Transcription

• Speaker #0

  What we're bringing home here is that a lot of these habits, a lot of these traits have had negative biases superimposed over them. And some of these we have taken with us, have told ourselves that that's the truth, not necessarily the truth. So we need to look at, is there actually a moral or ethical failing here in what I'm doing? And it's going to depend on the context of what you're doing. And all the peripherals.

• Speaker #1

  Good. Drinking tea? With tea drinkers today?

• Speaker #0

  Yep. That's tea. Because after filming an episode about preventing burnout, I promptly hit a skid of burnout for a few days. Yeah, I, you know, like, I hit episode number two. Oh, I never work for more than two hours at a time anymore. Got all cocky. And then got... super into editing and figuring out all the podcast stuff so i went cuckoo for coco pounce doing that kind of like mega hyper focus oh man and then we filmed that episode and we should have gone to bed instead it's still i'm happy with how the episode came out it's not about the quality it's about the aftermath which was of course the point of the entire episode is that we have to figure out where our limits are so that we don't have regerts you And I had regrets,

• Speaker #1

  for sure. What great lessons learned. What a great lesson.

• Speaker #0

  You know, it's like when you think you're doing stuff for other people, but God's actually like, hey, this is...

• Speaker #1

  Actually for you?

• Speaker #0

  Actually for you. Yeah. So bearing that in mind, did you have any fallout from the last episode?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I burned out.

• Speaker #0

  Actually, yeah. Well, because we were taking supplements that we don't usually take. Oh,

• Speaker #1

  brain pills. Yeah,

• Speaker #0

  we've been doing this like three month detox thing. Yeah, so it's the brain phase. And yeah, it hit us kind of hard.

• Speaker #1

  It was like sad.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  it was emotional.

• Speaker #0

  You almost cried one day.

• Speaker #1

  I actually cried. I didn't almost.

• Speaker #0

  Just because you were tired.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I was like, I don't have never seen you do this.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  So, but using, we had our detective skills going, right? So like, okay, this is a little out of the ordinary. Let's ask some questions. And we did kind of trace it back to the pills. So it was, and luckily it's a one week on, one week off situation. So we're in the clear right now. We're both mentally a little more.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, that's what's been going on. Let's say hello to all the listeners out there.

• Speaker #0

  Hey, all the listeners out there. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for being part of this community. If you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe in the place where you're listening while you're still here and mentally present.

• Speaker #1

  What are they subscribing to?

• Speaker #0

  The podcast. So you get episode alerts from your favorite platform. You can also sign up for email subscription. You can get another reminder from that. We're also going to be sending out some helpful content to help you keep the fire tamed throughout the week. Between episodes. More self-awareness, self-acceptance. you know surrendering these things throughout the week to the lord should we identify what the podcast is welcome to the neuro spicy soul care podcast where we help you to turn down the fire and embrace the spice for the glory of god this is for those with adhd high masking autism um if uh if you're diagnosed a long time ago maybe you were diagnosed with asperger's um so they literally call it formerly asperger's

• Speaker #1

  It's like a formerly known as Prince situation.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, formerly known as Voldemort. You can't say it. It's like bad. This guy was a Nazi. That's why they don't call it Asperger's anymore.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello, I am Frank, and this is the host of the show.

• Speaker #0

  Carla Padilla.

• Speaker #1

  Carla Padilla. Welcome to the pod.

• Speaker #0

  Welcome to the pod.

• Speaker #1

  So. We almost let the cat out of the bag before we actually said hello to everybody. But can we peek under the hood as to what are we talking about?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, absolutely. Let's set it up. So we're going to be talking about the situations and the traits we have because of our neurotypes. We can feel bad about them. And some of them are actually morally neutral. So moral neutrality is basically a term that just means it is neither good nor bad. Some of these things are neither good nor bad, but it's more about the situations that we get ourselves into, how those situations feel, how we feel inside, how people are responding to us outside, whether we're getting rejection or criticism or. whatever it is. So we have associations with these things that can feel good or bad, but trying to separate our behaviors from the morality of them. And then also talking about condemnation, right? Sometimes we're carrying undue bad associations and we apply those associations to ourselves instead of just to the scenarios where things didn't go very nicely. So we're going to separate morally neutral habits. and traits from the condemnation that can be applied to us from cultural conditioning or just family upbringing, work situations, school situations, friend situations. We can learn to apply good or bad things to things that are not necessarily good or bad. And then in the middle or in between it all is sanctification. Oh boy. So becoming more Christ-like.

• Speaker #1

  Dropping the big S word today.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So sometimes we have to fight against our natural bent in order to be more like Christ. And sometimes we actually need to embrace our natural inclinations to be more like Christ. Because a lot of times when we carry, wow, we're getting this early. But when we carry a lot of self-criticism, we can be highly critical of others. So the more of these things we can learn to not necessarily like befriend, but just be. at ease with to say this is a neutral thing this is not a bad thing and we're able to apply those things to other people when they're doing something that we wouldn't usually jive with do you think that that we can kind of connect this sort of idea to the biblical

• Speaker #1

  thought that you will be measured to whatever you measure 100 yeah um so that we want to bring back that but yeah that's sort of like some theological goal

• Speaker #0

  Mm hmm.

• Speaker #1

  You know, headway we might be able to probe into a little bit.

• Speaker #0

  Totally. Because if like, let's say.

• Speaker #1

  Oh, we're going to hypotheticals already.

• Speaker #0

  I love it. I think this is part of the setup is just kind of like, why do we need to talk about this? Because let's say you're a person who's just recently coming around to the idea that you might have ADHD or that you might be a high masker. So this was my experience. So this is why this is popping into my head. You might be wrestling with thoughts or you might have wrestled with thoughts in the past that like, I'm doing all the work. Why can't they do the work? Or like, I do five times more mental gymnastics to get this done, but they're just saying, oh, well, I have ADHD, so like I struggle with it. So sometimes we stay doing the most to try to keep up. not realizing that we are actually at a disadvantage that is draining us in like a life force fundamental kind of way. And it leads us to do things that we're not wired to do, which leads to languishing and burnout, which I have had many, many, many cycles of before discovering my neurodivergent traits, was always operating in ways that like I could do, but that were not right for me. So I expended a lot more energy. So you live in this. zone where you think well i'm doing all this work why isn't everybody else doing this work so you keep a highly critical mentality there's a bit of you know i know we're talking about like the main topic right now is like moral neutrality right but like i

• Speaker #1

  think there's something inherently let's say not good a lot of times and this has been also my experience when i'm like doing the most uh is i can internalize like the the fallacy of what about ism could you tell me more about that yeah so what about ism it's sort of this train of thought where it always or it always begins what about this you know um and so it's like keeping the score like on like everything and everyone and all of their actions yeah and like you you know you're like seeing people get away with stuff or you're seeing people slide and you're like you know kind of tweaking out on trying to do the most and then like in your in your head at least for me is like when i hold a really hard line when i am not in a healthy space and i feel that i am wronged by what other people do or don't do So then I rationalize my displeasure or I will wrong somebody on fake, really evil notion of, well, what about all the stuff that I did? I deserve X, Y, or Z, right? This is where the measure stuff coming in. Once you start measuring your worth to what you do, you're already...

