Is the Feel Better Every Day Podcast helping you? Please leave a ***** rating and review for this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed. Your subscribing, feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD. You learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you – it creates a ripple effect and helps others. My ultimate dream, in a world in which SO much is coming up for healing and so many people are unsafe, is to do my part to help as many people as possible heal from trauma. To help create a world in which everyone everywhere feels safe, welcome and loved – able to thrive.
Watch here or listen wherever you get your podcasts and find out more
Stop feeling guilty. Start making a difference. Owning your privilege (rather than apologising for it) can support sustainable activism
Learn how guilt disempowers you while self-care and honest acknowledgment of your advantages can fuel meaningful change. Discover why thriving isn’t selfish, it’s necessary for the resistance.
Everyone deserves to feel safe, welcome and loved and able to thrive and the more you do to empower yourself, the more you can do to help others. So forgive yourself for injustices you have no part in and then speak up to do what you can to fix what’s happening now.
THE FEEL BETTER EVERY DAY PODCAST
Learn from the Self (for that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself) and self-care practices the professionals depend on. With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas through the lens of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework to help you:
• Feel. Regulate your nervous system, work with your energy and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from
• Love. Accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing and
• Heal. Collective care to turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large (and to coregulate and accept support from others)
Thanks for watching. New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode. Sole to Soul Circle members get an exclusive deeper dive (these include bonus interviews, EFT Tap Alongs, yoga poses, breath practices, journal prompts and more) each week.
Is the Feel Better Every Day Podcast helping you? Please leave a ***** rating and review for this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed. Your subscribing, feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD. You learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you – it creates a ripple effect and helps others. My ultimate dream, in a world in which SO much is coming up for healing and so many people are unsafe, is to do my part to help as many people as possible heal from trauma. To help create a world in which everyone everywhere feels safe, welcome and loved – able to thrive.
CHAPTERS
(0:00) Prioritising your personal priorities
(1:14) Your suffering helps no one
(2:50) Acknowledging privilege
(10:59) Forgive yourself and do better
(15:30) Do more of what helps you feel good
(18:11) Finding balance through compassion and action
(20:56) Ho’oponopono and Metta meditation
RESOURCES: https://ejeancarroll.substack.com/p/grab-him-by-the-wallet
WANT TO WORK WITH ME?
• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.
• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://solestosoul.ie
• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.
• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc
• Find out more about my private practice for one to one work. If you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s worth completing the short form at https://solestosoul.ie/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision).
WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
You can find me almost everywhere – please say “Hi” and share your questions or comments: YouTube @evemenezescunningham Insta @evemenezescunningham @rescuecattitude @thefeelbettereverydaypodcast Facebook @FeelBetterEveryDay TikTok @evemenezescunningham Substack @evemc Bluesky
DISCLAIMER
The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
To prioritise your personal priorities you need to think about what you want to do both in terms of helping the world, helping your communities, helping your loved ones and also in your life things you dream of, your work, your relationships and it’s especially important to do all this to allow yourself to thrive and actually make a positive difference in 2025 with so much seemingly perpetual horror on so many levels affecting so many people.
Hi. I’m Eve Menezes Cunningham, welcome to episode 80 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I’m your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and I’m here to help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from by taking better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself.
I do this by sharing trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas and I love hearing from you so hopefully enjoy this episode and it’s a reminder really that your suffering helps no one.
Own your privilege, the world needs you and the resistance to fascism, all the isms, white supremacy, the patriarchy, ableism, it would suit the people who are hurting so many people if you gave up, if you just thought OK there’s nothing I can do, I’m being bombarded by horrors and I need to suffer, I need to struggle, I can’t do anything to lighten the mood, I can’t do our nervous systems, we’re not wired to deal with the onslaught of 24/7 news and especially then you add the algorithms, you add the comments, you add the trolls.
Prioritise your personal priorities. Think about what you want to do both in terms of helping the world, helping your communities, helping your loved ones and also in your life, things you dream of, your work, your relationships and it’s especially important to do all this, to allow yourself to thrive and actually make a positive difference in 2025 with so much seemingly perpetual horror on so many levels affecting so many people.
So I totally get that I’m recording this from a place of privilege, my very existence is not under threat by some of the most powerful people or states on the planet, I’m not being terrorised, I am very, very lucky in many ways.
