Radical Self Care Tips for Neurodivergent Motherhood

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If the words self care instantly bring on an eye roll or smirk, I completely understand, Mama. Because Moms like us (who are raising neurodivergent kids and neurodivergent ourselves) are often in survival mode from moment to moment; and we live in a world determined to erase disability; the persistent reminders of this are everywhere whether through the rhetoric of our present administration or endless ”well-meaning” advice in daily conversations (“my sister’s friend tried this or that potion, and their kid is fine now.”)

Moving through our ableist world creates hypervigilance, and contributes to chronic stress (which many parents experience raising children with disabilities) which is associated with numerous health issues, including “muscle tension, digestive problems, headaches, weight gain or loss, trouble sleeping, heart disease, susceptibility to cancer, high blood pressure, and stroke.” Source: Columbia University Irving Medical Center, “ Chronic Stress Can Hurt Your Overall Health, May 19, 2023

Yet, most healthcare professionals working with our families rarely inquire about how we are coping. Several years ago, in those early days of Nai’s diagnosis, one of the first things to fall away for my husband Kes and I both was traditional self care; for me, hair and nail appointments became sporadic, and retail therapy (shopping on lunch breaks was cardio y'all, lol) became unrealistic. And it’s because, ultimately, families like ours require something deeper than fleeting escapes and empty consumption; we need radical self care. 

What Exactly is Radical Self Care?

Last year while planning a collaborative workshop series for our podcast and organization, Pray with our Feet, I stumbled across a powerful definition of radical self care from Learn & Unlearn: Anti-Racism Guide:

“Radical self-care is the prioritization of placing your needs before someone else's. Radical self-care is carving out a space for yourself by defining your own self-care. It is radical because it is the act of fully engaging in self-care and ourselves. We know ourselves the best, what we are feeling, and what we need. It is because we know ourselves best, that we can assert what it is that we need. When we are addressing ourselves, it positively trickles out to the community and the environment around us. It is healing. It is self-acceptance. It is radical.”

As Moms, we are universally taught to place the needs of everyone else before ourselves, in addition to our children, our partners (and in some cases, friends); this normalizes the suppression of our full identity. And we often swallow whole pieces of ourselves in service of others. But radical self care offers us a way to move beyond this dynamic of self sacrifice, and into the expansiveness of our humanity. 

The roots of radical self care are not talked about enough, but are essential to understand why it's such a powerful practice. According to “The Origins of Self-Care: From Radical Act to Consumerist Trap,” a blog post on Inclusive Therapist:  

“In the 1970s, the Black Panther Party politicized and popularized self-care by providing essential resources to their communities. They established access to free nutritious food, health clinics to address illnesses disproportionately affecting the Black community—such as sickle-cell anemia and lead poisoning—and programs to share vital information. These initiatives were not only coping mechanisms for the police brutality and government harassment Black people endured, but also a way to care for one another and address resource gaps caused by systemic racial inequities. Black women, often queer, championed self-care as a revolutionary daily tactic for activists and organizers.

Prominent Black Panther Party leaders like Angela Davis and Ericka Huggins incorporated yoga and meditation into their routines while incarcerated. Upon their release, they campaigned for nutrient-dense diets and physical movement to bolster Black mental health while navigating systemic racism. They created wellness programs for adults and children in recreation centers speckled across the country. Rosa Parks also practiced yoga for many years. For these leaders, self-care was not a luxury, but a vital tool for rejuvenation and capacity building to sustain the fight for liberation.”

Much like these activists who have gone before us, caring for ourselves enables us to care for our families, and engage in advocacy / activism with the disabled community from a place of replenishment instead of depletion.

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Some Ways Moms Like Us Can Practice Radical Self Care - 

Regular Mindful Check-Ins: Many of us are on auto-pilot (I know, it’s hard not to be), but mindful check-ins, particularly at the beginning and end of your day; try these steps:

🧘🏽‍♀️ Close your eyes, breathe deeply. 

💐 Let your feelings come to the surface without judgement. 

💓 Make space to soften around these feelings. 

✅ ASK >> Do I need anything to support myself more fully? This could be a  walk later, time to just sit in quiet reflection, etc. 

💓 Affirm that you are worthy of this  time, and set an intention to support yourself whenever you can. 💓

Tap Into Your Well-Being Anchors: Your well-being anchors are short daily wellness practices which nourish you - mind, body and spirit; for me, this looks like warm baths, meditation, devotionals and prayer (in the progressive Christian tradition) split between the morning and evening. The time can vary day to day - sometimes 10-15  minute, other days closer to 5 minutes. I work with what time / space I have, and give myself grace. 

Brain Dumping (journaling technique): Many of us are taught swallowing our feelings is strength, and vulnerability is weakness; but rejecting that narrative is key for our emotional well-being.  Journaling is a powerful way of releasing feelings which are hard to express out loud, and is especially helpful for Moms like us because not enough folks have the willingness, capacity, and understanding to show up for us in the ways we need. 

Brain dumping is expressing whatever comes to mind on the page ~ no editing  or censoring of your voice, just free form writing for as long as necessary. I did this practice the other night after a series of challenging days around Nai’s health, and felt lighter; we were not meant to carry so much without a way to lay it down.

Digital Breaks (as needed, when able): We’re on call a lot for our kids, and that takes a toll on the nervous system. Prioritizing ways to recharge is essential. Many of us are bombarded with emails, texts, and social media updates across multiple platforms.

According to the University of Maine: “The average time spent on social media daily is 2 hours and 24 minutes. If we add it all together, the world collectively spends 11.5 billion hours on social media platforms daily.”

Taking consistent breaks (as we are able) from checking social media, emails and texts (focusing on only those which are essential for our family) is another way to practice radical self care. Instead of allowing these phones and devices to lead us, we take back control. It’s also a way of pushing back against a culture which hyper focuses on constant availability. 

You are worthy of care, recharge and inner peace. Practicing radical self care provides a pathway to nourish us, rooting in holistic well-being tools and strategies. And we deserve it all, Mamas.

Need more support? Join us at our Mindful Mama Experience, Thursday, June 5, 7:30pm EST on Zoom; we'll explore softening around challenging emotions as mamas with mindful journaling, somatic practices to call in calm, and other well-being practices rooted in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. You’ll leave with a Mindful Mama Support sheet, and mantra to support you along your neurodivergent motherhood journey. And if you cannot make it in person, no worries, we will save the recording and send out to everyone post-event.

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Emelda “E” De Coteau is a certified mindfulness coach, trained in TSD Mindfulness and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and the founder of When Motherhood Looks Different, LLC,  a community-based small business helping Mamas of neurodivergent kids and Moms who are neurodivergent center mindfulness and connect in community by offering events, resources, and mindfulness coaching; this work is inspired by her beautiful neurodivergent daughter Nai.

Her writing, which focuses on social justice, anti-racism, neurodivergent parenting, well-being, and spiritual activism (within the progressive Christian tradition), has appeared in Good Faith Media, Spoken Black Girl Magazine, Good Life Detroit, Beautifully Said Magazine, The Baltimore Times, and on the Pray with our Feet website (a podcast & community she co-leads with her Mom, Trudy) where she blogs and shares devotionals on spiritual life and activism. out