• Speaker #0

  You're living in a graceless parish.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, you're already... You've already rolled down the hill. You know what I mean? So even before you start...

• Speaker #0

  No grace for you, no grace for nobody.

• Speaker #1

  No.

• Speaker #0

  You become the Nazi.

• Speaker #1

  No grace for you. Yeah, absolutely none. But yeah.

• Speaker #0

  You said Nazi twice already. That's three times. I'm not going to say it anymore.

• Speaker #1

  As long as we don't get to nine. No.

• Speaker #0

  I'm keeping that.

• Speaker #1

  What are we talking about? Oh, you're putting me in a buddy. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Using the word Nazi is morally neutral. Being a Nazi is not morally neutral. So keep an eye out for that. But first we're going to talk about. Cultural and family conditioning. Not as like strict terms, just as a category that ChatGBT gave me after I typed in my ideas.

• Speaker #1

  We need notes somehow, you know?

• Speaker #0

  Okay. And let's just like briefly talk about how wonderful it is to be a person with neurodiverse traits and to have something like ChatGBT as a creative person. Because as a creative person, you have so many ideas and to prevent burnout and to keep yourself in the pocket of purpose.

• Speaker #1

  Like,

• Speaker #0

  put that on a t-shirt and put it on.

• Speaker #1

  You're throwing fuego today.

• Speaker #0

  So exciting new concept, staying in the pocket of purpose. That'd be a great episode. Keeping yourself in the pocket of purpose. So anyway, ChadGBT, great tool. So anyway, the world can sometimes define good behavior based on productivity and consistency. And emotional restraint and just not standing out, just being like not taking bad or good attention away from other people is just more like smiled upon in society.

• Speaker #1

  Do you think this is like a status quo situation?

• Speaker #0

  I think in some cases, yeah. It's just, you know, and then in families, it can be the sit still, don't talk back to me. Why are you being so sensitive kind of stuff? um and again those are things that like you're you're drawing attention you're not going with the flow you're requiring things that are out of the ordinary that's what all these things are responses to so especially with high maskers and late diagnosed people performance becomes a method of survival so we've talked about we just talked about it at the beginning of the show right like you I am trying to take the temperature of everything around me all the time so that I can gauge what my behavior is supposed to be. And that is so much harder for me than the people around me. And I don't even know that. So I'm saying, wow, I'm willing to work so hard and everyone's just doing what's so easy. And the thing is that you're right.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Because it is easier for me.

• Speaker #1

  There's something just so insidious about that. You know what I mean? Like when you you just said. like what am i supposed to like do act and feel um or perform right so i could fit in rather than being expressive or understanding your your own emotions or any of that that's

• Speaker #0

  that's that's not good i've lived in that right because you're taught through your very keen overactive powers of observation you That those things aren't valued and that they're not important to anybody but you. So you're the problem because it's not important to anybody but you. That's why it's so hard to live masked. And that's why it's so hard to be misunderstood. Yeah. So there becomes a lot of internalized shame because typically what happens is you. express a behavior like let's say you're stimming right like you can't sit still as a kid and you can't help it you don't even realize you're doing it you don't realize that you're shaking the table you don't realize you're making an annoying noise you don't realize that you look like a ditz because you're twirling your hair and they're saying you shouldn't do that and then because you're doing an activity that is expressing a silent need and then you're shamed for that you internalize that shame And it's not shame over the behavior. It's the shame over your need.

• Speaker #1

  That's really it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So you can see how... Compiling these opinions of yourself based on outward reactions can become really, really troublesome, really, really heavy. And it keeps your mask on so thick, which is taking away emotional energy, energy you need to regulate yourself so that you have bandwidth to engage in things that God is calling you into instead of just surviving. So we're just, again, we're in kind of this self-awareness phase. of the podcast where we're kind of bringing attention, shedding light on some stuff so that we can see what is it that is like mental? What do I have control over? What, what could I actually work on in a more practical habit-based way? And then what of this are like wounds and what of this are maybe even family sin patterns? And then what of this is just like, I have crutched on this behavior for a long time. And basically like, how can I ask the spirit to expose things in me in a gentle way, in the right order, because that's how the Spirit does it, right? In a myriad of ways, one step at a time, like, how can I let go of some of these behaviors in such a severe way? Or completely, if they're hurting people, you know, how can I work with the Holy Spirit to heal and grow so that I can be free and that my relationships can be better?

• Speaker #1

  And you know what I think is really ironic? Sometimes, you know, it's what I'm trying to roll back here what i think is really interesting is that in order to figure out what your behavior is actually doing you need so much initial introspection and then you actually need like a community of people to help you get the like all the way right doing that all internally might be almost impossible it's impossible to do you

• Speaker #0

  I mean, by its definition, autism is a profile of traits that is self-referencing. So you're really only able to go as far as you've gone. And obviously, when you're trying to grow out of what you're doing, you have to go outside of yourself. So, but it is interesting to be able to do that with other people who have similar traits or like just traits in the autistic or the ADHD profile. Because even though you're self-referencing, you're doing it out loud together. And so it's built.

• Speaker #1

  You got to deal with your people.

• Speaker #0

  Right. So but that verbal processing and comparing the internal experiences can be validating, right? Like, oh, yeah, like, actually, I feel this, too. So when you've gone through your whole childhood going, nobody cares about this but me. But really, it's nobody cares about this but people with these profiles. So verbally processing in groups. in community is really important. And like really the community between in our house is so helpful because we're able to like identify it because we're like, especially when your parents unmasking with your kids, which is a total train wreck. We'll have an episode on that for a while as a train wreck. And then it smooths out and it's magical and wonderful. But to be able to like, to say out loud in your own home, I'm feeling really dysregulated right now. And everybody knows what you mean. And and then everybody is like, hey, well, like we can we can turn our music down. Do you want us to do that? Or like, do you want me to get you a glass of water? Like everybody understands what that feels like. And we're like ready to support each other, which is really cool. So,

• Speaker #1

  yeah, that's just people serving people in a way that is like purposely effective for them.

• Speaker #0

  Right. And that's what we're saying by like. Sometimes embracing these behaviors can actually make us more like Christ because we're able to have acceptance and empathy for them when other people aren't there yet. And to just say, hey, you don't have to be upset. Like, let me just help you. You know, let me just get you a snack, you know, period.

• Speaker #1

  So yeah,

• Speaker #0

  baby. There's there's kind of like this false moral framework around things that are. productive and consistent and accepted. And, um, but that doesn't mean that there's not actual morality at work and some of the things that we're doing. So I use the example, like, um, when I asked questions to my dad after he would ask me to do something and I wasn't meaning to talk back, right? Like, actually this is going to get complicated really fast. I thought this was going to be a simple example. It's actually very complicated. Oh,

• Speaker #1

  boy. Here we go.

