The Energetics of Being: A Human Design Podcast

Neurodiversity Celebration Week - Identity, Late Diagnosis & Untangling Who You Really Are

• Sarah Atkins • Episode 12

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week: Identity, Late Diagnosis & Untangling Who You Really Are

Episode Summary:

In this episode of our Neurodiversity Celebration Week mini-series, Sarah and Cassie dive into the complex journey of identity—especially for those who are late-diagnosed as neurodivergent. They explore the grief, self-discovery, and unmasking process that comes with understanding ADHD, Autism, and Rejection Sensitivity later in life.

Together, they discuss the impact of childhood conditioning, workplace challenges, and societal labels, and how unlearning old narratives is key to embracing who you truly are. They also share practical ways to reconnect with your natural state of being—beyond roles, labels, and external expectations.

Topics Discussed:

  • The identity shift that comes with late diagnosis
  • Grief & lost opportunities – what could have been different?
  • The masks we wear to fit into corporate & social expectations
  • Workplace struggles & the lack of psychological safety for neurodivergent employees
  • How Rejection Sensitivity & Demand Avoidance shape our behaviour
  • The fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses in neurodivergent brains
  • Why knowing your needs & advocating for yourself is essential
  • Moving beyond "what you do" and into "who you be"

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome back & introducing today’s topic
 03:15 - The impact of late diagnosis: “Who am I, really?”
 08:30 - The grief of lost opportunities & unmasking in adulthood
 14:10 - Why the corporate world doesn’t always feel safe for neurodivergent employees
 19:50 - Workplace burnout, masking, & rejection sensitivity
 24:40 - The power of knowing your needs & advocating for adjustments
30:15 - Reframing identity: Beyond labels & job titles
35:00 - How to collect evidence of who you are at your best
40:25 - Closing reflections & what’s coming next

Key Quotes:

"You start questioning who you are. It’s like an untangling—who am I beneath all the labels and expectations?"

"If I had known sooner, if I had realised… I wouldn’t have worn so many layers of masks just to feel accepted."

"In the workplace, I didn’t feel safe enough to ask for help—asking for support made you look like a weak link."

"Neurodivergent brains experience the world differently—our fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses are wired for deeper sensitivity."

"What you do is not who you are. Who you be is what matters."

Links & Resources:

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Website: www.sarahatkinsdesign.com

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Buy the 2025 Energetics of Being Journal on Amazon

Sarah Atkins:

Welcome to the Energetics of Being Podcast, a podcast that delves into the fascinating world of human design and unravels the layers of conditioning beliefs and expectations that can influence who we become and how we show up in our lives. I'm your host, Sarah Atkins, and I'm really excited to share this journey with you. We'll explore topics such as human design, gene keys, astrology, holistic approaches, coaching, neuroscience, and psychology. We're gonna draw from a rich tapestry of wisdom to help you navigate your own personal journey of self-discovery. This is your invitation to step into your power, embrace your uniqueness, and create a life that resonates with your soul's deepest desires. So if you're ready to dive in, let's go.

Sarah:

Welcome back if you are catching this. We are on episode two of this Neurodiversity Celebration Week special podcast series. With me, Sarah, and Cassie as well.

Cassie:

Hi.

Sarah:

joining me again, thank you for coming along on

Cassie:

Thank you.

Sarah:

and today we thought we would talk about identity. Because one of the things that we have both experienced being late diagnosed is you start questioning who you are. I think you have to kind of take some time to get to know yourself better. I mean, I'm a coach. I started my personal coaching journey back when I trained as a teacher in 2011. That was the first time I came across coaching. I had to learn a lot about myself. Parenting, becoming a parent. I revisited a whole lot of stuff. So my personal development journey has been ongoing for like the last 14 years or 15 years actually, if you think about when I became a parent. But, in that diagnosis process. In some ways it gives you loads of answers and you're like, oh my God, this makes sense. But then there's almost a grieving process because you are grieving over lost opportunities. Lost parts of yourself that you put away because you didn't think they were acceptable or we adapt to fit into certain scenarios. I know I definitely did that when I was working in corporate because it didn't feel okay to be me and you try to be someone you're not. And I know that working with a lot of my late diagnosed coaching clients. It's like an untangling.

Cassie:

Yeah, absolutely and I think from that it, for me, I very much had questions of, well, who am I? And. You know, what am I gonna make of all this? There was so much to learn, so much to understand, and it felt like so much to untangle.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

It was really overwhelming at first, and I knew that the danger was that I'd end up going down a rabbit hole that perhaps wasn't very helpful.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

So I held back from doing that

Sarah:

Mm-hmm.

