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Introduction to the Play Big Queen Podcast...
Welcome to the Play Big Queen podcast.
This is for the woman ready to lead with power, move with confidence, and own your Play Big self.
For my newly minted or late blooming, neurospicy visionary babes who are waking up to your power and unmasking your brilliance.
For the sovereign leader building success on your own terms.
I am your host, Kate Bailey.
I am the Play Big Queen.
My name is my title and a command for all women, Play Big Queen.
I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big Self too, so it can serve you.
This is a space for bold embodiment, radical reclamation, unapologetic leadership, and a business that works with your wiring, not against it.
Your voice is meant to be bold and heard and your brilliance is here to be claimed.
You are already powerful.
I am in service of everyone fucking tired of the people pleasing grind.
We go deep, we get real, and we play big.
It's a new era for women on the Play Big path.
Long may we reign.
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Hello and welcome back to the PlayBiQueen podcast. Holy shit, I am feeling so much better this week. And I have such a beautiful episode planned for you. It's a resource around communication and boundary setting. Today we are going straight into one of the most challenging parts of being neurodivergent. The fact that we just communicate differently, especially when it comes to boundaries, desire, power.
and navigating a nervous system rooted in a neuro type that does not meet the status quo. This is one of the most misunderstood parts of the neurodivergent lived experience. Not because we're unclear, no, it's usually the exact opposite. Typically neurodivergent communication is clear and direct.
But because the world likes to complicate things and play games, most of society is conditioned to expect communication that is not built for us. And there are many people who are autistic or who have ADHD in neurodivergent communities who describe how we communicate and how we experience life is just simply on another operating system.
And if you've ever tried to run a Windows program on a Mac without an adapter, adopter, translator, or whatever, then you get what I mean. The two biggest, most stressful emotions that my neurodivergent clients experience are frustration and overwhelm. Overwhelm from sensory or social information that is super intense or complex and frustration.
from having to constantly self advocate, defend, translate, diffuse or mask in social systems that have been designed without one thought for neurodivergent needs or mental health. Today is about reclaiming the brilliance of the way that you communicate, your directness, your clarity, the honesty, the pacing, the nervous system intelligence. And it's about using that brilliance to build relationships, a life,
and your life's work in a way that actually works with your brain instead of against it. So let's get into our episode today titled Neurodivergent Communication, Boundaries, Desire, Power. When people learn about boundaries, most people learn that boundaries are these rules that you place on other people. But that's not how boundaries actually work. A boundary
is the internal line that defines what you are a yes to and what you are a no to based on your values, your capacity, your nervous system, and the season of life that you're in. A boundary is yours to hold. It is not something you expect someone else to manage for you. It is an act of self-awareness, self-respect, and self-responsibility.
Your boundaries reflect what feels aligned, sustainable, and safe for your body and for your energy. A boundary is not a rule for other people. It is a commitment that you make to yourself about how you will act when something is or isn't being honored. It's not about external policing. It's about the internal work that you do. And it's your job to name it, to maintain it, reassess it.
and decide what's gonna happen when your boundary is not honored. It's also your work to find the words and figure out how to feel safe enough to actually show up for the work of boundary setting. And listen, boundaries can shift as your values evolve, as your capacity changes, as your nervous system moves through different states and your life circumstances change or
grows into new seasons. And the fact that your boundaries change is not inconsistency, no matter what those people around you might misinterpret, right? Changing boundaries and adapting your boundaries for your maturity, for your growth, for the season of life that you're in, that is wisdom. Even if some people are surprised by your boundaries,
even if they don't get them or they feel like they're coming out of left field. Having your boundaries and reassessing them and enforcing them and even having your boundaries change is a very deep wisdom. A boundary is how you protect your energy. It's how you honor your truth, maintain your relationships and stay in your power. And when you're neurodivergent, you are primed to be such a natural
at setting boundaries because we tend to communicate very directly and with less fluff and a lot of the time we just need to work on how to be more assertive with our boundaries. Because a lot of the time social conditioning can get in the way and sometimes we lose the courage to set the boundaries because of the very real potential that we could be misinterpreted and in that misinterpretation there could be harm or bullying or
someone could take offense and it could fracture the relationship beyond repair. But I want to encourage you to remember that how someone reacts to you setting boundaries is their emotional labor to do, not yours. And you can't be doing all the labor in a relationship. And if they leave because you refuse to constantly clarify or make them comfortable,
then that is a relationship that was not healthy for you anyways. I want you to own the brilliance in how you naturally feel compelled to set boundaries and set them with courage. Neurodivergent boundaries are often direct, clean, and efficient. We don't communicate in layers of implied meaning. We don't hide messages within messages. A lot of the time, we wear our heart on our sleeve. We don't...
