Late Diagnosed ADHDer and Wayward Women Co-author, Tracey Davies on Graveyards, Comedy, Sea Swims and Isolated Cabins

I can't quite feel, you know and I know other people who also feel that way. I thought, oh god, I'm just being really weird because I like to hang around with graves. But I just learned something about it that can feel. There is just a peace that you can feel and sometimes it really calms, you know, when my head's really, really busy. As you know, sometimes it's just like, oh my god, this is so busy. I find it exhausting and just being there, it's all kind of like, calms it down a little.

You're listening to Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD with Eve Menezes Cunningham, that's me.

Learn to love and care for all your parts, including your trauma and AuDHD, from the soles of your feet to your soul. I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham. There are new episodes each Tuesday and you can, subscribe to make it less likely that you'll miss them and you can also visit solestosoul.ie for older episodes, more information about adventures, events and loads of free resources, hundreds of body-mind practices and more.

Thank you for being here, really appreciate it.

Today I'm delighted to welcome someone who I've known for decades through an online journalism group we were both part of when I was starting out. She's a hugely successful freelance journalist and author of the new book, Wayward Women and we talk about her and her co-author being discovered by the publisher on their Substack.

We talk about her love of graveyards, my love of graveyards as well, the soothing comfort they can offer, isolated cabins, sea witches, sea swims, pebbles, world travel and so much more.

It was such a joy to talk to Tracey Davies, who I've known online for decades and I feel a bit tearful, I felt a bit tearful thinking, I can't believe I get to do this. I'm so lucky with some of the people, with all of the people I've been able to welcome onto the podcast and I know I regularly still work till like 2.30 in the morning, sometimes 4 in the morning, trying to fit everything in.

I love my one-to-one work, I love the groups, I love all of it, but there's something about the podcast that feels so self-indulgent in a way. It's kind of bringing together my journalism background, my talking to people from a wide range of walks and just asking whatever I want, like, it's my podcast, I get to choose the weirdest questions, like the cardamom pod question that I've been asking recently is one of my favourites. I just really want to thank you for being here and I want to thank all my guests, past, present and future.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

So, welcome Tracey Davies, I'm so happy to have you on the podcast.

Hi Eve. It's so weird thinking we've known each other through an online journalism group for hundreds of years, really.

Yes, it is. You’re a super successful journalist and now author of Wayward Women.

Oh my goodness, yes, I know, can you believe it? It's fantastic.

Do you want to say a bit about the book, where people can find you online and how you got into what you're doing?

It was pure luck, I see it as. I've co-written a book with a fellow travel journalist, Rhonda Carrier and it's called Wayward Women: Sex, Friendship and the Midlife Reset. We've both reached our 50s and both been through a divorce, or I've been through a divorce, she's going through a divorce and as travel writers, we travel around the world, we meet some incredible women.

We have a Substack called Wayward Wimmin, which is W-I-M-M-I-N. We'd write different stories and different things about what's going on in our lives and such and the publisher had signed, subscribed to us and read some of our work and said this could make a book.

That's amazing.

I put together a proposal and it took from the proposal to publication about a year and a half.

The paperback comes out next week. Super, super excited and people were getting some really great feedback.

I think it really touches, particularly people at my age and perhaps if they're going through similar experiences, divorce, kids are growing up. Other people have called it quite inspiring, because like I said, we've travelled. We start in Florida swimming with mermaids. We go to Peru, Antarctica.

I look back and go, my goodness, did we really do all that?

That's fantastic. That's gorgeous.

You've mentioned the Substack, where else can people find you online? I'll have a link in the show notes where people can buy all of that.

Oh, fantastic. Thank you.

But just for people who might be listening while driving or not in a position to read the show.

My Instagram is at Tracey Danger, journalist, comedian, because I'm also a comedian. And I tried having two Insta accounts and I can't, I can't manage to, so I put it all under one. We also have the Wayward Wimmin Instagram account.

The Substack is Wayward Wimmin, W I double M I N, because normal spelling of women was taken. I've also got a website. So I've got a brand new website that's just launched this week and that's traceydavies.co.uk and that's got everything on it.