Cassie:

and I'm glad that I did, and I just slowly and very gently. Started to, know, maybe tug and see which thread is the loosest.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

take a little look and have a little explore there and really start to get to know actually the truth of who and what I really am as an individual,

Sarah:

Mm.

Cassie:

as well as all those wonderful hats that I so graciously wear. You know, who am I as a mum? Who am I as a business owner? I. Who am I as a leader, a wife, as a daughter, as a sister, as a supporter,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

as a facilitator, as a coach, as a, you know, whatever identity that or label, I've stuck on myself or allowed somebody else to stick on me. Who am I? Who am I really beneath all of those? And I think what I came to realise is certainly what you say about, you know, the, the kind of grief, the sense of loss. I definitely felt that because I felt if, if I had known, if I had realised that beneath all the several layers of masks that I wore in order to try and stay safe in the world, in order to feel accepted in the world, in order to feel, worthy, loved

Sarah:

Hmm.

Cassie:

that. those masks fell away, I didn't know who I really was

Sarah:

Yeah,

Cassie:

I really started to explore the truth of who I am

Sarah:

yeah.

Cassie:

and allowed myself to be who I am. But back in corporate, I wasn't able to do that. And of course back then neurodiversity wasn't even a thing people wouldn't understand.

Sarah:

No, that's the thing, isn't it? I remember some particular scenarios, where I needed help, but I didn't work in a, I didn't feel psychologically safe enough in work that if you had to ask for help or you had to ask for support, then it was very much viewed as you are not capable and you're a weak link. That kind of environment. Which then. I've shared if people have followed me for a while, I massively burnt out In 2009, it was I ended up in hospital because part of my masking was in order to, I was pushing myself so hard in work. I was working stupidly long hours. I'd be the first one into the office at like eight o'clock in the morning. My working hours from nine 30 to five 30, I think. But I'd be in the office at eight o'clock. And I'd still be in the office at eight o'clock in the evening because actually what I now see is in that early time, that time before everybody else got into the office, that was the quiet time. I was able to focus. I was able to concentrate, and there was no interruption. So I could do the majority of what I needed to do then. During the day, there were so many distractions. I worked in an open plan office. I was meeting to meeting, to meeting, to meeting. So going back to transitions, which we mentioned in the last, I struggled with transitioning between tasks, so I'd forget things. So then when everybody left the office at like half, five, six, I would stay stupidly late to try and process the day. My experience was you just need to be more efficient. You need to be more on top of things. And now what I hear is like, wow, that's really unsupportive number one, and really gaslighting, because how I interpreted that as like, well, clearly I'm just shit at my job, then I can't get it done in those hours. What I now know, it wasn't necessarily a a me thing. I just needed some slight adjustments to help me manage that better. Like even if,'cause I worked in an open plan office, even if I had a space that I could go and work in where I could just kind of get my head down, not answer the phone and just not answer emails and just crack on with the reports that I had to write and things like that, which I really struggled to focus on when there's people walking past me all the time or the phone's ringing or you can hear conversations. It, yeah, it's didn't mean that I couldn't do my job. And it's funny because I had in another organisation, same job role, more senior, I. Completely different experience because I had some of those things naturally met. This is all before I knew that I was neurodivergent, but I had more freedom to go, actually I'm gonna take myself off. I'm gonna go and work in this office because I need to focus. So again, that's part of learning a little bit more about what I need.

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

And I wonder if that then comes into identifying needs because how aware of your own needs were you before you had a formal diagnosis?

Cassie:

Oh my goodness me. You know, that's huge. I had no clue.

Sarah:

Hmm.

Cassie:

I had no clue whatsoever. Really, I might have given a superficial answer. Oh, you know, it'd be helpful to have, but actually I really didn't know because I didn't understand how neurodivergence impacted me in the workplace. had labeled myself as being disorganised, as being one who gets distracted super easily as one who never finishes things great at starting, never finishes, and therefore that's a problem. And didn't actually see that, you know, actually where that can be a really great thing. really, really was a square peg in a round hole, doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time with the wrong people in the wrong environment, and I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel safe to be able to say, you know what, I'm not happy, but I don't know why I. Feel I'm banging my head against a brick wall, that I'm in a constant state of fight and, and flight, freeze even, fawn sometimes, and I don't what to do about it. I feel useless.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

Before I felt the only way that I could handle it because it was a me problem, that it meant that I wasn't good enough and therefore I needed to leave, and it

Sarah:

Oh my God. Yeah,

Cassie:

myself from the job before somebody found

Sarah:

yeah, yeah,

Cassie:

how stupid incapable person that I was? so far from the truth.

