What does it mean to become someone you can trust — especially when living with ADHD and depression?

In this one-year anniversary episode, I reflect on how understanding my nervous system changed my relationship with effort, consistency, and self-belief.

For much of my life, I didn’t trust myself — my energy, my follow-through, or my ability to show up consistently. Living with depression and undiagnosed ADHD, difficulty with motivation and focus was often interpreted as personal failure.

In this episode, I slow things down and reflect on what has shifted over the past year, shaped in large part by creating this podcast and showing up for weekly episodes

I share how learning to befriend my nervous system — rather than trying to override it — became a turning point. Through a polyvagal and neurodivergence-informed lens, I explore how patterns of avoidance, shutdown, and inconsistency were not signs that I was broken, but signals that my system was in protection mode.

This episode is about repair — not only in relationship with others, but in relationship with Self. About what it has meant to build trust slowly, through repeated acts of showing up with compassion rather than force.

In this one-year reflection, I share what has supported my growth, including:

• Befriending my nervous system instead of fighting it
• Learning to rest without earning it
• Taking anchored, sustainable action rather than pushing through
• Acknowledging grief for what was lost and misunderstood
• Making room for celebration — even when growth has been uneven

In this episode, we explore:

• What “becoming someone I can trust” looks like in everyday life
• How ADHD and depression shape our relationship with effort and consistency
• Why willpower is often not the problem
• How honoring true capacity can yield more progress than trying to push through to do what you think you "should" be doing
• How self-attunement and pacing support sustainable change
• What one year of showing up — imperfectly — has taught me about healing

Gentle note for listeners:
This episode includes discussion of depression, ADHD, and nervous system states related to shutdown and overwhelm. Please listen with care and take breaks as needed.

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

A personal story of neurodivergence, school struggles, and how effort was misunderstood at 17.

For years, I believed my struggles with focus, energy, and motivation were simply part of my depression — or evidence that I wasn’t trying hard enough. At 17, when I couldn’t read a book for a class assignment, that belief led to an adolescent psychiatric hospitalization and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

In this episode, I slow that story way down and look underneath the depression.

I share how undiagnosed ADHD — including challenges with task initiation, sustained attention, abstract sequencing, and delayed reward — was misunderstood as pathology rather than recognized as neurodivergence. Through a nervous system–informed lens, we explore how avoidance and shutdown can be protective responses, not personal failures.

This episode invites a rethinking of depression, effort, and self-blame — and offers a more compassionate, body-based way of understanding ourselves and our symptoms.

In this episode, we explore:

• What it means to look under depression rather than stopping at the diagnosis
• ADHD and executive functioning challenges that often show up as avoidance or shutdown
• How task initiation, sustained attention, abstract sequencing, and delayed reward affect learning
• The emotional cost of having effort misunderstood
• Neurodivergence, misdiagnosis, and the role of the nervous system in protection
• How self-blame can soften when symptoms are understood differently

Gentle note for listeners

This episode includes discussion of adolescent psychiatric hospitalization and psychiatric diagnosis. Please listen with care and reach out for support if anything feels activating.

If you’re in the U.S. and need immediate support, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. If you’re outside the U.S., local crisis resources are available in many countries.

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The pressure to reinvent can feel loud in January, but nature tells a different story: winter is for conservation, repair, and preparing the ground for bloom. We explore how to trade the exhausting “on or off” cycle for nervous system flexibility—choosing the speed that actually supports you. Instead of shaming who you’ve been, we honor the resilience that carried you here and build sustainable change from gratitude, pacing, and somatic awareness.

We dive into the polyvagal map—sympathetic activation, dorsal withdrawal, and ventral connection—and how blended states create options. Safely still (ventral plus dorsal) lets us rest without collapsing; flow (ventral plus sympathetic) helps us move with ease. Through a winter solstice ritual of 13 intentions and a community vision board, joy emerges as a guiding theme, alongside images of nature, beaches, and a snail carrying a clock—a playful reminder to slow time and savor presence. ADHD time anxiety, busy seasons, and holiday illness all become real-world prompts to adjust speed and protect energy.

By befriending the nervous system, we learn to notice signals early and shift into steadier rhythms. We offer two practical steps: practice conscious self-compassion to reduce inner attack, and choose learning paths that resonate—somatic work, breath practices, or resources like Anchored by Deb Dana. From there, we invite one meaningful step—toward rest, play, or action—that aligns with your season. You don’t need a new you; you need new conditions that let your real self bloom.

Subscribe for weekly episodes, leave a review, and connect with us on social at trish.sanders.lcsw. If this resonated, share it with someone who might need a kinder pace.