It's got my journalism, stuff about the book, podcast stuff and my comedy. I do stand up comedy as part of my midlife crisis.

I love it. I love it. I love it. If you're happy to start with a conscious breath.

Something I adopted from Anita Rani's Sisters of Defiance podcast. Obviously being a yoga therapist, I work a lot with the breath. So life-changing.

It's so, it's something we're doing the whole time, but when we make it conscious, it has so many benefits. Anyone listening and watching who wants to just notice your breath, not doing anything. You don't have to do a thing and you can ignore this if you want to, but it can just be lovely to just feel the ground below you, feel that support from the earth, notice what's happening with your breath.

I have to make a note to remind myself to do that because I'm asking newer guests, Are you happy for me to do that? Then remembering halfway through the podcast. Because ADHD. And you're late diagnosed ADHD.

Oh yes, I am. Which brings a whole bag of goodies, doesn't it? As you well know too. And challenges.

I mean, it's a mixed bag, but it makes sense of everything. I've actually got childhood memories back. Like the most of my childhood, I remembered a year we spent in America, but other than that, I had the odd fragment of memory and I thought it was all trauma.

It's like, well, the trauma wasn't that bad [that I should have NO memories of most of my childhood]. Then understanding more about the autism and ADHD and especially the autism these last few years, I'm remembering loads.

Yeah, it's weird. How would you like to say anything about the ADHD before? Yeah, absolutely.

I've been diagnosed a year ago, last August and it's surprised me because I had no idea. A friend of mine, really, really good friend of mine who is AuDHD, she has since found out by having two children, one's autistic, one's ADHD and then she was tested and has both. She said to me once we were walking our dogs along the beach.

Suddenly, so many things made sense. I was like, crikey. But then of course, in true ADHD style, it took me about another couple of years to do anything about it.

Oh, the forms, the forms.

Then I had a big 90 minute assessment with a psychologist, psychiatrist, actually a psychiatrist and he said, yes, yeah, you do.

I got the report through and that was a whole, you know, I'm picking 50 years. It's been really emotional.

Sometimes I really, really struggle and then I feel really sad for little me and sad for the thing is, well, what could have you know, I've gotten pretty, I'm pretty happy with my career.

I've done some things I never thought I'd be able to do and I just think God, how could it have been easier? But what was interesting was very fun. Before I even thought about it, my mum came down, came down to Brighton where I live.

She'd found in the loft, all my school reports from like from primary school up to college. My kids had a great time going through those. I went through and it was just like and basically, all I had to do to the psychiatrist was hand them over and look, look at this, it's all in black and white.

It was just so much distracted daydreamer. Forgetful, always getting lost. If she applied herself, she could do so much.

She's a bright girl. If she applied herself, she could do so much more. It was just it was, you know, it was classic.

Yeah, textbook. Yeah. So yeah, so now and I've recently been a few months go titrated.

I'm on some, which I find have been pretty life changing, like, particularly in my work, where I really struggled to focus. That's been really helpful. I'm learning new things all the time about it.

That's magic. I stopped taking the medication because of side effects but my plan was then to take it once a week or on like heavy admin days, yes, I recognise now, like when I leave the house several times to leave the house, like on the medication that just didn't happen. It's like, that's amazing.

Yeah. Because of the side effects, it was like, well, I don't want to take it every day. Listening to you now, it's like, or to me, the number of times I think, right, I'm going to take the medication tomorrow.

Then I forget. Then it gets late in the morning and it's like, well, I don't want to now because I know I've only just taken one because I forgot this morning because I was out and about. I'm thinking I've actually got a big gig going on tonight so I'm like, actually, that will really help me even though I might not be able to sleep afterwards.

Yeah, but it will help me be in the moment and be more focused to be, you know, remember, remember.

Oh, my God, that's amazing. The idea of what you're doing. As I mentioned, when we talked about this, I asked people about their ideal and actual self care.

And you do so much travel, I'll be fascinated to hear like the actual essentials. But I developed a framework and FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. FEEL. is the kind of when you've got the bandwidth to do like, for me, the yoga, the swimming, the cycling, the walking, the meditation, they're all essentials.

