. Why are you doing that?

0:40:00 – Allison
you know, make him sit at the dinner table yes, that’s so intense, it’s like how am I supposed to be the one, in those situations, who stays grounded I know I’m laughing or my child?

0:40:15 – Dr. Liz
Exactly. I’m laughing because it’s so difficult, you know, to navigate those often when people are expecting things to just be a certain way and they’re not. They’re not Like not for you, not for your kid or kiddos, yeah. So that’s where the laughter is coming from. So glad I don’t have to do much of that anymore, as my kids are older now and it’s like they don’t want to go, they don’t go, they don’t go to the party yeah, absolutely well, that’s that’s the thing too, with with mine, now you with mine, now you know this.

0:40:50 – Allison
This is something that we shift into. It’s like Ooh, once you get creative there, for for us, you know, we’ve shifted into what this Thanksgiving coming up, you know my all the HD son. It’s amazing for him to come and to be a part and to engage for whatever capacity you know, whatever amount of time he has. I mean, what a gift that he’s able to show up and give that part of him to family and we’re letting him bring his Xbox and put it upstairs and hook it up whenever he needs a break. He’s got that. That’s already done for him.

He doesn’t have to be in that fight or flight mode Just wondering when he’ll be able to escape, because he has parents who have done the work and who have done what it, what it takes to give him just a sense of safety. It actually it allows him to to stay engaged with family for longer, because he knows, he knows that he can go and have that permission to go, to go, just be alone, and decompress so that’s kind of what we, that’s what we do in the group.

We really look at like you know how, how, how important is it that we do to it if the dread or how do we?

0:41:54 – Dr. Liz
navigate it, you know how do we, how do we um ourselves navigate that feeling?

0:42:18 – Allison
it is a complete, a game changer and imagining doing something that can be. We usually use the word provocative right, so provocative right just to, to tune into ourselves and to take up a little bit more space, and it is whenever we’ve been programmed to kind of put others before ourselves or minimize our own needs. But to do that in isolation. I mean often, you know our members will talk about. I thought of what we talked about last week and it made it so much more clear in that moment with my mother-in-law what to do and that’s beautiful.

0:42:57 – Dr. Liz
Oh yeah, I love it. That’s awesome, anything that’s going to help you with your mother-in-law, right.

0:43:03 – Allison
Right.

0:43:06 – Dr. Liz
Yeah, so true. So again, thank you so much for being here.

0:43:11 – Allison
Yes, Thank you so much for having me. This was lovely. I’m glad to to get to share a little bit more about something that I think a lot more people experience than we realize.

Transcribed by https://podium.page