Transcript
Play Big Queen Podcast Episode 29
Welcome. You are listening to the Play Big Queen podcast. This is for you if you are a woman who is an entrepreneur, business owner, professional, leader, or someone who is deeply committed to personal growth, self-improvement, transformation, and living authentically. This is especially for you if you have an invisible disability, whether you are diagnosed,
undiagnosed, self-diagnosed, or late diagnosed, and you are working on reclaiming your neurodivergent identity, rebuilding confidence, learning what works for your unique brilliance while breaking free from small, people-pleasing conditioning. If you are a visionary change maker interested in advancing your leadership and creating success on your terms, and you want to leave a legacy, if you are navigating disability or neurodiversity as an individual or as an ally, and you are looking for a support
supportive and inclusive environment to thrive, then this is for you. I am your hostess, Kate Bailey. I am the Play Big Queen. My name is my title and a command for all women. Play Big Queen. I invite you to claim this title for yourself and coronate your Play Big self too, if it serves you. I am a business and embodiment mentor working with women who are ready to rise the fuck up and be your bold, beautiful
sexy-ass self, start and grow your big bold vision and claim that you too get to have your boldest desires. I am the creatrix of Kate Bailey LLC, which provides coaching services, educational courses, products and experiences that promote success in neurodiversity advocacy, women's empowerment, embodiment, entrepreneurship and business to serve women on their transformational journey.
To learn more about my company offerings and to get on my email list, go to xxxkatebailey.com. If you would like to learn more about my work, my personal values, my mission and my community, make sure you catch the last five minutes of this episode to go deeper and learn so much more. On this podcast, sometimes we will have guests, sometimes I'll do solo episodes, but every single time you listen, you will expand. So get ready.
It's a new era for women on the PlayBig path. Long may we reign.
Welcome back to the Play Big Queen podcast. I am like still processing everything that just happened. Hot erotic messy money just happened live and it was electric. Like it was so good and it takes me a while to like, you know, fully process the things that I experience. the multi-dimensionality of all the things that I was experiencing sensory wise, in community, there was just so much, but like, damn, it was electric. And here is a truth that I want to bring into this episode today. What's really present for me after the Hot Erotic Messy Money experience is
You cannot logic your way into wealth if your body doesn't feel safe to receive it. If your body doesn't feel safe to approach your relationship with money. And so in this episode, we're gonna get into the real foundation of money work, not mindset or spreadsheets or budgeting apps, but your nervous system, your emotional safety.
your ability to stay present with discomfort without spiraling. Because money is not just the numbers, it is a full on relationship. And if your body does not trust that relationship, you will find a way to sabotage it. So let's get into it. I asked everyone in the intensive, what's a moment in your life when money made you feel separate, small or ashamed? And the stories and the shares in the chat were beautiful. I'm not going to share them in here, because of course, privacy. But these stories were a recognition of each other in everybody's slightly different story, right?
The through lines were all the same. We've all internalized systems and experiences that made money feel unsafe whether that was neurodivergence or trauma, colonialism, capitalism. And that shame doesn't live in just our brains. It is deep within our bodies. Something that I feel is important to distinguish every time I have one of these intensives is talking about the distinction between discomfort and triggers.
Discomfort is stretching yourself.
growing triggers our dysregulation. If your nervous system doesn't know how to stay present with money discomfort, then your nervous system will drive you into defaulting into familiar roles, the role of the spender, the role of the hoarder, the role of the avoider or the perfectionist in your money relationship.
In Hot Erotic Messy Money, I shared nine foundations of healthy relationships and we zoomed in on somatic regulation as a starting place because what is so important to understand is that money flows most easily to people who feel safe, alive, and embodied in its presence. If your nervous system goes into fight, flight, freeze,
every time you open up your bank app, I want you to know that you are not broken. Your brain is not broken. There is nothing wrong with you.