• Speaker #0

  Because when my dad says, I want you to, like, go get in the car. And I'm like, okay, where are we going? And he's like, don't talk back to me. Just get in the car. The question, why do I need to get in the car, is morally neutral. My desire for more information in a situation is morally neutral. However, my father told me to get in the car. And so this complicates things because my objective as a child is to honor my father and mother. Right? So. There's two things that can happen. Because if I ask the question and my father says, get in the car, I don't have to tell you, then I should get in the car. But my father could also respond to me and say, oh, we're just going to the grocery store and I want to get there before it closes. Okay, so this does two things. One is I've closed my information gap. And now I know, oh, okay, dad wants to go to the store. Sure. Now I can hurry. So And now I can honor him with the extra information and actually do it better because now I don't have like the mystery of that missing information. But like so it's like the questioning itself is morally neutral. But if what I learn is that my father only receives the fact that he's being honored if I listen to him without asking him a question as a child, I have to make the decision to get in the car. So. When I grow up, like, let's say you ask me to do something and you're like, well, you're not going to tell me to get in the car because I'll already know what's happening. But like, hey, woman, get in the car. Hey, lady. Where if you're just like, hey, could you like, could you throw my laundry in? And sometimes I feel like that's a selfish request because none of my clothes are clean or like I really I had planned on running towels. But you and I have a framework where like if we need some clarifying questions so that we can do a better job and like feel better about what we're doing, that's totally okay. So I say, well, why? But like if I say, no, I want to do tout. Like, you know, like so it's more at this point it becomes more about a loving response and grace that meets the occasion.

• Speaker #1

  For sure. You know, you started doing like a side-by-side analysis about it. I think that's really, really important. Because at the end of it, right, what we... we start you start branching off into the need for more information doesn't have any like moral positive or negative which is true right but like the the unmet need for that information as an autistic person um is

• Speaker #0

  so now i'm internalizing shame over needing right information right yeah so you're so it is in itself the it it's the not knowing

• Speaker #1

  sort of situation right um we have we have you ran this side by side right uh i could i should have just gotten into the car um that that's how i uh how i honor my my mother my father right and then on this other side just a simple clarification would help me along to be able to follow that commandment right and you know it's it's so it's it's crazy like as parents how easy it is to slip out of that understanding about like okay my kid my kid's doing this thing for a need um and that's because of his his or her new divergency and um just like how much better can i serve my child to be able to listen to me right as a parent right so i'm moving away from hypothetical to you kind of like me and us here because right like your dad had no idea that that you autistic or you know or had add or anything like this right yeah but um but this is for like parents with a new divergent children and it's really hard to draw that line of uh am i serving my child by um right giving more information which is a you a super common autistic trait for children to want. They want to be able to paint what they're looking at, right?

• Speaker #0

  Well, that's also an ADHD thing, right? Because you can't create urgency unless you have a real reason. So if there's a reason, you're actually providing them the dopamine of knowing that they're helping you accomplish the thing that you want to accomplish.

• Speaker #1

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, for those parents out there that are struggling with like, you know, that kid that just asks a lot of questions.

• Speaker #0

  It's not even defiance most of the time.

• Speaker #1

  One, I feel you. We feel you. 100%.

• Speaker #0

  You get questioned to death sometimes. It's like death by a thousand cuts. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  it's tough. But making that effort when you're able to, to be able to invest that social capital into your child will give you returns in just, and we're not even talking about like obedience or like just doing what you tell him to do, but like in overall health of the child. Yes. And like how they're adapting. And how are they relating to others? And, you know, like something simple like answering a set of five questions in five seconds for your child can mean the good really mean the difference between them having a great day or just absolutely melting.

• Speaker #0

  You can scream. Right. Like, why do you want me to wear my I want to wear my ballet shoes. I don't want to wear my sneakers. But then if you explain like, well, we're going to the park. Well, I can wear my ballet shoes to the park. Well, it's the park that has sand at it. And I know you don't like sand in your shoes.

• Speaker #1

  So you should wear the boots. Oh,

• Speaker #0

  okay. I'll wear my, yeah. So sometimes that makes it, but there is also, you can see how much nuance already just in something so simple as the fact that people like a more complete information set when they have these neurodiverse profiles. So what I had to tell my kids when they nickel and dime you to death with all the questions, it's like, okay, here's what I need from you. And if I say. I need you to do the recycling and you want to know if it's because we're having company because now you're excited or if you want to know if the recycling goes out tomorrow or is it full or like, you know, these are legitimate questions. Okay. But I'm like, what I need you to do is I need you to start obeying me first. I need you to make a move to show me that you heard me and that you're respecting what I'm asking you to do while you're doing it or while you're on your way there.

• Speaker #1

  Go ahead. Give me a question. We'll have that conversation.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So again, there's just more and more nuance as they get older is because, you know, because I keep telling them like, there could come a time when I ask you to do something and you don't understand it, but it is a matter of utmost importance because it is for your safety and it is time sensitive. So that's why I always need you to trust the fact that I'm telling you to do something that is for your good. This is just like God, right? Like, this is like... This is like a meta God Lessons 101, right? Like, I need you to obey first. And if you need reassurance through questioning me, I will give you the reassurance as you go and do it. But it's very important that, like, you don't have it backwards. You're not going to have all the information all the time. I just need you to do it. And you know what?

• Speaker #1

  I want to touch on a little bit before we move on from this particular conversation. That every day will paint itself differently. too with all this context is everything oh yeah everything is for sure context so um you know what works for us in this house and how we work it we're happy to talk about you know sometimes that can't help other people and sometimes not right we have you know we have children with a certain set of issues right in your divergence so our kids just to clarify we have two level low support needs kids and we have one moderate

• Speaker #0

  support needs child and her support needs have gone down as we've, you know, discovered and cared for and done all the things. But that's what we were working with on a regular basis. So, so basically I have a list of like a whole bunch of things. We're going to kind of rattle through some of them and then we'll talk about some of them specifically with more in more of these nuanced kind of situations. But the goal is to take this behavior or situation that has some kind of connotation that somebody has applied to it and say, is this morally neutral or is this not morally neutral? And then be able to say, how can I reframe the way I'm thinking about this behavior where I can separate myself from what other people have superimposed on it and like affirm that I am, I'm meeting a need or that I'm not actually doing anything wrong, especially like as you grow up and then you have your own home, you know, I don't have to put my shoes in a certain spot. if I don't want to anymore. If I absentmindedly take my shoes off and they're always in one place, that's morally neutral. Unless, like, you know, my husband really hates tripping over my shoes when I put them in a certain place. And then it would be kind of me to honor that and put those shoes somewhere else. That was not a dig. I'm sorry.