But you need a certain amount of bandwidth. Sometimes it's getting in the shower or brushing your teeth often, actually, I'll go to swim in order to get into the shower, because it's a group drive across town and swim and then steam and then I was no bother with it's just getting in the shower.

The LOVE. bit is that kind of remembering that there's no need to improve anything, you're already part of nature, part of the divine.

There are certain things that can help us get out of our way and remember that. So asking like ideal and actual there.

Then the HEAL. bit, the community care, the collective care, the who you allow yourself to be held by and who you hold space for.

I'm thinking with the writing, with the comedy, how many people are inspiring.

Starting with the FEEL. what if you had all the time in the world, all the resources in the world, what would be your ideal self care practices?

I live by the sea, I live in Brighton by the sea and like you, I swim in the sea as often as I can.

I love it. It's one of the best things. But recently, I've had quite a tough few years, I would say, going through my divorce and all manner of things.

After the book came out in January I felt really burnt out. I got this press release come through about this company called Unplugged and they have these cabins in the middle of places you can go and you lock your phone away and you're completely off grid and you're away from everybody.

I was like, Oh, my goodness, I need this. So I pitched this story and I went out to a cabin called Basil not far from me about half now from here, but middle of nowhere, it was just me and my dog, Miss Babs in the cabin.

I switched off for three days and it was absolute heaven. That is my dream.

Not all the time, of course, I'm very sociable, but to have that time. All I did was I walked, we walked, I read, I slept, I ate well and I wasn't quite meditating, but it was very meditative that I had this time where I didn't have to answer to anybody or anything. I wasn't attached to my phone.

It was pretty fantastic and I think about Basil, my cabin, daily. My ideal would be to have that space once a month where I disappear off and just have that complete downtime when nothing is required of me, because I like to say with ADHD, it feels it's can be overwhelming that amount of demands and stimulation, I really, really struggle with it.

As much as I love being, you know, being my kids and being my partner and my friends and such to have that nobody, apart from me and my dog was absolute heaven. So my ideal for the future would be to have that space once a month or so where I can just disappear off for three days. That would be the ideal.

Whereas I don't always have that, but I do try to find for the actual, I go off long walks with the dog on my own and I try to leave my phone behind or just or being in the sea, just you know, that I find you because you can only focus on being in the sea. Your mind goes everywhere, you know. It's having time alone and then I can sort of, you know, build myself back up again.

And I'm jazz hands Trace again.

Yeah. Yeah.

Anything else?

I'm not sure. Yeah, I think it is. I think for me, it's about having alone time is a big thing.

That's incredible. I'm also thinking, it's the second time someone has answered like that. I think you're going to be episode 130 or 130.

Wow. But 129. Yeah, you're gonna be 130.

129. So out next week, Mattia Mauree, she does Flourishing podcast and she's amazing.

They're amazing. But they were saying that they love to go camping and after like three or four days, like in the wilds.

Yeah. They really feel that and I was thinking that sounds incredible.

Also very inaccessible to me. They were saying they manage it about once a year, maybe. Right? Yeah.

About Basil being half an hour from you. Yeah. I can't right now because my dad's so ill.

But 12 hour weekly silence is where I turn my phone off just for 12 hours. I couldn't believe even within the first hour, like I do, I've done a 24 hour silence over Christmas at some point for years. Yeah.

But I'd always think at the bank holidays, I do and I never did. It would be the next Christmas period.

So yeah, like once a week, aiming for 12 hours. Just that, like you say, the exhale that like, yeah, not scrolling, they're not getting distracted, they're not worrying who wants something or who, but even just putting the phone in, it's finding those actual those like possible pockets.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

My situation at the moment, I'm still living in a marital home and that makes it difficult for me to have any space. I think that's why I crave it so much.

I think that's very shortly about to change and I think once that does, I'm going to be very much on that. Because I think when you're always available, always online, whatever, it's really hard to know, I've got three adult children who are all doing their own thing now.

But you know, I'm still their mum. So they're still going to need me at some point or people's always somebody who's going to need something. So you're kind of on high alert.

