Neurodiversity : The gateway to change making and inspirational living.

You Were Built for This

Today, I should be applying for jobs. I should be working on the SEO for Vesta Sustainable Living. But instead, I find myself compelled to share my truth—putting words to the feeling that’s sitting just behind my ribs. To this moment in time I find myself in.

These last few years have been a kind of awakening. It came in waves: my redundancy, the births of my children, watching Blue Planet in 2018, and starting Vesta Living—an offering to the world designed to make change. Designed to create a positive legacy for this blue-green Earth.

And yet… things haven’t always made sense. They haven’t always brought the kind of reward we’re taught to expect when we do something “right.” It hasn’t always been easy.

But today, I took my son to his transition day at his new school. I watched all the support I’ve fought for finally fall into place.

This week, he was officially diagnosed with ADHD—something I’ve known about him since he was born. I didn’t always have the name for it, but I knew. I knew things were different for him. That parenting him required more. That the systems that worked perfectly for my first, deliciously confident child, didn’t suit him in the same way.

As parents, we advocate from the womb. We imagine the conditions our children will need to thrive—and we work endlessly to make them real. For my younger son, that meant navigating systems, switching nurseries, endless meetings, personalised support plans. Showing up, again and again. Fighting when we were dismissed. Refusing to be told he was just “naughty” or “difficult.”

We began seeking a diagnosis when he was six, after I started to understand neurodiversity more deeply. It wasn’t easy. People close to me told me not to “label” him. They said we’re all on the spectrum. That he was fine. But I knew he needed more. And I knew that I owed him everything. That bringing him earth-side meant giving him the support and understanding he deserved.

Last year, I began to identify as neurodiverse myself. My own diagnosis is on the horizon.

And now I wonder: how many of you reading this, those who identify as change-makers, faith-keepers, or wayfinders—are also neurodivergent?

How often have you felt at odds with the world around you? Seen things differently? Been more outraged by injustice? Less able to tolerate rigid systems? More driven by a fire in your belly? More likely to act, immediately, because you just know something is off?

Perhaps you gather information relentlessly. Perhaps your perspective is sometimes wide and all-seeing, then sharply focused. Perhaps you’re constantly seeking.

I believe this is no coincidence.

I believe we are the change-makers of our time.

These abilities—this way of seeing and being—are needed. Urgently. To be yourself entirely, to live in integrity, is the greatest gift you can offer the world.

And please—do not take that lightly.

Just witnessing someone living in alignment with their truth is liberating. And yes, a liberated person may cause waves. They may not always be understood. They may trigger the hell out of others. But when you live in openness and truth, it forces others to look inward.

Some will walk with you. Others won’t. Some will uncover their own gifts and forge their own path. And some will try to project their pain or fear onto you. Let them. But do not let it pull you back. There is more for you beyond the release of the old.

It is imperative to have people in your life who walk ahead of you, who stretch your imagination, who even trigger you a little—people who inspire you to step up. Whether they’re online, in a book, or long gone from this earth, find your expander. Your reminder.

We often grow up learning about great men from history. But women—our stories, our power—are too often left out. We’re told we’ve always been oppressed, but that’s not the full truth.

One of my ancestors, Laura Keene, is a huge inspiration. In early 1800s London, her husband left her and their two children with nothing. She found work as an actress (considered akin to prostitution at the time), eventually emigrating to New York where the stage was more socially accepted.

She became one of the most successful actors and theatre owners in the country—travelling across the U.S., through Panama before the canal was built, by camel and canoe, all the way to the gold rush towns of California. She even performed in Australia in search of her husband (who she never found). Later, she held Abraham Lincoln in her arms as he was shot in her theatre. She created her own arts magazine and toured it across middle America. She was once run out of town. She died of TB in her mid-forties after a life of adventure and risk-taking. She speaks to me. She urges me to keep going. To put myself first. To take the leap.

So yes, back to neurodivergence. I’m not an expert. I’m just someone walking this path. But I want to draw the line clearly between divergence and change-making.

I wrote in a previous article about “faith keeping”—a Native American role, where the faith keeper stays steady, keeps the fire, holds calm during chaos. Holds truth in times of war.

If you are reading this, I suspect you do things differently. I suspect you are searching. I suspect you carry gifts that set you apart. I suspect you are neurodivergent—or at the very least, you carry the spirit of someone on the fringes.

People with neurodivergence often display what psychologists call “cognitive exploration”—an ability to generate novel ideas and question standard ways of doing things. In a world facing massive ecological and social challenges, this kind of thinking is essential. It often means tossing out the script entirely. Disrupting the norm.

We are the ones who can’t look away. Maybe it’s hyperfocus. But once we see something, we cannot unsee it. Once we care, we cannot stop. And because we’ve spent our lives navigating systems not built for us, we’ve already grown resilience. Add that to our fire, and you have an unstoppable force.

There is historical research suggesting neurodiverse people once held vital roles in tribes and early communities—pattern-seers, scouts, people who knew when the land had given all it could and it was time to move on. Those who could find a new, fertile place for the people to settle and thrive.

In all of this, I am trying to say:

Living your life in deep alignment with who you really are is not indulgent. It is your role.

To stifle yourself is to stifle everyone around you. You were not built to comply. You were not built to shrink.

You were built to see.

You were built to speak.

You were built to disrupt.

You were built for this.