Before we jump into talking about how to open up the conversation around neurodivergence, finances, and the trauma responses that can come from talking about money, I want to give you a little context.

I’m Lauren. I’m 42. I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD in 2024.

Money has been like a rotten root growing down into my soil that’s caused the Lauren-tree to be a bit unstable my whole life.

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Hi Friends.

Wow, what a huge response to my post yesterday about money. So, here’s what I want you all to know.

I am working behind the scenes right now to get some people to come talk to us about all of this.

I will be having some Substack podcast episodes coming up with leading experts about how to find safety before we even try to have conversations about finances.

I am currently in the middle of a move (an angel TaskRabbit is about 12 inches from me assembling my dining table right now), but I am planning all sorts of stuff in the coming weeks.

Starting with an article (that will be behind a paywall) tomorrow about ways to open the conversation about how the neurodivergent brain processes conversations about money with your partner, friends, or however you want to understand you more fully.

I also have an article planned around the intersection of the binge/purge cycle and how much overlap there is with spending and regret. It’s all a LOT.

The number of you that have DM’d me and said that you’ve just thought you’re a “fuck up” because of these challenges has been truly staggering.

I hear you; I am you. And we are going to talk about it. But, like with weighted blankets, dim lights, and a cat purring on your lap. You are in the safest place.

AND we’ll find ways to bridge to better understanding with our partners. I’ve got you.

Tell me in the comments what questions you have, what your biggest learning area is, or really anything you want to discuss.

Now back to unpacking!

So, how did we get from miscarriage and a move to fully believing I was dying in early 2018?

I am still connecting those dots myself.

A couple of months after our move, I was pregnant again. Within days of a positive test, I was bleeding.

Remember that I was new to Seattle and had not seen a doctor yet, and their only course of action was to see me at 8 weeks and let the chips fall where they may before then.

I planned to see a local midwife, so I was able to get her to order bloodwork. My HCG did indicate I was pregnant, but we needed data from the second numbers to see if they were doubling as they should. Mine went up one or two points.

I was miscarrying again.

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You know what is sort of funny? I keep starting new series on Substack, like talking about our education experiences and my postpartum experiences, and then I feel a little overwhelmed and don’t know how to keep going.

But! Next week I’m going to continue both of those (maybeee?).

We move back into our home next week. We had to extend our stay here two more days. On September 1st, we will move back into a construction zone. It should moooostly be done, but it will be empty.

And the moving in process will begin.

Okay let’s get into what’s saving my life this week:

1. We just got this toothbrush for my oldest. Toothbrushing has always been a struggle, and I’m hopeful this will be a great support for her. I have heard great reports of it working for neurodivergent families. I could honestly use one of these too!

2. Okay, do you ever experience ‘air hunger’? I had zero idea until the last month or two that it is a symptom that comes along with hypermobility. I’ve been realizing that I breathe wayyyy too high and only in my chest and don’t use my diaphragm hardly at all. This leads to increased anxiety and becomes this cyclical feeling of not getting a deep enough breath. Anyway, this creator has been giving me some tips and ideas and I’m implementing them daily. I also bought her intro course on how to begin to use my diaphragm for those deep belly breaths. Here is Naomh’s page.

3. This is not a cheap one, but I meant to purchase this like a decade ago and finally forked over the cash like four months ago, and this has been worth every single penny. The Boroux water filter. I brought it with us to our airbnb, easy to bring on a road trip vacay, etc. I pretended that our ancient Brita filter actually did anything for us for many years. I just got a cheap wooden stand off Amazon to stand it on, and it’s been such a huge win for all of us. We’ve all been drinking more water, and I feel like it’s much cleaner.

Oh! They gave us a promo code: THEKINDREDSPACE for 10% off.

4. What I’m reading: Circe! If you read or saw The Odyssey, this is a companion book to it and focuses on the story of the woman in the seaside cottage (who is actually a goddess). It’s a pretty perfect read for before bed. I’m only about 20% of the way done, but I’m enjoying it a lot.

5. Oh!!! TV recommendation. Widow’s Bay on Apple TV. Fall is pretty much here in the PNW, and this show is so fun. It’s comedic, but spooky; the acting is so good. The vibes are perfect. Like a 10/10 viewer experience.

