Raquel Devillé: Regulating our neurodivergent nervous systems

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Episode 198 with Raquel Devillé.

“The idea of just sitting still to meditate was always terrifying. I need movement — something active — otherwise I can’t calm down.”

Raquel is a therapist, yoga teacher, and the author of It’s Not Your Period! Beyond Moods and Myths: Understanding Unexplainable Emotions and the Hidden Roots of Pain, Stress, and Anxiety. Originally from Portugal and now based in Belgium, Raquel was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in adulthood after recognizing the signs through her children’s experiences.

Drawing from her personal journey and professional training, Raquel developed the EnCorps Method — a body-centered, practical framework designed to help neurodivergent individuals manage sensory overwhelm, chronic stress, and emotional dysregulation. Her work offers a refreshing, empowering path to self-acceptance and nervous system regulation.

In this episode, Raquel and I discuss:

•  The connections between chronic stress, masking, sensory overwhelm, and chronic pain
•  How TRE (Tension & Trauma Release Exercises) helps discharge stress stored in the body
•  Why stillness-based meditation often doesn’t work for ADHDers — and what does
•  Practical ways to weave body-based practices like TRE and somatic healing into daily life
•  Highlights from her EnCorps Method, including embracing sensations, nurturing the body, and stabilizing the nervous system over time

Whether you're newly diagnosed or deep into your neurodivergence journey, Raquel’s approach offers some fascinating and tangible strategies for stabilizing the nervous system over time

Website: encorps.be ; raqueldeville.be

Instagram: @raqueldeville

Links & Resources:

Video: Peter Levine's Secret to Releasing Trauma from the Body

Video: Impala Escapes Death & Shakes off Stress

Book: When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté

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Episode edited by E Podcast Productions

Raquel Devillé 0:00
If our autonomic nervous system decides that we risk our life by fighting or running away, it will make us free. So we have the freeze response. It's really fast, but we don't have that intense movement of fighting or running away, so we just freeze, no movement. And if we were in nature, our body would tremor.

Katy Weber 0:28
Hello and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast. I'm your host. Katy Weber, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45 and it completely turned my world upside down. I've been looking back at so much of my life, school, jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens, and it has been nothing short of overwhelming. I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience, and now I interview other women who like me discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally. Hello and welcome back. I know I say this every time, but you are it for a real treat today. So let's get started with a brand new episode. Here we are at Episode 198 in which I interview Raquel de belay. Raquel is a therapist, a yoga teacher, and the author of it's not your period beyond moods and myths understanding unexplainable emotions and the hidden roots of pain, stress and anxiety, originally from Portugal and now based in Belgium, Raquel was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in adulthood after recognizing the signs of neurodivergence in her children. A drawing from her personal journey and her professional training, Raquel developed the Encore method, a body centered, practical framework designed to help neurodivergent individuals manage sensory overwhelm, chronic stress and emotional dysregulation. Her work offers a refreshing, empowering path to self acceptance and nervous system regulation. In this episode, Raquel and I discuss how discovering her son's neurodivergence led to her own self diagnosis, and also how COVID lockdown revealed her family's true needs and neurodivergent wiring. We also talk about the connection between chronic stress masking sensory overwhelm and chronic pain, and how Tre, which stands for tension and trauma release exercises, can help discharge stress stored in the body. We also talk about why stillness based meditation often doesn't work for people with ADHD. And we talk about what does, including practical ways to weave body based practices like tre and somatic healing into our daily life. And we also talk about her book and the highlights from her encore method, including embracing sensations and nurturing the body and stabilizing the nervous system over time, so whether you are newly diagnosed or deep into your neurodivergent journey. Racquel approach offers some fascinating and tangible strategies for stabilizing the nervous system over time. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Raquel. All right, you know, I would just want to get my first question out of the way. Raquel, which is so you were originally from Portugal. You now live in Belgium. How? How many languages do you speak?

Raquel Devillé 3:23
I speak three languages. I speak Portuguese, French, that it's one of the languages in Belgium. So we have also Flemish, that it's similar to Dutch French. And there's a part of Belgium that speaks German, but I only speak French, then Portuguese. It's my mother tongue and English. It's, well, it's like my French. So it's kind of the same,

Katy Weber 3:49
yeah, I, you know, My French is very rudimentary, but having grown up in Canada, but I tried learning Portuguese recently. It's, I mean, I love it. It's such a beautiful language, but I thought it would be a lot more similar to French. And it's not,

Raquel Devillé 4:05
well, it depends in the kind of Portuguese. So you have, like, Portuguese from Brazil that it's the it's very beautiful for me. It's like, the most beautiful language in the world. It's like, it's so warm and it's beautiful, and it's singing, and it's, it's passionate, yeah. And it's much easier to learn than Portuguese from Portugal, the one I speak that sounds a little like Eastern Europe, languages like Hungarian or Russian sometimes. And it's, it's a harder language. And then you have all the Portuguese from the other countries with Yeah, but if you want to learn, learn the one from Brazil, because it's what everybody speaks, everybody understands, and to learn it's much easier.

Katy Weber 4:54
Well, maybe I'll give it another shot. I mean, I just love listening to it. It's such a beautiful language,

Speaker 1 4:59
all right? And. Away. Thank you for joining me. Where should we start?

Katy Weber 5:02
Okay, I guess I'll start asking you about your own diagnosis journey. You were diagnosed in 2018 and roughly it was, and you started with your kids, right? So kind of walk me through what was going on in your life that you started to think I should look into this for myself.

