Neurodivergent Somatics with Nyck Walsh
What does it mean to choose a wholeness paradigm instead of a pathology lens when it comes to neuro-affirming care? In this episode, I sit down with the brilliant Nyck Walsh to explore what happens when we bring compassion, authenticity, and somatics into the conversation about neurodivergence. Together, we touch into the radical permission it takes to be fully human and to rest into identities that have often been misunderstood or pathologized.
We explore the relief, grief, and even terror that can arise with late-in-life neurodivergent identification—and the profound sense of liberation that can come with finally having language for who we are. Nyck shares what it means to honor authenticity beneath masking, to unpack internalized ableism, and to reconnect with innate wisdom that has always been there, waiting to be trusted.
Our conversation also weaves in the intersections of privilege and oppression, the deep longing for belonging, and the all-too-common question: “Am I ___ enough?” Together, we name how neurodivergent folks often carry both tremendous courage and tremendous vulnerability as they navigate authenticity, safety, and connection in a neurotypical-dominant world.
You’ll also hear about Nyck’s pioneering model of Neurodivergent Somatics, his international counselor education programs, and his forthcoming book with Norton Professional Books, Neurodivergent Somatics and Therapy: an anti-oppressive model for whole person care (March 2026).
This is a conversation filled with tenderness, truth, and courage – an invitation to see neurodivergence not as something broken or deficient, but as whole, wise, and worthy.
About Nyck
Nyck Walsh (he/they) brings a whole person, anti-oppressive, intersectional somatic lens to working with Autistic and KCS/VAST (more affirming language for “ADHD”) folks. A white, Autistic, VAST, queer, and trans counselor, Nyck is the director of the Nyck Walsh Counseling & Training Center and creator of the Neurodivergent Somatics model.
He curates reparative experiences for late-identified Autistic and KCS/VAST people to connect with their innate wisdom, dismantle ableism, be supported through challenges, and make meaning of their misunderstood neurodivergent experiences. His counselor education programs have attracted an international following, with both neurodivergent and neurotypical counselors alike reporting that they feel deeply supported and validated by his approach.
While being human brings no shortage of complexity, Nyck delights in frolicking in nature and living among the trees with his four-legged bestie in the mountains of what is colonially known as Colorado.
Find out more at his website: nyckwalsh.com
And, if you're interested in an assessment or 1:1 work with me, you can find out more here:
Episode Transcript:
00:00:02 Shelby
Welcome to the Relationship as Medicine podcast.
I'm your host Shelby Leigh. Outdoor adventure enthusiast dog mom to Luna, World Traveller, longtime meditator, espresso lover and a trained somatic psychotherapist, trauma specialist and certified coach.
Talking about trauma doesn't have to be so daunting from a connected place, we can navigate anything together. Looking forward to exploring with you today, here we go.
Welcome Nyck, I am so excited to have you here and kind of can't believe you're here and really looking forward to exploring everything we're going to explore today before I read your bio and introduce you and tell the audience just how enamoured I am by your work and everything that you bring, I just want to say hi and welcome.
00:01:18 Nyck
I see.
00:01:22 Shelby
Let me just tell folks a little bit about who you are and why we're here and then you can add to that if you like, yeah. So.
Nyck Walsh, he/ they, brings a whole person anti-oppressive intersectional somatic lens to working with autistic and KCS VAST more affirming alternatives to ADHD full.
A white autistic, VAST queer and trans counsellor Nyck is the director of Nyck Walsh Counselling and Training Center and creator of the Neurodivergent Somatics Model. He curates reparative experiences for late identified Autistic and KCS VAST folks to connect with their innate wisdom, dismantle ableism, be supported through their challenges, and unpack their lives through their unidentified and often misunderstood neurodivergent experience.
His counsellor education programmes have created an international following, with both neurodivergent and neurotypical counsellors alike reporting that they feel deeply supported and validated by his approach, while being human presents. No shortage of complexity, Nyck delights in frolicking in nature. And living among the trees with his four-legged bestie in the mountains of what is colonial known as Colorado.
Wow. Welcome, Welcome, welcome.
How is it to hear that?
00:03:02 Nyck
Thank you, Shelby.
It is wild. I feel like my younger self is present and is like how the hell did this happen? Like how did we get here? This what?
This is you.
It's deeply it's deeply humbling what a journey it's been.
00:03:20 Shelby
I really enjoyed saying each word because it was just so intentional and so meaningful. And it's my story that you really took a lot of time and care around putting that together. Is that resonant?
