I can get so in my head but then I can also overshare - always with decent intention, but recently as I consider the impact I want to have in the world and the life I want to live after finishing treatment for cancer and losing my Dad to the horrendous-ness of dementia I also don’t want to deny what I know to be true about myself
In a dream world I can live both a slow and fast pace life, feeling calm and present, composed and free, financially fulfilled doing work I love that enriches both me and the world around me.
On a summer’s day when the inclination is to pack time with ‘work’ aka staring at my laptop doing things I don’t even want to do, it comes down to the question of life creation and knowing I don’t have to return to the highly stressed portal our family life had become since having my daughter over the last four years. What a privilege to have this choice. It would be a disservice to myself and the world around me to deny what I have discovered over the past year, on top of a decades worth of hard, painful often grief stricken yet ultimately liberating inner work. Creatively, I guess, the act of exploration alone is worth it, even if no one ever listens, reads nor makes a change as a result of my being here.
Somehow, though, i know following my fears will not just benefit me, but they will have the positive ripple effect I always imagined to be possible into the world around me also.
I consider often whether to add a subscription option here, but I also am conscious to not add excessive extra layers of pressures to my plate, whilst also knowing at some point I’ll inevitably give it a go because that’s who I am :-)
Audio Transcript
Hello, it’s Kate Stirling here, from What It Means To Be Human on the old Substack. I’m just out here in the garden today with my pastel coloured gel pens, just feeling inclined, having listened to Nikita Gill speaking to Elizabeth Day on How To Fail, to share, I guess, where my thinking is at — if not just for myself.
What Nikita Gill says with Elizabeth Day is, you know, to enjoy these quieter moments before work maybe takes off, or when we’re doing it for ourselves, because actually these are the moments where we can have less pressure with what we’re saying, or what we’re writing, or what we’re doing. And part of this is my own exploration since finishing cancer treatment and my dad passing away from dementia, in this — I guess — bringing together all the jigsaw puzzle pieces: from becoming a mum, to working for myself for the last 24 years, and ADHD, which I had diagnosed in 2024, nearly two years ago, and how that actually spun me out into a bit of an existential crisis. And I’m an existential thinker anyway.
And how actually all of these things can be moments that we rush past, or that we don’t enjoy, because they’re so uncomfortable. And I’ve just been writing down here, you know, all of the things that I fear, or that I know that I censor, and the things that I care about. And so much of it comes into this creativity that neurodiversity kind of is — but also this balance of wanting to help women and mums build things: careers, lifestyles, ways of living, bank accounts. But also recognising, coming from a self-employed family, the impact on becoming parents for the other parent alongside the mum. I’m in a heterosexual relationship, so in our situation it’s the dad, but it might be that you’re, I guess, in a family dynamic where you maybe have the same gender parents and one person may be more of the childcare giver. And I find, you know, even those things where I trip up over trying to keep inclusive with everything, and probably ends up diluting the work that I, or the impact I can have.
And so there’s a lot of discomfort in kind of owning, or being aware of, that non-specificity. And I guess what I want to keep doing is just sharing the thoughts, and sharing the work, and sharing where I’m at, and also sharing what I know to help you build these lives that you want to live. And that’s how often we deny ourselves.
In thinking of that, it often takes you back to the last — well, three years ago, nearly three years ago now — where the world, and the violence that erupted in Gaza and Israel, triggered a lot of grief that I hadn’t felt since my divorce. And I think, looking back now, understanding that maybe that’s also part of the neurodiverse experience, and how that almost spun me out into operating like a charity. And how that was terrible for what I was allowing myself. I really blocked myself from this idea of being open to actually saying: I want to move from our flat into a house, and I want to earn great money, and I want to have nice clothes — out of this feeling really guilty about that, and kind of thinking I should be happy because I’m not in a tent that’s being bombed. But also recognising that when we do that, we stump our own potential.
There’s so much here. I did a post on Instagram today, and I’ll share it in the post — just talking about neurodiversity, and just the impact that that, and being ADHD, has had on my life. You know, whether it’s eating disorders, divorce, relationship challenges, money challenges, relationship with food and alcohol issues, addiction to exercise, low self-worth, low self-esteem. And there’s a lot of heaviness that can come with that. And actually — what I know to be true is that when we really face up to a lot of these things, we can live an incredible life. And this is this tension, isn’t it, of What It Means To Be Human — this kind of sense of, we can often be living in many different realities all at the same time.