Raquel Devillé 5:22
My son was a little bit unhappy at school. He was fine. He he was like. He was not very different from other kids, but he was different and not that social, and he was being put aside. He always cried before going to school. He didn't like it, and then in primary school, it got better, but he was still unhappy, so we decided to change him schools and place him in a different school with a different learning approach, and it's when everything changed. So it's when in this new school, they told me, okay, he might be neurodivergent, and you want to check for this, this and this, and because he had all the signs that he was neurodivergent. And then I realized, Oh, that's interesting, because I have the same things. And I was doing a training where there were lots of neurodivergent people, and I kind of felt normal, okay, I'm not alone, and yeah, and it's when I started to realize that there were different things with us. Then also my daughter changed school. Went to the same school as my son. She asked us to move, and everything changed in our life. And then I didn't do, like, a proper official diagnosis. I read a lot, I studied a lot. I did, like every test I could find online. And then every time I was noticing something different, I was like, checking, could this be? And I arrived at ADHD basically because I don't finish my sentences. And this is something that I have like for a long time, and it's, yeah, something I'm used to to listen to. It's like, Raquel, would you mind finishing your sentence? But for ages now, and that's how I realized it could be ADHD. But then I realized that I have many things autistic related, and then I started reading about autism, and then autism in women, because it's so different from autism in men. And then with time, the lots of research that started to say that it can actually be two things together, like ADHD and autism, and now you have like, ADHD, ADHD, yeah, and yeah, so I'm somewhere there, but yeah, it all started in 2018 and since then, I read a lot, I did a lot of research, and I also became a therapist, and this allowed me to really develop my research. And then, because I have, like, the the hyper focus from ADHD and the hyper fixation from what is like, I just do it okay, and I only did that for a while.

Katy Weber 8:22
It's true, right? It's like, I you, you can't help yourself. Sometimes I feel like the train is nobody's driving, right? I'm like, the train is on the tracks. There are no breaks. And I'm becoming the expert right now on this topic, because I'm you're so driven. I love that, the hyper focus and the hyper fixation, right? It's just that you're so driven by something that feeds you and lights you up exactly, exactly. And it's interesting that you said everything changed with your family too, right? Because it is kind of like learning a language. It is really about understanding that there are words for who we are and how we communicate, and just having that label, having that ability to say, Okay, now I know where I'm which direction I need to go in, in terms of my research and understanding, it's it really does feel like you're learning this new way of communicating,

Raquel Devillé 9:14
but it's also about self acceptance. So my kids are like this, and my family, it's like this, so we are all like this. And then there's a certain attraction between neurodivergent people. So in the end, you get to meet a lot of neurodivergent people, and you feel accepted, because there are so many of us, and yeah, and then you feel finally that you are, I don't like this word, but I'm going to use it. You finally feel normal, because there are other normal people, like in your concept of normality, like people that have the same way of functioning, or maybe it's totally different, but it's not what it's like. Sociably accepted or expected from people and to realize that this is okay. It's such a relief.

Katy Weber 10:09
Yeah, yeah, that's so well said. I feel, I always liken it to that feeling of like undoing too tight pants or taking a bra off at the end of the day. Like, that's that feeling of comfort, right, that exhale that we often feel when we're having a conversation with somebody else who is neurodivergent. Just that, like, ah, like, this is it. But then also, you know, thinking about, you know, another joke I like to make is that when you're at a party and everybody else is is having fun and having small talk, you can always find who is neurodivergent because they're sitting on the couch having a deep conversation about something really, really intense. And that feeling of like nourishment from communication and conversation is so wonderful and so different from a lot of what we experience when we are out in the world, feeling like what's wrong with me all the time.

Raquel Devillé 11:01
I don't know. It has been a long time since I went to a party. I tried to avoid them.

Katy Weber 11:05
That's true too. We'll get that. We'll get to that topic too. Yeah, so you were already a therapist, or you became a therapist in terms of neurodiversity. Did that happen together? No,

Raquel Devillé 11:17
so I'm a former so I've done many things with life because, you know, like, imperfect, different imperfections, you know, like, yes. So I'm basically a human resources manager, and then I specialize in health and safety at work, and then in ergonomics. So this is, like my first, the first working part of my life. And when I came to live in Belgium, I worked like for a long time in this area, and then I had my daughter, and I totally lost my ability of going to job interviews. So I started as an independent worker. So like with my own company, I had many projects, and somewhere along the way, I started to use my skills in web design that I had like developed while being in human resources manager, because I got bored and I wanted to learn stuff as one does, and then I got kind of I gained a lot of weight, and I wanted to lose it, and somehow I arrived into yoga, and they are real yoga, and they are real and I started teaching class because it was so much fun, and I was fit, and I could move, and my back was not hurting anymore. And then from there, yoga, and, you know, like yoga and web design was so interesting because it's like subjects that never end. So I really developed also the yoga part of it. Everything was fine. I opened my studio, and then I stopped web design, and I decided to go only into yoga, and then it was COVID. And with COVID, everybody went online. And I live, I live in the middle of nowhere, so I cannot follow trainings here. I had to go always really far. And suddenly everything was accessible, and I had nothing to do because, you know, I was at home close. I couldn't work. So I started to train in a very neuro divergent way. So I did, like, I don't know, 10 years of training in two years of COVID, and I was only doing that. And it started with yoga therapy and trauma sensitive yoga, and then tre and somatic experiencing, I don't know, and then Family Constellations and a lot, a lot of different yoga trainings, and I only did that so I remember that my husband was telling me, like, I know we are all at home, but your kids are actually missing you because they don't see you that much, because I was really focused, and that's how i i became a therapist. And then after COVID, there was this need of, like, real human contacts, and I could actually really develop it the therapy side of my life. And now I'm full on that, and aerial yoga and yoga, it's basically for for my own practice and fun, because it's actually fun active