• Speaker #1

  That's usually flip-flopped, okay? So

• Speaker #0

  I... That was thinly veiled.

• Speaker #1

  No, no, no, no, no, no. This is fine. This is fine.

• Speaker #0

  It was just acceptable. Let's just keep moving. Thank you It's just a ready thing. It's a little too ready. Sorry. So how do we reframe these things to be compassionate to ourselves? And then also, how can we also acknowledge how possibly the trauma of how we internalize people's reactions, how do they make this particular thing feel worse to us? So how does trauma exacerbate that thing that we do, either in how it feels or how we do it? And then also... Okay. Are there any legitimate spiritual components to this? So we're always going to start with the practical unless God exposes the spiritual first, right? Like, so, because we can't force God to expose things to us. God is gracious and kind and gentle, and we are just like onions of brokenness. So it's not, he's not going to go for the thing all the way in the inside. He's not going to like, you know, like. kung fu your heart out of your chest and then fix that like it's gonna start from the outside and like yeah go in maybe but like nine times out of ten no yeah yes right some of us just get overhauls at at conversion and that's amazing praise god praise god yes for sure but what really kind of part of the premise of the show why we're taking a holistic approach of like the practical physical like mental, psychological, and then the spiritual and supernatural is because like these things are highly connected. So oftentimes when we, when we work on something in our body, we notice something in our spirit start to kind of shake loose and then it can be more accessible because we're not, um, you know, crutching on that physical thing. So any, any steps toward self-improvement hand in hand with our faith will always yield spiritual results. In my opinion, like I think that's like a pretty sound thing to say. What do you think about that?

• Speaker #1

  I'm not going to argue that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think it's like, you know, like when you go to therapy and you have a tool for something and then you realize that the tool's not working and your response is like way out of proportion with what happened. It's a lot easier to recognize, wow, I think like I'm really being affected by something in more of like in a rational spiritual way where like I'm under some kind of deception that I need to surrender to the Lord.

• Speaker #1

  so yeah that's and you know a lot of that is you know hurt trauma and sin patterns are so interwoven yes you know exactly yeah so we can't just jump straight to being like you

• Speaker #0

  know you have a demon of chaos because your house is a mess you know we gotta we gotta tread lightly with that So, and, and also this is, this goes the same with the diagnosis, right? We can't, we can't be upset with people for owning their diagnosis because that is a first step of awareness so that they can work on the physical and the mental and start to release some of the things that they crutch on and the things that they assume are fixed. And when, when we work towards understanding and resolving things that we now know we have a little bit of like sway over. God can, again, use those things towards spiritual growth. We can start to shake loose some spiritual things. So if that's where people are, even if they're crutching a little too hard on it, they will grow out of it. Like they will like, like when we got our diagnosis, I went so far down the rabbit hole. Like my special interest was autism. Okay. Like many, many, many hours a day of like research and verbal processing. And. My entire meme feed was about autism, but it only lasted like a couple months. Like you have to understand the same Holy Spirit that lives in you lives in that person. And just like, you know, we talk about the Elijah thing. When it's time to get up and get back to work, God will let you know. When it's time to re-groom your feed to have more cute animals and less autism stuff, he will let you know. And you can be obedient to that and walk back towards the middle, right? Christianity is like, I'm going off somewhere, but like, I'm just going to keep going. Christianity, everything Christianity is a set of guardrails. You can go all the way one way or all the way the other way. Like there's grace and works, right? Like a great example. You could go all the way to grace and you could just, you know, have all your bad behaviors or you could go all the way to works and not accept any grace for yourself. The answer is always in the middle. That's why Christianity is a religion, is a faith of temperance. Temperance, not... extremism. So any belief that anybody is espousing that is like a far right or a far left, like not even right or left, right? Just like whatever the extreme is, like biblically, if they're crutching on one side or the other, I would encourage you to challenge that. The answer is always in the middle and it will fluctuate towards one side or the other based on the grace that meets the occasion, right? This is a hard faith. It's based on context and nuance. And that's why we're talking about this stuff. Context and nuance. It's important, especially for all of our brains, because we're constantly detecting context and nuance, context and nuance. Am I safe to stim here? Am I safe to be weird here? Am I safe to like, you know, like sit like this in my chair? Or do I have to sit with my ankles crossed and be polite? You know, like we're doing that all the time anyway. And we have to be able to question those things in our faith and to say there's not one cookie cutter answer. So because the context of the day changes. The people we're talking to are changing. You know, who we are is changing, but God does not change. Thank God, right? Like, thank him. Praise him, praise him, all you little children. Let's get to the list.

• Speaker #1

  I love lists. Lists are my favorite. All right, so we have a list of traits or scenarios that we're gonna just throw out for your thinking pleasure here. Have you ever forgot a birthday? or an appointment or a deadline? Have you ever had a meltdown after being completely overloaded? Have you ever done anything so last minute? One of my favorite lines and most dangerous lines as an autistic ADD person is, if you wait last minute, it'll only take a minute.

• Speaker #0

  Unfortunately, we've proven it right so many times. It's pretty much dogma.

• Speaker #1

  It's not good. It's really not good.

• Speaker #0

  Sometimes it's great.

• Speaker #1

  I'm working on it.

• Speaker #0

  Context, right?

• Speaker #1

  Fine temperance. Fine temperance in this. Alright, come on. Boom, boom. Have you ever needed to be alone? Or have you ever just needed to stim? Have you ever just jumped in and interrupted a conversation? That does happen.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, you missed one, and this is a good one. Task switching or giving up on hobbies or even like switching careers. That could be one that people need to do for.

• Speaker #1

  Or interrupting.

• Speaker #0

  Or interrupting. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  yeah, yeah. And my favorite, oversharing or info dumping. Info dumping. I love it so much. One of my things. And emotional dysregulation. Have you ever been there?

• Speaker #0

  Motionless regulation, being late.

• Speaker #1

  Ooh, being late.

• Speaker #0

  Transitions to get to the right place.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, oh, transitions, hard transitions are tough. Have you ever had difficulty following multi-step directions? This guy right here. Everyone's had burnout.

• Speaker #0

  Burnout from masking, explicitly.

• Speaker #1

  Have you ever avoided phone calls or messages?

• Speaker #0

  Benzie, looking at you.

• Speaker #1

  Looking right at you guys. Pick up your phone. You can text message.

• Speaker #0

  Be closed and avoidant messaging? Are they like a whole generation of people who should listen to this podcast? They should, maybe. Time will tell.

• Speaker #1

  Also, hyperfocus and hyperfixations. Hyperfixations. No, sorry. Rejection sensitivity or intense emotional reactions. The need for routine. Or having things be the same.

• Speaker #0

  I have one more that I want to talk about. The last one I want to talk about is having less than ideally clean spaces. I feel like this is a...

• Speaker #1

  Do you have a mess?

• Speaker #0

  Huge one.

• Speaker #1

  Oh boy.