What I loved about being with Basil is that everyone knew that they couldn't get hold of me. So it took a few hours. But once I was in it but at the end of the break and I had to come back to the real world, I was leaving it right to the last minute to unlock my phone.

I was like, I don't want to, you know, I could do another few days easily do another few days. It's the sort of thing that I think about. I think once you know, when I'm in my own space, it will just be me and my dog in the house, because all the kids have left home.

I will have that time, you know and the thought of doing a 12 hour silence sounds absolutely perfect to me. I think what it will do, it will just energise me again to carry on. So you know, it's fair.

I don't know about you, but you know, it's getting older. I'm 55 this year and menopause or the joy of being an older woman. It's tiring, you know, I need to have that, that time of my own, what I find and it's something I so I, I'm a few years postmenopausal.

My immediate thing was joy and relief at the lack of pain from a lifetime of endometriosis. But then the ADHD burnout repeatedly and it took me a few years to realise, so I make a note in my diary around the new moon each month, rest, rest, rest. Yes, I'd use red pen in my diary, my whole like decades, like kind of knowing to schedule things like because I've been so much pain every month, but my schedule, my cycle was so regular, I could do that.

Whereas, I think because of the world we live in, it's that kind of and I'm like, it's so obvious. Like talking to you now, it's like, yes, more of that I will do it. I also know, when I'm scheduling my diary is I don't have children, I'm not married, like I have a partner who lives nearly two hours away.

But it's life. I love it's ADHD again, isn't it? It's the one in all of it. All of it.

Oh, goodness. I'm my own worst enemy with if like a group being agreeing to over committing is a very bad habit of mine. Then be like, how can I you know and then wanting try everything in the world.

Which is great, but it's exhausting. Yeah, you know, we can't wait to have that downtime and be like, right, where nothing is required of you. That's my ideal self care. I want you to have a long weekend with Basil every month.

I don't tell my that's why I'm cheating. I'm cheating on you with Basil, which is this beautiful, beautiful cabin in the woods.

Moving to the LOVE. part that what helps you I mean, you've already alluded to it a lot alone time, but what else helps you connect with that part of you, your miraculous self, that highest, wisest, truest part of yourself?

I've read everything about managing ADHD, but living with it.

I've read so much stuff. I find, you know, when I wake up in the morning, it's getting out into some sunlight as soon as possible. Luckily, I've got a happy dog.

I live by the beach. So we get out down the beach. If I miss that, for whatever reason, I haven't got that, it has a real effect on me.

So it's being outside by the in the sea, if possible, if the waves are being kind. Yeah, fresh air. Just even being like, even sometimes I'll walk with a friend or something.

When you see other people, it's that connection with strangers as well. Immortality, you know, it's like, you know, you meet a nice dog and you say hello, you'll find a great pebble, which of course, I have now about a billion. Because you can't leave a great pebble.

Being outside is very important to me, whatever the weather. And yeah, being in fresh air and having that sort of time and movement.

I realised when I get stuck, if I get stuck in a spiral, or, you know, I've had bouts of, you know, depression over the years. If I get stuck in that you get and you very much.

Yeah. Stuck. I think I get how good makes me feel just to be outside.

So I kind of keep that in my head all the times to be outside be, you know, walking, swimming, fresh air, by the sea, nature.

Yeah. Yeah, wonderful.

And if you could only do one of those things, would it be the morning light?

Like, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. I've just got my notes up here.

When I have limited bandwidth, I live down the road is the cemetery. I've always loved cemetery, always cemetery.

I don't know something about it. It's the silence there. I don't know, I find something very comforting about it.

When I've struggled before with, you know, with my head misbehaving, sometimes all I can do is get down and then I'll just walk around. That's it. I used to do it when my twins were little, just in West Norwood cemetery, which is a fantastic cemetery.

I just walk around with them for a couple of hours. There's something really, really calming about it. So when I'm feeling a little bit and I can't quite make it down to the beach, then that's my sort of go to.

I love it. I love it. You're reminding me of Henry Turtle in Brentwood cemetery.

