More Joy, Less Angst: Trauma-Informed Yoga for AuDHD

GET YOUR FREE POLYVAGAL-INFORMED JOURNAL PROMPTS HEREIf it hadn’t been for the immediate pain relief from the endometriosis, I’d have run a gazillion miles in the opposite direction from yoga, breathwork and meditation. Back in 2001, I didn’t understand about the impact my trauma history had on my capacity to feel safe around other humans, let alone my differently wired brain and extra sensitive nervous system.I’d adore elements (was getting up for 6.30am classes in London at one point) but be full of angst – which I blamed myself for – around many other seemingly inevitable parts of every class (e.g. other people’s feet waaaay too close to my face when I struggled with even my own feet being so close).In this episode, I share some of my yoga glimmers as well as triggers and ideas – using the Feel. Love. Heal. framework – to help you give yourself the chance to experience calm and ease as you build strength, resilience, flexibility, focus, stamina, balance and reconnect with the peace and joy that are your birthright.JOURNAL PROMPTSAs you watch or listen to this episode, ask yourself:What do I hate about yoga, meditation and breathwork?Might there be ways around it?To get the benefits without wanting to run a gazillion miles in the opposite direction?What do I LOVE about them? In the moment? For minutes, hours and even days afterwards?What will you do differently (with your self-talk and communicating your needs and wants to others) as a result of watching or listening to this episode?Let me know in the comments or by email – [email protected] if you’re feeling sad reading this because you can’t think of anything that supportive, let it be a cue to encourage you to be open to more of it in 2026 and beyond.LINKSMoving into 2026 with Roxy Romaniuk: https://youtu.be/3fZVHL_4wzkCommunity as Self Care (with Elizabeth Potts): https://youtu.be/ukjngIR6U_wBook bonus videos: https://selfcarecoaching.net/book/Míle Buíochas Mondays: https://feelbettereveryday.kit.com/f7f730d651Trauma-informed and neuro-affirming yoga, breathwork and meditation: https://selfcarecoaching.net/services/yoga-and-meditation/Endometriosis:https://selfcarecoaching.net/?s=endometriosisCHAPTERS0:00–4:12 Introduction and recognising the benefits of yoga, breathwork, and meditation4:12–8:43 Trauma-informed and neuro-affirming approaches and adapting practice to your needs8:43–11:34 Sensory considerations, self-advocacy and embracing self-love11:34–15:34 Community, co-regulation and giving yourself permission to experiment15:34–20:16 Resources, support and moving further into 2026FULL TRANSCRIPTDo you like the idea of yoga, breathwork, meditation, but think that with your trauma history, hypervigilance, AuDHD (that’s autism and ADHD) brain, you simply can’t?This episode will share some of the things that I use with clients and students, as well as the things that have helped yoga, breathwork and meditation really become a way which I come home to myself, rather than a way in which it often felt quite torturous.Welcome to Episode 93 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I’m your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m an author, columnist, trauma therapist, self-care coach, and senior accredited supervisor specialising in AuDHD, ADHD-friendly, trauma-informed and neuro-affirming and transpersonal and somatic approaches.I help people through self-care practices that honour how your brain and nervous system work, as well as your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself. With new episodes each Tuesday, you can subscribe or follow to make it less likely that you’ll miss new episodes.And if you’re new here, do check out older episodes, access free deeper dives and more resources and information at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.comThank you for listening. I hope you enjoy this episode.I am recording this after I recorded the rest of the episode because I realised that I had focused so much on the challenges when you have a trauma history, when you have that hypervigilance, if you have autism or ADHD, AuDHD, and I missed the GLIMMERS and what keeps me going back.And especially with Roxy’s episode last week (Episode 92). This morning, we’d been snowed in yesterday and I had to cancel attending a class. And this morning I was expecting ice. So I hadn’t had my hopes too high up, which meant I hadn’t psyched myself up as much as I normally do for an early start.I was like, when it wasn’t all icy, it was like, “Oh, so I can go, but I’m so cold and I’m so cosy and I don’t want to get up and I maybe I don’t like yoga and maybe I’ll just go back to sleep and maybe…”And I had a word with myself gently and I went. And I again, when I say I almost weep sometimes in class, like no one would see, but it just feels like my whole body is saying THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.And I think that’s the other side of sensory issues that we often don’t talk about.We talk about the distress. We talk about when it’s triggering. We talk about when people feel too close to intrusive. Where there are like smells or any kind of senses being overly stimulated. But of course, we need stimulation and we benefit from stimulation and the movement, the joy of feeling the joints and the muscles and the blood and just the heart lightening and the mind calming and the soul connecting.I really wanted to add this little bit to today’s episode because it’s the mental health, the emotional health, the physiological and the spiritual benefits that keep me going back and that keep me practising at home in between classes.But I’m really finding that attending classes is so, so worth it if you can manage it.So Happy New Year! It’s really important that if meditation, breathwork and yoga appeal to you, that you know that there are trauma-informed ways of working, there are neuro-affirming ways of working.It can be an accessibility issue. And I know I’ve said before in other episodes, I only stuck with it because it was such good pain relief with the chronic pain condition I had for so many decades. I really want to save other people the pain.We’ll be talking more about rejection sensitivity dysphoria in a couple of weeks. But throughout my training, throughout almost every class I attended, I’d always have such a huge inner voice telling me I was doing it wrong.Often, instructors would be really kind of didactic in terms of not fidgeting and taking your socks off when I had sensory issues around any of that. I’m hoping that listening to today’s episode or watching will help you give yourself permission to do what’s appropriate for you. Maybe talk to instructors in advance.Whether you’re doing a home practice or going to a class, knowing that yoga, breathwork and meditation is for everybody and every mind. It can be transformative when you own your sensory issues and you own other aspects, your hypervigilance, other things that have stopped you getting onto the mat, feeling like you’re too much and you can’t do it.You absolutely can. But as with so much around self-compassion, first of all, we’re going to work through the Feel. Love. Heal. framework again, but recognising that it’s not about overriding sensory issues or other ADHD or autism traits.It’s about recognising them purely as information. It’s another opportunity to be mindful, to work with yourself rather than arguing with reality and wishing that you move through life differently. It’s about body work that we do for ourselves. It can be so beneficial in so many different ways.I’ve spoken about yoga nidra and the research showing that it increases dopamine by up to 65% (for this and more visit selfcarecoaching.net/yoga). No side effects. It’s just a gorgeous deep rest, non-sleep. You can do it in as little as 10 minutes. You can take longer practices and choose voices that appeal and choose whether you want music or not music in the background. There are so many options.And similarly, there are so many different types of yoga classes. There are so many that you can do online videos, you can attend a local studio, you can try different studios, different classes within the same studio. With breathwork, there’s going to be somewhere it’s much more tailored to the individual, others where they’re trying, like, or you feel that they’re trying to make you conform to another way of breathing.There’s so much we criticise about ourselves on a day-to-day basis. We really want any kind of self-care practices to be nourishing and supportive and affirming. And so, as we move into the Feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework, I want you to think about some of the obstacles.When you think about yoga, breathwork, meditation, make a list. All the things that get in the way of you going or enjoying those practices, if it appeals. If this does not appeal, I don’t imagine you’re listening this far into the episode.Is it something that could be solved by wearing socks, by talking to an...