Katy Weber 14:28
that is so fascinating. Yeah, I feel like COVID really was an opportunity for many of us, myself included, to suddenly, you know, I feel like it was an elimination diet where all of this stuff was taken away from us, and then we slowly brought things back, one at a time. And it for me, it was really the first time in my life that I ever felt regulated and that I even knew what that meant. And I discovered I was an introvert. I always thought I was an extrovert, because I was always very social and gregarious, and I was like, I didn't think you could also be an introvert, but it was a real opportunity. Community during that time for I think for many of us who are neurodivergent or like, suddenly be like, oh, like, I'm I feel like, like, happy, like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. Locked down, right? And it was like, you know, I really had to redefine a lot of what social and social connection meant to me, right? And then it wasn't going to parties, it was my family, and, you know, my very small circle, yeah, it

Raquel Devillé 15:27
was for us here at home as a family. It was like the happiest moment of our lives as a family. So at that time, we had just changed house, so we lived in a village, like in the in the countryside, and we moved to a small town, but we are kind of not in the in the seat, in the center, so we feel more in the countryside now, because we live in the woods, so it's really great. And close to us, there is this path that you can walk and ride bicycle. And we did it so many times during COVID, and we keep doing it because, you know, like, we have this autistic repetition, so we are always doing the same, like, for, I don't know, six years now, and it was amazing, because there were no cars, there was no noise. Our kids were thrilled because they didn't have to go to school. It was just amazing. And my husband also, he was at home and and it was kind of scary in the beginning, but it was like, Oh my god. It all this freedom of not having like social things imposed on us. It was, yeah, it was amazing, right?

Katy Weber 16:46
Yeah. I mean, that was, that was actually during that time that I was diagnosed with ADHD, so that sent me on that journey too, of looking back over the course of my life and seeing, you know, the signs were there all along and all those moments, and I've often said the one version of me I want most wanted to go back and give a hug to was the new mother version of me, because I had no idea how much I was overstimulated and how I had no idea. Like, if you would ask me if I had sensory sensitivities before my diagnosis, I probably would have said, No. I would have been like, I don't know, no, not really. And it was really, really realizing how women especially deal with and internalize in our body over stimulation and sensory sensory sensitivity, coming to understand that and how emotional dysregulation is connected to sensory stimulation. Was I just, you know, I it was such a gift to learn that. And then I also felt like I just wanted to go back and get that version of myself a hug, because it was so hard.

Raquel Devillé 17:51
Yeah, there was this realization of how well I was like, like, without all this social stimulation, suddenly there was nothing. And it was, yeah, it was great.

Katy Weber 18:06
It was great thinking about that idea of regulation. And, you know, pivoting to your book that is has just come out, and is phenomenal. And I love the title, the English title, it's not your period, says so much, right, especially as a middle aged woman, where I'm like, uh, how many times have I been told that, right? And that huge question mark that many of us as women have around hormones, right? And like, how are hormones playing? How is our cycle playing into our focus, and our ADHD, and all of those huge question marks. And you really like go, you really tackle that. What inspired you to write all of this down and and create this encore method?

Raquel Devillé 18:51
I don't know. I don't, I say, I don't the title. It's for obvious reasons, you know, like when you finally arrive at menopause, and, you know, like, Okay, I have, like, premenstrual tension. I had it like, for many years, and I had problems with my period. And I'm very aware that, you know, like, I could be, like, kind of not so terrible in a certain time of the months. But the thing is, it's not that you are untouchable the whole month, you know, like at a certain time, this like way of being. It's not explained by by, by by having your period or just before having your period, because sometimes it's like one week after, and it makes no sense. And so I started to read a lot about, like autism in women. And I think that's what like. Started this book, autism in women, because there isn't much research on it. And it was also when I started the book. It was also before. Or we understood that both ADHD and autism could be together in the same person. And I felt very strange, because if I if I had a list of symptoms of both, I would find in both lists that I could fit in both lists, but not with everything, but most of the things in both lists for ADHD and autism. So that's how I started the book, because I realized that sometimes it's not for me, it's not the kind of neuro divergency, if we can call it like that, but just being there somewhere, and just feeling that, like, for a long time in your life, that you know, like you have some kind of a problem, but you don't know what it is, and sometimes it just thinks that you're crazy. Like I thought, like, for such a long time that my mother was crazy, and now I know that she's not crazy and, and now we talk about it and, and I told her about how, and she was like, okay, but you were like me. And we could see like it was much stronger in me than it was in her, some, some like sensitivities and over stimulation reactions and so on and and now I know that in her case, it's because she didn't know that, and she was just like feeling things and being highly overstimulated without realizing it, or maybe she realized but her reactions were very stressful for me as a kid. Yeah, and also my father, he was also neurodivergent. So in his case, it was not his period, but many things, many problems that he had in life, or struggles, not problems but struggles, were due to the fact that he was neurodivergent and he didn't know,

Katy Weber 21:58
I think the fact that so many of us are diagnosed with depression first, for me, it feels like, I don't know if it's a misdiagnosis of depression, but I feel like a lot of that depression tends to come from that confusion, right? Like, why is everybody walking around on eggshells? Why am I suddenly yelling at my kids? What's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together? And so all of that negative self talk and all of that confusion does lead to depression, but that's just a symptom of the confusion around like, why am I doing this? Why am I acting the way I am? And so much of that, I think that emotional dysregulation, so much of that anger and that rage and that depression comes back to sensory stuff, right? And not knowing why you're so agitated all the time. And