• Speaker #0

  It's really, it's a big bad.

• Speaker #1

  So that was our list. Our list of traits.

• Speaker #0

  Of morally neutral traits.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. Yeah. They themselves...

• Speaker #0

  In and of themselves.

• Speaker #1

  Are not bad or good. These are just things that happen.

• Speaker #0

  All right. So is there one of those that like really like stuck out to you?

• Speaker #1

  Let's talk about mess. Let's just get to it. Let's get to it.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So for example, so let's talk about dishes and laundry first, right? These are cyclical chores, right? The ones that everyone's just like, why can't we eat off of our own hands and wear paper clothes? dishes and laundry so they're cyclical chores which means that they never end okay So holding, just hold that in your mind. Just like, just reflect on that for a second, that they never end, right? Because what's the number one complaint of everybody who does those chores? I just finished the laundry and now you're saying, I just finished the dishes. No, you didn't. You'll never finish the laundry and you'll never finish the dishes. And that sounds discouraging, but it's actually not. And I'm going to tell you why. Because if you have underwear and you have socks. You could get dressed today. All your people got dressed today. Your laundry is adequately done. Okay? Period. Full stop.

• Speaker #1

  It just takes the right amount of spoons.

• Speaker #0

  If you have dishes to eat off of, even if those are paper plates, guess what? You did it. It is okay. Right? So there are a couple things that happen. Right? We transition into our first apartment. We're trying to learn our own structures, which is impossible. We're trying to form our own habits, which doesn't really happen, right? It's just like we're just kind of like a mess when we're young adults and on top of like just all the change, right? So much change. And then our parents come to visit us, right? And we either hyperfixate and clean everything up super fast and then it's done or they sneak up on us and we're not ready for them and our dishes aren't done and our laundry's not done. And it's like. oh my gosh, I can't believe you live like this. Look at this huge, you have too many clothes, you should get, and there's like all of this stuff, right? So there are these judgments being made, right? Like, should you do your laundry? Yeah. Should you do your dishes? Yeah. But it's hard to separate from like, this is something I did because my parents told me to do because like, I had to honor them by doing it when they said to like, I have to figure out how to live my life and have it be manageable and also like not spend all my time and energy doing just required chores and nothing of value, like a purpose, right? Like I'm not saying there's no value or purpose in doing those things. I'm just saying like if that is not your, if what does not drive you to wake up in the morning is not dishes and laundry, then... You don't want to spend all your time and energy trying to take care of that, right? In this kind of like obsessive loop of like, I just have to get it done because it's the best thing for me to do, right? Here we run into literal thinking again, right? The best thing for me to do is to have me do it the extra most bestest, right? You're not Little Caesar, okay? Like, you just got to do what you can do. You know, like you can't be crazy bread all the time. You just got to get your $5 take and bake pizza. Like you get your $5 pizza and get out. Don't get cute with it. Don't get the garlic sauce. You don't need to do all that, right? Like sometimes chores is just like, these are things I have to do, right? And depending on, again, what fits the occasion, who is living in your house, right? Like if you're living. in your in-laws house like sorry but you have to honor their rules right like that's the loving thing to do also there's communication involved right like if you're all adults and you're having a week where you're just like you have to communicate that yeah right so part of alleviating the burden of these things is we have to communicate with the people who don't understand where we're coming from and that's one of the hardest things but um Part of sin is stuff that interferes with our relationships with others. So if we're refusing to have these conversations with people because either we think they should just understand it or we think that, like, it's too embarrassing, that and we become, like, because shame and pride are the two sides of the same coin, right? So for holding those things, that's getting in the way of our relationships and that can become a problem. But again, not being 100% on top of your dishes and laundry is morally neutral. So, like, in our house, you know. launching all these new things, doing things that we have never done before, right? Like, we had one of those weeks where I was like, okay, Frank needs a load of laundry, and we need a bunch of chonies and socks. And that's all I'm doing this week, right? So there is, like, a small molehill of laundry at the back door, like, where our laundry is. There's a whole bunch in the closet. But, like, I tend to kind of go in spurts with chores like that. When you preserve your energy properly, I find that... There are these little waves that happen where like all of a sudden I'll look around and be like, ooh, I really just want to knock out all these chores today. And I'll spend two and a half hours and I will be like at peak performance and it will just all get done. Yeah. It might happen every three or four or five weeks, but when it happens, it catches everything back up. So we tend to be more of like a let's pick up so that we can manage our level of sensory overload, right? Tune dishes, sensory overload. Like if they're all over the counter and in the sink, we don't feel good. It doesn't feel good to go to bed. It doesn't feel good to wake up in the morning. So really, I would say dishes is like our big chore that we try our hardest to keep up with. But it's because it serves us. as individuals, as a couple, and as a family. So what is the most loving way to do this, right? Bearing in mind my own limitations, the limitations of the people that I'm living with, and how can I shed? I used to be like, well, we can't have people over because it's a mess in here. So that shift, there might be a shift that happens where you say, why can't I invite? people into my home when it's not pristine. Why can't I practice scruffy hospitality? I want to have a whole episode about scruffy hospitality. If you haven't read the book, The Gospel Comes of the House Key by Rosaria Butterfield, do yourself a favor and like look into it. Such a good book. Follow me here. ADHD people, people with autistic profiles need like community. We need, we need people. And if we're living under this condemnation that we can't invite somebody into our home unless it's clean, and that is a constant struggle for us because it's been a struggle for us since we were in our early 20s, we will never invite people over. We'll be more isolated. And that's not what God wants for us. It's almost more relaxing to go to somebody's house when it's not super clean. Depends who you are, right? But, like, for me, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, this person isn't trying to, like, be fake and, like, put on all the things. to make themselves look good. And that makes me feel like even personally, I don't have to put on all the things. There's just, there's something about that, that like just telegraphs, it's okay to be yourself here because this is my actual life. This isn't a fake life that I've curated. So again, it's morally neutral. And in some ways it can be encouraging to people to not keep a hyper pristine house. Okay. Doesn't mean like you have to live like a pig, but it doesn't mean that you have to call yourself a pig just because your dishes aren't done. So much nuance.