drop hints and make things complicated to figure out, we say things clearly because many of our neurodivergent systems don't tolerate social ambiguity. And it's okay for you to own that. And your job is to learn how to self-regulate when someone tries to make your boundary setting messy with reactivity or misinterpretation. When you lovingly set a boundary and say,
I'm overwhelmed and need quiet or I can talk for a few more minutes or I can stay for an hour or that doesn't work for me. You aren't being cold and even if it feels abrupt for them, you are not being blunt. You are giving them clarity and neurotypicals sometimes struggle with that because they expect your time or social commitments to look like theirs or they're conditioned to like,
kind of read between the lines and search for like a meaning that's not there. But when we're stating our boundaries or what we need as neurodivergent people, we're not sending coded signals. We're just being honest. And if they truly value you and a relationship with you, then they'll make space to support your needs, not just their expectations. And I know it can be heartbreaking.
When we do the labor to set the boundaries and self advocate and they are still not willing to listen or honor boundaries, but honoring a neurodivergent person's boundaries are a form of deep respect for yourself, for the people you interact with and for the relationship at large. You are protecting the connection you have with that person from resentment and burnout.
by naming the truth early instead of waiting until you're already dysregulated, until you're already frustrated, overwhelmed, and checked out. And as I always tend to do, I want to talk about the science behind why this communication style shows up the way that it does. There are real neurological reasons for it. And once you understand them, everything you've ever struggled with in conversations starts to make sense, right?
Neurodivergent bodies take in the world at a different pace and a different volume, sound, tone, body language, the lighting, emotional charge, all of it lands with a different level of intensity inside a neurodivergent body. And when the sensory load builds capacity naturally,
What's gonna do? Capacity is gonna shrink, right? And when your sensory load builds and your capacity shrinks, that affects how long you can stay present, what kind of exchanges you can have and how quickly you need to set a boundary before your body goes into shutdown or overload. And for a lot of neurodivergent people, emotional energy can be very intense and move very...
fast for us too. In fact, sometimes it can be so intense that we are not sure what we feel. A lot of autistic people experience alexithymia, which is a difference in how a person notices, interprets and names their internal emotional states, There's typically like a disconnect between feeling the emotion and having immediate access to the language for it.
If you're autistic, might feel a surge of energy in your chest or like a heaviness in your stomach or a tightness in your throat, but not immediately know the emotional language that goes with it. Right. You might not know whether it's anxiety or overwhelm, excitement or fear or shame or anticipation or frustration. Like the emotion is there, but it's a very intense sensory sensation rather than an emotion that can be named.
And I'll talk more about why this is, but connection, a lot of the time can feel strong and immediate and overstimulation can happen just as quickly. And it's a nuanced difference between like what some people will say is an intense connection where they have love bombing or something like that. I think sometimes people get confused between like love bombing and
neurodivergent connection that is very strong and intense and immediate. For neurodivergent people who are clear on who they want to connect with and they get stimulated and excited by that, especially when they're clear on who expands and energizes them, that connection can be very intense. And it's not the same thing as love bombing or manipulation, And it's important to know how that intensity
isn't a contradiction and it can be a healthy, authentic expression in relationships with neurodivergent people, it's simply like the speed at which our nervous systems move. Boundaries become a part of how we protect the relationship instead of draining it, And so interoception is a big part of this and this speaks to
how Alexthymia can be a part of the autistic experience, So interoception is the ability to feel what's happening inside your body, your ability to feel hunger, to feel thirst, fatigue, anxiety, overwhelm, the slow creep of an impending shutdown, Many neurodivergent people don't feel interoceptive signals early.
The interoceptive cues can come in late, they can come in really intense and all at once, or in a way that's difficult or hard to decode. For example, and this is something that I struggled with a lot as someone with combined type ADHD and autism, you might realize you're overwhelmed only after you've hit your point of no return. ⁓
which is such a bitch, right? You might be in a conversation thinking that you're managing it fine and then suddenly you are done. And when we're suddenly done, that can be misinterpreted from people who don't have those interoceptive challenges, They might think you're being too much, too difficult, high maintenance, that you're overreacting, being a drama queen. But I need you to know that it is none of that. What is actually happening is that is where
your internal messages are finally making it into your awareness. And proprioception plays its own role in this too, Proprioception is how you sense your body in space. It's the amount of force you're using for any physical thing that you're doing. It's how close you are to someone else, whether your voice is too quiet or too loud, or whether your posture is collapsing, or whether you're someone who needs movement.
to stay regulated, Some people need to pace or walk in order to think. When proprioception is different, you might shift around more, you might change your pace, adjust your distance, or move in ways that help your body feel anchored, especially when you are having a conversation with someone where you are working really hard to stay in the conversation.