Sarah:

Yeah, no, I think you're right. There's a lot of imposter syndrome that comes up or what I thought was imposter syndrome. It's like imposter syndrome on steroids though,

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I used to worry that people would think I was flaky. If you look back at my work history, so I worked in the retail fashion industry at like head office, so I was part of the production and product development team. Very fast pace, right? Very competitive, which also is not particularly great environment. So I just, I took on all of that extra pressure. Part of the reason I forced myself into that route because I did a design degree and it's funny how you can trace back these chains of events. So I remember not getting on with my degree tutor. He didn't like my ideas. It was just a difference of opinion. Now I can see that, but you talking about the fawn state. Rather than going, actually, I wanna do what I wanna do.'cause this is a creative subject, it's subjective. So I should pursue it. I believe in myself enough, I'm confident enough in myself to do and pursue what I wanna do. I fawned and I changed things and I resented. I really held onto that resentment. And then I remember him saying to me like, well, you're never gonna get a job anyway. It's too competitive now. That was like a red rag to a bull. I was like, I'm gonna prove you wrong. I'm gonna prove that I can do this and I can be acceptable. But I do it to the extreme. And this is where,'cause some people listening might be like, well, yeah, but that's just a normal response, isn't it? That's like a rebellious part of you. Yes, but I would say when you're neurodivergent, you take it to the extreme. It's like it brought out the demand avoidant aspect of me that is a pain in the ass, if I'm honest. Because like you can't, it's really hard to explain to people, but like, if I don't wanna do something or if you tell me I can't do something, I'm gonna go out of my way. To really stick two fingers up at you and do it. But again, that's not sustainable. And when you've got criticism coming in over and over and over again, that then triggers almost like the partner to the demand avoidance, which is rejection sensitivity, which then brings out the fawning side. So it's like extremes, right? And I think this is what people don't understand unless you are neurodivergent or you've ma tried to manage somebody who's neurodivergent is the extremes in behaviours and the responses in certain situations. Everybody experiences the fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, states of being, but what they have or what they are starting to prove and realise is that a neurodivergent brain has slightly different wiring. It is a neurological condition, I want to be very clear about that,'cause you quite often see it listed under mental health conditions and it's not a mental health condition. It is a neurological difference. So it's not just people being a bit pathetic and being a bit difficult. It is actually, I. If they say they can't get over something or move on or let something go, it is because they, they physically can't, they're not just being awkward about it. So, what we know is that those triggers that would trigger a neurotypical brain and, and trigger that response, they're more sensitive in a neurodivergent brain. So they will respond a lot quicker in some cases or a lot slower in others. And pulling in what we said last time with the Maori description of autism and being in one's time and place it's understanding and holding space for that processing of information. And in today's world things are very, very fast paced. We don't always have time to reflect and understand and process,

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

yet we're being encouraged, there's trends of breath work is a very popular thing at the moment, can be life changing for some people, with managing and calming nervous system, we are being told for our wellbeing we need to slow down. We're being told that we need to be more mindful. They're teaching mindfulness in schools, which I think is brilliant. We're being told to have less screen time. But at the same time, the demands of the world are saying, you need to know about this. You should be doing this. Is it any wonder we're so confused about what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing, and then where we fit in as our own identity in this world that we're in.

Cassie:

Absolutely, definitely. And, and I think this is where we've got, you know, different. Types, I suppose the different shapes going back to the shape sorter. You know, if a star says, well, for me it works best doing this way, and I know this, this is my flow and this is how to get the best outta me, and this is what kind of leader I am. So that means for you to be successful, you need to do it the same way that I do it. And they're talking to a square, it doesn't work. It really doesn't work at all. It takes me back to, I don't know if it was Einstein who quoted this or not, but quite often I think it said that it is that everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend all its life believing that it's stupid."

Sarah:

Yeah,

Cassie:

Yeah. It all comes back to really recognising where our own responsibility lies. I really believe that my responsibility lies in knowing myself. The more that I know myself, my likes, my dislikes, my strengths, my weaknesses, but actually from a place of balance, not from a place of thinking, seeing myself as being bad or, or being inflated, but actually from that balanced wise, step back, mindful view, seeing the, the full essence of the different shapes and colours that are inside of me. That are

Sarah:

reflective Hmm.