• Speaker #1

  So we talked about being messy. We talked about sort of like how it can pile shame on you. And we definitely talked about the trauma that can come with that. So.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. Ooh, let me add one more thing. So before we move on from this, thank you for like bow tying that so well. So the last part we're going to talk about is possible spiritual implications. there have been times where our house has been so messy for so long and then the kids start to behave in some kind of way like maybe you've experienced this where like we have actually like bound a spirit of chaos and cast it out of our house and like almost like rededicated our house to the lord sometimes that's like necessary but that's like something that you feel out you know what i mean it's not necessarily like spirit of chaos first But like, but like if, if you have been feeling like you are trying to clean your house and you just, there is something in your way every time you do it, or it's like you clean something and it's almost like messier when you're done. Like, you know, and you know what? I'm going to caveat this too. You don't always have to jump to a spiritual thing, but if you pray against a spirit and it's not there, nothing is hurt. If you pray against the spirit and it is there, guess what? You just helped your situation. So it's always okay to do that. We just have to be careful when we do that with other people because that could hurt their feelings. Right? And it's not always about feelings, but also you just have to know that's a dynamic, right? It's context and it's grace if it's the occasion. You can pray for that on your own if you're praying against somebody else's spirit and see what happens. But you can always pray against anything that's affecting you.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I think a good way to measure that. is the rule of of spirit and truth right like you can't just pray your house to just magically get yourself clean right yes you can't there's like a physical component to it so you know what we're what we're saying is it will not hurt you to pray for alleviation from that mess for god to bring order yeah to have god yeah exactly for god to bring order into your life and see. your work not be so futile you're so futile and see and feel and know that god with through the spirit is helping you organize your house you know having that spiritual awareness that um there's more to the physical nature obviously of this plane as as believers of christ that's that's the paradigm yeah um it's good to be engaged in both yes in spirit and in truth and what i would consider the spiritual realm and the physical realm yes right our actions need to come into alignment with what we're asking god to yeah and and that's one of the things that i was kind of trying to to um to focus in right we talked about the trait we talked about the the issues that kind of arise like the shame or the condemnation You know, we've talked about just having a messy house has no real moral, or having a mess has no moral implication. It's not going to make you a bad person. It's not going to make you a good person. It is just a mess, man. We've talked about the trauma that comes along with it. And now we're just starting to get to just kind of reframing. How do we get from mess to... to... to order when it's necessary.

• Speaker #0

  Right.

• Speaker #1

  Right.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And really it's about what is God leading you to do? You know, cause there, there are seasons where like, like right now, like we're, we just can't be pristine right now. Like, but we've had seasons where it's been squeaky clean and it's been so good. It's felt so good. And it helps, it allows other things to happen more easily. And I think that's another thing I want to address next. The idea of feeling like you don't have follow-through or feeling like you're you're giving up on something whether that's a hobby whether that's like a career path or anything that traditionally requires some kind of commitment and people would ask you about and then you would be able to tell them about progress and follow through in that area so what can happen with this is like so let's say you start crocheting and you get like halfway into doing a scarf and then you're like oh my gosh I really want to start using polymer clay I want to make miniatures and you go ahead and you do that thing and then you you don't touch your crochet for six months and like people are like oh how's the crochet going and you're like doing that and then after a while you kind of develop this reputation for being like like oh what are you up to this time or like what are you doing now or like people just like automatically know you're doing something new or that you like you gave up on the thing and switching interests and hobbies is morally neutral. Okay. However, right. Is there a moral implication? No, not to the initial thing, right? Not to the fact that you have an interest-based nervous system, not to the fact that you got tired of one thing and you want to do another. There is no moral implication to that. However, if like, let's say you have a whole closet full of crafting supplies. And you have, like, a major credit card bill. But when you get stressed out about money, you're like, oh, well, I could just spend $20 on craft supplies and that won't make a big difference. Like, there can be avoidant behavior in, like, our hobbies and our interests. Also, like, let's say somebody loans you money to start a new hobby or, like, helps you float your new business, right? So there are instances where, like, other people are involved, right? A lot of the things that we need to work on are in order to make our relationships better. It's not the things itself we need to work on. It's we want to make sure that these things do not get in the way of our relationship with God. Right. We don't want to have like, I'm so inconsistent. I this was a track that I used to play. This was like a thing that was always in my head. Like, I'm so inconsistent. I'm so inconsistent. How consistently inconsistent. The one thing you can be consistent at is being inconsistent. And I would get so bad at myself. But what I started to realize is that my condemnation would actually make me quit harder. And it would make me start to withdraw from people. Because now I don't want to tell you about what I'm doing. Because I'm going to see that look in your eye when I tell you I'm not doing it anymore. And that's going to embarrass me. So now I'm not engaging with people about the things that I care the most about. the things that I'm really interested in right now, the things that are a big part of my brain space in my life right now, I'm not telling people about because I'm going to be embarrassed about it in three weeks. that's getting in the way of my relationships. There can also be like just this fear of being seen as unreliable. And yeah, and it just makes you feel like you can't be taken seriously sometimes. You know, there's other things that I've done where I've like started to promote it and then like I burn out of it and I can't do it. I did this music contest and I had to like post on social media all the time. I hated that. I hated it so much. Um, hated it. But it was a great learning experience. Did I want to just hop up and do it again? No, I didn't. The trauma that can exacerbate that and turn it into something that's problematic is just like the way you can feel people perceiving you as you're trying to be vulnerable and be honest. And then you don't want to be vulnerable and be honest anymore. But if you have friends who do similar things, like there's a couple of things you notice. One is obviously you're not going to be rejected by people who understand it. You're just like, yeah, you know, like. You're good at a lot of things or you like to try a lot of things or whatever. There's also nothing actually like morally good or bad about having a closet full of art supplies, right? Like if you're hoarding them, okay, that's a problem, right? If you're secretly proud of the fact that like, you know, you have all the stuff you're supposed to. I don't know. There could be weird art things that creep in.

• Speaker #1

  Be really proud that you have green.

• Speaker #0

  Something. Okay. But there's like a weird thing with art supplies. You feel rich when you have. i'm telling you drop a comment in the chat like new underwear new socks and fresh craft and organized and and office supplies make you feel rich it's like a type of currency that is unmatched like if i have an organized drawer of one of those things it is like the most beautiful thing it is so wonderful please tell me tell me somebody out there you drop me a comment make it a five-star comment be like heck yeah i love my office supplies i love my craft supplies and it makes you not want to open them and that's a problem because then you're squandering the things that god's providing you so that is uh the definition of hoarding the definition of hoarding yes exactly so we do need to you know what i have a really sad story i asked for one of those grow your own crystal kits for christmas when i was in like third or fourth or fifth grade and um i got it for christmas And I was super excited. And I was like, I'm going to see this for like such a special time. And I feel like this is definitely a neurodivergent thing. I've had many conversations with people about this. And like two days after, like right after Christmas, the first day we could have had a snow day, we had a snow day. And so we stayed home. My mom was like, why didn't you do your crystals today? And I was like, I just couldn't. I was like, I don't know if it's special enough, y'all. Every day is special enough for your most special dishes, for your most special craft supplies, for your most special shirts. Wear and do all your favorite things as much as you can. Because there's nothing morally negative about doing that.

• Speaker #1

  Yep.