00:03:36 Nyck
That is an accurate story that that means so much. You're like awareness of my intentionality and your appreciation. Like, yeah, from the moment we, you and I met, I just feel really seen by you and valued, which means a lot.
00:03:41 Shelby
Yeah.
I'm so glad. Yeah, I was telling Nyck when we met last week that somebody I really respect in the somatic psychology world. My friend Nuria reached out and she knows how judgy I am and how high standards. And I really can't stand most courses.
And she also knows, you know, I'm neurocomplex/neurodivergent, into somatics, always learning and she was like… I promise you, you have to take this continuing education class for somatic practice or for any practitioners on somatics and neurodivergent affirming care. And usually, I listen to things on double speed. I'm half paying attention because I already know it.
00:04:27 Nyck
Oh my gosh.
00:04:40 Shelby
And I listened to every word. In fact, I couldn't do anything else. Usually, I'm doing 12 things at the same time. I sat next to the river. I watched the video, and I even let myself be guided through the practices, which is so rare.
And I just soaked it up for once in my life, really feeling like my neurodivergent self was cared for. The somatic part of me and the trauma informed part of me, all of it. So thank you.
00:05:17 Nyck
Gosh, thank you, Shelby. I love your realness and I'm like, having a moment of, like, just Nyck. Just keep breathing like it is so important to you and to me that I receive what you're sharing and don't just do that. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in full disclosure, it's really hard to take in.
The depth of what you're saying.
And I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me to keep practicing taking it in.
00:05:47 Shelby
Well, that's only 10%, so maybe maybe over time.
00:05:54 Nyck
Thanks for the reality check.
00:05:56 Shelby
Maybe we can be friends and I can just slowly let it seep in for you.
00:06:05 Nyck
Love that.
00:06:06 Shelby
Yeah. I mean, it's really a testament to what can happen when a neurodivergent, traumatised person can be held and seen in a learning space. Usually it's just absolute overwhelm overstimulation, chaos, feeling dismissed, feeling totally invisible, and it's a testament to being intentional, like you said.
00:06:36 Nyck
I just feel so much compassion and solidarity with what you just described. You know, being the things you just described and having been in plenty of those spaces myself too that don't work for me, that bring out my super judgy side, so.
I just feel so grateful.
And has taken a ridiculous amount of courage on my part, and I'm just so grateful that I've been able to do what I've been able to do and that it's having that impact on people like you like what greater gift is there in this life so?
00:07:11 Shelby
Thank you. Keep going. Keep going. I hear it takes courage.
00:07:14 Nyck
OK, OK. Yeah.
00:07:21 Shelby
Well, before we tell everyone what we're hoping to explore today, is there anything else about who you are, how you are?
00:07:35 Nyck
That's a good question. I mean, right, uncensored to me is like that. I'm a human on my own journey figuring it out like everyone else is. I think something that I am navigating and it's just showing up in different areas of my life. It's showing up in you and I talked a little bit about this recently.
About my trans identity and how that's evolving and what that means for how I'm perceived and how I perceive self, and I think too in this role as I am a more visible in the work that I'm doing, like holding awareness of I know who I am and I know that I am a whole fallible being. Figuring it out like we all are. And so I think I feel sensitive to people maybe having a story that I somehow have it all figured out because there's no such thing.
00:08:31 Shelby
Absolutely yes, that's a really important layer to share for sure, yeah. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I find a lot of neurodivergent folks have incredible ******** detectors anyways.
00:08:46 Nyck
Yes. Uh-huh. That is a gift we have.
00:08:51 Shelby
So it's just important to make it known that neither of us apparently have our **** together completely.
00:08:59 Nyck
The journey continues.
00:09:01 Shelby
Totally yes, yes. Well, this podcast of course is welcome.
To folks, whether neurotypical neurodivergent, however you identify, and our hope really is that.
You can bring some realness, some radical permission to rest in your identities and some connection and softness really through how we're relating, maybe how we're tripping over our words together and finding our way and through what we're speaking towards and all of our learning with ourselves and our clients. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:39 Nyck
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:42 Shelby
We're hoping to navigate some of these topics around labels and belongings, A wholeness paradigm versus a pathology paradigm. Ableism. Burnout, the intersections between many identities and within ourselves within our clients, and those we work with.
Permission and giving ourselves permission and undoing cultural expectations.