And I don't like to use the word broken often. I think it's overused, but like really a lot of people, especially during the intensive, were having that feeling of feeling broken. Like there's something wrong with their brains for having this nervous system. And anatomically, I'm putting those two things together because the brain and the spinal cord are both part of the CNS, the central nervous system. People like to talk about nervous system regulation, like it's totally separate from the brain, but like it's all part of your central nervous system. But no matter which part we're talking about, you are not broken. You are wise and your body has learned that money equals danger at some point.
And this is especially true for neurodivergent people and people with disabilities because we live in a society where obtaining money, growing money, getting money education is so much more challenging if you belong to a marginalized group. And that's basically anyone who isn't a white male. And listen, there are different degrees of marginalization. Different marginalized groups are affected disproportionately. But neurodivergent people in particular, who tend to have a different way of doing relationships, of course are going to have a different kind of relationship with money that's not typical. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or broken. It just means that it's different.
And one of the biggest differences that we talked about in the intensive, especially for neurodivergent people, one of the biggest challenges that come up over and over again is how to prioritize.
When you have ADHD, everything kind of like meshes together, right? Like imagine having a TV on and all the channels playing at the same time.
It's hard to filter. It's hard to understand what to pay attention to. It really makes it difficult to listen to any super important news broadcasting, right? Like it's just hard to prioritize when you don't have a filter.
And this is not exclusive to ADHD. There are people with anxiety disorders, PTSD, other different forms of neurodivergence or disabilities PTSD, other different forms of neurodivergence or disabilities or mental health challenges that experience a difficulty in figuring out how to prioritize. And it's hard to prioritize because your brain sees everything as equally important and urgent in the moment. It may be due to changes in the temporal region of the brain that assesses time or prioritization.
People call it time blindness or priority blindness, but I don't like that language because it is ableist and you could actually be blind and still be conscious of priorities or time. But if you have an ADHD brain, sometimes autistic brain, PTSD, like again, not a therapist, but your brain doesn't automatically sort things into urgent or wait until later. Everything feels like it needs to be done now.
And then you put on top of that the grief for the time that you lose as an individual trying to navigate a system that wasn't designed for you, whether that means like your career was delayed or you started school late or you just didn't get things together in time to like start a family.
Like there is a lot of urgency that comes up because not only are we grappling with a brain that has a hard time prioritizing, but we also are grappling with grief for a loss of time and a different kind of urgency.
And you know, when I worked in the fire department, one of the things that I loved was learning my medical protocols because protocols are essentially an algorithm.
They're like, if you see this, then you do that. If you see this, then you do that.
and it's the list of how you prioritize things, right?
If someone's unconscious, you prioritize circulation, then you prioritize airway, then you prioritize breathing. If they're awake, you prioritize airway, you prioritize breathing, and you prioritize circulation in that order. So what this tells me is that like, although I'm sure there are many fellow neurodivergent humans out there who are like me, who don’t always love authority, but like I have a deep appreciation for structure and discipline and essentially any tracks that keep my crazy train en route to my destination. Structure and insight can be really helpful. Giving the overall big picture and then ways to approach it in a way that helps neurodivergent people can be super helpful.
And also, there is an entire sensory experience and like for my highly sensitive people, my people who have heightened sensory experiences, like not only can it feel urgent and like in the same priority bucket as everything else, but on top of that, it can feel exciting. It can be stimulating. It can send your dopamine into overdrive. And then what happens is you wind up buying something and then later you feel bad about it.
Or sometimes like I experience, especially a lot of people with autism experience this, you might not know your emotions or what you feel in the moment. It might take time to process.
And if you have like a MO of just making sure that you buy the thing out of scarcity to avoid not being without it later, then it makes it really easy to like make a purchase and then later feel bad about it because you weren't sure how you felt or what to do in the moment. And sometimes you can feel frozen because there are too many choices. Again, we’re not filtering.
I shared through the intensive that there was this experience when I was younger where my mom was like, you can have one piece of candy from the store. And I left with nothing because I was so overwhelmed. I couldn't just pick one. I couldn't pick a choice. Like in my mind, if I think back to it now, and sometimes I still experience this as an adult, I was overwhelmed with like bright colorful packaging and like memories of different tastes of things and like smells like there was so much information to process.
