Do you spend weeks putting off phone calls? Or avoid replying to emails for so long that it gets extra weird, and then it’s even harder to do it? Do you start projects, get overwhelmed by all the steps, shut down, and then emotionally beat yourself up about how you never finish anything, and can’t follow through, and what’s wrong with you, everyone else manages this?
Maybe things that other people consider simple—like cooking, cleaning up, making an appointment, deciding whether you want to go to an event—feel so overwhelming that even thinking about them triggers so much anxiety, you spend hours on your phone, or binge Netflix, or do everything else on your to do list but the thing that you really need to do.
What if you had skills to dissolve these anxieties when they come up? That actually work for our Autistic and AuDHD brains. Not make them magically disappear forever—let’s be realistic—but reduce their intensity, so they’re not as overwhelming? So your brain has capacity left over to think other things, like finding actual solutions to the real situations you’re dealing with?
The problem
Hi, this is Heather from Autism Chrysalis. And here’s the thing. If you’re Autistic or AuDHD, you probably struggle with anxiety in ways that other people just don’t get. Maybe you’ve been accused of procrastinating, being a perfectionist, overthinking, or being lazy. Maybe you’ve heard this so often you’ve internalized these messages and accused yourself of the same things.
But I don’t believe any of that. Well, to be fair, sometimes I do want things to be just so, because there’s a good reason for it, and I can think through a lot of the potential issues with something in advance, and sometimes my energy is low, but those are actually different things than what I’ve been accused of. And it’s not just making it sound better, there is a real difference.
The way I see it, there’s always a legitimate reason why you’re not doing something.
The way I see it, there’s always a legitimate reason why you’re not doing something. Sometimes it’s because you have a history of genuinely bad experiences that you’re trying to avoid the pitfalls of. Or you don’t know how to deal with very real problems, and it’s so easy to focus on those, and everything else that could go wrong.
And even when you intellectually know that most of these worries probably won’t happen this time, it’s not so easy to turn off the scenes of disaster playing on endless loop in your head, or the clenching in your gut, or to fall asleep with your mind on overdrive.
The usual advice? “Just let it go.” “Try harder.” “Take a few deep breaths.” Has any of that actually helped you? It never did anything for me.
Talking yourself out of ruminating doesn’t work. Forcing yourself to do things only works for a while, then the resistance grows stronger. Tips for procrastination don’t work, because it’s not really that. And reframing anxieties doesn’t get at the real issue when you have many real experiences of what you’re anxious about coming true.
Can I take a moment to acknowledge that this really is hard?
But you’re NOT broken, or defective, and there’s nothing wrong with your brain.
The workshop
That’s why I created Anxiety Reduction for Autistics. This is a four-module course—that was originally presented live over four weeks—and is now available to you right now, on demand.
It’s designed to help you learn real skills that are neurodivergent-friendly to reduce anxiety, both the practical, immediate overwhelm, and then how to deconstruct the underlying thought patterns that keep the rumination going, and the guilt, and shame, and negative self-talk.
I’ve been through that myself. I’m Autistic and AuDHD, and lived with moderate to severe anxiety most of my life, until I figured out this framework several years ago. At times the anxiety was so intense that I barely left my house for months or years at a time. The phone taunted me. Having one thing planned meant the whole day was shot. Or the whole week, when it was really bad. I canceled at the last minute so often that I lost friends.
But now? I can deal with last minute changes. I don’t love them, but I can deal with them. I can have difficult conversations and not ruminate for ages when I say something awkward. I can deal with sensory stuff better. I can ask for what I need without my anxiety spiking. I can have a technician come to my house to fix something, and not spend the week beforehand, dreading it. And so much more.
It’s often little day-to-day things, but those add up to real, positive improvements in my life.
This is the same framework, and the same techniques, that I teach my private coaching clients, distilled down to their essence, in a systematic way that’s easy to understand and put into practice in the real life circumstances you’re dealing with.
What’s in the course?
Okay, so what’s actually covered in this course?
1. A framework for understanding anxiety that doesn’t blame or shame you, that doesn’t assume you’re broken or that something’s wrong with you for having anxiety. I make a distinction between the pain of the actual stuff you’ve gone through—the actual traumas, the actual circumstances—and the extra layer of pain that comes from how you’re thinking about those situations. Because that extra layer is where anxiety comes from, and that’s what we can work with.
2. How to tell which part of your pain is from external circumstances, and which part is made worse by how you’re thinking about it. This is tricky, because there’s at least some truth in how you’re thinking, or it’s close enough to the truth that it feels true—you’re not worrying for no good reason. But picking this apart is what I’m good at, and this is what I’d like to show you how to do.
3. Eight practical techniques to deal with those painful thoughts and reduce anxiety. These are the ones that consistently get the best results for my Autistic, ADHD, and highly sensitive clients. They’re not all going to appeal to you, and that’s your failure, or a failure of the curriculum; I don’t actually expect you to like all eight. Because I’m providing a wide enough variety so that everyone will resonate with at least one or two. Because if even one or two are helpful, and you use them, even intermittently, it can make a big difference over time.