And honestly, a lot more, but those are just some bullet points that you know, we had so much fun talking before getting to share with all with you all that we touched on. So we're just hoping to be able to bring that to you as well.
Is there anything there that I missed that feels alive today?
00:10:35 Nyck
I think just something that I'm sitting with. It's funny that I say sitting with because I literally feel it in my like in the seat of my body.
It's just holding the complexity of identities and the experience of being human, and I feel like I just want to reiterate or name explicitly how aware I am of what it is to be a late identified autistic vast person who is also white.
And being acutely aware of the privilege that I hold of the marginalisation that I hold right, I'm also a speaking autistic person, which inherently holds a lot of privilege, as well as someone who has access to a lot of masking, right. And even though there's pain. And masking and trauma and all the things and a whole journey of unpacking it also means that I have access to more built in safety than black folks brown folks. Folks of other marginalized socio cultural locations.
00:11:43 Shelby
Yeah.
00:11:44 Nyck
Yeah, it just feels important to put that out there.
00:11:47 Shelby
Those layers, the nuances are so important.
00:11:51 Nyck
Mm-hmm. So important. Yeah.
Yeah.
00:11:54 Shelby
Yeah. And it sounds so inappropriate to say Ditto.
But you know me as well with the identities that I carry as a white bodied female identified queer late in life diagnosed, high masking autistic ADHDer I have access to safety in certain ways that others might not and don't feel safe in certain ways that others might, and it's quite a complexity of lived experience.
Yeah.
You said something about masking and in that exact moment like that, the weight of masking my golden retriever let out the loudest sigh I've ever heard.
00:12:44 Nyck
Oh my gosh, that's solidarity.
00:12:48 Shelby
You know, a lot of folks in this space are used to me talking about trauma, healing. The power of the therapeutic relationship, but it's newer in this space to be talking about neurodivergent masking.
00:13:14 Shelby
Everything we're covering, and so I wonder if you'd be open to just sharing a bit more about what you mean by masking.
00:13:23 Nyck
Yeah. And you know, I'm sure if you ask 10 different people, they might give you 10 different answers. How I would word it in this moment is. Masking is a way that it's talked about, mostly with autistic and also KCS VAST, which is an alternative to ADHD folks where it's a way that we figure out how to blend in essentially with our environment, how to be as how to pass as close to neurotypical as possible, knowing that we're inherently different, but efforted to try and figure out what is expected of us, what the social norms are, what the environment is.
How the environment is expecting us to show up and then doing our best to meet those expectations. So it's essentially.
Oh wow. OK, so uncensored me is very present today. So it's basically like an an act of abandoning ourselves for our survival.
00:14:36 Shelby
Absolutely. I was just feeling that as you were talking kind of right in the center of my chest, it just feels like both a weight and a guard at the same. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's most, I don't know if this is accurate, but most often unconscious you.
00:14:55 Nyck
Know we're absolutely.
00:14:57 Shelby
We start early in life, just feeling like there's something different going on here. And in order to survive.
00:15:02 Nyck
Uh-huh. Uh, huh.
00:15:04 Shelby
I've I have to adapt. I have to yeah. Find ways to fit in, belong, feel safe. And in a neurotypical dominated world.
00:15:06 Nyck
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:16 Shelby
That's what gets favored. Those social norms, those behaviours, those ways of moving our bodies, those ways of talking about or expressing or engaging with our interests.
00:15:19 Nyck
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
00:15:31 Nyck
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, depending on the body that we're in as it relates to race. Gender. Sexual orientation. Culture. Religion. You know, masking is any is anywhere from that, which was that which what literally keeps us alive.
To that, which helps us belong, have friends have a job, have connections, be included, and sometimes we're talking emotional safety, but it can also be very much about physical safety too.
00:16:08 Shelby
Absolutely. And it's not lost on me that most of the research has been done on CIS male folks, and they're finding more and more that a lot of other folks learn to mask in such huge ways and really early in life for survival, and so this is something that's just kind of coming out in a big way. Would you agree?
00:16:38 Nyck
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think too part of the way that people assigned female at birth, whether they identify as girls, women, trans and non-binary folks, there's a way that the genders are socialized, that girls are expected to perceive everything that's happening. They're expected to anticipate what people's needs are. They're expected to be quiet, right? They're expected to not take up too much space. And so there are ways that socialisation of the genders actually reinforces masking at an early age and why so many of us who were assigned female at birth fly under the radar and why? There's this whole generation of lay identified folks who are suddenly like holy ****, finally have language for who I am.
