Blog | Glad We Talked®
Articles on neurodivergence, the nervous system, communication and relationships for individuals, families, educators and practitioners.
- A Short Guide to Therapy: What It Is, Who It's For and How to Start
What therapy is, who it's for and how to start, including creative counselling and support for neurodivergent, multi-heritage and mixed-faith clients.
- How Do I Know What Support I Need? Resources, Courses, Memberships or One-to-One Therapy
Free resources, self-paced courses, a membership or one-to-one therapy? Three questions to help you decide where to start.
- How to Communicate Your Needs When You're Neurodivergent
Working out what you need, scripts for partners, family and work, reasonable adjustments in the UK, and what to do when people don't listen.
- Why moving helps: a polyvagal-informed way for teens to talk about feelings
Ask a teenager how they feel and you might get a shrug. Moving a figure along a track can say what words can't. Here are five reasons it helps, and a simple way to try it.
- What Happens in Your First Counselling Session?
From booking and your account to what we talk about and how you might feel afterwards: what to expect in a first session.
- Emotion cards for teenagers: 7 ways to use feelings cards at home, school and in sessions
Most feelings cards are made for young children. Here are seven ways to use emotion cards with teenagers, at home, in school and in sessions.
- Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar selected to present two research posters at Polyvagal Institute Gathering in Sitges
Two resources created by Yorkshire practitioner Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar explore accessible ways to understand experiences, communicate needs and consider support.
- Before We Call It Behaviour
Before We Call It Behaviour Children of colour, mixed-heritage identity, childhood trauma and those whose nervous-system state gets misunderstood A child raises their voice. Another avoids eye contact. One becomes very…
- Always Chosen, Never Choosing
Agency, resentment and belonging in neurodivergent, mixed-heritage and blended-family relationships. What happens when being chosen replaces choosing?
- When Nervous Systems Collide at Home
Looking beyond blame in children, teenagers and family relationships
- When Nervous Systems Collide
When two people both want to be chosen but cannot always name what they need. Exploring rejection sensitivity, protective responses and steadier communication through the R.U.D Process®.
- Beyond “How Do You Feel?”
Why I created the R.U.D Process® and What’s My State?® — two resources born from lived experience, clinical practice and work with neurodivergent people and families, presented at the 2026 Polyvagal Institute…
- The Person Who Says Less May Not Feel Less
Rejection sensitivity, freeze and the R.U.D Process® through a neurodivergent, mixed-heritage and third-culture-kid (TCK) lens
- Do I Need an ADHD or Autism Diagnosis to Get Therapy?
No. Support while you wonder, wait for an assessment or self-identify, and what changes if you do get a diagnosis.
- Polyvagal-informed activities for young people: using cards and movement in sessions
Practical, polyvagal-informed activities for counsellors, therapists, mentors and youth workers using picture cards and a track board.
- How to Choose a Counsellor: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Book
Ten questions to ask before you book, from registration and approach to fees and whether a counsellor understands your culture and neurotype.
- Rejection Sensitivity and Neuroception: What If Your Radar Sharpened for a Reason?
Why does rejection feel so intense? Explore rejection sensitivity, neuroception, trauma, uncertainty and how your nervous system responds to safety and threat.
- Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy: Support Before, During or After Diagnosis
Therapy that sees autism, ADHD and dyslexia as natural differences, with support whether you're diagnosed, waiting, self-identifying or wondering.
- Zones of Regulation for teenagers? A nervous system approach that teens take seriously
Many teens feel too old for colour charts. Here is a nervous system approach that works for secondary students, at school and at home.
- How to Get the Most Out of Therapy
Honesty, flexible goals, noticing between sessions and giving feedback: practical ways to make therapy work for you.
- Polyvagal theory in the classroom: supporting dysregulated students
A student who explodes, walks out or shuts down is often not choosing to. Here is how a polyvagal-informed classroom can help.
- Talking Isn’t Just Talking: Why Communication Doesn’t Always Mean Speaking
Communication is about far more than words. Many parents come to us saying: “We’ve talked about it a hundred times.” “My child won’t tell me what’s wrong.” “They just shut down.” “We can’t seem to communicate anymore.”…
- Emotional dysregulation in teens: the signs and what helps
Big reactions, fast mood changes, or shutting down. Here is what emotional dysregulation in teens looks like, and what actually helps.