That’s it for this week. I hope you all are doing okay and surviving the back to school season.

Have most of you started back?

What is saving your life this week? What are you watching, reading, doing?

This photo was taken in the middle of me actively losing our second baby, the day before we left our home in LA to move to Seattle. The amount of masking being done here is..olympic level.

So many things are sort of lifting up the blanket that’s been neatly covering up my postpartum experiences.

Lindsay Clancy, obviously.

That case, as I’ve touched on on Instagram, feels too holy to even touch or talk about. All an inevitable end to our country’s true hatred for women.

But it’s gotten me thinking. It’s brought me back to so many drives in the car in late 2017 and early 2018. Where I would hear a song on the radio and mentally note that I should write down this song to be played at my imminent funeral.

I started out writing this thinking I’d tell you about me bottoming out after my second postpartum experience (well, third), but I quickly realized I needed to write about my pregnancy loss in 2016 first.

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Me in 2019, getting the lay of the land at our local elementary school

So we left off on a previous post saying that six months into our first year in elementary school as a family, the pandemic hit.

Before we go fully into all that happened for us during that time, I want to give you a full idea of what I would have told myself in 2019, before my oldest child ever started kindergarten.

Let’s jump in!

1. Manage your own need for reassurance by having safe spaces + friends to talk to.

I think we want our kids to convince us they’re doing okay at school. And they aren’t even sure what is happening or how to fully process it.

One of the biggest lessons I learned in my first year of elementary school parenting was noticing how my own anxiety steered the ship as far as how I checked in with my kid.

Because when we look to them to reassure our fears, we are just handing them our anxiety.

Find places to put that anxiety before trying to connect about their day.

2. SNACKS. SNACKS. and more SNACKS.

You are going to have so many questions at pick up. So many. And they’re going to look bedraggled and like they’ve survived a battle.

They are in no place for an interrogation.

Feed them, see if there’s a song (or no song) they might want to listen to on the way home, and begin to learn their pick-up rhythms.

Give it a full month of observation, but start implementing tiny pivots throughout the month. After the first week, are you seeing that they need to crash around the living room and are seeking sensory input? Or are they retreating silently to their room and building with magnatiles.

Just notice.

Slowly start building their after-school ‘menu’ and simply have it available.

3. Highly HIGHLY suggest not having extracurriculars after full-day kindergarten (or honestly until middle school).

They need unstructured time. This is a hot take, but I highly recommend never going straight to an extracurricular from school... at any age.

Ask any questions about this in the comments. I know some people think this is intense, but I think saving extracurriculars for weekends is the way to go, OR wait at least a few hours after school once they’re older (like 3-5 grade).

Kids need time to let down, take off the mask, and literally flop around on the floor and let their bodies exist in space with no schedule or demand for a bit.

4. As I said above, learn your child’s after-school style (promo code for sensory outlets below)

These little kiddos have been holding it all together for between 6-8 hours (depending on commute). They are little tiny infant baby brains. For real.

It’s SO much for them.

Imagine with me, for a moment, how you feel after your first day at a new job. Would you want a freaking cruise director interrogating you? From a neuroscience perspective, this is about so much more than physical fatigue. Their sweet little brains have just:

1. Separated from you
2. Managed the feelings about that separation
3. Entered a busy, unfamiliar environment
4. Figured out where to put their stuff
5. Remembered which belongings are theirs
6. Kept track of their belongings throughout the day (or not)
7. Learned the classroom layout
8. Learned where the bathroom, cafeteria, playground and office are
9. Remembered unfamiliar adults faces and names
10. Caught the vibe of those adults and decided which ones are safe and approachable
11. Learned classroom routines
12. Adapting when routines change
13. Understanding rules are not explicit, like social norms
14. Remembering which rules apply in different spaces
15. Predicting what’s coming next
16. Coping when they can’t predict what’s coming next
17. Filtering out a barage of noises (conversations, chairs scraping, pencils sharpening, announcements, bells, noises in the hallway)
18. Attempting to listen to the teacher while other children may be talking near them
19. Tolerating fluorescent lights, busy visual clutter on the walls, unfamiliar smells, crowded spaces
20. Managing (often times) brand new clothing with new tags, etc.
21. Noticing their body cues (thirst, hunger, bathroom), but not fully being in charge of if/when they can meet those needs
22. Finding their water bottle
23. Figuring out when they’re allowed to get up to get their water bottle
24. Having to wait for designated snack time
25. Opening a brand new lunch box
26. Eating within a very limited time
27. Navigating conversations with new peers during all of this
28. Noticing when they need to pee
29. Noticing when they need to poop
30. Catching those signals early enough and at appropriate and allowed times
31. Getting the teacher’s attention
32. Remembering bathroom rules
33. Holding their bladder to wait for appropriate time
34. Walk to the bathroom independently
35. Find the correct bathroom

