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September 22
Sometimes the thing that saves you is also the thing that masks your greatest struggle.
Swimming was Meg Hennessey Schofield's lifeline through college—three to four miles a day that kept her ADHD brain calm and focused. When she quit her senior year to focus on teaching, everything fell apart. The anxiety and depression that led to her diagnosis at 21 made sense in hindsight, but she pushed the ADHD piece aside. Everyone has a little ADHD, right? It wasn't until postpartum struggles led a provider to revisit that ignored diagnosis that everything changed. Two hours after taking medication, Meg saw herself clearly for the first time in years—the mental noise had quieted.
Meg is a special educator with a Master's in Severe Special Education and co-creator of the SMYLE program, which blends sensory-based yoga with trauma-informed education. Her revelation about regulation didn't just change her life—it transformed her classroom. When she made subtle changes to help manage her own anxiety, her students with severe disabilities began accessing parts of their brains they hadn't reached in years.
In this conversation, Meg and Tracy explore how chronic stress hijacks learning, why "acting out" is actually nervous system dysregulation, and what it looks like to start each school day with regulation instead of demands. Meg shares her coffee cup analogy for how students arrive each morning and how she teaches both kids and adults to reconnect their bodies and minds through breath and movement.
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SPOTIFY
YOUTUBE
"I need to over prepare to keep my anxiety at bay. I am great when I can control everything... But if you make me wing it, especially wing it around people, my brain is not going to cooperate."
- Tracy Otsuka
"That table only stands because we keep reinforcing it. So the moment we start kicking out even a few of those legs, the whole thing collapses."
- Tracy Otsuka
"Perfectionism comes from feeling judged. It is our way to keep from being rejected and or criticized... If it's perfect, no one can ever say anything bad about us."
-- Tracy Otsuka
"When we're constantly criticizing others, it can make us difficult to be around... Being critical of others can become a mirror for how we feel about ourselves."
-- Tracy Otsuka
"We don't have to fix everything all at once. Focusing on just one or two areas... has a ripple effect and it makes the other ADHD pitfalls feel less powerful."
- Tracy Otsuka
"Perfectionism is not about doing your best... perfectionism is about trying to avoid criticism or failure. It's a defense strategy."
-- Tracy Otsuka
"The more connection you offer, the stronger the relationship and the more positive emotion it generates."
-- Tracy Otsuka
"You don't need to change who you are. You just need to stop holding yourself hostage to who you're not."
- Tracy Otsuka
- Meg dismissed her early 20s ADHD diagnosis as "everyone has a little ADHD," focusing only on anxiety and depression while continuing to mask and overcompensate for years.
- After postpartum struggles, her provider suggested trying ADHD medication—two hours after taking it, she saw herself clearly in a mirror for the first time in years as the mental "busyness" calmed down.
- Found success with Vyvanse kids' dose after adult dose was too strong and Adderall caused crashes and increased anxiety.
- Swimming 3-4 miles daily through college provided unconscious self-medication—underwater silence and physical exertion gave her ADHD brain the regulation it needed to function.
- Could only access focus at the last minute of her entire life, needing adrenaline and stress to complete tasks like progress notes, leaving her either depleted for days or spiraling into depression.
- When she quit swimming senior year, her world collapsed and she was diagnosed shortly after—exercise had been providing the equivalent of Adderall and Prozac for her brain.
[00:45:00 - 01:00:00] Creating the SMYLE™ Program and Regulation-First Teaching
- Developed the SMYLE™ program with an occupational therapist after discovering that starting with nervous system regulation transformed her severe special education classroom.
- Begins each day with 30 minutes of regulation before any academic demands—breathing exercises, movement choices, and guided meditation so everyone can "digest the coffee in their cup."
- Views all behavior as communication, particularly "I feel unsafe, I need help," emphasizing that punitive approaches are the opposite of what dysregulated nervous systems need.
ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.
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- Email: meghenscho@gmail.com
- Website: sensoryenhancedyoga.org
- LinkedIn: meg-hennessey-schofield
