Join me (trauma-informed therapist etc, Eve Menezes Cunningham) as I welcome Alice Tew and Carly Radford, hosts of the podcast “Too Much… Apparently.”

We explore sensitivity as a gift rather than a flaw, sharing practical nervous system regulation techniques and the power of radical self-acceptance.

Discover why tiny non-negotiables work better than perfect routines, how the pandemic became a turning point for Carly embracing authenticity, and why building chosen family through friendship can be transformative.

Perfect for highly sensitive people, those with ADHD and autism, trauma survivors, and anyone who’s ever been told they’re “too much.”

You’ll learn about:

· Nervous system awareness

· micro self-care practices

· parts work therapy

· community building

· neurodivergent experiences, and

· moving from self-criticism to self-compassion.

Find Alice at @reparentingwithalice and Carly at @the_sensitivity_therapist

CHAPTERS

(0:00) Introduction and podcast context

(1:00) Guest introductions

(4:00) Sensitivity and self-care

(8:30) Nervous system awareness

(12:00) Tiny non-negotiables

(15:00) Love and acceptance

(19:00) The pandemic as a turning point

(22:00) Radical self-acceptance

(26:00) Collective care and community

(30:00) Redefining family and support

(35:00) Building community through friendship

FULL TRANSCRIPT

I’m delighted to welcome Alice Tew and Carly Radford, who are here to talk about whatever they want to talk about, but I invited them on because I’ve known their names for a long, long time, but I’ve got to know them better online through a neurodivergent therapy group, and they have a gorgeous new podcast, Too Much… Apparently, and it’s so lovely.

Hi, you’re listening to episode 78 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I’m your host and producer Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m a trauma-informed therapist, including embodied approaches, energetic approaches. I’m a trauma survivor. I have ADHD and I’m a senior accredited supervisor with BACP and a supervisor with IACP.

I’m also an author and columnist and a self-care coach where I integrate lots of different ways of working for a really embodied approach, but really all my work is about helping you remember that you already know what you need.

I help people with trauma and ADHD to take better care of themselves and their Self, that highest, wisest, truest, most joyful, brilliant, miraculous part of yourself. It really is remembering you are already whole. You’re already complete. You are worthy. You’re lovable. You’re not too much. You are enough.

And with that in mind, I am utterly delighted to be welcoming today’s guests and look forward to hearing what you think of today’s episode. If you haven’t already, do subscribe and I would love to hear from you, either in the comments or you can email eve at selfcarecoaching.net

You can find out more about the book, the podcast, free resources, all sorts of things at selfcarecoaching.net or thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com.

I’m delighted to welcome Alice Tew and Carly Radford, who are here to talk about whatever they want to talk about, but I invited them on because I’ve known their names for a long, long time, but I’ve got to know them better online through a neurodivergent therapy group and they have a gorgeous new podcast, Too Much… Apparently, and it’s so lovely and I wanted to have them on here.

I’m going to ask Alice and then Carly to introduce yourselves, including any links you want people to go to and they’ll be in the show notes as well.

Welcome, welcome, welcome and thank you.

So shall I start?

Yeah, OK.

I’m Alice Tew. I’m a psychotherapist. I’m based in Cheshire, but I work completely online. I mainly work with people who have kind of harshly critical parents and so kind of dealing with the emotional fallout of that. The best way to find me is on Instagram, where you’ll find me @reparentingwithalice. Yeah, that’s me.

I was admiring earlier your little hello sign because your email is hello at Alice Tew. Do you want to give your website as well?

Yeah, so my website is alicetew.com.

Perfect. Thank you. And Carly?

Yes, hello. My name is Carly Radford. I am a nurse by background before retraining as a psychotherapist and I also work solely online with doing individual therapy and running groups. I specialise in a few areas, but I put those under the theme of sensitivity. I’m known as the sensitivity therapist and I work with either inherent or acquired sensitivity. And essentially what I mean by that is inherent is if you feel you were born a highly sensitive person, neurodivergent, autistic, ADHD. You have always felt like a sensitive person in the world.