Raquel Devillé 22:46
another thing that I've been thinking about like recently, so in the next, in the last weeks, it's, you know, like bipolar disorder. So when you think of ADHD, like, so you know, like when you discover something new, and then you are really enthusiastic about it, and everything is great, because you have just this new passion. And suddenly, well, you do everything you can, you learn everything you can about it, and you do everything, you turn it in all the senses, and suddenly it's over. And then you have this kind of period of, it's not depression, but almost, you know, like you are just malaise, yeah, yeah, until you find your next thing. So it's a kind of up and down, up and down. And if this is more extreme, and if you don't really understand where it might come from, I wonder if it could not be related with some kind of like depression can be related. And I wonder if this like bipolar disorder, if it's not like an extreme version as well, because of this over stimulation and like being over, overly enthusiastic about something, and then this something is over, or you are not interested anymore, and then you just get down. But I don't know,

Katy Weber 24:08
no, I share your theory, because I feel like you know that was I before I was diagnosed with ADHD first, like I thought I had bipolar because of that intense swinging pendulum between being really active and being really engaged and enthusiastic and chasing something and then spending weeks on the couch, paralyzed and not being able to understand that pendulum. And also, you know, there are a lot of clinicians out there who, if they if you talk about intense mood swings, they will go toward bipolar, because that's kind of how the DSM is set up. There's not, you know, ADHD and autism in the DSM don't talk about emotions, right? They don't talk about mood swings. And yet, I've never met a woman, a neurodivergent woman, who a core part of her experience was the. Intense mood swings and the confusion around them. So hopefully the conversation is changing among clinicians and diagnosticians around like, what to look for when somebody talks about that pendulum? Okay, so, so I want to ask you about the book, because the Encore method, which is not just in body, it's brilliant. It's a brilliant acronym, but it actually stands for seven. Approaches seven. What do we call them? One for

Raquel Devillé 25:29
each letter. Because I see, I always see these frameworks that make a kind of words. So I wanted to do the same with my words. So I went doing some research. So I started the research for a verb for each letter in French. So then I have to go back to English and to translate. And then I wrote the book in English. So I had to come back to French. And yeah, so each letter stands for a step and and the first step, it's the E. So it's all about embracing our sensation. So it's often we don't, we don't pay attention to the sensations and the idea it's to to start to feel the sensations and being aware of them and embrace them, either they are pleasant or unpleasant, because it's being in the sensation, actually, that allows you to get out of your head in very simple terms. So I always speak in very simple terms, because, you know, like the three languages at a certain time, you just don't speak anything well anymore. So you just find yourself with this really poor vocabulary that's friendly. So basically, to get out of your head, you focus on the sensation of the body. So that's the first step. It's the E embracing sensations, and then there's the nourishing and nurturing that can be about food like because being aware of what we eat is very important, because food is also related with stress. So if you change your your diets, it will affect your stress level, and also your sleep. And your sleep will be, well, everything, it's, related your mental clarity. Yeah, it's all connected Exactly. So it's about the food and perhaps making dietary changes or not, and also use it as to nurture yourself, though. So it's all this nurturing process of of yourself so with food, with like, Oh, I'm missing the word now in English, sorry. So the idea is to pay attention how you eat, so and being aware, like, for example, how you eat, which side of the mouth, which you shoe, more, for example. And when you pay attention to all these tiny things again, you are in the sensation in in the body, going back to your body and not being in your like constant head loop. And it also is related with with sleeping. So this is the sleeping, eating part, because it's very important. And then from there you realize that you are more calm and more connected to your body. So it's the C, and from there, you move on to the observing what's going on and to overcome struggles that might appear. And you arrive at the R. So it's all about recovering, and all about relief as well, because you had all the steps before that allowed you to reach there and from there. The idea it's that you practice all the things that you learned in the different steps, because there are different practices, like somatic, and that's you practice and you practice on your own, so you find a routine that, for me, it's like, the hardest thing of them all. We're

Katy Weber 29:16
going to get to that part, because that's a Yeah, yeah. It's like, how do I do this?

Raquel Devillé 29:21
And then the assets, when you finally save her all the efforts from the steps, the previously, the previous steps, and that you can, like, sail away and be independent. And also you stabilized. So it's also for stabilize. Do we say this in English, right? To stabilize, stabilize, stabilize. To be stable. Yeah, okay, yeah,

Katy Weber 29:43
stabilize, yeah, yeah. You know, I it is very simplified, and I love that about it, right, like it really does get to the heart of what we need most. And I love that word nourishment, because, like you said, it's not nourishment. Isn't just what you eat. It's going out in the forest. It's who you spend your time with. It's how you take care of yourself. And so even the fact that it's like we need to give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves, which is, I think, a big step when you are neurodivergent, especially diagnosed in adulthood, because of all the negative messaging that we've received around figure it out, get your act together. What's wrong with you, right? All of that way in which we work so hard to be somebody that we're not. And if we can just, like, exhale and, you know, take the bra, then we can start to be kinder to ourselves, right? Yeah,

Raquel Devillé 30:37
no. It's sometimes just putting your head out and listen to the words that are singing. So this is so important, but it's these tiny things, and even walking and feeling like the ground where you walk. So these are very tiny things that have this huge impact in your well, in in how you cope with, with the stress that comes from being neurodivergent,

