Organizing an ADHD Brain

Have you ever achieved something you were "supposed" to want, and still felt like something was quietly off?
On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs reconnects with Lauren Goldberg to talk about internalized ableism, disability pride, career transitions, and what it really means to work with your ADHD brain instead of against it. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.
By the end, you'll have a new lens for understanding the shame many of us carry around disability and neurodivergence, and what it looks like to slowly, imperfectly trade that shame in for pride.
Lauren was diagnosed with ADHD at age eight, but it wasn't until an ADHD reassessment for college that she learned she also had hearing loss. She shares what it felt like to hide her hearing aids, why she initially resisted identifying as disabled, and the milestones that shifted things, ASL classes, learning about Deaf culture, and eventually decorating her hearing aids as a public act of pride. She also opens up about navigating the space between hearing and Deaf communities, and the ongoing messy middle of considering cochlear implants as her hearing continues to change.
On the career side, Lauren talks about how repeated industry shifts and COVID-era unemployment pushed her toward entrepreneurship and why she moved away from digital products to focus on deep one-on-one coaching for neurodivergent clients. She and Megs dig into internalized ableism, toxic professionalism, and what self-advocacy actually looks like in practice when you've spent years masking and shrinking yourself to fit in.
The good news? The messy middle of identity isn't a problem to solve. It's where the real work and the real growth actually happen.
This episode is for anyone with ADHD who has ever felt shame around who they are and is ready to start seeing themselves differently.
Lauren Goldberg is a Career Self-Discovery and Leadership Coach who specializes in helping neurodivergent changemakers move from self-doubt to self-trust, in their careers and beyond. Diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, and hearing loss, Lauren brings lived experience and deep compassion to her coaching, helping clients unlearn toxic professionalism, advocate for their needs, and build careers that actually fit them. She describes herself as a disco ball, reflecting your light back at you so you can enjoy it and shine it on the world.
Website: https://www.laurengoldbergcoaching.com 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurengoldbergcoaching 
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Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start
The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain
You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

When did you last do something just for the fun of it, no purpose, no productivity, no plan?
On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs explores what it really means to give yourself permission to play and why your ADHD brain might need it more than you think. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.
By the end, you'll have a new way to think about joy, mess, and micro practices that interrupt the go-go-go mindset and bring you back to the present.
Megs opens with her daughter's observation that adults forget how to play and takes it seriously. Turning 40, watching her girls gleefully stomp through mud, and eventually joining them despite every instinct to stay clean became a turning point. From there she shares a series of playful experiments: ice skating, rollerblading, hopscotch on the school walk, a spontaneous lunch invitation, and using Command strips to try out home decor without the pressure of getting it perfect.
She connects rigid internal rules, shaped by church culture, parenting pressures, and strict routines, to a deeper fear of making mistakes, and explores how treating life and work more like play helped her run a summer-planning event smoothly despite tech mishaps, stay present with her family, and slowly retrain her body to pause instead of push.
The good news? Play doesn't have to be big or planned. It just has to be real and this episode gives you plenty of small places to start.
Megs has been part of the Mindful as a Mother community and wanted to share something she thinks is worth knowing about. If you're a mom of a neurodivergent kid, their small group might be exactly what you've been looking for, a 4-week space led by neurodivergent child counselors who live this stuff too. Real talk about regulation, RSD, meltdowns, and burnout, in a small group where you can finally stop masking and get into what actually works.
Learn more here: https://stan.store/Mindfulasamother/p/you-can-sit-with-us-
Also check out the Mindful as a Mother podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindful-as-a-mother/id1546749518
This episode is for anyone with ADHD who has been running on empty and is ready to remember what it feels like to just play.
2:54 — Turning 40 and the Mud Lesson 
5:45 — Micro Practices and Shifting the Go-Go-Go Mindset 
7:24 — Family Skating and Making Play Happen 
8:43 — Messy Social Play and the Lunch Invitation 
11:12 — Rigid Rules, Church Culture, and Bedtime Battles 
13:59 — Hopscotch on the School Walk 
15:51 — Why Play Is Really Practice 
18:03 — Home Decor Experiments Without Perfectionism 
19:50 — Making Faster Decisions by Lowering the Stakes 
21:16 — Running a Planning Event Like It's Play 
24:45 — Interrupting the Go-Go-Go in Real Time 
Share your thoughts with Megs!
Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start
The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain
You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