• Speaker #0

  Shh, quiet you. I love you. Quiet fish. all right so no but seriously though like marie kondo got something right she really did if it makes you happy i know it's so hard to not be legs back anyway yeah it's like the echolalia thing though this is another thing we're going to talk about when you feel super culturally inappropriate but really it just feels so good to say something it's like those are like the in-house stims you know like that's all i'm going to say Yeah, but switching tasks. And I think I like to we're going to talk more about this, too, in terms of like vocation and calling and stuff like that. But I find that just like interests, like your biggest passions will continue to resurface. And if you don't feel shame over moving on from it, you won't be embarrassed to go back to it. So letting go of that, I think, is really important, especially for creative neurodivergence, especially for entrepreneurs. especially for artists and musicians, it can feel like, oh gosh, like I remember last time. Who cares if God has put that thing in you and you can't stop thinking about it and you're just like ashamed of it? That's not for you. Shame's from the devil. Get rid of it. Kick it out. Go back and do the thing that you want, okay? That connotation has been structured by the devil to keep you from doing things that are meaningful and that... God has intention for, that he has a plan for. So just... A little encouragement, like, please, please do not feel condemnation about switching up your tasks or switching up your focus. I tend to have... like a focus of like it probably it's like maybe like monthly or like every two months it might change like I am working on a musical with some friends we worked on it pretty consistently for like a bunch of months and now we meet like once once a week ish for like an hour ish if that happens and we're all creative and we're all working on a lot of different things so we're just kind of holding excitement for all the things that we're all doing and able to say it's not that we're not committed to this we're just committed to a lot of things we care about a lot of things and we work best on this when we have our full attention on it and we know that because we care about it we will come back to it but we don't have to feel like oh we didn't hit our deadline or oh we didn't it's like they're all self-imposed right that's the hardest part about restructuring a uh a neurodivergent life is that like you have to set your own your own pace and your own bars you Um, knowing that some of these things are morally neutral, it's just a matter of, does this work for me? Or do I need to kind of wear the mask in this area? Do I need to conform in this area because it's best for my relationships or because I really need to for my job? Or, you know, like you, you have to decide those things like what is needed so that more bandwidth is available for, um, purpose, purpose-driven and soul nourishing, um, activity and space for God to work with us.

• Speaker #1

  you know um something did strike me about this is that there there are some ways task switching or hobby switching i think is pretty unhealthy if you are doing it in order to fit in or to buy yourself some sort of social capital i think i see this a lot i think more recently where there's almost like these social media driven you fads in like hobbies that come in and out and people kind of just follow that rather than seek it for its own enjoyment sake and some people wrap around being like a part of the crowd that's doing the thing at the time you know what i mean yeah that's kind of an interest in itself and well yeah but you said it's about the intention but yeah yeah there's it again we're with the intention i think One of like, one thing that's helped me to view my actions as aligned with the things of God or not is this like a multi-step sort of Polinko system I have. So the first thing is, does it arise out of me or someone else, right? That's one. And then the second question out of that is, if it arrives out of someone else or outside of my body, does this thing... make me more isolated and not like physically some of these things may bring you to crowds what i mean make make you more isolated make the person who you really are isolated the person under the mask that you might be wearing will be hurt by how successful that mask is you know what i mean so like

• Speaker #0

  if I buy myself a motorboat and I take my friends out water skiing but I can't stand the sound of the engine yeah and then I go home and I'm mean to my spouse because I was so overstimulated from taking them water skiing because I saw it on tiktok which is absolutely ridiculous yeah if if if you your attempt at conformity or like trying to make friends to win friends yeah right because that's that was part of the the autism test right was like how do you know your friends and what was my answer oh i do these things with my friends we do the same things together we have the same you know so it's like there can be this conflation of like if if i can if i can spend time with this person without feeling uncomfortable then they're my friend yeah so that yeah that can be misleading so that

• Speaker #1

  That two-step sort of situation, you know, if it comes within myself or, you know, from somewhere else, and does this make the person who I really am more isolated? Then I think I feel I have a better grasp on whether this thing that I'm doing, this trait or this propensity that I have is aligned with God or not.

• Speaker #0

  Do you have an example of that, like for yourself? For myself. Something you've participated in that you realized wasn't aligned?

• Speaker #1

  like um oh you know golf golf okay yeah let's talk about golf real quick i like the idea of golf I think golf is a great place for men to make more friends, to create a community, right? Like, I think it's great. I don't like playing golf. I like golf courses. I like cart. I like gear. But the playing of the golf, I don't like.

• Speaker #0

  So let me pause right there. What has been your evolution of your relationship with the game of golf?

• Speaker #1

  Oh, I wanted to play it so desperately. And then I got a great way to meet friends or whatever.

• Speaker #0

  And what inspired that?

• Speaker #1

  I don't know. Seeing people. I don't know. Other people.

• Speaker #0

  Okay, so it didn't originate from you.

• Speaker #1

  It didn't originate from me.

• Speaker #0

  So that checks your first box.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it made me more frustrated. I didn't make any more friends. Aww. No. I mean, I won't go play golf later in my life, but.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  I mean, I'm not.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, you still have a really nice bag.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, I know. It's so stupid.

• Speaker #0

  But we don't have to be ashamed of that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? Maybe you're a lawyer one day, and you know what? It's nice and quiet on the golf course, and there's a lot of space, and maybe there comes a time where you like. So what is it that, like, was it something that, like. From a sensory standpoint or something from like a mental standpoint that was like not.

• Speaker #1

  I don't like movements. I don't like golf. I don't like swinging a golf club like you're supposed to swing a golf club. It's unnatural and it feels weird. It's like if for like the one out of like 100 times you actually do it right and it works. It's amazing. Yeah. But like in and itself is like, it's not swinging like a baseball bat. It's not swinging at a tennis racket. It's, it's none of that, you know? Yeah. No, I just didn't like the feedback of it.

• Speaker #0

  That's interesting. I never really knew that, but you were doing that before we went through the, the testing process, like not like, not like right before, but like, so that's something that was a very good example of that because we just didn't know. Yeah. The tap switching is. that you can and also i i used to have this track in my head of um tripping at the finish line like there's that adhd thing where when you get 80 of the thing done those last few details become the hardest details and um instead of internalizing the shame of not being able to do it all ourselves right as somebody who's like you know the high ask high masking autism profile you and the ADHD profile, a lot of us are autodidacts, which means that we can teach ourselves stuff. So we feel all of this potential in us, right? We have all of these skills. Like I used to really resonate with the idea of that television show, The Pretender.

• Speaker #1

  Oh my gosh. I haven't thought about that TV show in forever.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. Because I always felt like I could probably, like I probably could do that. Like, if you gave me, if you locked me in a room with, like, YouTube and, like, the materials, like, I could probably figure, like, 70% of stuff out.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, quick, quick, grab it. Do you think, like, high masking autistics make for really good spies?

• Speaker #0

  Oh, yeah. You could mask your butt off.