00:17:32 Shelby
Yeah. And there's a maybe a burnout that happens or a hormonal change or something that just often makes us hit a wall where we're like, wait, something is something is going on here. Like, this isn't just trauma. I've been trauma healing for 30 years or.
00:17:37 Nyck
Yeah.
Alright.
00:17:48 Shelby
Wait, everybody isn't like this, and we just can't do it anymore in the way that we were.
00:17:55 Nyck
Yeah.
So true. I think all of us right have that defining moment where it's like maybe moment, moment, moment, moment and then all of a sudden there's the, like, the light bulb. But it's like, oh, **** it all adds up now, yeah.
00:18:09 Shelby
MHM.
Yeah.
I have been hearing a lot in my own unmasking process and really like being excited by being autistic and ADHD year or now. I have new language for this that I'm going to start integrating. I was like why do you need to be labelled?
Why do you want to be put in a box with this really like judgy, stigmatizing like, uh, vibe, and I love to talk together a little bit about how identification can be empowering. It can be supportive. It can bring compassion and.
00:18:52 Nyck
Yeah.
Yeah.
00:18:56 Shelby
Yeah, I'll just stop there and see what your thoughts are.
00:18:58 Nyck
Oh, really? Well, and it feels important. I'm realizing I offer these alternate labels essentially, and most listeners have never heard of these. So I'm like, oh, I should probably just mention what they are first, and then I would love to go to where you just brought us. So KCS is the abbreviate is the acronym for Kinetic Cognitive Style and that term comes from Dr. Nick Walker, who was an autistic scholar and then VAST is a Variable Attention Stimulus Trait. And that term comes from doctors Ned Hallowell and John Rady, who wrote a book called ADHD 2.0.
Yes.
I've heard in full disclosure, I've heard mixed things about how neurodivergent affirming it is, but I do really appreciate the language having these alternates that are much more affirming, right, because the words deficit and disorder are both in ADHD, like, Ouch. What for? Yeah, exactly how is that affirming of anyone's sanity.
00:20:09 Shelby
I had someone in one of my classes recently. I was kind of, you know, introducing neuro affirming care. And I kept saying ADHD.
And thinking I was being super empowered and somebody was like, wait, isn't there anything better than attention deficit hyperactive? And I hadn't even caught. I thought I was being so empowered by leaving disorder off. And so I'm just so grateful that you're sharing about this.
00:20:35 Nyck
Yeah.
Like the mediocre alternative that I do, I tend to call it ADHD, but like acknowledging it feels mediocre. So yeah, I'm so grateful to learn that there's other.
Though there's other names getting some traction out there because we need it? Yeah.
Hmm.
00:20:50 Shelby
Yes, so labels and boxes, yes.
00:20:54 Nyck
That's that's right.
That's right. I think you had asked cause. Now my mind might went watered off on that other path. I think you had asked like why is? Why does it matter? Why is it important?
00:21:07 Shelby
Yeah, yeah. Aren't we all just human? Don't we all just suffer? And lately I've been getting, you know, being raised in the 90s as someone with ADHD. And the way I was treated and the way I saw my friends treated. That just doesn't feel empowering to me to be identifying within that you know.
00:21:31 Nyck
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. It's something I think about and talk about a lot and I think what I would say first, and I think you remember Dr. Nick Walker saying something similar is that.
Like.
Well, so first off, the labels. This idea of Neurotypicals and other neurotypes or other ways of being human, the like neurotypicals is a social construct. It's not something that is innately biological in us, like diversity is innately biology.
Magical. So this idea that there's one way to be human? Well, one, it's ********. And two, like humans, created that idea. And so.
What happens is there are humans who can fit that way of being without a lot of effort without a lot of dissonance. And then there are other humans who, no matter how hard they try, will not ever sort of fit that role or fit that box. If you will. And those of us are neurodivergent and there's a gazillion ways to diverge from neurotypicals.
But having language is like kind of creates this freedom for the first time, and oftentimes there's a tonne of grief that goes with it. But this idea of, like, holy ****, I'm not broken, but because we internalise all our lives are like, OK, well, where are the problem? Like, OK, there's something wrong with me.
00:22:54 Shelby
Yes.
00:23:01 Nyck
And it as though it's like our job to then effort our entire lives to figure out what's broken and fix it.
Yes, I know that journey all too well. Not just because I've lived it. And then I also, you know, get to witness it in in other people all the time and so.