Katy Weber 31:06
yeah, so beautifully said, I always call it like the notes in the margin, where it's the paying attention part, right where it's like, or seeing the road signs before you get to the exit, especially with stimulation right where it's like, once you start to recognize, okay, there's a TV is on, and my kids are yelling, and I'm hungry and, like, maybe I've got a headache, right? Like, all these things that we're not paying attention to, but we can start to practice, like, like, almost like, building a muscle, where you start to practice, like, okay, there's a lot happening. Let's pull back. Let's pull back and and kind of come back to the breath, which is, I think you know why yoga is, intuitively so such a wonderful practice for neurodivergence. And I will shout this from every this. I'll fight this till I die, because it's meditative and active. And I'm like, this is exactly what is the most important, you know, combination for our nervous systems, which is not like sitting still and forcing something, but it's like flowing and, yeah, anyway, I could go on and on, that's

Raquel Devillé 32:13
sitting sitting still Meditation. It's, I'm, I'm totally incapable of just sitting still meditating, I cannot do it. So I can do it like for a couple of breaths, focusing on my breath and so on. But I need some movement. Otherwise, I don't know, because I want to move. I want to so for me, this image of meditating, just sitting there and meditating like for a long time. For me, it's something that terrified me, so I was very happy when I finally was able to sit for even sometimes just five minutes. But five minutes for me, it was already a huge amount of time. Five five minutes can be very long, but if I could sit for five minutes just breathing, it would be an awesome achievement for me, because I need something else so I can meditate, but I need some kind of active meditation, like walking and paying attention To the details looking around, or just chewing or breathing, but I need something more than the just sitting. And I see a lot of people that I work with, they have all the same problem, like, what's sitting to meditate? Like, how can people do that? How do they have the time to do that? Yeah,

Katy Weber 33:38
well, and I think that another thing that's very difficult to articulate when you are neurodivergent is that idea that, like, stillness is not regenerative, it's not restorative. And so, like, if I'm on the couch scrolling my phone, I might look like I'm relaxing, quote, unquote, but I'm actually, it's the opposite, right? I'm paralyzed by executive dysfunction. I'm yelling at myself in my head, I feel like a terrible person like, well, maybe stillness isn't a good word, but there's like, something kind of stagnant about a lot of the ways in which we're told to relax, and we kind of have to find that intuitively, find what restores us. Oftentimes it's being active.

Raquel Devillé 34:20
I always add movement. For example, I have something in my hands. I can move them, and it allows me to concentrate, for example. So I listen a lot. So I stopped reading, because I just fall asleep. So I listen to audiobooks and podcasts, and it's great because it's something that I can do at the same time I do another task that I don't have to think about it. So for example, walking and listening. It's great cleaning and listening is great. Cooking. Sometimes it depends

Katy Weber 34:55
if you're following a recipe or not. Yeah, exactly. But.

Raquel Devillé 34:59
All these things that are kind of automatic, and then I concentrate better on the book because I'm doing this movement. And also, for example, when I have trainings online, I always have something in my hands to play other because it helps me concentrate better, right?

Katy Weber 35:16
Yeah, knitting. All of the grandmothers who had to knit when they were at you know that was like, Absolutely, I would love to sit down with a neurosurgeon or neurologist. Lost me for a minute. And like, talk about that, because I find that so fascinating that there is this distractible part of your brain that needs to be activated in order for you to listen and focus. And if you're just sitting there, if I'm just sitting here staring at you. I'm not listening to you, right? And so, you know, and that idea of, like, the ways in which we do it, doodling, fidgeting, knitting, walking, driving, it's like there are certain things that, if I keep that part of my brain activated and, you know, just have it doing something, then I can focus better. But, and there's like, certain specific things that fall into that category, and then specific things that don't like. I've, you know, like cooking, right? It's like, if I'm following a recipe and I have to read stuff, then absolutely I can't do both. But like, I'm like, how does that work? Like, what are we doing with our brain there? What is what lobes are those

Raquel Devillé 36:15
the knitting? So I used to knit like, for a long it was great, because I could be in meetings, I could even stand like very boring, long meetings, and I survived, yeah, but and then I found a crush thing. It's even better because it's it's more portable, so it's just one needle, so it's easier. But the thing is, it's not so well accepted socially. So if you go to a meeting and you bring your knitting, your your crochet, people don't like it because they think they were just like not paying attention to them. And it's like, no, it's I cannot knit or not crochet, but I just won't listen to anything. But all is good. Like if, if someone tells me, no, you cannot do this in this meeting. For me, it's fine. I don't, but, well,

Katy Weber 37:10
we see that with teachers too. I know, like I've my children have had teachers who will not let them doodle because that means they're not paying attention. And I'm like, No, you don't understand. They Doodle in order to pay attention. Whereas, like my son, had one teacher who was wonderful, and the first day of school, she handed every kid a little container of Play Doh as their fidget because she I'm like, Oh, she gets it right. She gets it because it helps them listen. Yeah, absolutely. And like all again, it's like, such a perfect example of all those ways in which we were admonished for doing something that worked for us, right? Like, I'm trying to solve a problem by I want to pay attention, so I'm doing this thing that is going to help me pay attention, and now you're yelling at me because it's going it looks like the opposite of what is actually happening. And I'm like, That is such a textbook nerd origin experience of like, being told you're wrong when you're like, No, no, I solved a problem here

Raquel Devillé 38:08
exactly. But, well, I don't know, I remember the knitting was the looks I had when I arrived in a meeting with with the knitting, sometimes serious, like, serious stuff, and I was like, with my knitting.

