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Falkirk Entrepreneur Encourages ADHD Professions to See Their Unique Strengths

As a result of attending the ADHD in Women event in Glasgow earlier this year,  run by Seed Talks,  ADHD ex customer relationship manager from Falkirk, who climbed the corporate ladder in Financial Services for 35 years before turning to entrepreneurship in her 50s, has made it her mission to help other ADHD female entrepreneurs and professionals find their true path much sooner through a new, free workshop this month.

Believing that ADHD women make great coaches, teachers and healers, Gwenne Dickson, 57, from Falkirk, Founder of Living Your Best Life Coaching, is determined to help other women see their innate strengths and unique capabilities, where in fact, they may be feeling stuck and frustrated after so much became clear to her when her lightbulb moments around her own ADHD occurred in February at the Seed Talks event.

Gwenne took herself from a feeling of hopelessness, of failure, struggling with grief and broken relationships, when she had undiagnosed ADHD, to a place where she now feels driven to make a difference with her unique skills and she’s ready to share the  bespoke tools she’s developed for herself with others. Her free workshop ‘ The ADHD Leader's Secret: How to Recognise Yourself as the Hero of Your Story (From Imposter to Innovator) ’ on June 24th (7.30pm) has been created to help women with ADHD see how they could be teachers for others, once they embrace the skills that make them different.

Having recently recognised ADHD in herself, Gwenne feels like she has completed another key part of the puzzle of accepting and embracing her unique skills, which she has now focused her business around.

Having also connected with her spiritual gifts over the last few years, since she felt ‘a connection like no other’ with her  mother after she had passed, Gwenne, who began studying NLP and Reiki to help manage and shift her own negative energy when she was still working in corporate, has experienced many ‘layers of enlightenment’ as she’s continued her development as a Master Level energetic healer and coach and she’s passionate about now helping others, using all her gifts.

“Until my 50s I sleep-walked through life on autopilot. I followed a path not meant for me, and got floored when things went wrong. I was not equipped to cope with change or grief and this is how many of us are existing. Being stressed at work was a sign I was on the wrong path but I didn’t listen. I’d made some changes after redundancy and started on my journey to freedom, but still felt trapped by old beliefs and narratives from my corporate identity and the challenges I experienced. Losing my mum was when I finally found my purpose but my undiagnosed ADHD brain was then my barrier as I tried to fight this, rather than work with it, as I feared being different. Only since having learnt how my mind and nervous system works differently to others have I been able to really see the unique combination of lived experience and gifts I have and I am now ready to use these to help others who have not yet seen theirs. Recognising myself and feeling truly seen and understood for the 1st time brought me a sense of freedom I have to share.”

“I know many women working in the healing space who are limiting their growth, feeling trapped by their ADHD traits. ADHD women in the healing and caring professions - coaches, teachers, therapists and counsellors - many of them are caught in a painful paradox: They have natural healing gifts,are highly driven by a passion and purpose born of their own experiences and possess deep sensitivity, but they've been conditioned to see their ADHD traits (this could be scattered attention, emotional intensity, need for novelty and variety) as flaws that disqualify them from being effective leaders and teachers. They might wonder "How can I help others when I can't even manage my own life?" or tell themselves "My ADHD makes me unreliable - who am I to be a leader in my profession?" and they often see their sensitivity and "messiness" as evidence they're broken. They want to make a significant impact in their work but can’t see how they can as an individual in structures that don’t support or respect them. In my work, I show them success is based on who you are and who you can become, so you can let go of the how and connect with others like you to inspire, encourage and create change together”.

Gwenne has also seen how ADHD women working in roles that involve supporting others are prone to burnout, driven by their belief that they need to help everyone, at a cost to themselves, looking for validation of their impact, rather than honouring themselves for their skills.

She said: “Often people get swept up in the shame spiral, and in an unsustainable way of doing business - they focus so strongly on trying to heal and help others whilst neglecting their own healing needs. Hyperfocus can mean we don’t know when to switch off until forced to rest and many suffer from chronic illness or other recurring conditions.  I’ve had aspects of this, although not the physical ill health and whilst I was able to help others move through grief and times in their lives where they felt lost, I never honoured my impact as I was constantly telling myself that I was a hot mess, so I was unable to value myself. Being highly sensitive and scared of rejection meant I kept playing small despite knowing I could help people feel better because I didn’t think I was ‘the finished article’. I now realise that much of my power comes from teaching what I’ve learned whilst healing and that the process is never ending but we refine our teachings as we continue to do the work ourselves”.

Gwenne’s free Masterclass will look at how to ‘Flip the Script’ on what some call ADHD "flaws" such as hypersensitivity and scattered attention or energy, and how these are actually highly intuitive ways of working as a healer, carer and teacher; The Healer-First Model which teaches that healing ourselves IS service to others, along with the Genius Flow Framework that helps people work WITH their ADHD brain and unique sense of Divine Timing instead of feeling they are against them - honouring their natural rhythms rather than forcing rigid schedules and celebrating neurodivergent traits.

To book onto the free masterclass contact Gwenne at Living Your Best Life Coaching.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chocolate PR .