So there's a sense of liberation. There's a sense of like, oh, I can actually come home to being who I am and maybe I finally get to stop trying to fix myself. And I maybe I get to focus on what are my needs. Like, wait, I get to even have needs. What might those needs be? How can I meet those needs?
Like, are there ways that I could actually?
The curate, a life that works better for me.
Hmm.
Or at least ask for help in the ways that I might need it, or have accommodations. Or, gosh, maybe even boundaries, like how novel is that? Maybe I could actually say no sometimes.
00:24:00 Shelby
Or have limitations and have that be OK?
00:24:02 Nyck
Yes. Oh my gosh, thank you for saying that, yes.
Yes.
I know capacity for me long before I became a therapist, especially as a therapist, though, this question of capacity has, like, haunted me because it's so easy to compare myself to other people. And it's something I've always done. And you know, as a sensitive person, right, all the, all the things that make me who I am.
In a lot of ways, my capacity will never match what many people around me seem to be able to do. Yeah, and for it to, for it to stop being a me problem.
And for there to get to be acceptance around it like, yeah, you know what? I am different.
And and and the grief that I mentioned, right, because so many of us come into our neurodivergence, and it's like grief and liberation and and the grief for me, it's more about like.
Holy ****, I had a lifetime of unmet needs. I had a lifetime of trying to be someone I'm not of being told that I'm supposed to be different than who I am. So I feel like I want to be careful because some people, when they hear grief, they think ohh. I'm sad because I'm autistic.
Yeah.
Yes. And that is so far from the truth. There are moments where I'm very acutely aware of how much harder life is for me than other people, and I feel the sadness in that.
00:25:18 Shelby
Yeah.
00:25:27 Nyck
But it's not ever sad that ohh gosh, I wish I was born in a neurotypical body, mind.
Like that usually is not the thought that goes through my head if life was easier for me because things inherently made sense and things were easier for me to access, yes. But but the grief is much more about the past and also letting go of who I'll actually never be, because now I get to stop trying to be someone.
Hmm.
And I I can't be in this life.
00:25:57 Shelby
Yeah.
00:25:59 Nyck
And I have to.
00:25:59 Shelby
Yeah.
00:25:59 Nyck
Let go of all these expectations.
00:26:02 Shelby
Yeah. And for me and many other folks, possibly you as well, there was a lot of rage as well.
00:26:10 Nyck
Thank you. Oh my gosh. Can't believe I missed that. This is why there's two of us here. Thank you, Shelby.
00:26:17 Shelby
Just rage of like.
What? You know, just just being totally shattered of my perception of myself, of who I thought I was supposed to be if I healed how many thousands or hundreds of thousands dollars have I spent on a certain kind of healing, trying to get myself to be like a neurotypical person?
00:26:40 Nyck
Oh my gosh.
00:26:42 Shelby
How did my parents miss this? How did my teachers, my therapists, and the disintegration? Also, they can go with that kind of shattering.
00:26:58 Nyck
Ohh my gosh. Right. It's like a profound unlearning journey.
00:27:03 Shelby
It's very humbling.
00:27:04 Nyck
Uh.
That's a good word for it.
Yeah, I love. I love that you're naming the rage cause, especially in, you know, as a as a, as a woman. Right. And for me assigned female at birth like that was not something that I was allowed to access. And particularly with the family of origin that I grew up in. Right. And like, there's so much social conditioning that, like, women aren't allowed to be angry.
Like a fat, people can't be angry. That's no. And then especially I think about black women.
Like right? Like all these ideas that are around anger and race and like, **** that there's good reason to be angry.
00:27:47 Shelby
So good and it's a powerful emotion.
00:27:50 Nyck
Yes, yes.
00:27:51 Shelby
Yeah, yeah. It's just either for me. It was a swirl of everything for at least a couple of years, or like a knotted ball of yarn that just was slowly.
And still is kind of loosening around everything I thought was supposed to be.
00:28:13 Nyck
Yeah.
00:28:15 Shelby
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:21 Nyck
And it makes me think when I hear you say that in the pause, I think about, I've heard so many clients say this similar sentiment of like.
Who am I then? Even like if I'm not who I sort of constructed myself to be, not knowing I was constructing myself to be anything like I was just being and the only way is right like that. I knew how, but now that I might have permission to be more authentically me, what the heck does that even mean?
00:28:49 Shelby
Yeah.
Absolutely. And that integrity piece we talked about this last week that is so important to a lot of neurodivergent folks. It's like one of our leading values integrity and then it's like have I been lying to myself or others. And Ohh there's feelings about that.