And I also work with acquired sensitivity. So if that is through stressful life situations, traumatic events, chronic anxiety, anything that over time has essentially made your nervous system more sensitive and more reactive in the world. That’s ultimately what I specialise in. You can find me on Instagram @the_sensitivity_therapist with underscores between the words. My website is currently being redeveloped, but it will be carlyradford.com. And yeah, email wise, I’m just hello at carlyradford.com.

Thank you so much. I’m going to ask you both about sensitivity because you had a lovely episode about it. And I think it’s so important. I think especially with trauma, with ADHD, we grow up, we get so told, oh, you’re being too sensitive, you’re too.

And we can recognise that it is a gift and we can also internalise shame around it. And I’m nearly 50 and I’m like happier than I’ve ever been, but it’s still like, oh God, I’m crying again. And it’s I’ll cry out of joy as well. It’s like fully emotional landscape. It’s the whole, but I just loved what you were saying.

We’ll start with the Feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. Framework I created. If you tell me a bit about what you would recommend and what you’ve both done in terms of regulating, in terms of that kind of more active self care around sensitivity, when it all feels too much, if that’s OK.

Yes. Yeah.

Or should I go? Or should you go? When there’s three of you, it’s like, who talks first? Who knows, who knows who to go? No, I’m just nodding and you can’t see who I’m nodding at. Yes. So I, I have always described myself.

Well, I say always more in later years, I’ve always described myself as sensitive, but I now very much realised that I am very sensitive, deep, deep in my bones. And what I mean when I say the word sensitive is I can react quite strongly emotionally to things in the world. And a bit like you said, it’s both in a way that can be challenging and also in a way that can be really lovely and beautiful in terms of those strong emotional reactions.

And I also describe it of having quite a reactive nervous system. So seemingly small things, or that may be small to other people are not small to my nervous system. And ultimately can, well, that can respond in various ways, but I would often say that that can translate to like emotional overwhelm or, or feeling, feeling stressed, feeling like things are a little bit too much.

And it’s only in later years that I’ve come to really recognise that and start to embrace that as that is who I am in the world. So particularly, I’d say particularly over the last five years, I’ve more like radically been moving, been moving towards that acceptance. And you mentioned from the field perspective of the framework that you work with, how I, how I regulate, I think that what you were asking me? Yeah.

I regulate my nervous system through various ways, some of it’s not super conscious, it’s automatic. I will sing throughout the day quite a lot as I’m just going about the day. And I think singing just automatically helps to regulate my nervous system.

And there’s a lot of science behind that, actually, which I didn’t say.

The exhalation, so you’re activating the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. And you’re also using your voice. So yeah, helping tone the vagus.

Yes, yes, it’s all related to the vagus nerve. And whether that’s the breathing part, really taking control of your breath, slow, really slowing it down and controlling it. And also through the through the vibrations of your vocal cords, and what that is essentially doing from biofeedback to the vagus nerve. So there are various things that influence singing. So I think singing can be good.

Joining a singing group, for example, but also just even if you’re humming to yourself throughout the day. So I’ve learned that there are things that I just do automatically throughout the day that help. So singing, vocalising things.

And I like to just talk out loud to my dogs in various accents and things like that. Just almost using the voice as a form of play, I think really, really helps. And then there are the more active things that help regulate my nervous system.

And they might be things like just curling up on the sofa, blanket wrapped around me, maybe heated blanket, cup of something warm and a good book or something crafty. If I’m really overwhelmed, the crafty thing won’t be too challenging. It could even just be an adult colouring book, something that doesn’t involve much thought, but that’s something that always helps me.

I love it.