I went to so many different schools, but one of them was the Ursuline in Brentwood. We used to walk to the graveyard to get to somewhere on a regular basis. I love the graveyard.

I'd always say, yeah, Henry Turtle, I don't know who it was. But I always, there is something I think, yeah, it's that connection with the ancestors as well. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. I know other people who feel that, also feel that way. I thought, oh, God, I'm just being really weird because I like to hang around with graves.

But I just learned something about it that I can feel like there is just like a peace that you can feel. Sometimes it really calms, you know, when my head's really, really busy. Yeah, as you know, sometimes it's like, oh, my God, this is so busy, I find it exhausting.

Just being there, it's all kind of like, calms it down a little. I live technically in a little village. I'm out in the middle of nowhere, outside Westport town.

Yeah, it's amazing. In fact, seven and a half years next week. Yeah.

But the village of Aughagower, Mayo lost so many people in The Famine in the genocide that was called the famine, there are five graveyards and they're absolutely beautiful.

It's like a tiny little post office pub. But you think about that much death and that much loss and that much. I know this sounds really gloomy.

There is something hopeful about resilience and people moving beyond that I find inspiring with graveyards as well. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Yeah, that's really interesting.

Oh, goodness me. It's kind of breathtaking sometimes. Then you see life, like I'm thinking there's a particular rosebush in one of them when I go past it on my bike.

It's just if the sun catches the rose and the graves and all and it's just so it's, it's the juxtaposition of all of it, isn't it? The life? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it really is. It does really.

So it's that whole. That's definitely a top tip. I go to the nearest graveyard.

I'm thinking I used to do it in Essex when I was in Witham as well. There was a really old church and I just walk around the graveyard. This is so weird.

So more memories coming back. But I think that's going to be probably more accessible for more people than a lot of the things. Yeah, absolutely.

Not everyone can have a Basil and Basil is mine. But everyone can, you know, there's always going to be a graveyard around. I think, yeah, that is an accessible way to just have that time to yourself.

When you think about the HEAL. part, the collective care, the co regulation, like what are the communities that you lean on that you feel held by as well as the spaces you hold for others? Like with your writing, with your comedy, you're that for so many people?

Yeah, so the comedy for a start has been, I've been doing it for about goodness me, four years, three or four years, I've been gigging for about three years, I did a course. I love it. I'm in Brighton, it's really big, strong comedy scene and the community within it is everyone's very, very supportive.

It's a great environment to be in. Although it does feel like every other person in Brighton is a comedian.

Do you know Joanne Mallon?

She's a very brilliant comedian. I'm furious because she's only been gigging for the last six, eight months and she's fantastic.

Really good. So yes, I've seen her a few times, which is lovely. I remember sometimes doing an open mic, a lot of open mic gigs and it was an open mic gig.

Pretty much the audience of pretty much other comedians, anyway, we're all getting up and doing five minutes. I remember, just so I've done mine and everyone's at different levels. So we're all some, you know, that have only been three or four gigs.

I've done about 150 now. So everyone's at various levels. I remember sitting there, thinking, I'm feeling a bit emotional, because you're so vulnerable, you're getting up on stage, you've got loads of people with your hard crafted jokes and hoping that people are going to laugh and not be mean to you.

Luckily, very few people are mean to you. Most people will laugh, or if not, they'll tell you where you can, you know, whatever. I just felt this big warm, light thinking, I love being part of this community.

Sometimes I think, Oh, God, I've got to go out and rain, I've got to go down to this ropey old pub to perform to three people and they've heard all my nonsense before. But then you go down and come back and actually it really, like, you know, it's different to the other work I do, because this is purely, you know, it's a purely for fun thing. It's a lovely, it's a lovely environment to be in.

So yeah, that's a big community. My sea swimming community is also another big one, you know and I did have a chapter about it in the book about the Brighton Bobbers, which is my little group and I haven't swum for a while for reasons on my behalf, where they go a little bit early for me. But I love being part of it.

So whenever I see more other people and everyone's so friendly when you're down, you know, you're in the sea. I remember, I was with another friend of mine who, she's part of the one of the Hove Pubs. She's got a group over in Hove.