00:28:55 Nyck
Yes. Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, in moments I feel like it's felt like flavours of existential crisis in me, of right. How much I value truth telling and like authenticity like that is that and and integrity. Right. Like some of my highest values.
And to notice unconsciously in just trying to exist, how often by masking. If you look at it through a different lens took on the the the flavour of of not telling the truth.
00:29:44 Shelby
Yeah.
00:29:44 Nyck
Right of not being honest and it's like I've had to call upon a lot of self compassion because it's so easy to go to shame.
And if I could have done better, I would have done better.
And so I think too there's a huge element of as we've really deepened into unmasking. And I, I feel like this is one of those things I haven't really heard many people talking about it of, like, what feels like the shadow side of the unmasking journey and how important it's been to call upon gentleness.
Hmm.
And with people who are safe enough in my life to acknowledge too, the ways that I haven't been as authentic as I would have liked. And here's why.
It's so humbling, profoundly humbling and uncomfortable.
00:30:41 Shelby
Yeah. And I mean, I think there's a lot of loss and a lot of gain that can happen as we feel safe enough to even just to start experimenting with who might I be in this moment with this person.
00:30:49 Nyck
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:56 Shelby
And I've been noticing, actually I've from long term friends. What I keep getting is this isn't you, Shelby? Like this new me last week? I got that's off colour for you. And well, I did have a meltdown.
I ended up coming around to I must be I'm being true to myself now and that feels more important.
Yeah.
00:31:29 Nyck
Powerful.
00:31:31 Shelby
Yeah.
00:31:32 Nyck
And I appreciate you bringing up and I'm navigating this in my own life, that as we lean into our journey of being more authentic to us in the ways that we can and the ways that it's safe enough circumstance to circumstance, right, like you mentioned, this idea of loss and that relationships are likely going to change.
I've experienced that for sure in my own life and how much reorientation there is.
And things that, like things that we might have tolerated before that we won't now and things that maybe you know we were weren't. Ohh God, I can't believe I'm going to use this word. I have to like use air quotes. It makes me want to vomit but like ways we have been more so called palatable to other people. And then suddenly when we stop with the people pleasing and the appeasing and the fawn response that so many of us socialised as girls know so well.
Right then what happens? And then how other people are like, right. Like you said, well, that seems off colour for you.
00:32:40 Shelby
Yeah, that's when we know we're on the.
00:32:43 Nyck
Right track. Yes, I know. I want to celebrate your courage and at the same time, like I feel the tenderness in that right. Like the risk. Like for us to choose to be more authentic to ourselves. For some of us, that does include a lot of loss.
00:33:00 Shelby
Yeah.
Identifying.
Can we? Absolutely. Terrifying. I know some folks have who have realised their autistic or another flavour of neurodivergence and are like I'm not telling anyone.
And so there is a peace that well, in some ways it's going to be freeing, you know, with so many people. And there are other. There's a way that, that path that we choose as we begin to unmask and identify and tell people.
That it takes a lot of courage.
00:33:39 Nyck
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
It takes so much courage and it reminds you of something that we had touched on when we talked recently to of this idea of being like autistic enough or any marginalised identity, right? Like am I trans enough? Am I queer enough? Right. And how oppression like pits US against each other and then creates these ideas, these false ideas, these very harmful ideas about like am I doing it right?
Right in this sense of like, Oh my gosh, like if other autistic people knew I did this, like, would that be OK or if other trans people knew that, you know, maybe there's a moment where I didn't correct someone about my pronouns, like, oh, my God, I'm a horrible trans person. And like, all the layers of things that we're trying to process at any given moment as we're trying to just exist in the world.
And and do the things we have to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, the pressure it puts on us that there's like a so-called right way to be when there's not.
00:34:39 Shelby
Ohh yes, no. We gotta stop comparing.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And it reminds me that, you know, our intention around radical permission. It's like.
As I'm in this space, for example with these people.
Maybe I don't need to judge myself for being like ohh I was masking, you know. It's like, well, OK, hold on a minute. There are so many reasons why you might specifically around safety, you know and maybe just today, like how much authenticity can I allow these are that's your words. I think just just a little bit. And can I remind myself that I allowed that and be good with it.
00:35:25 Nyck
My gosh, right brings me right back to the idea of self compassion.