None of that movement or needing to move around or shifting is disrespect or impatience. But again, a lot of neurodivergent behavior can be misinterpreted and people can see it as that way, right? But what it really is, is your nervous system is trying to stabilize itself. And these two systems, interoception and proprioception, shape communication in ways
that most people don't see. When interoception is delayed, you might go from feeling okay to I need to stop right now in seconds. And when proprioception is activated, you might start to fidget, you might rock back and forth, you might pace around or speak with more intensity. When both are online at the same time, interoception and proprioception.
Your communication often becomes clearer, more direct, more embodied, and less filtered. And it's not socially coded or wrapped in a bunch of neurotypical layers. It is simply the truth coming through you without any delay, which can be a beautiful thing when you are in the right relationships with equal or shared power dynamics, with reciprocity and mutual respect.
And when also you've practiced the language of setting loving and assertive boundaries, And there's another layer to this. Many neurodivergent people, we've never had modeling for how to set boundaries or repair boundaries. We tend to need clear scripts and modeling and consistent reinforcement and examples and permission to just take time.
and actually think in a world that moves much faster than sometimes we can process, right? But instead, many of us were shamed for being too much, being too blunt, being too sensitive, being annoying, being too intense or awkward. And that kind of feedback that we get when we're younger teaches us to disconnect from our own signals. And honestly, that can lead to a lifetime of pain and confusion, being disconnected from the signals.
of your own body, not understanding what you need or how to even set a boundary or not knowing what you value because we're trying so hard to calibrate to a neurotypical standard to survive. But you know, as you learn more, as you get older, as you mature and like research your own body and your own self, you get to change. You get to start to like reconnect.
to your body and how it operates. You get to understand what your body has been trying to tell you your whole life. And now you get to claim your patterns as intelligence instead of a problem. This gets to be you learning to communicate from your actual nervous system, not from the mask that you built to survive.
Whether your specific brand of mask is to be analytical, pleasant and people pleasing, hyper capable, or like super chill and contained, or caretaking, or someone who's got like the social script down, whatever your mask is, when you understand this science, your communication suddenly becomes something to trust, something more authentic, something that is uniquely
you and brilliant and not something that you have to apologize for. And the same goes for your desires with this, I've done a lot of personal and professional work around desires in the coaching industry, learning what are our ego desires versus what do we authentically desire? What would be in my pleasure and what would not be in my pleasure? you know, desire is not just sexual. Desire is
the inner pull that tells you what feels alive, meaningful, exciting, nourishing, or true for you. It's the direction that your energy kind of naturally wants to move in order to get in flow toward a person, an idea, a feeling, a project, or some new possibility. Desire is not about chasing or pushing.
not a fantasy, it's just information. A desire is your nervous system telling you what expands you and what contracts you. And it's your body communicating before your mind has language for it. A desire, a lot of the time, can be clarity showing up as a sensation, or like a knowing. And for me personally, I always know desire
for myself as the urge to create. Whenever I get an expansive urge to create or make something, whether it's creating a new design or program or creating life, my truest desires come with the urge, not the impulse to create.
which could be challenging to learn the distinction between in a neurodivergent body, especially if you're like me and you have combined type ADHD where I get a lot of impulses. But the difference between an urge or an impulse is an urge is like a felt pull towards something that builds over time. It usually comes from inside the body and it grows in its intensity.
the longer and longer you ignore it, An impulse, on the other hand, is like fast, it's sudden, it's often very reactive, it shows up like a spark in the nervous system. It's like a moment of like, I gotta do it now, I gotta do it now, before you even have any time for reflection or to interact with this thing, Like in a neurodivergent body,
Desire is often intense, but it's also often honest and pure. And when we want something, we want it fully. We want it so badly, we will move heaven and earth because we want it with the entirety of our being. That is why we often build things that shock people, That is why so many brilliant neurodivergent people create work that moves people.
And that is why our leadership, when aligned, feels electric and powerful. But most of the time, we tend to need to learn how to hone our pacing. We need recovery, sensory decompression. We need time alone without being observed. We need emotional processing spaces and time to digest, to metabolize. And a lot of the time, we just need room to breathe.