I went over and swam with her one morning. Then we met one of her friends, who's an author that I've admired for years, in the sea. I was like, Josie Lloyd, who writes some brilliant books.

Yeah. Then so we're networking, we're chatting away in the sea as well. I was like, this is what I love about this community.

There are lads that do it, but a lot of women and a lot of women my age. Yeah. And older and younger.

But it's very much, this is our space, which I really love. So that's a really, really positive community for me.

I know that this is the strangest of the questions I ask.

I'm calling it the cardamom pod question. And it's inspired by Meggan Watterson's work. She's a feminist theologian.

She's written a lot about Mary Magdalene's gospel being eradicated deliberately, like, Christianity started out as a religion of love and acceptance and equality and all of that. Then when it became a state religion, in the fourth century, they chose what to keep and what to deliberately exclude. So they turned Mary Magdalene into a prostitute, they devalued her, like kind of very much propaganda around.

I'm so cheerful, aren't I? Amazing thing to think about, like going back, but Thecla is one of the people that Meggan Watterson wrote The Girl Who Baptized Herself about. She kept asking Paul to baptise her, they were both kind of out there and he kept saying she wasn't ready.

And she kept kind of being persecuted back when it was being persecuted. She was in the arena and sentenced to death by lions. I am the most cheerful person, aren't I? I'm ridiculous.

It just it really struck me that she saved herself, she baptised herself. As she claimed her power, as she stepped into her power, more of her love, rather than cowering in fear. Apparently, all the women in the arena rose as if one and started throwing rose petals and spices, including cardamom pods.

That turned the outraged lions into sleepy lions. So her life was saved. But ultimately, herself, but then all the women behind her.

So I'm thinking like, it might be a comedian, it might be an activist, it might be a writer, it might be, but who gives you courage? Or who would you like to? Who would you like listeners and viewers to check out follow in some way?

Now, this was the question I really, really struggled with, actually, because I think I want it to, you know, you always want it to be the best answer.

Oh, it won't be. Oh, I know.

I know. I'm definitely gonna be racking my brain. I think, you know, I follow on my social stuff and a lot of comedians and a lot of other writers, a lot of journalists, of course.

I think, God, who can and of course, lots of like comedy, real things, nonsense. I was thinking, like, who do I find inspiring? It's like, there's so many, so many people, so I wrote a little bit of a list. But they're like, you know, people, back on the days of Twitter, which, on the glory days, not the bad days.

Early Twitter, yeah. Oh, me too. It was just, it was really was a proper, it was like, it felt like a little bit like journo-biz, like, it was a community.

So you had, so I followed Jess Phillips on there, who's the Labour MP. I really loved her voice and her, you know, she was a real, you know. I haven't found her, I'm on Threads now, which feels a little bit like early Twitter.

She was always a good one that I really, really liked. Then I've got like the other authors, like, sort of Elizabeth Day, I listen to How to Fail a lot and I really love her work. I'm a big fan of hers.

Dolly Alderton as well is another one that I'm a big, big keen fan, bit of a girl crush on her. But one I'm going to say is one, one lady I follow on Instagram, who I will always watch her reels is a woman, an Australian woman called Kate Forster. She's an astrologer.

She's very much a big personality. She's hilarious. But she talks about, you know, what's going on in our stars and what we need to look out for when like the, the lines portal and all these sorts of things.

I am fascinated. I'm all over that sort of shit. I love it.

I love it. It's something I find with, you know, astrology and you know, into my tarot cards and you know, what the universe has for you, I find that a real comfort. So when I watch her stuff, whatever she's saying, you think, OK, I'm gonna keep an eye out for those signs.

Her handle is Kate Forster writes and she's very funny, very entertaining and if you're into a bit of the woo woo, like I am.

As you exactly I know. I think with all the woo woo, I find it a real comfort when things are tough when I'm fighting for last bit tough. Also with all this nonsense going on in the world.

I think it's good to suddenly look at outside of what's going on in the news and all this, everything to look at something else. So I find that for me, I find that a real comfort. Just rituals, like whether it's pulling a Tarot card at night, or whatever it may be.

