The Flourish Model

The Flourish Model is the framework I use in my work with ADHD and neurodivergent women.

It grew out of years of clinical work with women who had spent a great deal of time trying to become better at functioning in ways that did not fit them.

Many already knew plenty of strategies. They had planners. They had routines. They had read books. They had tried harder.

What they often needed was a different way of understanding what was happening.

The Flourish Model focuses on five areas:

Self-Awareness

Self-Compassion

Self-Accommodation

Self-Advocacy

Self-Care

These areas overlap. You may work on several of them at the same time.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness means learning how your own ADHD works.

Not ADHD in general. Yours.

What helps you focus? What makes starting harder? When is your energy highest? What drains it? What sensory input helps you regulate? What overwhelms you? What happens when you have too many decisions to make?

The more accurately you understand your patterns, the easier it becomes to make decisions that fit you.

Self-Compassion

Many ADHD women have spent years judging themselves for things they did not understand.

You may have been told you were lazy, too emotional, disorganized, careless, difficult, inconsistent, or not trying hard enough.

Eventually those messages can become your own.

Self-compassion does not mean pretending something is easy when it is hard. It means responding to difficulty without automatically turning it into evidence that something is wrong with you.

Self-Accommodation

Self-accommodation means changing something so it works better for you.

You might change:

• the environment
• the task
• the number of steps
• the timing
• the sensory input
• the amount you expect yourself to do
• how information is given
• how much recovery time you have
• the support available

Instead of asking, Why can’t I make myself do this normally? you can ask, What is creating friction here? What could I change?

Self-Advocacy

Self-advocacy begins with recognizing that your needs count.

Then you can decide when, where, and how you want to communicate them.

That might mean asking for written instructions at work, telling someone you need more processing time, explaining that a particular environment is overwhelming, setting a boundary, asking a healthcare provider a question, or requesting an accommodation.

Self-Care

Self-care is not only about adding pleasant activities to an already overloaded life.

It includes paying attention to the conditions your brain and body need in order to function.

That may include:

• sleep
• food
• movement
• medication
• medical treatment
• sensory needs
• stress
• hormones
• recovery
• relationships
• workload
• rest
• time alone
• meaningful activity

Your capacity will not be identical every day. Learning to notice changes in capacity can help you make different decisions about what you ask of yourself.

Using the Flourish Model

You do not need to work through these five areas in order.

You might notice you are overwhelmed and begin with self-awareness. That may lead you to recognize sensory overload. Then self-accommodation becomes relevant.

You may realize you have been criticizing yourself for needing the accommodation. That brings in self-compassion.

You may need to ask someone else for a change. That involves self-advocacy.

And you may discover that poor sleep or inadequate recovery is lowering your capacity. That brings in self-care.

The five areas give us different ways to understand the same situation.