I might not know what I was feeling in that moment, but like I definitely had heightened sensory experiences like sight sound smell when I was younger that made some things torturous and other things like super overwhelming and it's hard to like
navigate when you're not filtering those things.
When you have this like sensory assault all at once, it can make you freeze.
And so what helps in these situations, right? Like when we use feelings and not pressure to decide, a lot of people will say, well, you can't navigate the world based on feelings, but like neurodivergent people are feeling people, even if they're not fully in touch with their emotions.
There are so many of us who have a heightened sensory experience.
And so you can ask yourself, will this help me feel calm? Will this help me feel proud or free later?
You can tap into some of the feelings that you might experience. And if it will make you feel calm, then yes, it might be a good idea to spend your money on it.
You can also make mini categories like,
your joy money or your bill money or your dream money or don't touch me money.
Even if it's just like three jars or apps that can help your brain sort money faster to where it needs to go. Another big thing is rituals. Something that I noticed is really easy for me is having a dedicated ritual.
For example, all my plants that don't need to be watered every day are dying.
one that needs to be watered every day, that's easy for me.
It's a ritual. I can show up for it and that plant, who I call herb, it's a fern, who I named herb, he's thriving out on my porch because it's simple for me. I'm like, just water him every day. If you ask me to water herb every third day, I'm sorry, but herb is going to the plant graveyard. That's just how that's gonna go down.
Rituals and routine, especially if you're autistic, might be really beneficial for you, right? So a weekly ritual of checking in with your money or like doing like a check-in with snacks and music and like something that helps you sensory-wise really drop in to pleasure and feel safe.
When it's fun and familiar and pleasurable,
Your brain is gonna want to show up for it more often.
Another thing that you can do is add pause buttons, right? Before spending, ask yourself, pause, do I wanna do this or am I chasing a feeling? Instead of tapping into how you will actually feel if you bought the thing. And then give yourself 10 minutes and if you still want it, go for it.
And then sometimes you can leave reminders for your future self.
You could write like love notes to yourself from your money and say things like, you'll feel so good if you save this or remember like, we want rent first, then roller skates, like stick them on your wallet, stick them on your phone or stick them on your bank app.
Neurodivergent brains are brilliant and creative. You just need systems that feel good and not shamy.
Tough love doesn't really work with neurodivergent people.
Logic, consistency, rituals, embracing the sensory experience and feelings. Even if you're not 100% clear on emotions, cultivating safety, that is what's going to help with your money. It also helps if you have an idea of what a healthy relationship with money looks like.
Chances are if you're listening to this podcast episode this far in, you probably still don't feel that great about your relationship with money. Maybe the feelings that are so familiar are like shame, anxiety, avoidance, or insecurity, disempowerment. All the negative things probably come so easy.
But when we feel safe with money, when we feel
resourced. The ways we identify or describe our relationship with money is more along the lines of grounded, trusting, grateful, spacious.
And when you're not in survival mode and have all your basic needs met, it's really easy to get into turn on and pleasure when it comes to money. I mean, it's a relationship, right?
You're probably not gonna be in the mood to sleep with your partner if you are hangry. You're not gonna have a great relationship with money where you're turned on if you're not able to pay your food shopping bill. But listen, you are capable of changing your money relationship and the truth is, this version of you already exists.
They're not a fantasy. They're a part of you waiting for a safe enough container to emerge.
Think about all the areas in your life where if you felt safe, you would fully show up. And that's really what Hot Erotic Messy Money was about on Sunday night.
It was about creating safety, to name all the shamy stuff, to play with it, to process with the help of music, and to release some of the really heavy emotions tied to
the kind of money relationship that doesn't really serve us anymore.
And the workshop is powerful and it can definitely be a line in the sand and this like moment where you get this embodied sense of what you no longer want to hold in your body, what you want to release and what it feels like to be in good relationship with money. But you actually don't need the workshop to access this version of you. You just need to ask yourself, how does my body want to be with money today?
