Episode 340: Is the ADHD Brain an Intuitive Brain? with Laura Day

Living Well with ADHD
Written By Kate Moryoussef

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Content note: This episode contains references to suicide and family bereavement. If you are struggling, please reach out to a trusted support resource.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. You can also check out the Campaign Against Living Miserably here

What if the traits you've spent a lifetime apologising for are actually the source of your greatest ability?

On this week's episode of The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm joined by Laura Day, New York Times bestselling author, teacher and intuitive consultant who has spent four decades working with individuals and some of the world's largest companies to help them identify and achieve their goals.

Laura's new book, The Prism: Seven Steps to Heal Your Past and Transform Your Future, is the book she describes as an ADHD manual — a practical, evidence-informed framework for building the scaffolding that helps neurodivergent brains thrive. With two New York Times bestsellers to her name and a 40-year teaching community, Laura is also someone who has lived with ADHD her entire life, and this conversation is one of the most honest, warm and genuinely surprising I have had on the podcast.

We talk about Laura's childhood in a household where neurodivergence was everywhere but unnamed, why girls of her generation were never allowed to act out and what that suppression cost them, how she built a career advising billion-dollar companies using her intuitive mind, and why the ADHD brain is uniquely suited to intuition, just not always in the way we expect.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11, and why girls of her generation were never treated

  • Growing up in a household where neurodivergence showed up in multiple family members, often with devastating consequences

  • How Laura used survival, focus and necessity as her prosthetic scaffolding before she understood her own neurology

  • Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain, and how to make that work for you rather than against you

  • Why intuition is not something you tap into but something that is always downloading, and how to structure it usefully

  • The difference between the voice of fear and the voice of intuition, and why documentation matters more than belief

  • How Laura advises billion-dollar companies using intuitive methods, and why business and science do what works regardless of belief

  • Why Laura says you are your own worst intuitive, and why community-based intuitive practice is so powerful

  • The shame and blame pages: a research-backed tool for releasing what no longer serves you

  • Why doing just the next thing is one of the most powerful strategies for ADHD brains

  • How Laura built scaffolding for her household without knowing it was for neurodivergence

  • Why vulnerability is not a weakness but the source of extraordinary ability

  • The Prism: what it offers neurodivergent people and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual

Timestamps:

  • 00:00 - Welcome and introducing Laura Day

  • 02:00 - Laura's diagnosis at 10 or 11 and why girls weren't treated in her generation

  • 05:00 - Growing up with neurodivergence all around her, and what it cost her family

  • 08:00 - How she used her role as oldest child to create focus and structure

  • 10:00 - Spatial difficulties, irritability and the compensations she built over decades

  • 13:00 - Why the ADHD brain is the intuitive brain

  • 16:00 - How intuition actually works and why it is always downloading

  • 20:00 - Documenting intuition and building a feedback loop with the world

  • 23:00 - How she works with billion-dollar companies and why they don't need to believe in it

  • 27:00 - Social dynamics, masking and forgetting to say hello

  • 31:00 - Emotional regulation, overstimulation and learning to step away rather than snap

  • 35:00 - Generational patterns, self-awareness and raising neurodivergent children

  • 40:00 - Just do the next thing: why this is the most powerful ADHD strategy

  • 44:00 - The shame and blame pages and the research behind letting go

  • 47:00 - The Prism: seven steps, and why Laura considers it her ADHD manual

  • 50:00 - How to find Laura and join her teaching community

Links and Resources:

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed women with ADHD find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity, and clarity.

Kate Moryoussef https://www.adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk
Next

Episode 339: Why Doesn’t My GP Understand ADHD & What’s Really Happening in the 10-Minute Appointment with Victoria Galvis