• Speaker #1

  Oh,

• Speaker #0

  man. Well, yeah. And also, like, I think, you know, all performing is just masking because you have, like, a persona. Like, Now, Jim Carrey, right? Go look up Jim Carrey's testimony. I want to watch it. But, like, I've heard him say, like, even, like, Jim Carrey as his celebrity persona was a mask. So you learn what people like and you just figure it out, right? Like, and it's pretty easy to tell what people like pretty quickly. Like, the social nimbleness. Like, I used to, I remember in high school, I would absolutely pride myself. on my amalgamation of my personality i would be like i have this person's fashion i have this person's laugh i have like this person's like i toss my hair like this person i literally did that like i'm gonna booty toosh like this person like absolutely what ridiculous i'm sorry run that back run run that back if you know you know okay it was the early 2000s anyway i was like you know those okay 90s girls 90s girlies That fashion thing where you got to pick the head and then you got to pick the shirt and you got to pick the bottom and then you'd scrape the crayon over it and it would make the thing. And you could change it whenever you want. Make it be like a little more this or a little more that. I played sports. I liked fashion. And I was an artsy girl. So I just like would go round and round and round with all the combinations. Oh, now I'm vibing like this. Now I'm vibing like that. Now I look more this. Now I look more that. Like I knew how to like tweak. Like, down to, like, how many buttons and how many tendrils. Like, it changes the vibe. And you learn that, like, as, like, there's something about that high masking girly profile. We just know how to do it. And you can ask any of us. And we're like, oh, yeah. That's why it's so tiring. Because you know how to do everything. So you're like, well, what should I do?

• Speaker #1

  You're doing it in a falsehood. Yes.

• Speaker #0

  But you don't know you're doing it in a falsehood. You think that's what everybody's doing. It's just so weird. It's so weird to look back at like what I thought was just like a normal part. Or you think you're like some savant and you're like seeing, you're like playing 4D chess. So there's this weird pride and shame or two sides of the same coin. Right. So you feel weird and you feel other, but you also feel like superior and like above it all in a weird way because you're just like. I see how stupid all this stuff is. So behind closed doors, like, it's just, my sister and I have all kinds of conversations like this, but, but it's like, this is part, I'm being vulnerable here because this is not like, this is not necessarily how I view things exactly now because I've let go a lot of my self-criticism, which has allowed me to let go of a lot of my criticism of others and to understand that like, you know, people cope in all kinds of different ways and we're just trying to live, right? we're just trying to live we're just trying to figure out what jesus wants us to do and it's messy and we learn stuff in different orders so it's okay to just allow people to be behind in a way that you're ahead you know that's okay and it's okay to be behind someone else in the way that they're ahead and we don't have to feel bad about that a lot of weird pivoting in this episode but i like it wrapping it up so We've rattled off the list, right? We've talked about a couple that have quite a bit of nuance that I think affect probably most of us. But really what we're bringing home here is that a lot of these habits, a lot of these traits have had negative biases superimposed over them. And some of these we have taken with us and we have told ourselves that that's the truth and they're not necessarily the truth. So we need to look at, is there actually a moral or ethical failing here in what I'm doing? And it's going to depend on the context of what you're doing and all the peripherals of the people and the time. And what is it that God has asked you to do in this moment? Those are the peripherals. So we have to consider that. Do I have a thing that happened in my past that is making this feel worse? Or do I have a thing in my past? that has told me that like i need to rely on this activity so for example if we are down a rabbit hole hyper fixating on something or like we have our special interest that comforts us is it something where it's the only thing that can comfort you that's a problem right but is it because when you were a kid and you got yelled at this was the only thing that would make you feel better okay having trauma is is not like morally your fault right like and even reacting out of that You know what I'm saying? Like having trauma responses is not your fault. We have to look at those things as God brings them up to us and he nudges us that sometimes we have to temper these responses and we have to offer them to God until he heals us of them. So that's very tricky, right? But just keeping in mind, like I might have to take a couple minutes away when I notice this feeling happen in my body. And let it die down a little bit before I make the decision of how I'm going to interact with the person or how I'm going to interact with a substance or whatever it is. And then also we need to be able to reframe those things. We need to be able to say things like, you know what, my nervous system hit a limit and I really need alone time. So even though like I made plans with this person, I have to say, I'm so sorry, I have to cancel. That is not morally bad. Okay. If a person has a. hard time keeping a relationship with you because of that, then you have to address that in like, in a respectful way. And you got to do the friend stuff. You just have to do it, which may be hard or easy for you, depending on, you know, what you present with. Anyway, so bearing in mind, why did I do this thing, right? Remembering why you do a thing that it's for regulation or it's because I felt unsafe or because I was overwhelmed, like, you know. if there are things that happen in the wake of that, we have to deal with those things. But to be able to reframe our activities or like the fact that our dishes aren't done to say, you know what, I'm saving, I'm saving my energy because I want to really be present for the kids in Sunday school tomorrow. So I'm going to save my energy for that. That can be really helpful. And then also just considering just asking God, like, you know, is there a spiritual component to this that you want to show me? And he will be kind and gentle and he'll help you every step of the way, just like he has with everything else. So those are the signposts that we want to stop and look at as we're engaging with our own attitudes towards our behaviors. And we're going to make this into a nice little PDF for you to just kind of give you those those things to look at. So that you can decide to remove that shame and condemnation, to offer that to God so he can take that away from you, to recognize it and then give it to God so that he can take it away from you. And then you can live a more regulated life, not hating yourself so much. Self-hatred is a real thing for people with these neurotypes. And it's something that we don't have to live with. We have to forgive ourselves. We've got to let some stuff go. recognize that some things that happened to us weren't our fault some of the ways people responded to us wasn't our fault yeah and this is where like being in a community of people who understand you is

• Speaker #1

  like so very important yeah right um not only for direction but for support right there's there's a multi-faceted you There's a good reason why we are designed to live in a society, because we need each other.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And that takes intention because we can be reclusive and introverted.

• Speaker #1

  And again, pointing back to the questions I pose, you know, is this thing that you're doing coming from yourself? or from outside of yourself including your coping mechanisms including your coping mechanisms yeah and do these coping mechanisms allow who you truly are to be able to be more fully in community and to engage with it better or does it hurt you does it score points for your mask or does it score points for who you really are Some of the mask is to engage, and some of that mask is to be scary. To be. To fend, you know. Right. Fend people off.

• Speaker #0

  For your real self to be obscured, because it's been rejected in the past. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Let's warm up with that.

• Speaker #0

  Woo. All right. Way to go. All right. Yeah. Thank you for being here, being part of this community. You can join our page on Facebook. You can join up on Instagram. And also, please subscribe. Subscribe to our email list. We're going to be giving out some great resources, including a PDF to, you know, kind of as guidelines for what we just talked about so that you can kind of cross-check your own thoughts and behaviors and just have a place to start just to be a little bit mindful as you're judging yourself every day. Please don't. Only God is judged. We don't need you to be part of it.

• Speaker #1

  Knock it off.

• Speaker #0

  Also, we love you. So just remember, be kind to yourself. It's not a straight line. But you can turn down the fire.

• Speaker #1

  Spice.

• Speaker #0

  For the glory of God. Peace be with you.