Cassie:

of all the different voices that are inside, all

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

parts of me that play a part in me showing up who I am, but recognising that there's a whole myriad of amazingness. And part of that comes, you know, where things don't work so well. And the more I know who I am and I can then make really powerful choices and use that free will to choose where I'm gonna place myself, how I'm gonna communicate with this person. If this person isn't communicating in a way that's gonna get the best outta me to communicate that with the person, you know, to, to be able to advocate for myself. And that's really what I started to learn to do. But first of all, it's about understanding who I am, understanding the identity that I'd created from that young age.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

the neurodivergence through that as well, the different kind of threads that come through. And then actually making that choice of, you know, actually this is the truth of who I am. I'm gonna let go of all these layers of mask and believing I should be able to do this. Believing it's wrong to make mistakes and bashing myself over the head and actually begin to understand the truth, the true nature where I thrive. But I, I think for me personally, that's come really late in life.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

And it's not too late by far, it is definitely not too late. It enables me to steer my ship in the direction of where it's most natural for me and where I feel most passionate is that everybody doesn't matter whether neurodiverse or not, but especially the Neurodiverse ones, is to enable everybody to really understand how they play to their strengths and live with passion and smile for the rest of their lives. If everybody was able to do that, if we could create workplaces where we could do that, oh my goodness me, what a different world this place would be.

Sarah:

Could you imagine?

Cassie:

Oh wow.

Sarah:

Do you know what though? It starts at a young age, doesn't it? Because we know from a neuroscientific point of view actually, psychological point of view. We look at developmental psychology. They say, I think it's the first seven to eight years. Your identity is pretty much formed by the time you are eight, nine, and then you start becoming aware of the people around you. The first three years I remember, you'll probably remember this from having your kids, they make a big focus on, or at least they did when I had Ben for sure. The first three years of that baby's life, the first six months, you are building connection. Do skin to skin contact, do facial expressions, lots of contact, lots of nurturing The language that we use around our children in those formative years because our brains are like sponges, neurodivergent, or not. Our brains are making sense of the world. It's creating new neural pathways. It's pruning off the ones that it doesn't need. So it's growing and developing all the time. What we consume, what we hear, this is where our conditioning comes in, right? Things that our parents say, things that teachers say, things that we hear, our friends, our experiences in the playground, our experiences in education or you know, within family environments. All of those things. Form part of who we are. And that's not to say it's fixed. I mean, going back to what you've just said, it's not fixed. It just forms the first layer of our identity. And if you hear that you're not clever enough or you're not working hard enough, or you are lazy or you, you know, you don't do this or you don't do that. Those things quite often. I don't know if you find this probably a lot with your clients. Quite often when we're doing the untangling, a lot of those childhood experiences come up because part of that learning and figuring out who you are is untangling and unpicking some of those identity traits that we've brought with us, which may be served us when we were eight years old.

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

But don't necessarily serve us now.

Cassie:

Yeah, definitely. And that's huge. You, you know, I would probably say pretty much every single coaching session that I have with a client, there's something from the past. There's, there's some conditioning that is driving a belief and therefore their behaviour. And it, for me, it's always coming back to with a compassionate eye. And sense of presence that people are not, their behaviour they are so much more than their behaviour. The behaviour is showing the symptom of something.

Sarah:

Yeah,

Cassie:

There's a root, there's, there's a root belief, there's a, there's a thinking, there's a'cause. Everything, everything starts from the thinking. But if you don't know and you don't have an awareness of that. It's not helpful,

Sarah:

no.

Cassie:

but we are not our behaviour. No. know, it was the other day I was just, I dunno if this is kind of going off a little bit. I was in an environment that is an unusual environment to be in. And there was, somebody that I was observing or just listening to, I could hear this wailing and. This unhappiness and, and anger and rage and I could hear and and observe agitation from other people because of this other person's behaviour. And all I could sit with was actually the compassion rather than the resentment of somebody, the noise that they were making. What has happened for this person? What has happened for them in their life? To have them be the behaviours that are coming out now, but to not judge them for those behaviours because they are so much more, and the behaviour is like a call for help, a call for resonance. But many people don't realise and know that this person needed something. didn't just need that particular need attending to, they needed so much more, and it was a call out for help. They were unsafe, but we generally are not an, an emotionally intelligent society

Sarah:

No.

Cassie:

and this, there's so much growth here in this area for not just neurodivergence, but humanity as a whole. Compassion rather than resentment and judgment.

Sarah:

I would say me personally, I've had to learn a lot of that through parenting my Neurodivergent boys, actually. And I am, by no means perfect at doing this at all. I have to catch myself out. Sometimes my husband will call me out on my responses, like, every now and then he'll be like, who's the, who's the parent here? Like who's the adult? Right? Is this about you? No, it's not about me. Okay. Okay. So what do they need? Because we do we, it is very easy to get caught up in our own insular. Like, oh my God, why are you making my life so hard? Like, why are you ruining this for me? We can make it all about ourselves and it can be a lot harder to express compassion and understanding for what the other person is experiencing. And I would say particularly with my neurodivergent clients,'cause going back to what you said, so often it's those behaviours. In education, you call it like discharge behaviours. You know, they explode with a rage or an emotion, right? Say for example, God, it was years ago now, but my middle son had a, I guess other people would call it a tantrum. I would call it like, it is like an autistic meltdown. In that moment, I remember feeling embarrassed and I turned it into my shame, my embarrassment, how people are judging me, and I know that my neurodivergent clients are the same. I. That they would turn it on themselves like, this person is judging me because I'm crying in a meeting, or I've clearly done something wrong and I'm now arguing my point because actually they are wrong and I'm arguing my point, but they now think I'm an asshole or you know, for whatever reason. We can be really brutal to ourselves for that fear of judgment of others. Because we don't feel safe. And I do think that is more, I don't, is that because we're not a compassionate society, we're not an understanding society, is it because we are irritated? We want things to be as we expect them to be and controlled?

Cassie:

Yeah, I, I think it's a brilliant question and I think personally my opinion on this is that many people cannot handle tension. Many people cannot handle, I mean, they might call it conflict. There may not be a conflict that is actually happening, but there's a tension. It's that space of uncomfortableness. There's a discomfort, and people find that discomfort really difficult because that's when they implode on themselves and make it about them. then they want this quick exit point. Where's the, where's the fire exit? Let's get outta this. And it can be as something as little as, you know, I remember in the workplace people not liking pauses and silence

Sarah:

Oh, that's a huge one.

Cassie:

and needing to fill all the space with incessant talking. And actually sometimes we just need that space. To allow for me, my experiences. I'm just like a pinball machine where you know, actually it is gotta travel, go down slots, go through alleys. Maybe bump down a few different things, move along something, you know, get the drift. I'm not gonna get something straight away. It's like all these different filters in my mind. It needs to sift through and it needs to go through this one and that one. And you know, it's that whole regulation perhaps bit as well. What do you feel? Know, sense, it needs to go through all of those different filters for me to be able to give something. Whereas if I'm being expected to do something, you know, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. It's,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

I'm not putting enough thought and energy and effort into it, and I think, you know, we become uncomfortable with gaps and I think particularly neurodivergent people who perhaps hypersensitive or they're hypervigilant and they, perhaps there's a bit of a high achiever in there as well. Needing to tick all the boxes, needing to get everything done. If they're not doing something, then they're not good enough. You know? Meditation. What meditation? I'm not gonna sit there with my legs crossed, you know, trying to clear my mind. How on earth can I clear my mind? I've got all these voices going on every single moment in time. I

Sarah:

Yeah,

Cassie:

have enough time to take a breath, and I feel like most of the time I'm breathing out of a straw under the water.

Sarah:

yeah, absolutely. All of that.

Cassie:

Yeah. That actually we need space, even if we just took the space to take a really deep breath. And I think that was one of the things that somebody helped me understand for myself. When I beginning to be on that slippery slope, perhaps that's gonna land into burnout, which I've experienced several times in my lifetime.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

That to recognise what the main trigger point, the main, I guess, sign symptom for me to watch out for is when I'm sighing. When I go, you know, like when you take a really big breath like you

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

air, because I'm almost at capacity. If I was in a room and it was filling with water. My mouth, my nose, and my eyes are just outta the water. Everything else is consumed and recognising. Then that's when I, I've allowed myself to be shaped into a different shape, to fit into the shaper box, to maybe fit in everybody else's needs. I'm filling all the gaps. I'm not allowing there to be space to breathe. I'm not allowing myself to slow down. I'm forgetting who and what I really am. I'm a human being, not a robot.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

I make mistakes. I find discomfort in silence sometimes, particularly when I'm imploding on myself and it's knowing all of these things about us. So if we need time out, take time out. Take a breath, pause. Come back.

Sarah:

So, so true. Coming back to the identity thing, obviously being neurodivergent. That isn't just who I am and I know it's not just who you are. We are multifaceted. We

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

bring lots of different things. Including the masks, the different hats, however you wanna put it. I think we need to go into that in more detail in another episode. So we're doing that probably next, I think. But is there anything else that you would like to share around identity?

Cassie:

Yeah, I think what what comes to view for me, especially now, is giving yourself permission to be who you are instead of trying to fit in, to be like everybody else. And I think a big shift in my being that I recognised recently was I was in an environment where I had to introduce who I am, what I do, et cetera. The usual thing that many of us will cringe,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

you know, I'm not a label because actually I do so many other things. And I introduced myself as a multidimensional, magnificent being who's a bit like a butterfly. He's got many interests in many different things. Loves to go and visit lots of different flowers. settle for a little while and then we'll flit off somewhere else. That looks interesting.

Sarah:

I love that. Oh my God, that's a perfect description.

Cassie:

Yeah, and, and actually that's okay.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Cassie:

need to be anything else. I don't need to fit into anything else.

Sarah:

I love that. For me, and I'm still piecing this together because there's different parts of who I am and the roles that I play, but it's knowing that my identity isn't what I do. Like the doing is not who I am. I am who I be, if that makes sense. In my being, I am who I am. And I'm still feeling into that

Cassie:

Hmm.

Sarah:

and knowing who I am. I, I'm trying to. Actively take more of a step back and observe how I show up

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

to certain scenarios, certain situations, around certain people. I'm in that very much reflective stage, I think in that sense. Because I'm a verbal processor, as you know. You know, we've had conversations around this, which means I need to talk things through in order to make sense of how I feel and what I'm thinking, because otherwise I get stuck in my head and I have learnt that very much in the last five years. Which has shifted some of the relationships that I have with certain friends and family members that when I'm processing something, sometimes I, I don't, I'm not sharing things because I necessarily want an answer or I want somebody to fix or come up with a solution I'm sharing because I'm processing and I will kind of get there in my own time, but I need that time

Cassie:

Yeah.

Sarah:

to verbally process. So, it's useful for me because for so long I felt that the outside, what people see didn't match what was on the inside.

Cassie:

Hmm.

Sarah:

And it's trying to bridge that gap and making more sense of that for me around identity.

Cassie:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And this is such an important one. It really is. And I would really encourage anybody listening to this who isn't clear on who they are actually just start, to to collect evidence about who they are

Sarah:

Hmm.

Cassie:

and ask the people that they trust, their advocates, their champions, their cheerleaders. What is it, what are the qualities or attributes or strengths that you see that I possess? What is it that you love that I'm able to show? Be advocate, whatever it is, and recognise the times when you feel amazing. Who are you being? What are you doing? What's contributing to that flow? What are the conditions that you are working in? And just start to almost build this evidence bank of, who you are in your natural state of being, and actually then begin to make a conscious choice. To create yourself as that being on a daily basis, what you do is not who you be. Who you be is the one that might do what you do.

Sarah:

Hmm.

Cassie:

Can consciously choose who we be. So when somebody says, what do you do? You don't need to say, well, I'm an accountant, or I'm a customer service agent, or I'm a coach. You could say, actually I'm a multidimensional being, whatever it is. You don't need to stick a label of a doing. Describe who you are. I'm heartfelt. I'm heart led. I care. I'm kind. describe your qualities. We don't need to squeeze into a label.

Sarah:

I love that society does that enough for us, including the different neurodivergent boxes. That's brilliant. Thanks for that, Cassie, and we will pick this up in the next little episode.

Cassie:

Great.

Sarah Atkins:

I hope you found our exploration today, both insightful and inspiring, and if you resonated with what you heard today, I invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your preferred platform, whatever that might be. Your feedback is really invaluable and it helps us to reach even more listeners on their own journey of self-discovery. And remember, the conversation doesn't have to end here. You can connect with me on social media. I'm on Instagram under the handle sarah m atkins. Or you can find me on Facebook just as Sarah Atkins. I would really love to hear from you and continue our conversation there. I am on a personal mission to bring you thought provoking conversations and practical insights to help you break free from the conditioning that holds you back. And as we close out this episode, take a moment to reflect on what you've learned today. How can you apply these insights to your own life? What steps can you take to further align with your own authentic self? Thank you again for listening. I really do appreciate you choosing to spend some time with me. And until next time, stay curious, stay authentic, and stay true to you.