- Watoto Play Receives National Autistic Taskforce Founder’s Award to Launch Accessible Parent Wellbeing Programme Across Yorkshire
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Watoto Play Receives National Autistic Taskforce Founder’s Award to Launch Accessible Parent Wellbeing Programme Across Yorkshire Watoto Play’s Finding My Steady with Glad We Talked® programme has…
- From Quiet Support to Official Partnership: Why Becoming a Patron and Children’s Mental Health Ambassador Matters
From Quiet Support to Official Partnership: Why Becoming a Patron and Children’s Mental Health Ambassador Matters Recently, I was honoured to be appointed as a Patron and Children’s Mental Health Ambassador for The…
- Polyvagal parenting: how to help a dysregulated teenager
Slammed doors, silence, sudden tears. Polyvagal parenting helps you see what is going on underneath, and what to do first.
- A No Filter Day – To Be Seen
A No Filter Day :To Be Seen Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar 29th August 2025 Copyright® To be seen –no filter,no hiding,no more a mask. Just skin.Just soul.Just the quiet courage it takesto show up as I am. No fear.…
- Everywhere and Nowhere: The Truth About Belonging
How cinema, markets, festivals, and memory reveal the beauty of identity, difference, and connection. Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar 26th August 2025 Copyright 2025 Bank holidays have a way of drawing people together…
- How Hard It Is To Do the Right Thing?
How Hard It Is to Do the Right Thing We like to believe that doing the right thing should be simple. If we’re good people – if we go to church, the mosque, the synagogue, or whatever our place of worship may be – if we…
- What Music Unlocks in Us
When House Was God: On Music, Movement, and Holding the Aftermath In my 20s, I got lost in house music.Not just on nights out – I mean lost. In the rhythm. The build. The drop.The kind of lost where you feel found.The…
- Beyond the Four Horsemen: Why I Found Gottman’s Model a Bit Shamey (and What Helped Instead)
Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar. Copyright 2025 When I first came across the Gottman Institute’s “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” I appreciated the clarity. It offered a sharp, research-based framework to understand…
- To Be Loved
Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar © 4th June 2025 To Be Lovedsaid the fish Not by force,nor fear,nor need. But by a gentle driftof open seas,the tender pullof currents kind. A space to be seen,not seized,yet still –…
- The Stuckness of Regret: Exploring Why Neurodivergent Minds Get Stuck – and How to Move Forward
Table of Contents Add a header to begin generating the table of contents Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar – this writing is for anyone weighed down by shame and paralysed by past choices, it offers a path toward…
- Navigating a Relationship with an Autistic Partner or Child – Whether They’re Younger, a Teen, or an Adult: Understanding Dismissiveness and “Talking Over”.
Navigating a Relationship with an Autistic Partner or Child – Whether They’re Younger, a Teen, or an Adult: Understanding Dismissiveness and “Talking Over”. Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar Navigating a relationship…
- Why I Chose a Circle (And What It Means for Glad We Talked™)
Why I Chose a Circle (And What It Means for Glad We Talked™) Written by Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar When I was creating and designing Glad We Talked, every detail mattered – even the small ones. Especially the small ones.…
- Masculinity, Language, and the Stories We Tell Boys
Masculinity, Language, and the Stories We Tell Boys By Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar (This writing is accompanied by the artworks Three Boys Three Boys by Rozemarlin Borkent and Behind the Curtain by Banksy. Together, they…
- Unlearning Independence: Embracing Co-Regulation in a “Do-It-Yourself” Culture
In Western societies – or shall I re-phrase that – modern times? We’re often taught that independence is the ultimate goal – “stand on your own two feet,” “self-soothe,” “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Yet,…
- What Are We Teaching Them? When Boys Learn to Pay for Connection and Girls Learn to Sell Their Feet at 13
Before Its Too Late: Understanding Sextortion,the Neurodivergent Brain & Starting the Conversation. Introduction: What happens when a teenage boy’s or young adults first romantic experience isn’t with a peer, a crush,…