And I want to keep this momentum going, sitting here in the garden, as I was trying to update all my stuff for Club Thrive, which is my members’ club membership, and my course that I’m bringing out later in the year again, Dare To Be Seen, which I’ve done before. And just sitting with all of this, and then thinking: God, I just get so stuck in my head, because there’s so much I want to say, but I’m sitting here in the garden by myself. And what if actually, you know — I get so worried about this — I don’t want it to be a “dear diary” thing. But what if actually this Substack is the dear diary thing?
You know, there’s so much that we do that is presenting — that is kind of, not jazz hands necessarily, but showing up in a certain way that, even without realising it, can become a level of performance. And I think, I don’t want that. I love feeling like I can be my full self, and I love feeling like I can connect with people like that. And that’s always been the thing that seems to have appealed to people, is this idea that actually people know where they stand with me, because I am who I am — whether you meet me online, or in person, or whatever.
So I think what this is, is this space for me to share the things that perhaps I found complicated sharing on Instagram, or online, in other ways, or as a continuation of just figuring out the best ways to communicate it. And kind of saying, actually, I really can support and help and share loads and loads and loads of stuff that helps with neurodiversity, whether it’s mindset and resilience, or these holistic high-performance habits I use every day.
You know, in the kitchen earlier today, just being like — actually, before I became a mum, there was, or when I became a mum, there was such a change of lifestyle. And we had so much stress as a family, because we’d moved last minute, my work had been totally curveballing. So actually, when I had my daughter, you know, I wasn’t actually, on paper, working — but I’ve always worked for myself, so I knew that I’d figure something out. And then, when my daughter was six months old, I had knee surgery, and that changed the trajectory of my career, because I now live with osteoarthritis. And yet I have hidden that, because I didn’t want people to think I couldn’t still work as an actor, or I wasn’t able to express myself through my body.
And actually, what I’ve realised is that in order to really do the work I want to do, I have to find a way of working with these things, not using them as reasons to not do the thing I want to do. And also, you know, before I had my daughter, I developed such an amazing relationship with rest, and with living, and with food, and my body, and exercise, and all of it. And then, with the stress of becoming parents, and then my partner working a lot, and his work taking up a lot of time — not really, you know, lots of evenings and weekends where I was parenting by myself. And then, quite honestly, it wasn’t — it’s nothing that he could do more of. He just — the job that he does, alongside being an actor, also wasn’t enough to cover, physically, financially, everything. So, and I always wanted to work.
I went right into hyper-independence, really, with — after having a divorce ten years ago — also kind of, I guess, being like, well, I also need to work completely by myself. Anyway, there’s a journey to explore. And I think the navigation of parenthood is complicated, and it’s hard when you have neurodiversity.
And what this time has really taught me — you know, being in the kitchen earlier, where I was slowly unpacking the shopping and enjoying it, and having the mental capacity to homemade make hummus again — and just being like, yeah, this is the life I want to keep living. And I think many of us want to keep living that kind of, or want to have that life, but it just always feels — the world feels too fast, or too stressful. And what are we denying ourselves by thinking that that’s the only way of living?
So anyway, my battery — classic — What It Means To Be Human is about to conk, so I’ll stop it there. But I just want to stay connected and building up this momentum of this expression, because I find that if I don’t, it builds up. And then I don’t know, I just — there’s something in this about just trusting the expression of it, and it not having to be, or look, or do a certain thing. You know, for years, since the pandemic, learning about marketing and rejecting the idea of it, and then feeling like, oh god, well, who’s this for? And actually, what if it is okay that it’s all just part of my own self-exploration too.
So anyway, thanks for listening, if you’re listening. And, yeah, I guess get involved. Like, are you neurodiverse? Are you a mum? What do you struggle with? There are so many things that we have in our fingertips, and under our control, to change. My life has definitely shown me that. So don’t give up hope, and keep being honest about what you want and need in and from your life.