And while I wish, I really wish I could do more to help create a world in which everyone from everywhere, all backgrounds, genders, interests, gifts, oh my god, I wish I could do more to help everyone feel safe enough to heal from trauma and stop perpetuating endless cycles, to move towards post-traumatic growth and we keep forgetting that none of us have done anything to deserve much of the good or bad luck that we’re just born into.
For the Feel part of today’s episode, I want you to think about your privilege and I want you to own your privilege because feeling guilty doesn’t help anyone, feeling guilty disempowers you, it makes you argue that you don’t have certain things that you do have because there are many, many, many different types of privilege and everyone has some and some have more and some have far less but by owning the areas in which you actually do have privilege in this world, in 2025, it’s going to empower you to use that privilege to help other people as well as enjoying life more than apologising for things you had no control over being born with in terms of things that help you.
This just means that there are things you have no control over, for example your skin colour. If you’re white, if I’m Indian-Irish, I look white. I have white privilege. It means I don’t face racism in a way that people of colour do and me saying, “Oh but I’m Indian-Irish, I understand” wouldn’t help. If I instead speak up as much as I can when I see people being harassed, which is ridiculous, in 2025 that is happening so much in the world and online, I can use my white privilege to speak out against, to call it out. And to support people who are suffering because they don’t have white privilege because we live in a messed up world.
I have Irish privilege, I sound English, I’ve had an Irish passport since I was a small child. Indian-Irish, born in London, I was able to move after the Brexit vote really, really broke my heart, seeing the rise in hate, it being legitimised, politicians seeing no comeback for amplifying hate, spreading propaganda.
I look white, I sound English, I fled the country because I didn’t feel safe there and it’s unfortunately happening everywhere but there’s no point me kind of slinking around feeling guilty that I get to live somewhere where I’m less at risk of climate catastrophe. We’ve just had a big storm this weekend (at time of recording) but there are parts of the world where they’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve endless horror, death, flooding, like just things we can’t even dream about but which are going to get more common.
Health privilege, I’ve had a chronic health condition for decades and decades but in many ways I’ve been incredibly lucky, I enjoy a lot of health privilege and I also have a huge understanding of very severe chronic pain.
Wealth privilege, I am getting better at managing my money, at not being so hand to mouth but I have a roof over my head, I have work that I adore, that I earn a living from and that’s wealth privilege. Again, so much of the world doesn’t, so much of the world having to work in awful conditions, several jobs trying to make ends meet and being exploited and then being blamed for other people’s problems when they’re being exploited.
Fitness privilege, if you’re fitter you’re able to do more with less effort, you’re able, like that is a privilege, yes you’ve worked hard for that but also take into account genes that have helped you. Thin privilege, youth privilege, we live in a world in which youth is valued more than people who are visibly ageing but with ageing comes the privilege of wisdom and of understanding more about the world. There’s pretty privilege where people who are considered prettier get treated better, there’s no point denying it but you can hopefully help to create a world in which beauty in everyone is valued.
Cognitive privilege, strength is a privilege, social privilege, class, like kind of cis privilege, being born into a body that you identify with as you grow up rather than feeling alien and having to navigate the horrors of transphobia as well as trying to have to do more in order to live as your authentic self.
I mentioned passport privilege, regulatory privilege, if your parents knew how to regulate their nervous systems, if they were able to raise you in a way that didn’t create complex developmental trauma or just so many other issues, you have a regulated nervous system that you haven’t had to spend your adult life trying to create from scratch. There are many neurotypical privilege or masking privilege even with ADHD.
I didn’t find out until my 40s, I’m nearly 50, didn’t get a formal diagnosis until last year, didn’t start medication until this year but I was, I mean, being able to mask exhausting as it was for all these decades, that was a privilege.
There are some people who are discounted when the problem is that we don’t live in a world where different neurotypes are properly valued and cherished and supported and thriving in everyone’s unique way.
As you listen, you might be getting angry with me (which is fine) but I’m hoping that you can recognise that owning the privileges, and I’ve not listed all of them by any stretch, but by owning the privileges that you have, you’re in a better position to just be like, “Yep, OK, I’m going to work with this, I’m going to use these strengths, I’m going to, unearned as many of them are, I’m going to use them to my advantage in order to help as many people as possible rather than curling up in a helpless heap of despair in terms of everything that’s going on in the world.”