Desire and pacing are beautiful dance partners. And when you learn to honor your own timing and your desires, your world starts getting magical. That's when we start quote unquote, manifesting or creating things quickly, But this is why neurodivergent communication in relationships and work often sounds like, I love you and I need space right now.
or I want to collaborate, but I need clarity, or I'm excited, but I can't do this today. I'm passionate about this idea and I need to execute it on my timeline. So often neurodivergent brilliance and neurodivergent communication is simultaneously direct, clear, and simple, and also a both and nuanced kind of situation, None of this is mixed messaging.
It's the precision of a sensitive and intelligent nervous system managing its energy with absolute integrity. I forget the exact people involved in this story, but I heard a story about a very prestigious and coveted graphic designer who did logos, And they're basically like, my price for a logo is a million dollars.
The delivery on it is it takes as long as it takes. I might deliver the logo tomorrow. I might deliver it in a year. But when I do, anything you put that logo on will go up in value tremendously. Like think about the Nike check mark, right? You can have a $15 t-shirt and then you put a Nike check mark on it and you could sell it for $80. Someone who is in their brilliance and in integrity with their pacing,
and their nervous system and their process and their ability to produce the results that they produce can structure offers like this. And they actually sell offers like this because they are in integrity with their boundaries and how they do things and how they work and what their brilliance is.
But what I wanna do is help you put some of this into action when it comes to actually setting boundaries. And listen, if you don't identify as someone who's neurodivergent, if you grapple with chronic illness or hell, maybe you just identify as neurotypical, this information is so helpful for everyone working on honoring their own timing and setting boundaries with people. I do a lot of conversational modeling for my clients, so I wanna give you some practical examples.
of what you can say to set boundaries in a direct and sovereign way without collapsing or over explaining. So one example might be if you need to honor your energy, you could say, I'm at capacity right now, here's what I can do and here's what I can't do. You could say, I want to continue this conversation, but I need it in written form.
That's something I do a lot because I struggle to follow conversations. I need multiple levels of reinforcement, like subtitles and captions and all that stuff. That's something that I use often. I will say, yeah, I actually want to continue this conversation, but I need it in written form. You could say, I care about this relationship, and the clearest way to protect it is to pause for now. That can give you some more spaciousness, If you need to reset a boundary, you could say,
I mentioned this earlier and it still stands. You could say, I need the pace of this to slow down and if that's not possible, I'll need to step back.
This topic is activating my nervous system. I can continue if the tone changes. Or if you need to name a consequence for your boundary not being honored without coming across as threatening, you could say, if this boundary is not honored, I will remove myself from the conversation. Or if this pattern continues, I will need space for my well-being. Or if my no,
cannot be respected. I will no longer participate in this dynamic. Or you could speak to something specific to remind the person to honor your boundary, like I want to be clear about something I already named. I said I needed a slower pace and more space in between messages. When the texts come through back to back like this, it pushes me past my capacity. If you can honor the pacing I requested, I can stay in this conversation. If not,
I'll need to step away for now, It's clean, direct, there's no punishment, no apology, just sovereignty. Another thing I find myself reminding my clients of often is that you have the personal authority, autonomy, and permission to assess and reassess a boundary and if someone is honoring them or not.
Remember, boundary setting and holding a boundary is work that you do, not work that you expect someone else to do on their own. This is your conversational labor. It is your job to request people to stay accountable to the boundaries that you set, and it's your job to enforce consequences if your boundaries are not being honored. A long time ago, I read this book by Danielle Laporte about
how boundaries for people are like a house with a fence. And this was a really good analogy, Like inside the house is everything that you want to protect, everything that you value. And the fence is the boundary. Now you can have a nice white picket fence where people can come up, they can talk to you, you can share a coffee, talk about your roses growing. Maybe sometimes you let them in the little gate that's at the picket white fence.
And for some people, you need an electric fence. And it's not your fault if a person who you told that there is an electric fence there runs into the fence and gets a shock. And as much as dealing with the consequences of ignoring your boundaries is work for other people to do, the work that is yours to do on your side of the street, on your side of the fence,
is to be in a perpetual state of assessing and reassessing boundaries and doing the work to enforce them lovingly and in an assertive way. And when you reassess, you might ask yourself whether a boundary still aligns with your values today. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe you used to have a boundary where you don't want any phone calls after 6 p.m. because you got to put kids to bed and maybe, I don't know, your kids go to college and you're like, please somebody call me and talk late at night to chat it up about.
whatever, you know? But take time to notice whether the relationships you have today honor your capacity. Pay attention to whether your nervous system feels regulated in the dynamic or whether you're shrinking just so you can maintain harmony. Ask yourself whether the pacing actually works for you or just the other person.