And then listen to your body. And if you're struggling with understanding the signals from your body, maybe you're grappling with addiction or chasing the dopamine. I had another episode that I did, the addiction episode. It was episode 20 from addiction to alignment, pleasure as a catalyst for connection, leadership, and success. I would go listen to that episode as well because doing more behaviors and activity that spark more serotonin and less dopamine will help you get out of more addictive behaviors if you're feeling confused by your body's signals. Some of your signals might just be confusing as it is.
I know I struggle with telling when I'm hungry and tired. Those are like big ones for me. I grapple with interoceptive confusion. It's one of the things that led to meltdowns for a long time, being burned out and not realizing when I was tired or hungry or whatever. I'm getting better with it now, but I digress. Again, ask yourself, how does my body want to be with money today and listen?
And if you're on a healing journey so you can hear what your body needs better, then be patient with yourself as you take the time to listen. If you came to the intensive, if you came to hot, erotic, messy money, I am so proud of you. If you didn't, I am calling you in. You deserve a money relationship that feels erotic, embodied, and yours…. not one that is fueled by fear, not one that is dictated by systems of scarcity, but one that is built on truth, trust, and turn on. So as you move into your day, ask yourself, what is one small sacred thing I can do today to make money feel safer in my body? Because that is where it begins.
Okay, that's it for this episode of the Play Big Queen podcast. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me. As always, eat the fruit, spit out the seeds, take what nourished you, keep what resonated for you, and leave the rest because ultimately, you know best.
This episode is over until next time, we can keep this thing going. Go to xxxkatebailey.com, scroll to the bottom where it says, join our community, and get on the email list to get all the juicy details about all my offerings and where Play Big Queens play together online, on social media, and in person. We've got a tight community of women claiming their boldest desires, celebrating wins, playing all out, fiercely standing for each other and going higher together. Go to xxxkatebailey.com, put in your email address and confirm your subscription. Once you're in, you'll get all the juicy guides, tips and inspirations and you'll get notified first about all the offers we have for all the big stuff we're doing over here. Go to xxxkatebailey.com to stay in the loop. That's xxxkatebailey.com.
If you like what you heard in this podcast, subscribe, share it with your friends, and if you got something from this, I would appreciate some reviews and ratings. When you take the time to review the podcast, it helps our podcast get out to more women who need it. If you haven't already, head over to iTunes and Spotify and show Play Big Queen some love. Also,
I want you to know that my door is always open and I will always make space for you to be heard and to honor your experience. The views expressed in this podcast are through the lens of my personal identity and my own lived experience. I am a European mix Mediterranean mutt who is an Italian Sicilian, cis heterosexual woman born in New York, experiencing the world in a white body as a multiply neurodivergent.
who lives in a neurodiverse and racially blended family. And like everyone else, my one single perspective comes with its own limitations. I have done personal and professional work around anti-racism, diversity, equity, equality, and inclusion. I am not a therapist or doctor, and any coaching or advice cannot take the place of professional medical, mental health, or healing help. However, that being said,
What happens in my work is often a very powerful additional supplemental or alternative way to heal around identity work, mindset and emotional wellness. Although I am not a licensed therapist, it is worth noting that in addition to being a mentor, I am trained and certified in emergency medicine and response. I have rendered care to over 20,000 patients in the course of my career. I have taught over 15,000 students, many of which had learning disabilities that were undiagnosed and came from diverse cultural backgrounds. I was also a private health college adjunct professor who was responsible for training medical professionals on how to respond to trauma and behavioral emergencies. If you approach me with any concern, you will be met with professionalism, compassion, understanding, support, and a readiness and a willingness to advocate for your needs. That being said, sometimes I just get it wrong.
I am a human being on my own growth journey after all. When I mess up, I'm always available for courageous and crucial conversation that makes way for growth and healing. Your experience and voice matters to me. I sincerely welcome any feedback you feel called to share. You can email your comments or concerns to info at playbigqueen.com knowing that I am open to having any and all crucial conversations needed. Okay.
