Do you include other people in your self and Self-care? When do you feel most regulated (ready to thrive and flourish?)?
a) with loved ones?
b) in nature?
c) connecting with your Self?
d) in gratitude at being alive?
Let us know in the comments 🙂
TODAY’S GUEST
Athena Sayaka is a neuroexpansive practitioner and mystic. She helps neurodiverse creators develop supportive frameworks to honour their whole being as they navigate the world. In her corner of the internet, you are free to be fully you. We’re talking about that complex, embodied, “your raw power is kind of terrifying” version of you. Athena shares practical tips and powerful questions to cultivate a nourishing relationship to yourself, your mind, and your desires.
Find her on Insta @athenasayaka
And at athenasayaka.com
WHO AM I?
I’m your producer and host, Eve Menezes Cunningham, author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing (Pen & Sword, 2017), freelance journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Irish Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy.
I’m also an online trauma therapist (with lived experience), supervisor and Self care coach (integrating yoga therapy, NLP, EFT and crystals as appropriate) helping people connect with and take better care of their Self. Past Chair of BACP Coaching, I run Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes Cunningham (aka selfcarecoaching.net).
I started The Feel Better Every Day Podcast in 2023 because I realised that even with the focus of my work being self and Self care (for 20 years now!), I often struggle.
And so do so many of my colleagues. We’re all human! So I interviewed several of them including neuroscientists, authors writing about health and wellbeing, fitness professionals, therapists, coaches, energy workers and medical professionals.
We ALL have gaps and even gulfs between what we would LOVE to be doing for ourselves each day and what we actually do.
My hope with each episode is that you’ll go easier on yourself and do something rather than nothing from your own ideal self or Self care repertoire.
Create a life you don’t need to retreat from! Let me know how you get on! I really love hearing from y’all.
WANT TO WORK WITH ME?
You can access loads of resources at selfcarecoaching.net and your whole self is also very welcome to join Embodied with Evei at selfcarecoaching.net/sole-to-soul-circle/ Even if you’re listening to this later, you’ll gain instant access to the rich archive of recordings from the time you join.
Thanks again for watching, listening, reading, sharing, commenting, reviewing, subscribing and joining us.
@thefeelbettereverydaypodcast @evemenezescunningham
Transcript
Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, helping you connect with and take better care of yourself and create a life you don't need to retreat from. Welcome to Episode 34 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.
Today's guest is Athena Suyaka. She is a delightful human who I only came across recently, so I was so happy that she was able to join us for the first season in the final interview episode. As you listen to her talking about co-regulating with nature, with her Self, with friends and loved ones, I'd love for you to think about your own life and who you feel best able to co-regulate with. Remember that nature and your Self - that highest, wisest, truest part of yourself - is a wonderful place to begin. We are all connected and even with trauma recovery where people struggle to depend on other people or open up to other people, you can open up with nature, you can open up with animals, you can open up with that divinity within yourself. So let me know how you get on and enjoy the episode.
Welcome Athena Suyaka, thank you so much for joining me on the Feel Better Every Day Podcast.
Hi Eve, thanks for having me.
I was going to say I met you through - but I've literally just met you now. But I heard you and adored your talk as part of the Neurodivergent Entrepreneur Summit that I listened to just a few days ago. So I'm delighted because I'd said that the previous interview would be the last of this series, but your talk, your presentation fitted so well. I'm just so excited to hear what you're gonna say about discipline and self-care because it IS self-care. What would you like to say about your work and what you're working on at the moment?
Yeah, so I, as you said, I'm Athena Suyaka and I specialise in co-creating supportive structures for neurodiverse beings. What I'm working on right now is what I think will become my kind of flagship product, which will be called Fortify, and it's really about crafting a life that feels like home. So that's what I'm working on at the moment. Everybody stay tuned - I have no idea what the timeline is because I move on Divine time.
Wonderful. And I'd love to hear what you would do if you had all the time in the world, all the space, all the energy, for an ideal morning routine.
Yeah, so I think about this all the time actually because I have experienced my ideal morning routine and it's about four hours long.
I love that. I so love it when people say that it's not just me.
Yeah, yeah. So I would say like ideally what happens is I do something that engages my body. I used to be really into burpees, which is just a silly thing to do first thing in the morning.
But it's not because you're burning off the excess cortisol. That's wonderful for anxiety.
So I'll engage the body, I want to engage the spirit, and so that looks different depending on the day. But that could be praying, it could be co-regulating with nature just to remember that I'm part of a web instead of an isolated being, you know. It could - I think gratitude even is a spiritual practice when you're just like, “Wow, I'm so grateful to be alive.” Just things like this.
And then I would do something creative like dancing or colouring or drawing or writing. And then what else would be in my morning routine? I think that's it, and it's more just like those - any one or all of those practices would expand to however long I wanted to feel, so not feeling rushed in it.
So on those days where you are more rushed or you're traveling or you're not 100%, what would your essential morning routine be?
My essential, my essential morning practice is I do this exercise which I call BOGS, but it's like I have these five prompts that I answer every morning just to help me like to remember that I have an internal locus of control. And the questions are - well, so it's B-B-O-G-S and it's:
- Who or how would I like to be?
- What do I want to believe?
- What am I orienting towards?
- How will I ground myself?
- And savour - like what do I want to savour today? Which is like a micro manifestation.
Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you so much. What about later in the day including winding down for bed? What are your ideal self-care practises including that uppercase Self, and what would be your essential?
I would say the ideal wind down is probably like talking to someone until I have like expended my energy and then I'm like, “All right, I'm going to go to bed, I'm going to like write in my little journal and talk about how I had a great talk.” That would be my ideal winding down.
I think what happens more often is eating as like my reset, if that makes sense. So like I try to eat dinner without any external stimulation, and then I will stretch and journal a bit, and then sometimes read or sometimes I fall asleep while I'm journalling. I feel like that's like the actual what actually happens on a day-to-day basis.
Lovely. And if you could go back in time and send a younger Athena some love and some wisdom and some extra compassion, what advice would you be giving yourself?
This is always a funny question to me because I will share the advice I would give but knowing me I couldn't have received it anyways, you know? I'll share it. It's a combination of like, most things work out whether or not you are actively trying to work them out, and so just like you can relax. I think that's the most - that's the biggest thing I would say to myself, like you can relax because you're going to get the thing that you want either way or something even better, you know? So you might as well just relax through it.
I love it. So thank you so much for joining me and I'm going to include all the information in the show notes, but for people who aren't reading them, where can they find you online?
Yeah, so you can go to my website Athena Suyaka. There you'll find like newsletter, Instagram - oh yes, sorry, athenasuyaka.com and it'll be spelled out in the show notes. But yes, through the website you'll find all the other things. I'd also encourage you to follow my YouTube, which is probably the platform I have the most fun on right now.
Wonderful, and do you want to name your YouTube now? Is it Athena Suyaka?
It's Athena Suyaka.
Wonderful. Well, thanks again for joining me and yeah, you've been delightful as I expected you to be.
Thank you, Eve, I really appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Feel Better Every Day podcast. As always, I encourage you to rate, review, comment, like, share, subscribe - all the things that help a teeny tiny podcast hopefully get heard by people who will benefit from it. I've really loved this process. This is the final interview of Season 1 and I'm looking forward to recording all my learnings for next week's episode and just have loved it. I hope you have too and I welcome any questions. You can get in touch via thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com or thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.ie.
This episode like all of them so far has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham. Enjoy and let me know how you got on and what else you might do for self-care to co-regulate for yourself, whether that's your highest self or with nature or with friends or any other of Athena's tips that you're taking on board.