YOU GUYS, this list could go on forever. They are doing so much.

So, the takeaway here is... they are burnt toast after school. And we are their safest place, so let’s make it what they need to recover to do that forever-long list again for 5 days in a row.

I have partnered with Outree to get you 20% off on a few of my absolute favorite ways for your child to process their day using their entire body.

Here’s the link: and my promo code is THEKINDREDSPACE

6. Believe the version of your child that you see at home

Your child may genuinely be cheerful and cooperative, and you receive the full collapse at home.

Both of these things can be true. This means that they could use extra support during their day, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Treat what happens after school as super important data about the cost their day had on their nervous system.

Y’all, this is getting so long!

So, I think I will make another free post tomorrow about what exactly to do and say if you feel that the nervous system cost is too great for your child.

Sound good?
See you back here tomorrow.

Back in April, I worked with an incredible personal stylist, her name is Sophia Probett, and on Instagram, she is sophia.a.bayly.

I originally hired Sophia to help me with a branding shoot (headshots, etc.). But that shoot got pushed up, and we shifted to working on my daily style, and I’m so glad it worked out like that.

Let’s get into it.

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the face of a woman who survived moving and forgetting a hairbrush and hair dryer and just doesn’t care

Hey angels, thanks for holding my crash-out yesterday with grace and compassion. I then went on a podcast right after and felt like a total imposter because it was like a women’s entrepreneurial podcast, and she was asking about my funnels and stuff, and I almost hyperventilated, being like HOW HAVE I STILL NOT FIGURED THIS OUT??

But we survived.

My house is coming along; floors are about halfway done, and we have another 9-10 days in the Airbnb.

Alright, I’m calling this my Friday Five, but really, who knows if I’ll ever do it again? I called that FREEDOM, not inconsistency. Take that, society.

This week I’m focusing on skincare that has changed my face. Because I feel better in my body and face than I ever have, at 42 no less.

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2019 could very well be on a different timeline altogether, when I think about it. I was barreling towards my oldest starting kindergarten, and I had a real feeling in my bones that school was going to dull her spark.

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I am Lauren.

I have almost size 11 feet.

I was born in Arkansas in 1984.

I have had dogs named Ashley, Giggles, Zac, Freckles, Molly, Jake, Beulah, and now Fred.

I got my first cat 2 years ago, and obsessed is not even the word. Soul pet.

I am wildly hypermobile.

My jobs over the years: movie theater, zoo, psychologist office,

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Today is the day we move out of our home, and work really gets started on our house.

When we moved a decade ago, I went on a deep dive about the neuroscience of moving. What exactly it does to your brain to be uprooted and moved to a different place.

This was long before I studied neuroscience, and long before I was diagnosed with autism, but it really tracks that while I was freshly postpartum with a 6-month-old and a 3-year-old, I was spending time researching this topic.

So, there are these events in life that are lumped into the “stressful event” category, but no one ever tells you why they’re stressful.

Instead of getting into too much of the scientific part of why moving is stressful, I just want to explain it plainly.

I want you to think about our brains as prediction machines.

As much as possible, our brain would like to go on autopilot for the things it already knows. For example: where your toothbrush is, being able to look up at your clock that’s been there for 10 years and be able to know what time it is, knowing where you put your makeup on, etc.