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

When the holidays don’t match the picture in your head, the gap can feel like grief. This year brought fevers, cancellations, and a quiet house that amplified old patterns of shutdown. I share what helped me move through the heaviness with care: naming the dorsal state of the nervous system, choosing breathwork over busyness, protecting sleep, and inviting small, real moments of connection with my kids when plans fell apart.

You’ll hear how I traded perfection for presence and found meaning in simple rituals—wrapping gifts to a breathing cadence, building Legos side by side, taking a short nature walk to collect leaves for a flower press. We talk about practicing regulation first so repair can land, and how to navigate loneliness without abandoning yourself. I open up about the tension between holiday “shoulds” and values, why expectations quietly fuel burnout, and how to design family time around energy and capacity rather than tradition for tradition’s sake.

We also explore a family breathwork session that gave us a shared rhythm when words felt like too much, plus a vision board exercise that revealed the life I’m already creating and the calm I want more of next year. If you’re managing depression, navigating overwhelm, or simply craving a slower season, you’ll find practical, nervous system-informed tools you can use today: regulate, relate, then reason; breathe, rest, invite. Press play to reimagine holidays that honor your bandwidth and build genuine connection.

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

We explore how two opposing beliefs—“I have to do everything" and "I can't do anything"—grow from different nervous system states and how peace begins by shifting our state toward safety and connection. Using Polyvagal Theory, we offer practical steps to move from survival into grounded presence and how that approach can ripple out to create a more peaceful world.

• mapping sympathetic overdrive and dorsal shutdown to everyday thoughts
• why state drives story and limits choice
• using the nervous system ladder to find ventral safety
• gentle ways to slow down when doing feels safer
• small actions to lift energy when shutdown hits
• building connection with people, pets, nature, and self
• noticing and naming as daily regulation practice
• creating inner peace as a path to meaningful outer change

If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The holidays can feel bright for some and unbearably heavy for others. I open up about a Christmas that nearly ended my marriage and trace how those memories slowly softened—not by accident, but because the brain can change and grow when it feels safer. This is a story that starts with depression and disconnection, then moves to the science of hope: moving beyond survival mode, neural pruning, and memory reconsolidation. It’s also a map for finding one supported step when the season overwhelms you.

I talk through the shift from scanning for danger to making room for joy, and how therapy—especially Imago relationship work—gave us tools to repair when words misfired and patterns felt unbreakable. You’ll hear about the tree I decorated late, a child’s wonder at a star, and a mason jar full of Xs and Os that didn’t land the way I hoped. Those moments didn’t vanish; they were rewritten by new experiences of safety and small daily choices that rewrote a story of connection over time.

If you’re carrying grief, holiday blues, or chronic stress, consider this your gentle invitation to take one step today. Slow down instead of speeding up. Ask for help. Set one clear boundary. Reach for safe-enough connection. Your nervous system can learn a different holiday rhythm, and your brain can compress what no longer serves while expanding what sustains. Press play for a grounded blend of story and neuroscience, and leave with practical ways to start your new chapter. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find support here.

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Holidays have a way of pulling old feelings to the surface. This time, two truths came up at once: the enduring ache of losing my dad five years ago, and a quieter grief I call “ADHD grief”—the gap between the cozy, orderly home I imagine and the real limits of my brain and nervous system. I share the moments that stopped me mid-task, what changed when I paused to feel instead of fix, and how gratitude began to stand beside grief without erasing it.

You’ll hear how an unexpected gathering on my dad’s anniversary became a gift of connection rather than a ritual of loss, and why that mattered more than any plan I could have made. We talk about the pressure to perform “holiday perfection,” the comparison traps that heighten shame, and the kinder, capacity-based choices that bring the season back to what counts. From ordering cards early to hearing my daughter say the tree makes every morning feel like Christmas, I show how small, doable wins can carry real magic—even when the closets are messy and the to-do list is imperfect.

If you live with ADHD or another form of neurodivergence, or if you’re navigating fresh or longstanding grief, you’ll find practical compassion here: naming what you can’t control, choosing what you can, and taking one step—toward action, rest, connection, or care. We won’t force gratitude as a cure, and we won’t rush grief. Instead, we make space for both and let them guide better decisions, gentler self-talk, and traditions that fit our actual lives. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review—then tell me: what one step will you take today?

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

We explore how ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can quiet an overactive alarm system, reopen access to rest, and create a window where new habits take hold through integration. We share the science in plain language and the personal practices that helped changes last.

• stigma and misconceptions around ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapies
• how amygdala quieting and parasympathetic activation support safety
• interoception and reconnecting with the body
• neuroplasticity and loosening rigid thought loops
• integration practices that make insights stick
• shifting from collapse to restorative rest
• cultivating durable self-compassion
• two core takeaways on nervous system healing and choice

“Please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested.”

If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.