and whether or not that kind of relationship is sustainable. If the answer is no, the boundary changes. If the answer is yes, the boundary can stand. And again, this is a major part of what it means to play big. Yes, you can be bold in your boundary setting, but like playing big doesn't necessarily mean becoming like a louder, more forceful version of yourself. It means structuring your life and business
around your actual nervous system instead of conforming to expectations rooted in neurotypical communication norms. And again, I've been saying it for years now, Playing big is about operating from love over fear. Playing big is not about performing confidence. It's about creating a business, a schedule, a workflow, a communication style, and a life that are all built around your
true capacity. It's about saying no before you burn out. It's about believing that you get to put yourself first and creating more space than you think you're allowed to have, knowing that when you take up space, when you care for yourself first, your capacity grows. You get to design your life around your sensory needs and whatever your emotional bandwidth is. You get to make your communication style
non-negotiable. And you get to choose collaborators and clients who co-regulate with you, not work against you. This is leadership. This is powerful, authentic, embodied leadership. And this is what happens when neurodivergent brilliance is honored and takes the lead instead of it trying to be managed.
If this whole conversation is speaking your life with my words, if you know that you need more support practicing this level of clarity, grounding, confidence, and nervous system regulation, and if you want real-time coaching and a community that speaks your language, then come join me for Walk & Talk Wednesdays. Walk & Talk Wednesdays is our weekly space to regulate, reset,
reconnect and move the energy that starts to build up midweek. It is a space to shift out of isolation and back into your body in the times when it might be the hardest, it might be the best or the most intense. Walk and Talk Wednesdays has become this beautiful space to hear your own voice again among the noise of
the world and social media and to recommit to your own way, to your own sovereignty. This is a place to practice honoring your timing, your process, your boundaries, your voice, your presence, and your power with support that you can actually feel. If you are ready to build relationships that feel clean, mutual, and grounded in truth,
And if you're ready to play bigger in a way that feels true to your brain and your body, then come join us. It's $33 a month and there is so much juice waiting for you. The link for the Walk and Talk Wednesdays is in the show notes. And if you've been listening to the podcast for a couple of weeks now and you're getting the urge, the desire to come join us and that urge is not going away,
It's time you listen to that and pay attention to it, mama.
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Outro 1
That's it for today, Queen.
Take what lit you up, leave what didn't.
You know what serves.
If you want to stay in this Play Big Queen orbit, get the rituals, resources, and real talk that fuels your Play Big self, go to xxxkatebailey.com, scroll to the bottom, and join this community.
This is where bold women gather. Neurodivergent visionaries, disability warriors, sacred disruptors.
If this episode spoke to you, leave a review on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
Leave comments, give me all the stars, share it.
That's how we create change that ripples, and how this podcast gets out to more people who need it.
If you're ready to work together to make your play big self not just a vision, but a reality that you embody, then head to xxxkatebailey.com, go to the work with Kate section, and join in on a program
that feels right for you.
Or tag me on socials and tell me a moment that truly served you from this episode.
Until next time, remember to honor your own timing, value your own unique way.
And most of all, when you come face to face with your boldest desires, trust your brilliance and Play Big Queen.
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Outro 2
Hey, queen, are you still here?
Good.
That means you're not just curious.
You are being called and want more.
I am here for the ones who want more than party trick mindset hacks.
The ones who need nervous system rooted, neurodiverse affirming space held by someone who is trauma trained, so they can rise on their terms.
My work is designed to center folks navigating ADHD, autism, disability, trauma, or mental health challenges and their brilliance all at once.
You do not need to be someone who identifies as neurodivergent or someone who has a disability to benefit from this work.
If you're feeling called, you belong here.
I believe in and support queer and trans rights, Black Lives Matter, sex worker rights, Palestinian, Ukrainian, and global self-liberation, religious autonomy, and dismantling abusive systems.
If that's too much for you, then babe, this isn't your podcast and you know where the unfollow is.
But if that lights a fire within you and you are inspired to learn more, then my Play Big Queen, you are home.
You can also head over to xxxkatebailey.com/about to learn more about me, my company,
qualifications, methodology, values, worldviews, philosophies, and my mission.
My mission is to activate 10,000 women with invisible disabilities to lead, create, speak up, and claim the spaces that they were told to shrink inside.
Because their leadership, your leadership, will change the world.
If you know that's you, declare it.
Put your energetic line in the sand and tell me.
Email me at [email protected] and tell me why this work is so important for you and we can explore opportunities to work together and make your Play Big dreams a reality.