And before I ask Alice, I also wanted to applaud your talking about your nervous system. And it sounded like that acceptance. And we all, all mammals have our nervous systems. And with trauma, with ADHD, we grow up, like thinking there’s something wrong with it. Whereas the minute we accept it, and it’s like, how is it feeling right now? What do I need right now? It’s just like, yep, the nervous system is this.

It’s like, it’s raining outside. It’s like, yep, I just loved the way you said that at the beginning. So thank you for all of that.

That’s wonderful. And Alice?

Yeah, I think I kind of share, you know, some of what Carly’s talking about there. And I think that awareness or that knowledge of your nervous system has been a really important part of it for me.

When I think about what I do to regulate myself kind of on a day-to-day basis, I think keeping things really small is really important for me. Like I can have a really strong perfectionist process. I would love to, and even now when I’m scrolling through Instagram and someone pops up with this routine will change your life, I’m like, “Oh, maybe this is the one.”

But it’s kind of bringing it back to the fact that actually, if I can just keep it small, you know, having some kind of, you know, non-negotiables that are tiny, non-negotiables, like brushing my teeth. I know that if I’m not brushing my teeth, I really need to be kind of checking in again with myself.

But like exercise. So I’ve been really struggling with exercise. I love going out for a walk. I love being in nature, but I’ve really been struggling to motivate myself to get out. So at the moment I’m working on doing 10 shoulder rolls every day and just keeping it, just keeping it tiny and just getting that tick in the box. Just giving myself that message that I matter by doing that tiny little, doing that tiny little piece. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I love it. And, um, oh, that’s so gorgeous.

So, um, moving to the Love, that’s so funny. A second ago, it’s like, oh, and I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say. Um, if it comes back later, it will, if not, that’s fine. But moving to the Love part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework I developed that uppercase Self care that recognition.

I realised I always feel a bit like I help people self-care, but it’s like, not a, you have to do this because you’re already whole. You’re already like everyone. If only we could just know that we don’t have to perform, we don’t have to do anything to be, but that can take in psychosynthesis. There’s the Will archetype and the Love archetype, and there are different types of Will. And Love is that kind of supportive, accepting energy.

And like with EFT, you start off with the, whatever the issue is, “I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. Without that love, without that acceptance, any kind of change is so, so challenging. And yet we’re constantly trying to like, oh, like you said about the routine, I just realised that was it. I was up again till 3.30 last night because, I’m on the ADHD medication now, which is much better, but I had been meaning to delete thousands of photos for months and months and months, years, even.

And I’m putting together a couple of presentations, which involve finding pictures of my rescue cats, because it’s using them to explain Polyvagal Theory. And naturally I had like thousands of pictures of the cats. And when I finally figured out an easy way to delete them, it was like, I’ll do this for all the underwater pictures as well. And all the donkeys and all. And then it’s like 3.30 in the morning and it’s like, Evie Cat, come on, like ten shoulder rolls. It’s like, I love the kind of micro projects and I love the idea of being that person. But it’s like last night, it’s like, I know if I don’t do it now, I’ll forget this system that has suddenly made it easier. So applauding micro and wishing I could do better.

Don’t get me wrong. I also go all in on the macro regularly, you know, kind of preparing for the podcast. I really had to pull myself away from, you know, creating and creating. It’s just exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, again, I think for me, the diagnosis has really helped with that Love part that like ADHD brain. It’s OK. It’s OK. Whereas before it’d be like, why? Why? Why? Anyway, the two of you, what helps you with that love part, that acceptance? Yeah.

Should I go first this time? Yeah. OK. So I feel like this is a massive part of my work and it’s the thing that I really love the most. And so what I’ve been thinking about sort of as you’ve been explaining your framework and all of that is really kind of focused in parts work, which is what I do. But really that looking at I think it often comes down to parts that feel like you don’t deserve it in some way. And I see there being two parts to this.

One is the kind of defeated part that I would see as like a wounded child. I don’t deserve it. But also the kind of more critical parent parts that might say you don’t deserve it.

