Susan Liverman & The Kindful: Mindfulness groups & Autistic & ADHD mentoring

I am an autistic and ADHD person who also self-identifies as PDA and alexithymic. Pronouns are She/Her.

I have a deep interest in embodiment and self-awareness grounded in my own experience of how this has helped me recognise and support my own needs, including autonomy, over many years of practice.

Awareness has given the ability to recognise and learn about wider systematic harms and awareness of marginalisation (which has led to periods of campaigning work related to injustice in the education system around attendance fines) – as well as a personal awareness of how I am feeling, permission to take care of my needs and self-advocate.

I hold a master’s in MBCT from the University of Oxford, and am registered with the British Association of Mindfulness Based Approaches (BAMBA), a standards body that holds minimum training requirements and ongoing teaching standards (including supervision and CPD).

I teach mindfulness from a perspective of sensory awareness as a gateway to awareness and self-awareness. This includes trauma-informed approaches and sensitivity/alternatives to internal “interoceptive” sensing, compassion, care and connection to ourselves and other people.

Western secular implementations of mindfulness include deep contributions from Buddhist philosophy, I feel a sense of honoring this whilst also intentionally diverging from some Buddhist areas and concepts, including expanding conversations on unavoidable suffering. I do hold a depth of gratitude to the ethical underpinnings and safety aspects of practicing mindfulness that I think are important – “first do no harm” whilst being clear that I am not teaching Dharma or personally following a Buddhist pathway.

I also don’t teach mindfulness so that we can get more or be “something else that we are not but someone else says we should be” – thinner/more productive/more conforming and accepting to things that harm us.

Any positive change I have made through accepting myself fully – it would be years before someone would put a name to this for me – “the paradoxical theory of change” – where genuine change occurs when one fully accepts and embraces their current state, rather than constantly striving to be different. This is my deep knowing and I hope participants learn this too.

My experience informs how I teach too – as best I can non-hierarchically and participant led, within safety boundaries and with a sense of respecting our own experience and other peoples.

I offer Mindfulness -cognitive therapy (MBCT) and mindfulness groups for autistic and ADHD people.

I also offer 121 teaching and mentoring. Mentoring is semi-structured and boundaried to differentiate between therapeutic processing. In an initial conversation we talk through what you are looking for and hoping to gain through mentoring before agreeing a plan together.

Mentoring can be focused on topics of preventative mental health support and improving understanding of mental health such as burnout. It can also include exploring neurodivergent identity through neuroaffirming theories, strengths and areas that need supports. My particular skills are practical tools for executive function and supporting emotional regulation.

I have a personal perspective of resonating with concepts such as the neurodiversity paradigm, neurodivergence (Kassiane Asasumasu) and a burgeoning interest in neuroqueering (Nick Walker).

Please get in touch to find out more, or have a chat about what you are ooking for.