How can you give yourself permission to recognise that however undeserving most people are of these different types of privilege, you can stop pretending to not have them.
And you can start being grateful and really harness the potential to change the world.
For the Love part of this episode, of the Feel. Heal. Love. framework that I developed, I want you to forgive yourself and to do better. Because we want to be nice and we want to live in a fair and equal and peaceful world in which everyone is safe and loved and welcome, able to thrive, and this idea of this utopia which is possible but it isn’t there, it’s far from there for so many people, but we often deny our privileges to ourselves.
We tone things down, we feel bad. If you forgive yourself for things that you haven’t done, like I used to feel really terrible growing up in Britain knowing that I had it easier in many ways than had I grown up in Ireland or in India because I knew that my parents had moved there because they had to and they were both immigrants, their parents were both immigrants, and I also knew that indirectly but in a real way I was benefiting from colonial horrors because Britain hasn’t done anything to repair, instead is apparently nostalgic. Me feeling guilty and horrified and it doesn’t help anyone.
I mean I moved and I’m aware like I don’t, I’m kind of giving examples from my experience because you’re going to have examples from your experience and if you’re thinking that what I’m saying is ridiculous, I am hoping that you’ll be able to shine a light on the things that are ridiculous in your own head, in your own unconscious beliefs or maybe conscious beliefs about what you do and do not deserve.
Everyone deserves to feel safe, welcome and loved and able to thrive and the more you do to empower yourself, the more you can do to help others. So forgive yourself for injustices you have no part in and then speak up to do what you can to fix what’s happening now, to help make things better one person at a time and one comment at a time. Scroll past rather than getting hooked into hate. Support people who are in need of support, who are hurting, who are being hurt.
Watch Swiped on Netflix if that appeals. The Love part of the framework is very much about accepting, just being, not trying to improve yourself and it’s a gorgeous film on Netflix about the founder of Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd and although she’s still under an NDA so wasn’t involved in the making of it, I really liked the way her character in the film owned the fact that she had benefited from being the kind of pretty blonde white woman who was a co-founder of Tinder. Until she was targeted by her ex-boyfriend herself and then she had a more visceral experience of what all the other women in the company had been trying to get her to fix for a long time. The character in the film was able to own that she’d enjoyed being the only woman in that position, that she had pulled the ladder up behind her.
Wherever you are in your life, wherever you’re working, whatever you’ve done in your past, recognise that you may well have an enormous amount of internalised oppression, whether it’s misogyny, internalised misogyny and you’re like saying if you’ve succeeded as a woman that you’re somehow special and that other women shouldn’t have the same rights to choose or anything else that you’ve benefited from or any kind of internalised privilege. Recognise that, forgive yourself for it and do better moving forward but I hope that you’ll enjoy the film, it’s just a lovely film.
So to Heal, moving into the heal part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework, do more of what helps you feel good. I know I’m always on about working with the nervous system and how we’re literally wired to thrive when we feel safe, healthy and safe, welcome and loved. It’s gonna lower stress, it’s gonna as a result reduce symptoms of a range of chronic and acute conditions, it’s gonna make life more enjoyable, it’s gonna make activism more sustainable, it’s gonna make your part in the resistance that we all need to be part of more sustainable.
Not to ignore the world’s issues but to give you the energy to do more, to actually make a positive difference to the world every day by also relaxing. So this might sound like a strange example but Taylor Swift’s delightful new album, she has donated so much to food banks around like where she’s touring, things like that and she famously kind of ran while rehearsing her set, like she’d sing the entire extra long set for the Eras tour while running to ensure she had fitness. She’s prolific in terms of what she puts out and she also, I saw an interview recently where she said, oh absolutely, she totally vegs out and does nothing but watch telly and all the rest of it.
You can’t help people when you’re depleted, you can’t help, you can improve your fitness, your heart rate variability, your emotional resilience, you can surround yourself with people who support you and you can all go further together and you can make activism more fun, more enjoyable, more sustainable but you need rest, you need time off, you need, you’re not responsible for the world on your own, you’re partially responsible, you’re part of the world and you’re not fully and you burning out does nothing to help anyone.
I’m really wanting you to come away from this episode with a sense of balance and forgiveness and understanding for the things that you’ve not earned but that you can use to help other people, forgive yourself and think of ways in which you can thrive and offer support to the people who are being most targeted and most marginalised.