And it's such a journey and I know it in myself. I know it in other people like and it brings up such sadness when we're so hard on ourselves because we feel like we didn't do it so called right or we weren't the like, whatever the ****. Like the model autistic person is, if you know if that exists.
Right. And how do we be more tender? Because the reality is and here's where I think there's, there's a lot of confusion out in the world is that I don't think it's my job as a person and as a counsellor to tell people to stop masking like that would actually be really harmful, and I think it often gets misunderstood that it it is very much for safety and it's a trauma response. And So what I think what I perceive is maybe more the point is like when and where are the spaces that we can have more agency to be to try out more authentic ways of being knowing that it's not safe in all spaces and all moments to just be so fully ourselves and then and then it makes me I go to my heart and then I think about all the autistic people who don't have that option, right, who who won't ever blend in. And so then I feel the complexity of what it is to hold more privilege that I can mask and also.
Right. It's so it's so complex so.
00:36:58 Shelby
It's so complex. Yeah. That. Am I autistic enough? There's for me. It's a sense of I can pass, I can pass in a lot of ways around a lot of my identities. Chronic illness, queerness, autism, ADHD, you know, and there's such a deep loneliness too, around.
00:37:08 Nyck
Ah.
Ah.
Uh-huh.
00:37:22 Shelby
Having the privilege. So it's like, OK, there has to be compassion here as well and an acknowledgement that there is also privilege here I have for safety.
00:37:33 Nyck
Right.
Right.
I really feel that, especially in the present moment and the times that we're living in, I feel that in such a deep visceral way.
Yeah.
00:37:51 Shelby
A lot of what we're talking about here really, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the wholeness paradigm versus the pathology paradigm. It's included in there and.
00:38:01 Nyck
Wow.
00:38:03 Shelby
I was I sometimes am asked to read peoples reports from medical model assessments because people feel so dysregulated or just upside down, or unseen or scared when they receive these diagnosis and they come to me to just make sense of it.
00:38:17 Nyck
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
00:38:25 Shelby
And I was reading this, this medical model, definitely I'm going to say old school assessment like 30 pages last night, and I just felt so ick. I felt so mad, so protective, over this human.
Because every word was through a pathology paradigm, they talked about their problems, their issues, the recommendations were for CBT therapy so that they could fit in better with neurotypical people, have in air quotes, better social skills, make eye contact better.
And the entire 30 pages had some note around the issues or the problems.
And I I felt so grateful to get to have learned the way I learned and so upset at the lack of education and awareness that to me, feels so easy to bring. The wholeness paradigm, the compassion paradigm to be neuro affirming and I just think it's so important that we know that there are options.
00:39:46 Nyck
Gosh, when I hear you say that and I know we'll mention in a minute about the book I recently wrote, that's coming out soon. But when I when I heard you share it reminded me of a section in the book and in the work that I do, treatment plans aren't really a regular part of it. You know, for folks working with insurance companies.
Right. There are certain loopholes that they have to jump through, but this idea of like when counsellors are reading their documentation, if they were to put their name in place of their clients name with what they wrote.
If it's not good enough for them, then it's not good enough for their client.
And like I imagine right, like if that assessor had their name on this report, there's no way in hell they would let that out into the world.
But somehow right? Like that's not how we're taught to think.
00:40:39 Shelby
Yeah.
I mean, I know we're close to out of time and I feel like going on a rant about reading about borderline personality disorder in 2025 for autistic women, but it's that's the pathology and it's the the old stigma, it's the bias.
00:40:50 Nyck
Uh-huh.
00:41:00 Shelby
And the reality that I just want the world to know that most practitioners out there are trained in an old paradigm.
00:41:08 Nyck
Yeah.
00:41:09 Shelby
And there are newer ways that are so much more compassionate and informed to help people identify.
00:41:14 Nyck
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Right. That understand people as whole beings, not as broken beings who need to be fixed. But like that we are wise adaptable beings who figure out how to exist in profoundly dysfunctional environments, right? Whether it's family of origin or, you know, all the way up to systemic pieces and institutional.
He says.
Yeah.
00:41:43 Shelby
Yeah.
Yes, many feelings.
00:41:48 Nyck
Uh-huh. Uh, huh, for good reason.
00:41:51 Shelby
Yeah, I guess I should side note for folks that don't know why I get mad about seeing borderline on peoples's paperwork at, for me, it's not even a real diagnosis. It's something that's so many people get pegged with who have experienced complex trauma, maybe they're autistic.
And it's so stigmatising it's it again, makes the client think they need fix.