Katy Weber 38:26
Okay, so my big question, because I love there's so many wonderful suggestions in the book in terms of, you know, exercises to do. I am a huge fan of yoga. I love it. I'm a certified yoga instructor. Can I sit down and do yoga on my own? No, like, I need structure, I need a class. I need to be taught. I feel like the golden key is, you know, a lot of these things that we're talking about that are, we know are good for us, they fall in that category of like, I would love to be more consistent about this. I know it's good for me, but at the end of the day, I either don't remember to do it. I forget, or I just, like, can't find the intrinsic motivation to do it, even like, or, you know, and then we talk about discipline. A lot of my clients, I always have, I call it the D word, because it's so often. They're like, I just don't have the discipline. I'm like, What are you talking about? You just built your own business. Of course, you have discipline. You know? I feel like that is the big question is like, how do we remember and get ourselves to do the things that are we know are good for us? It's like the vegetables, the vegetables. I'd love to know your thoughts about that. So thank

Raquel Devillé 39:33
you for telling me that your yoga practice. So I'm a yoga teacher, like for ages, and I, I never had a yoga practice of my own, like you should. When you are like a yoga teacher by the book, you need your own yoga practice, but I don't, I don't, I don't have it, and then you are not supposed to practice with your students. X. Kept with aerial yoga. With aerial yoga you have to because you have to show because it's kind of dangerous, yeah, sure. So I practice because I teach and because it's always with a hammock. I practice with my students all the time. I decided so aerial yoga is perceived as not being serious kind of yoga. So at least when I started, people looked at me like this, when I thought about and I was like, okay, so they will never perceive me as serious, so it's not a problem. Let's let me, like, do something about it, and at least have fun and practice. So that's how I practice yoga during teacher trainings, I practiced with colleagues and so on. So it was great. And then what helps me it's to associate the practice with something that I have to do. So for example, breathing while I'm doing my coffee, I do some kind of breathing exercise in the morning, when I brush my teeth, I try to do some kind of posture that allows me to count for the two minutes that I have to brush my teeth, so I breathe, so I can count. And I also do some kind of yoga posture, just so it's it's not a long practice, but it's a practice. Okay? So it's better than nothing. So I just add something to something else that I have to do. So breathing while waiting for the coffee, breathing while brushing my teeth, between brushing my teeth and going to bed, I add some minutes of tremoring. So Tre, because when you do it like, I talk about it in my book, so when, when you do it for a long time, it's just very easy. Tremoring comes just like that. So you can do it like for one minute, two minutes, three minutes between brushing your teeth and sleeping and like this, I'm able to practice and have a routine, but I have very, very short routines because long stuff I don't have the time. I just, I don't do it. Yeah,

Katy Weber 42:10
I love that. I think it's, it's like the habit stacking, which I think is a great suggestion. And I see the ways in which my husband and I do it all the time. You know, like I say what I'm waiting for my coffee to brew in the morning is when I do my yoga stretches, my downward dog in the morning in the kitchen, right? There's no mat. It's just in the kitchen. But that works, right? And then also, like my husband brushes his teeth in the shower, and I'm like, I could never do that, because I don't shower as often as he does. But like, those ways in which we create those habit stacking and that pairing, I think is, really is a great way to become consistent with, like you said, something you have to do.

Raquel Devillé 42:54
Yeah, it's something that you have to do and that you do already. So you just add something. So it's, it's like when you are eating, you when you are chewing, just to notice what's going on in your mouth. Like to notice which is your dominant chewing side. So this is a somatic exercise from somatic therapy, like when, when people are very like, disconnected further from their bodies, or they do dissociate it. You just like ask them, so which side of your mouth? It's the dominant side when you chew and Oh, my God, I don't know. I don't know. Check it out for a while. There are some kinds of foods that really make me make an effort, and when I have to make this chewing effort, like beef jerky, for example. So vegans, it's not the best example. So I'm sorry if there are vegans listening,

Katy Weber 43:49
maybe like really old Satan, but

Raquel Devillé 43:53
for for example, raw broccoli. Raw broccoli, like a big chunk of raw broccoli. So you really have to make an effort to chew it. And sometimes you really have to open your mouth, and then this is an exercise that can really pay attention to it,

Katy Weber 44:05
yeah, but again, I feel like it's like there needs to be that trigger to get you to even do that, right? I think that's one of those things where there's, it's such a multi step process, and that's when we talk about executive functioning, and how there has to be so many steps involved to even just remember to do something and recognizing that in ourselves. But also, you know, coming up with that language around like, Oh, this is why I never remembered to pay attention to my hunger and fullness cues, right? Or all those things that can be really, really difficult. Then

Raquel Devillé 44:40
the thing that works with me is to have someone behind me with a whip, with a whip, with a with a whip, like giving me harder, like, now you have to do this. Now you have to do that. And I do have someone. Otherwise I don't do anything. So I always need a coach or a therapist or someone so I'm accountable. Of accountability, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you have someone that is behind you with a whip, so this is just an expression, okay, so I don't know, it makes me do things. And if I have to pay someone, for example, then I remember, okay, I have to pay that person. So if I have to pay that person, I have to do things in because I'm paying so I won't lose the money I'm paying. And it makes me take action and and do things, and then this helps me create a routine.