Like I say to people, like I trained over three years as a crystal therapist, it was the first thing I trained in, I realised I spent longer in that training than on my English lit degree. It was intense and it was because I was in so much pain with the endometriosis that I went interested in them since my teens. But I never thought I'd go into that kind of work.

Then ultimately, this kind of work, bringing it all together. But I say to them, you can choose a stone, a pebble on the beach or in a crystal shop or wherever and not believe that they have energy, but just your intention. Personally, I know they do have energy. Like, yeah, even if you don't, every time you look at it, every time you feel it, every time you think about it, you're going to be reminded of that intention.

It's going to make you happy to take those practical steps.

Back to the book, there's another chapter, which covers both our love of Tarot and where I met a sea witch, informer, Jennifer, now is it Jennifer Heather, I think her name's Jennifer Heather, she is fantastic.

I drove down to interview her for the book and we were discussing things. We did some sea spells. Again, it's like, you know, she said, I'm an atheist, but I very much believe in energy.

That's what we were discussing. As I was driving down, I was thinking, I don't know who's going to turn up, this is going to be really, you know, I'm meeting an actual sea witch and you know what, she was an absolutely gorgeous young woman, who was very eloquent and very articulate.

I just found that what she said really made sense. It is about having those rituals and those intentions and it allows you to sort of focus that.

I absolutely get that, which is why I've got so many pebbles. Which is also a very neurodivergent thing. Apparently, some people say, forget the forms, count the pebbles.

Are you capable of? Nope. Okay. You know, if I like you, because if suddenly I'm giving you one of my pebbles, then you are in, that's it, you're in.

If you were to send some love, some compassion, some wisdom to a younger version of yourself, what might it be?

Oh, goodness me. Now that is a percussion. I didn't even write any notes on that one.

I think about that a lot since my diagnosis, actually, I just think of, all the things, I think of the times, because when I had my report come through after the ADHD diagnosis, it was a real hard read, because you unpick your whole life, the struggles that you had and you know, those sort of things.

I think I'm quite an emotional person anyway. So I found it a real struggle.

I kept thinking back to me at school, or me in the, you know, different parts of my life where I've just felt that I was out of control, but just like not knowing what, I didn't feel grounded at all. I'd always blame myself, as you know, it was always, well, it's always my fault. Oh, it's because you're like this.

Oh, you're just, of course, you messed up. Of course, you've done that. I noticed when my mood starts to dip, I go into that self hate thing.

So I think my kind words to my younger self is like, you know, give yourself a break. Be nice to yourself, really. You're all good.

Absolutely. You're better than good. You're amazing.

You're so delightful. Thank you so much for joining me here again. Oh, thank you.

It's been so lovely to chat with you. I could chat about this all day. This is my world.

So do you want to say again, like your website, for example? Yes. So my website is, I've got, it's got all the information. It's traceydavies.co.uk, Tracey and Davies, both with an E. On Instagram, Tracey Danger, journalist underscore comedian.

I'm pleased by our book. Yeah, Wayward Women: Sex, Friendship and the Midlife Reset. Our publishers call it Eat, Pray, Love meets Want, which is a huge accolade.

Congratulations. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Eve.

Before you go, please take a moment to ground the episode by just pausing and scanning your parts, all your parts from the soles of your feet to your soul. So you may want to keep your eyes open, you may want to close them, but planting your feet firmly on the ground, lengthening through the spine if that feels comfortable for you, letting yourself feel held by the chair or whatever it is you're sitting or lying or standing on, and taking just a moment to scan your whole self, your whole body, your whole energy field and ask yourself what you're gonna do for yourself right now.

It might be as a result of listening to the episode, it might be something else, it might be a nap, it might be something to eat, it might be some kind of movement, but let yourself ground, let yourself get into the habit of connecting with your inner wisdom and notice what you need and give yourself what you need.

Thanks for listening to this episode, if you haven't already and would like to, please like, subscribe, comment, engage across the platforms wherever you may be accessing this and you can also email me eve at solestosoul.ie. Thank you for listening, I look forward to sharing more next week.