4. Each module starts with a physical anti-anxiety technique to help you soothe your nervous system, because we’re doing something that’s unfamiliar and it’s OK for that to feel weird, or to be nervous about that. So we’re going to do a little work regulating the nervous system so that you can take in what’s presented in the rest of the class. That way you get a new technique, and get to experience it working in a real scenario. Then we’ll get into some theory—why anxiety works the way it does, and why these techniques work—and then we’ll put that theory into practice with another technique. There’s Q&A time afterwards, with real questions and examples from other Autistic and AuDHDers, modeling how to put this into practice in your own life.
5. Real examples from an Autistic and AuDHD perspective. This isn’t just abstract theory, or just a few tips and tricks—it’s the combo of understanding what’s going on, and practical tools that actually work for neurodivergent brains, and why they work, from someone who has lived this and worked with hundreds of Autistic adults and teenagers.
Honest expectations
Now, I want to be honest with you.
Will this course completely eliminate your anxiety? No. And I wouldn’t trust any short course that makes that promise.
Your anxiety probably developed gradually over a long period of time. And it’s had a lot of practice doing what it’s doing—trying to protect you in the only way it knows how. A few weeks isn’t going to change all of that. That’s not realistic.
But it can make a real difference. Because, when even one or two of these techniques work for you, and use them, at first, once in a while, inconsistently, when you remember, that will give you genuine experiences that you can deal with the anxiety of doing or saying difficult things. And that will generate a small amount of tentative cautious optimism, that it might be possible for other things.
Then you try it with those, and find out that you can deal with those hard things too. Even if it doesn’t always turn out the way you want, you can deal with it, however it turns out. And this creates an upward spiral of success, and you build trust in yourself that you can deal with hard things. And uncomfortable things. And that you can break old patterns.
Even if it doesn’t always turn out the way you want, you can deal with it, however it turns out.
And you start using this with harder and harder anxieties, and harder circumstances, and that can make a big difference over time. This is what got me from spending an hour wandering the supermarket aimlessly because I couldn’t couldn’t find something and couldn’t bring myself to ask a random stranger (who worked there) where it was, to asking, to taking other risks in my life, speaking up at the doctor, replying to an old text message, and all the other little steps that it took to make my life what it is now.
And just 20 minutes before I recorded this, I wrote a really difficult email to someone, out of the blue, that was really hard for me and is risking a lot, but I’m trusting that it’ll be OK. And I know I will be OK, no matter how they react. And I can deal with the anxiety enough to send the email, and I can deal with the anxiety of waiting for a response, before knowing how it’s going to go over. And I can do this, do something else, while I’m waiting for that response. It doesn’t consume my entire life anymore.
This is how it makes a real change in your life, one little bit at a time. Working with the other things that you’re already doing.
Although worries and fears may always come up, that’s life, they won’t be paralyzing anymore. Because you’ll trust yourself that you can deal with them. Because you’ll have experience dealing with them.
The details
Okay, here’s the details:
This is the recorded version of the last time I presented this live in 2025, so you get all four modules as video recordings, an audio-only version, complete transcripts with the slides included, all the slides separately, and all the handouts, worksheets, and bonuses.
Because it’s recorded, you have the freedom to follow along at your own pace. Rewind and rewatch as much as needed. Engage on your own schedule, as your energy allows. With no pressure to show up on someone else’s schedule or feel guilty about missing live meetings. And you can come back months later for a refresher.
You’ll have access for at least a full year, guaranteed, and probably several years. I don’t want to promise “lifetime access”—whose lifetime, yours or mine? Or the lifetime of the website, and how long is that? This is where my mind could get into anxiety spirals, but I’m not going to go there—but I intend to keep this available for the foreseeable future.
This is an inclusive, trauma-sensitive, and BS-free zone. All are welcome, including LGBTQIA+ humans and all gender identities.
And while this course is designed from and for an Autistic and AuDHD perspective, if you’re not Autistic but my approach resonates with you—maybe you’re a highly sensitive person, or neurodivergent in other ways, or questioning whether or not you might be autistic—you’re welcome here too.
And here’s my promise to you: If you give this framework a fair try, try the techniques, implement what’s presented, find and question your painful thoughts, and don’t notice any reduction in your anxiety within six weeks of enrolling, let me know and I’ll refund your money in full. Basically, if you sign up and don’t use the course, that’s on you. But if you give it a fair shot and it doesn’t actually help you, that’s on me. Is that fair?
Invitation
So, here’s my invitation.
If you’re tired of anxiety keeping you from things that you want to do. If you want tools that actually work for your Autistic or AuDHD brain. If you want to understand why you feel this way and what to do about it, this course might be a fit for you.
For more info, and to sign up, go to AutismChrysalis.com/anxiety.
Because you deserve to have skills to manage anxiety. Because it’s okay to need help with this. And it is genuinely possible to make your life more functional and less overwhelming.
If this sounds like what you’re looking for, I’d love to share this framework with you.
Wishing you a neurowonderful day.