And so having to sort of kind of having to navigate both of those almost. Yeah. Almost like a kind of it feels like it’s a negotiation sometimes like a mediation between different parts of you that are really kind of holding a lot of strong energy and having to find a way forward that works for all of the parts.

You know, like when you say you’ve got this photo system and you know, you’re just you’re on it. You know, I couldn’t just go in there and just be like, right. Time’s up. Time to go. You know, there has to be that that negotiation of that. But I think the skill of doing that involves a lot of self-compassion, a lot of compassion for these parts, a lot of willing to be curious about what’s going on for these parts, a lot of compassion for whatever comes up and a lot of courage to change because it’s hard.

It’s hard to change and scary to change, particularly for a lot of these parts that are holding on to these ways for really good reasons. Yeah.

This wasn’t meant to turn into a therapy session, but I’m realising it very much was a fearful sub-personality that was that like when I worked in an office and everyone would laugh at my handover notes because they’d go for pages because I was worried if I took a week off, I would forget how to do my job.

And it’s that it’s that what happens if you do forget? It just means you have to remember you have to. But that compassion and that acceptance and that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just recognising that there’s a really good reason behind, you know, the things that we do. You know, I’ve mentioned it on the podcast, but one of my favourite quotes is, you know, something looks like it doesn’t make sense, look closer because it makes sense. It makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you.

And Carly? Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I was talking to Alice on the podcast. I can’t remember which episode it was, but I realised that any time I was talking about when things have really shifted for me, I kept saying five years ago, five years ago, five years ago.

And I made a comment. I said, why do I keep saying five years ago? What was it about five years ago? And Alice just went, the pandemic? And I was like, oh, yes, that was it. And I’ve worked on a lot of this stuff for most of my life.

But a massive shift happened during the pandemic because it was a time when I realised so many things about myself that the pandemic, well, to be fair, not the pandemic, the lockdowns actually showed me and made me just learn a lot of lessons about myself. And in learning those lessons, I guess you kind of presented with a choice when life went back to sort of normal. Do I go back to how I was living before? Or do I start to accept that actually, I need to change the way that I’m living in the world in a way that is going to actually suit and benefit me? And that means having to accept certain things about myself that I might not want to accept.

But what’s the alternative if I don’t? And so I’d say over the past five years, and I’m going to use the word radical, because I think I’ve always been working on it. But the lockdowns and the pandemic led me to radically start to work on these things. And it was also the pandemic, where I started to realise that I was autistic.

And then I realised that I’m also ADHD. I’ve always described myself as a Highly Sensitive Person. So putting all of those things together, just meant that I am going to have to start treating myself differently and changing the way in which I behave that’s less about what I feel I should do or need to do to be accepted in the world.

And actually, what I need to do for myself. And I like what you said earlier, Alice about, you mentioned about what small, what smaller things, you know, how can I, how can I make this smaller, where I’m still doing something that feels that feels good, but is what I need. And I would say I’ve definitely applied that to myself.

And I’ve also leaned a lot more into the idea of slow living. I’ve realised that the fast pace world is not for me. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to live slowly and more gently.

I think the word gentle has just been so, so present for the past couple of years. And it’s not, it’s not just creating like a slower, more gentler way of being that honours the different parts of me and what they need. But also then learning to tell myself, and that’s OK.

And that’s the harder part. And the part that I would say, still crops up and I’m still working on. Also just knowing that and it’s OK to be that way in the world, because there are so many messages that say, it’s not or you’re or you’re less than or you’re incapable.

That’s not fun. That’s not exciting, like so many different things. So I think the heart part that you’re speaking to, makes me think of, yeah, makes me think of that phrase, this, this and this and, and that’s OK.

Yeah. And it is, I mean, like you’re saying that it’s like, yeah, but we’re mammals, we’re wired to only be in sympathetic modes, a very short percentage of the time, like we’re not, yeah, a lot of...