Remember, you are brilliant. Celebrate yourself. Value your own unique way and honor your own timing. Because you can totally create a life and business that feels good and is successful on your terms. Remember to release expectations of what you think your Play Big process should look like and be willing to do the work that needs to be done to Play Big. But most of all, when you come face to face with your boldest desires, remember to trust yourself and play big queen
Hi, queen. I see you're in it for the long game. If you reach this part of the podcast episode, it means you're interested in learning more about my work, my values, my mission, and my community. So let's go deeper together. I am here to activate neurodivergent women to play bigger and to show you that you are so capable of doing big things and that if you value your own unique way and honor your own timing, you will learn to receive your boldest desires and so much more.
In my world, what makes you different is valued, celebrated, honored, and welcome. I welcome all who identify as female and non-binary folk in my Play Big Queens community. We believe in and support LGBTQIA plus 2S, Black Lives Matter, women's and pro-choice rights, and obviously intersectional identities, including disabilities, neurodivergence, and religious beliefs. Personally, I am pro sex worker rights, pro-Palestinian liberation, against Islamophobia, and against anti-Semitism, and I'm also against any cult-like religions that use beliefs as an excuse to indoctrinate people into abusive, autocratic systems. Like many neurodivergent people, we have big hearts and a strong sense of social justice around here. You are encouraged to stay and play in our Play Big Queen community if you share these values. For those who find the word queen does not resonate.
Perhaps because of imperial associations, the Play Big self archetype can take any form and the invitation and activation remains the same. To learn to embody your Play Big self, to operate from love instead of fear, to go on a Play Big journey in community because you know that no Play Big queen can truly Play Big alone.
To decide to cultivate the courage to use your voice, unmask, reclaim, embrace and embody your brilliance and create a life and business that works with the unique way that you work. Through this work, you will come to know the truth of your brilliance deeply. And as you come to know your authentic self, more and more will begin to open up for you. Knowing your unique brilliance will lead to great success and true belonging. In this world, we take the pressure off and learn to step off the traditional path so you can blaze your own trail. My mission is to get you motivated, inspired, and equipped to get into massive action and go on your very own Play Big journey. My mission is to empower at least 10,000 women to fully step into their Play Big self by offering healing, transformative, inclusive, and neurodiverse-affirming coaching and content.
Through innovative coaching programs, courses, and master classes, we provide the tools, support, sustainability, and community needed to help each woman embrace her unique path to confidence, success, and meaningful impact. If just 10,000 women with invisible disabilities and their allies were empowered with neurodiverse affirming and inclusive communication to express their unique brilliance, step into their authority and autonomy and lead,
the world would experience a profound shift towards inclusivity, innovation, and empathy. These women would break through societal limitations, modeling resilience, creativity, and strength of diversity. Their voices and perspectives, often shaped by unique experiences with challenges and perseverance, would redefine business leadership, inspire systemic change, and create spaces where diverse ways of thinking are not just accepted,
but celebrated. Industries and communities would become more accessible and inclusive with practices that honor varied ways of working, communicating, and achieving. This change would ripple into every area of life and society. Workplaces would become more adaptable, offering a culture of respect for individual strengths. Health care and education systems would improve.
improve centering accessibility and compassion in their approaches and policies would evolve to better support those with invisible challenges benefiting society as a whole. So many women with so much potential are shrinking in the face of their own brilliance, just sitting on the sidelines waiting for permission instead of getting in the game. The activation of the latent potential in these women, their empowerment, making them visible would inspire others, reduce stigma around invisible disabilities, and encourage everyone to lead authentically. Their successes will light the way for countless more women to rise, creating a culture of true diversity where every person feels valued, included, and emboldened to contribute their brilliance and lead with it. If you know you are ready for more clarity, confidence, and you want to embody your play big self and be supported around creating the big vision for your life and business, then send me an email at info at playbigqueen.com telling me why this work is so important for you and we can explore opportunities to work together and make your Play Big dreams a reality.