GUEST BIO
Bailey Pilant is a New York and Florida-licensed therapist, ADHD-CCSP certified, and the founder of The Wave Counseling, a practice specializing in neurodivergent affirming therapy for women navigating ADHD, anxiety, burnout, and life transitions. She brings both clinical expertise and lived experience to her work, helping women understand themselves more deeply and advocate for the support they actually need. Find her:
Website: https://thewavecounseling.com 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewavecounseling 
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thewavecounseling
SHOW NOTES
Have you ever felt like your ADHD symptoms get dramatically worse at certain times of the month, and wondered if it was all in your head?
On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs welcomes back therapist Bailey Pilant to break down the connection between ADHD, hormones, and women's health, including cycle tracking, perimenopause, and PMOS. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.
By the end, you'll understand why women's ADHD is so often missed, how your hormones are directly affecting your symptoms, and what you can start doing right now to track, plan, and advocate for yourself.
Bailey explains how estrogen affects dopamine and why that means ADHD symptoms can shift dramatically across the menstrual cycle, worsen with age, and intensify during perimenopause. She walks through why women's ADHD is so frequently dismissed as personality traits rather than a neurological difference, the knowledge gaps that exist around diagnostic criteria and co-occurring conditions, and why girls often mask in ways that hide their symptoms entirely. They also dig into emotional overwhelm, what borderline hormone test results can mean, and why "normal" results don't always tell the full story.
Bailey shares her own experience with PMOS (formerly PCOS), the value of at-home hormone tracking, and how using real data can help you plan supports, communicate your needs, reduce reactivity, and extend yourself genuine self-compassion, through what she calls "experiments" rather than expectations.
The good news? Once you understand what your hormones are doing and when, you stop wondering if something is wrong with you and start working with your body instead of against it.
Previously on Organizing an ADHD Brain — Bailey's earlier episodes: 
Cravings & Cognitive Chaos: Decoding the ADHD-Eating Disorder Connection for Women
Cognitive Chaos: Interview with Bailey (Part 2)
This episode is for any woman with ADHD who has ever felt like her symptoms were a moving target — and is ready to understand why.
3:31 — Why women's ADHD is so often missed and dismissed as personality traits 
8:18 — How ADHD presents differently in girls versus boys due to socialization and masking 
14:18 — How estrogen affects dopamine and what that means for ADHD symptoms across your cycle 
17:49 — When to test your hormones and what to look for 
20:39 — When test results look "normal" but something still feels off 
26:26 — Cycle tracking as a self-support tool, using data to plan and regulate 
36:03 — Perfectionism, self-compassion, and reframing progress as experiments 
44:03 — What PMOS means and Bailey's personal experience with her diagnosis 
50:55 — How to work with Bailey and closing thoughts
Share your thoughts with Megs!
Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start
The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain
You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs breaks down the "deadheading" analogy, removing what's no longer living so your energy and resources can go toward what will actually thrive. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.
By the end, you'll have a new framework for making decluttering decisions that feel regulated, intentional, and aligned with where you're actually going, not where you've been.
Megs shares the real story behind letting go of most of her family's belongings before their move from Colorado to Massachusetts. When she and Adam learned that moving pods could cost up to $16,000, they made a different call, sell, gift, donate, and occasionally discard. What followed was an unexpectedly emotional process of untangling identity, memory, and nervous system strain from the objects filling their home.
She reflects on the time cost of selling, the weight of repeated decision-making, and how Dana K. White's decluttering questions helped her make choices that felt grounded rather than reactive. She shares memorable exchanges with buyers and neighbors, what they chose to keep (sentimental ornaments made the cut), and how renting furnished places freed them from the pressure of building a "perfect" space, and let them focus on what was actually next.
The good news? You don't have to let go of everything. You just have to get clear on what you're growing toward, and deadheading gets a lot easier from there.
This episode is for anyone with ADHD who is holding onto more than they need and is ready to make peace with letting go.
Products mentioned in this episode: Colorful storage drawers with gold knobs: https://amzn.to/3Pxt9oY 3-tier rolling cart: https://amzn.to/3PgYDQm
Organizing an ADHD Brain is supported by its audience: when you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Share your thoughts with Megs!
Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start
The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain
You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com

What if the hardest part of a big life change isn't the logistics, it's everything that happens while you're in the middle of it?
On this episode of Organizing an ADHD Brain, ADHD coach Megs walks through what it really looks like when a carefully made plan meets real life; grief, fear, and all. Whether you're looking for ADHD coaching, a supportive ADHD community, or practical ways to get organized, this episode meets you where you are.
By the end, you'll have a new way to think about the messy middle, not as failure, but as temporary data pointing you toward what matters most.
Megs gets real about her fourth move of the year, relocating from Colorado to Massachusetts after selling their home in July 2025. She came prepared: early packing, labeled boxes, a full week off to settle in. Then the plan met life. What followed was a week of grief, anxiety, and move-related chaos that no amount of planning could have prevented.
She explores why change is uncomfortable even when it's good, how clutter and unfinished logistics amplify emotional overwhelm for ADHD brains, and why regulation in those moments comes down to something simple, reminding yourself that you are safe. She shares the choice she kept making that week: putting down the unfinished tasks to be present with her kids, even when everything around her felt undone.
The good news? The messy middle isn't a sign that something went wrong. It's information. And choosing presence over perfection, even once, even imperfectly, is always the right move.
This episode is for anyone with ADHD who is navigating a season of change and needs permission to put down the to-do list and just be okay for a minute.
TIME MARKERS 
2:45 — How Megs planned the move: early packing, labeled boxes, a week to settle in 
4:39 — When life hits: a friend's death, a community crisis, and Charlotte's hospital visit 
7:22 — Finding home again in the middle of grief and chaos 
10:23 — How clutter and unfinished logistics amplify ADHD overwhelm, and what regulation actually looks like 
14:45 — Choosing presence over productivity, putting down the tasks to be with her kids 
18:14 — Lessons from the week: what the messy middle was actually teaching her 
22:17 — Permission to pause, why stopping is sometimes the most regulated choice 
Share your thoughts with Megs!
Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start
The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain
You can also learn more about the community HERE> OrganizinganADHDBrain.com