Katy Weber 45:33
Yeah, I know, right? My personal trainer, who I have hired for the same reason, and she went on maternity leave recently, and she was checking she set me up before she left, she set me up with all of these, like, independent units that I was going to do on my own. And we all talked about it, and I was like, yes, absolutely, I'm going to work out on my own. And then she checked in on me after a couple weeks, and said, How are the workouts going? And I was like, haven't done a single one. That's why I hired you. And I just love the fact that, like, there was a time in my life where I would have felt really bad about the fact that I hadn't done these and that I got to work harder. And, oh, I said I was going to do it, and, oh, what's wrong with me? And now I was like, Oh, no. I mean, the reason why I hired you is because I don't do this on my own. And, like, that release of shame, I felt like was such a difference. Now, obviously, it's like you said, it's expensive, right? So sometimes we have to come up with a lot of different ways to recreate accountability, either with friends and buddies and our spouses. You know, all the different ways we can create that accountability in our life.

Raquel Devillé 46:39
But for me, as it is my work, sometimes it's easier because I actually I have my clients, so when I work with them, often I can also practice with them. So it makes me because I have a routine with them. So it's not that I practice like they do, but it makes me do some of the things, and this also helps me, perhaps paying attention to myself. But otherwise, yeah, it's, it's very hard to do it on your own. Oh,

Katy Weber 47:10
yeah, right, absolutely, it's one of the things I love about coaching is that I'll be saying something to a client, and in my head, I'm like, note to self, take your own advice. But also like your hack with aerial yoga, right? Which is like, I get to do it as well with my class, exactly. So

Raquel Devillé 47:26
I use my, my own work to create my own practice. So it's, it's good because of that,

Katy Weber 47:36
right? Yeah, I love it. Now, can we? Let's get back to the Tre and you called it tremoring

Raquel Devillé 47:48
Tre, for me, it was so with yoga, I discovered calm. So I became so I was very stressed, and yoga allowed me to calm down, really. And with Tre, after yoga, I found inner peace, and it really changed my life. So basically, tre, it's a method that was developed by this person called David barcelli. He noticed that people sometimes after stress, they would tremor, and then he did a lot of research about it. And actually, and also, Peter Levine also did a lot of research on this tremoring, and it's a natural reaction of the body after stress. So when, when we have a stress, our body gets ready to face the stress that usually it's like an intense movement of fight or flight. Okay. However, if our autonomic nervous system decides that we risk more our life by fighting or running away, it will make us free. So we have the freeze response. Everything in the body happens exactly the same way. It's really fast, but we don't have that intense movement of fighting or running away, so we just freeze no movement. And if we were in nature, our body would tremor to release everything that was produced inside to do this movement, as well as the muscular tension. And so everything that happens for the stress reaction, such as the heart beating faster, and the adrenaline and the cortisol going on, plus muscle tension, everything, it's a lot of stuff that happens at the same time. So all of these needs to be released after and in nature, we would tremor so like animals do. And there's a YouTube video that shows an impala tremoring that it's very popular among tre providers. If you tap Impala tremoring, you will get there. I

Katy Weber 49:55
was going to say, I'll put the link in the show notes, yeah. So what we do,

Raquel Devillé 49:59
it's. So we induce the tremoring with exercises, and then the body tremors. And this tre it was like, I've been having, like, really great results with neuro divergent people. So I have one tre talk organized by my by my tre trainer. Where about tre and neurodiversity, because I've been having, like, really, really good results. So it started with me, and then my clients, and I realized with especially, first with autistic clients, how life was easier for them after and then they were having, for example, much better results at school, coping much better with stress, feeling more relaxed. And yeah, so this tremoring, it's it's really helpful, and it's a kind of steaming, but where there is a lot of release. So steaming helps you cope with stress, and often the tremoring helps you cope with stress and you have the release of the accumulated stress in the body.

Katy Weber 51:11
Yeah. Are you saying stemming, or steaming like a sauna,

Raquel Devillé 51:15
sorry, steaming with the like, st, I m, yeah, okay,

Katy Weber 51:20
all right, because when you said, it sounded like you were saying steaming. And I was like, Oh, that makes so much sense, because this with the sauna and then, and I was like, I should have gone down. I mean, it makes sense, right? There is a lot of that,

Raquel Devillé 51:33
yeah, so the steaming that some people have, so, yeah, yeah, okay, so yeah, this teaming, however, it could be interesting with steam, right?

Katy Weber 51:43
I think we're onto something. Okay, so tre says retention and trauma release exercises. It's so fascinating because, you know, I read that book burnout by Emily and Amelia nagoski, and they talk about completing the stress cycle Exactly, right? And they talk about like our ancestors would have had that because it was a real physical danger that you then sort of walk go through this whole process of walking yourself through it and knowing that you're safe. And so, because so much of our stress now is internalized and and it's a cognitive reaction, it's not a physical reaction, the fight or flight that we we end up in burnout because we're whole, our body is holding on to that stress, and there's no stress release. But like they've, they never talked about tremoring. It's so interesting. And maybe they did, and I didn't pick up on it, so I apologize if they do, but they talk about getting that release, but this is such a concrete, kind of very actionable way of doing it. Yeah, so interesting.

Raquel Devillé 52:42
And it's explained in, I think, the first book, The first book where I read it. So it was before even doing Tre. It was in Peter Levine's waking the tiger, where he talks about tremors. And when you do the Tre certification, this book is there, yeah, so it's like a natural really, because there is no movement, but so your body, when you have the stress, it gets ready for this movement, like of like fighting an enemy or or running away from a predator. So there was a lot of release with this movement, so it allows you to leave the stress, survive and then go on with your life without trauma. When you don't have this movement, the tension gets stuck in the body. If you never release it, you can have like health problems being burned out, one of them, so, but many others.