And borderline has been pegged with the story that there's no help for them and it just is so sad to me because it's a misdiagnosis. It's not seeing the complexity that's in front of them.
00:42:34 Nyck
Yeah.
Yes.
00:42:40 Shelby
Yeah, I am looking out our lists and I feel like we've covered 20% of everything we want.
00:42:45 Nyck
Hi.
That sounds about right.
00:42:53 Shelby
I am wondering if there's anything here, something that just really like jumps out to me that we didn't talk about.
That I don't know that we can do justice to you in just a few minutes is the importance of speaking to ableism and that we cannot talk about neuro affirming care or trauma informed care without talking about race and other identities, and maybe we'll do another podcast at some point. Is there anything in this moment that feels important to speak to?
On those points, I know it's short.
00:43:34 Nyck
I guess the first thing that comes up is that like what you just named, because the roots of ableism are actually tied to anti black racism, and this is especially important for for white folks that we need to realise that as we examine and dismantle abelism. We can't do it without also examining and looking at how colonisation has shaped us, how white supremacy, how CIS, heteronormativity, patriarchy, capitalism, how all of them are so disgustingly embedded in this oppressive system, this oppressive, almost tapestry. And so it's complex. And we are all impacted by abelism.
Yeah.
Yeah. And there is, that's like the the teeny, tiny tip of what I would say. Yeah, but yeah, there's there's a lot there.
00:44:37 Shelby
It's just too important to not even mention it because it's intricately and connected to everything we've talked about, so my hope is we can explore that more at some point.
00:44:50 Nyck
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:51 Shelby
And that we're all in our openness to learning more as we're deepening into this work, so we can support people as well as we possibly can.
00:44:55 Nyck
Uh-huh.
00:45:07 Shelby
Yeah.
Well, you mentioned a book a little bit ago.
00:45:12 Nyck
Oh, I did.
00:45:16 Shelby
If you'd like, you're welcome to share about it, or you can sweep it under the carpet. And the other things that people can look forward to when they come find you.
00:45:21 Nyck
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Yeah. Yeah. No, Shelby, I'm glad you're you're giving the opportunities to be brave for, you know, this process has been long from start to finish and.
For me, as someone who's such a slow processor, it's a good thing it's taking so much time because I'm finally now ready to tell people for the longest time, I was like, nobody can know I'm doing this little thing, but yeah, so I have a book coming out March 10th of 2026 that will be published by Norton Professional Books called Neurodivergece, Somatics and therapy.
Oh. Oh, my gosh. What's the subtitle? I think it's an anti-oppressive model for whole person care.
So yeah, that feels like a really big deal and probably of all the many, many brief things I've done in my life. Maybe the bravest, especially at this point in time in the United States with what's happening being so forward facing with the identities I hold. So yeah, that's coming in a few months and then yeah, my website is nyckwalsh.com if anyone is interested in counsellor education programmes or the work that I do.
00:46:40 Shelby
Yes. And do you do therapy with folks in Colorado or consults or anything like that?
00:46:50 Nyck
Time has shifted that for the most part. Now all the new clients I'm taking on are in the helping profession themselves, so mostly your therapist and counsellor.
And I, you know, I offer. Yeah, I offer counselling to people in Colorado. But I also do consulting like professional consultation and because the personal and the professional are so woven together it it creates a little bit of space for me to meet with people in many locations.
00:47:21 Shelby
Beautiful, I know so many people listening have had that question on their mind. OK? Where can I find the website? Where can I sign up? Where can I get a session? Thanks, Shelby.
00:47:31 Nyck
Oh.
00:47:33 Shelby
Yeah. And I really, truly cannot recommend enough your continuing education courses and truly, I I just, it changed my life. It changed me and it changes the way my clients experience the work. So thank you.
00:47:42 Nyck
Thank you. OK, I think you just went up to at least 15 to 20%. How much you shared to circle back to earlier. It's good that my system had all that time to.
00:48:05 Shelby
Totally.
00:48:05 Nyck
To be able to take in some more. Thank you so much, Shelby.
00:48:10 Shelby
You're so welcome. I look forward to more hopefully sometime.
00:48:12 Nyck
Wow.
Thank you so much, Shelby.
00:48:18 Shelby
Thank you so much for listening. If you loved the conversation today and you're a coach or therapist, you might check out Body of Work. It's my nine month online professional development programme land and a community of wholehearted practitioners inspired to deepen their embodied practise of ‘less is more’ while supporting their clients.
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