E. Jean Carroll, the woman who Trump was convicted of raping and ordered to pay $84million to. She has a lovely Substack and a few weeks ago she wrote about how the fascists have their MAGA hats and the resistance needs something and she suggested as a joke almost paper clips but then she followed up with sightings of many, many, many paper clips. https://ejeancarroll.substack.com/p/grab-him-by-the-wallet
This is obviously more relevant in America but think if it appeals like read her, there’ll be a link in the show notes to her post on that (https://ejeancarroll.substack.com/p/the-paper-clip-mutiny) but look for people who are speaking up when someone’s being harassed on the tube or in the street or online.
Look for ways in which you can quietly and gently and powerfully and lovingly offer your support in a safe way and I’m reminded of when I did some first aid training. I did loads and loads of first aid training, have to redo it every however long, however often but in one in particular it was like they made it clear that sometimes first aid is picking up the phone so it might be recording something that shouldn’t be happening and using it as evidence to help the person get justice or it might be phoning for help or it might be stepping in or it might be simply interrupting, not confronting the horrible like perpetrator of whatever abuse it is but being there as a support for the person or the group you see in trouble.
Only you know what’s going to feel safe and OK enough for you but that’s going to empower you rather than feeling like the world is going to hell in a handbasket and there’s nothing you can do.
There is always something you can do and it’s more likely that you’ll be able to do it when you’re living your life from a healthy, happy, joyful place. We’re wired for joy.
Alice Walker’s book, Possessing the Secret of Joy, turned out the secret of joy was resistance.
If you’re a member of the Sole to Soul Circle you’ll be getting an extra email tomorrow with a meditation, a Ho’oponopono meditation to support you in remembering your interconnectedness with everyone we share this wondrous planet with and ways in which to help you clear your energy, guilt, shame, fear, all of it.
I’ll be going into more detail in that special video but everyone can do the basic Ho’oponopono which comes from Hawaii and it is based around ancient Huna practices and it’s a really simple, it has similarities with Metta, that kind of universal love, compassion, kindness.
With Metta it’s, “May I be happy and healthy, peaceful and at ease, may I be able to take care of myself joyfully, may I possess the courage, wisdom, patience and determination to manage life’s challenges” and then you move out to someone you love, someone you feel neutral around, someone you find challenging. That might be yourself again or if it’s too challenging send more Metta to someone else you love or to yourself. Different communities, different groups, locations, it might be your town, it might be your community, it might be communities you’re reading about or seeing.
Sending an enormous amount of people you’re concerned about, wish you could do more to help, whether they’re on the other side of the world or local being targeted.
Name them all, list them all, get together with your friends and do Metta for everyone, loved ones who are sick, anyone who’s worrying you, parts of yourself, send them love, send them Metta, wish them that they’re happy and healthy, peaceful and at ease, able to take care of themselves.
So that’s Metta which is similar to Ho’oponopono. Ho’oponopono it’s simpler. You’re not even cognitively thinking about who you’re sending it to, you’re simply reminding yourself we’re all connected and it’s, “I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you.” You just say it in your head or out loud over and over and over again, I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. Try it, see how it feels.
I used to do this ploughing up and down (in my imagination, I wasn’t that fast) the swimming pool but it’s just a really lovely and I’ll be going into more detail, more depth around it in the bonus content for the Sole to Soul Circle members.
Looking forward to sharing more next week. Thank you for listening or watching the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. This episode, like all of them, was produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham.
You can find full transcripts, links and more information in the show notes and also at selfcarecoaching.net as well as more information about the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and if you’re interested in those deeper dives, joining the Sole to Soul Circle, as well as lots of other free resources and information about other offerings.
If this episode was helpful, please leave a five-star review. In a world in which so much is coming up for healing and so many people are feeling unsafe. I want to do whatever I can to help as many people as possible heal from trauma, helping create a world in which everyone is safe, welcome and loved physiologically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally able to thrive. Your subscribing or liking or sharing feedback and other support helps me help as many people of all genders with trauma histories and ADHD. And your learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you, it creates a ripple effect helping others heal too. So keep looking after yourself, do what feels good, let yourself honour your nervous system, let yourself honour your charge, your life force and míle buíochas, a thousand thank yous.