Katy Weber 53:41
Well, I was going to say, I feel like the rise in autoimmune disorders in women, especially neurodivergent women, right the way in which our body is holding on to tension, there's got to be a connection there, in terms of the way the stress and the trauma is manifesting in autoimmune disorders.

Raquel Devillé 53:59
So there's another book I don't know if you know it, by Gabor Mate, when the body says no, yes, he correlates all the modern health problems with trauma. This tremoring allows your body to release and with time, it helps you balance your autonomic nervous system. And while doing it, the first thing that you can notice is, for example, pain, chronic pain. It works really well with chronic pain, because often chronic pain is related with stress and tension. So we always stay in the same position, and then we have the stress and with the position, and really at a certain time at a certain moment. You know, with the Fauci that also contracts and so on, you just have this pain because there is so much tension for so long, and it's like repeating every day, and this tremoring helps release this tension. And,

Katy Weber 55:00
oh, my goodness, you're making so much sense. And it's, yeah, I'm right there with you. I feel like it's, it's really fascinating. Now, this is the fastest hour I think I've experienced in a long time. I can't believe we've already run out of time. And I'm like, Ah, I feel like we've just begun. Is this something that can be done remotely? I mean, can people internationally work with you

Raquel Devillé 55:21
can do it remotely. It's that's how I learned and how I started. It was online during COVID, and for a long time I only did it online. It works really well. So the important thing is that you feel safe. If you feel safe, it's okay. And yeah, you can do it online. So I have clients online just for Tre. And the great thing about it, even if we have like problems creating routines, is that you can do it on your own. So once you know how to tremor and you are okay with it, and you know how to manage in case something comes up, because sometimes you can feel triggered, and then you have to learn how to manage then you can do it on your own. You don't need a therapist or a provider to to make you tremor. You can do it on your own. And it becomes really easy and fast with time, and it's incredibly powerful. Yeah,

Katy Weber 56:19
I watched your presentation to Terry on YouTube, which I'll put in the show notes as well, because it was really interesting seeing just the far right, the ripple effect right in terms of sleep and focus, and, you know, so many of the things that we struggle with, it was just like a checklist of all of these ways in which we start to break down when we are holding all of that stress and and how the ways in which it affects so many areas of our life.

Raquel Devillé 56:50
I have two videos, and so the first one about tre I did was about chronic pain. And when doing it, preparing the the presentation for the for that video, I realized, oh, it's interesting, because all these people that had chronic pain, they're all neuro divergent, because there is all this tension from stress, you know, from over stimulation and so on. And yeah, and then it got me to the second one about tre and neuro diversity. So fascinating. It's very helpful. Yeah, it's very helpful. So now you're

Katy Weber 57:24
the book is [email protected] right.be. Yeah. And I'll, of course, have a link to in the show notes to that it's called, it's not your period, uh, beyond moods and myths understanding unexplainable emotions and the hidden roots of pain, stress and anxiety. And it really is just an incredible approach, yeah, and I love the finding an independent state of mind, where, for me, I always call it with my clients, I call it embracing my eccentricity, but I think it's the same idea, right? Which is like, yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, it's like showing up and being your authentic self. And for a lot of the time, I think people think that there's a calendar or a planner or there's some kind of strategy out there that's going to help them feel better about themselves. And I'm always like, no, no, you need to feel better about yourself, and then all of these strategies and tools are going to work for you. We you know, you have to start the other way around. But anyway, it's been fascinating. I could talk your ear off for hours. Thank you so much for for joining me today. And and so is the website. Encore. Is that the best place for people to find you? If somebody wants to work with you or find out more, how should they reach out to you? Yeah.

Raquel Devillé 58:38
Encore.be, yeah. It's the best place to find me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in English, because I have more than one site, because, you know, like ADHD, look another one. And I used to do websites, so it's kind of, I do one website for anything that I do because of of of your podcast, I decided, so I'm changing it to English, and now I just want to simplify it a little bit more so it just has, like, big text and buttons.

Katy Weber 59:09
Oh, wonderful. Well, I'm glad, I, I'm glad the setting up this interview. Yeah, jump started that exactly. It's

Raquel Devillé 59:18
like the person with the whip behind me, you know, like, oh, I have to, I'm participating in this podcast. I need, like, a website. So, yeah, there it goes, right? Absolutely.

Katy Weber 59:28
I always, you know, I'm like, if you want to clean your if you want to clean your house, invite somebody super judgy over, you know, invite them over in a couple days, and then you'll definitely clean your house, right? It's like, how do you create that accountability for yourself? Yeah, exactly. And so if you want, what it's like, if you want, if you want to learn something, sign up to teach it.

Raquel Devillé 59:48
That's a good idea. Yeah, exactly, right.

Katy Weber 59:50
Well, this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. And, yeah, I can't, I mean, I hope, hopefully, people, I. Know people will have resonated with this episode, and what you're talking about is so important, and I'm happy to learn from your wisdom and share it as well with our listeners. So thank you so much. Thank

Raquel Devillé 1:00:10
you so much, Katy, for having me here. It's really amazing. Thank you.

Katy Weber 1:00:19
There you have it. Thank you for listening, and I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the women and ADHD podcast. If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and adhd.com if you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and adhd.com/podcast guest, and you can find that link in the episode show notes. Also, you know, we ADH dears crave feedback, and I would really appreciate hearing from you the listener. Please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple podcasts or audible. And if that feels like too much, and I totally get it, please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five star rating or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of neurodivergency, and they may be struggling and they don't even know why. I'll see you next time when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken, but she has ADHD, and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally, using this gift to her advantage, take care till then you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai