Chelsia Potts, EdD: Unmask Your Glory

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Tami Simon

Religion, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Receiving a diagnosis of ADHD or autism, especially for someone in their adult years, can lead to a serious existential crisis. On one hand, it's a relief to have a new understanding of the way your brain works. On the other hand, coming to grips with one's neurodiversity often leaves us asking: OK, so who am I as a person? This was the case for Dr. Chelsia Potts, the writer, educator, and founder of the online platform Divergenthood.

In this episode of Being Open, Tami Simon speaks with Chelsia about her empowering "unmasking" process for recognizing and offering the gifts of neurodiversity. Tami and Chelsia discuss the existential whirlwind that can come with a diagnosis of neurodiversity; the overall utility of diagnosis and labeling; being "gifted and talented"—and also on the spectrum; empathy, intuition, deep listening, and other "blessings" of neurodiversity; showing up fully versus self-suppression; letting go of shame and unmasking neurodiversity; resisting the system; self-reflection and taking your power back; why there are no shortcuts to the lifelong process of becoming who you really are; finding the tools to flourish after an official diagnosis; managing the boundless energy of ADHD; pattern recognition and the autistic mind; owning our personal limitations; the big question: How do I use this gift so that how we live together can be better?; the "unconventional intellectual" and the importance of bringing the heart into any learning process; finding equal value in thinking and feeling; ancestral spirituality; "autistic glory"; and more.

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Sounds True Podcast Network.
0:06.8	I said, I am done.
0:08.4	I said I will no longer be talking about my disabilities.
0:11.6	I will be talking about my abilities.
0:13.8	And I am done talking about the things that disabled me in a world that was never made for me to exist fully.
0:24.4	Welcome friends to our series on being open, spirituality, and the neurodivergent mind.
0:31.7	My guest is Dr. Chelsia Potts, educator, writer, intuitive guide, helping neurodivergent individuals unmask their gifts
0:43.1	and live in alignment with their truth. Dr. Chelsia Potts was diagnosed in her 30s with both
0:51.7	ADHD and autism. We're going to learn more about that. And she's the creator of the
0:57.8	online platform Divergenthood. She holds a doctor of education degree and brings a combination
1:05.7	of academic depth, embodied wisdom, lived experience, and I would say, inspiring, truth-telling to her work.
1:20.3	Chelsea, welcome.
1:22.8	Thank you.
1:23.8	Thank you for having you, Tammy.
1:25.0	Yeah.
1:25.5	Right here at the beginning, tell us a little bit about being diagnosed in your 30s, both with ADHD and autism, and how receiving such a diagnosis changed you. In what ways did it change you?
1:39.8	Sure. So I received my first diagnosis. I received my ADHD diagnosis ahead of my autism diagnosis by about two years. And when I got my ADHD diagnosis, it was after I had completed my dissertation, but I was working the job that had exceeded my capacity. So I always think about ADHD in the sense of you don't, you don't notice it
2:04.0	until you can't handle it anymore or until something happens where you're just overwhelmed.
2:09.2	And for me, that was taking the dean of students position, being 30 years old, and being the
2:15.5	go-to person, and really being overcapacity.
2:19.1	So I reached out and I said, okay, this is not normal.
2:22.5	I began to ask different colleagues, do you experience this or do you experience that in terms of,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tami Simon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tami Simon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.