So, when you are moving, instead of your brain being able to go into autopilot for the myriad of tiny tasks you do throughout a normal day, your brain is predicting things incorrectly over and over again.

"Shit, I accidentally packed my toothbrush”
"Oh, I literally don’t have pants to wear”

I kind of think about it being like your brain is overheating from getting a million error messages before you even sit down with your coffee in the morning.

When we are talking about actual concepts of neuroscience, this is called predictive processing or prediction error.

When we keep getting that prediction error, uncertainty stays high all day long. When we live with a high level of uncertainty that amps up our stress response.

Let’s now add on the neurodiversity layer. Disruption of predictability, having an inconsistent sensory environment, disrupted routines, and a loss of familiar cues make moving for neurodivergent brains disproportionately more expensive for our nervous systems.

Well, in the middle of writing this, the contractors arrived, and my pets have officially lost their minds.

They too, are completely out of sorts and are about to be even more surprised to move to an entirely different house for a few weeks.

Our cat, let’s just say, does not ever leave our home, and if he does, it’s like his body loses all control (yes, in every way), so that should be an interesting ride and an interesting transition to our Airbnb.

For all of us, all the way down to our two rats, I will be setting up some form of predictability as soon as we get there. Familiar blanket, set up the litter box right away, find a walking route, and for me, bring a familiar coffee cup that I love and can use every morning.

Think about ways you can set up new forms of autopilot even in the short term. Anywhere you can cut decision-making is a win when you’re living in unpredictability.

Put normal things on hold for a few weeks, like no play dates for the kids that take a lot of decision-making to plan.

And more than any of it, realize that your brain is fully taxed (for some reason, I really like the metaphor of overheating), so we streamline, we rest, and we thank our bodies for trying to protect us from so much uncertainty.

Oh, and one more thing: we also realize that those we love (including our pets) are not going to be at their best during this time, so we give so much extra compassion to each other as we all feel destabilized, uncertain, and confused by our lives being in boxes.

Compassion like a freaking river over the whole process of moving. It’s not easy or fun.

Send me all the good thoughts and vibes as our circus becomes a traveling one today, and we set up by the water later today.

Also, let’s crowdsource this: how do I let my very floofy doodle play at the beach without coming back wet to the Airbnb? I do not need a wet floofer trashing this rental house, but I also have to get him some exercise, and it takes him HOURS to dry off…hmm. Any ideas welcomed.

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Yesterday on my Instagram stories, I alluded to the grief I continually work through from not having the mother-daughter relationship that I wish I had. And you know, it’s hard, because I think MOST people would say, don’t talk about it openly.

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1. The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout — I adore Elizabeth Strout. I’ve read most of her novels, and this one is short and sharp. I appreciate how Elizabeth

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When I tell you that sitting down to a blinking cursor feels like time travel back to Xanga, Blogspot and so many other iterations of baring my soul to the great void, I mean it with my whole elder millennial soul.

My name is Lauren, and I am 42 years old. I was born in Arkansas in 1984 to a southern baptist pastor who met my mom in seminary she was

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Hi everyone,

I wanted to give us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and share what we are comfortable bringing to the group.

I am curious, would you like to incorporate a book club type of thing into this space to read and process together?

I will start in the comments by introducing myself, meet me there!

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hello friends, another week.

we are slowly building this community together and i’m moved by those of you who are beginning to share your stories. what a privilege to be a witness to each of you.

if you are reading this, i want to hear your story. if you are here and looking for community, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription so you can enter into a safe, private space where we can begin to unravel our stories within community.

there is so much power in community, as we know, as many of us have come out of high control, patriarchal systems of religion.

what might it be like to be seen within community without an agenda? without power grabs? without those seeking to control our thoughts and actions so that it might benefit them?

i have been grieving a multigenerational space to be seen and known for as long as i can remember. that is what the kindred space is, my dream of a place where people who want more can gather and create both MORE and LESS.

more connection, less noise. more beauty, less striving for efficiency.

i believe we can do it, a place that runs at the pace of each season, each cycle, and each building block of what makes us human.

if you’ve been seeking a place to be seen, upgrade today and meet us in the comments. we are building something new together.

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