I know it’s just a promise, but I have written everything below with my own fingers on my own keyboard. All mistakes are also, regrettably, my own.
My main intention with this blog is to document the various rabbit holes I find myself peering down in to. Because I am neurodiverse (ADHD diagnosed, a plethora of autistic traits) these rabbit holes are numerous, but often driven by an urge to fix my experience of life.
I think it is quite common for neurodiverse people to feel not just different, but wrong, broken, in need of intricate surgery of the mind. If memory serves, which mostly it doesn’t, I was under 10 years old the first time I picked up a self-help book - and it certainly was not the last.
The societal dogma of thinking, behaving and feeling a certain idealised way (often called “being neurotypical”) is stronger than I ever realised. And I think the sad reality is that so many of us who do not operate in the “right way” orientate ourselves around closing the gap to a devastating degree. Often called masking, I believe it can go much deeper than a slim outward appearance - it can affect who you believe yourself to be and how much you understand you are worth.
I was diagnosed late, as it’s called. Because on time would be before you build an internal labyrinth of coping mechanisms that needs laboriously unpicking once you find out what’s really going on.
This brings some unique challenges that I doubt are as strong if someone finds out in childhood. There is grief, for all the things that could have been different. You imagine they would have been better, but it’s probably healthier to keep to different. But the biggest difference, to my mind, is that you have a back-catalogue of techniques that have kept you alive but have had a huge impact on your energy and state of mind. They are positive in the way that they’ve kept you here, but negative in that they have probably been responsible for more than one major crash in your life.
You have to thank them for their service, but slowly start to retire them. New habits that respect your unique way of being in the world, ones armed with a new mental model of what the hell is going on, need to come through the ranks.
Since my teenage years (when I was least able to cope with life) yoga and meditation have never been far from my mind. They have typically been seasonal, reached for when I most needed an escape. They were relieving for a few reasons - yoga because it reunites your awareness with how your body is feeling right now, it can be rhythmic, and slow. Moving the body in the way that you want your mind to move often works a treat.
Meditation specifically has helped in my life as it shows up the daily stresses for what they are - a layer of (often) optional suffering we have chosen as a species to slap on. Examples that I put in to this category are things like career progression, being fashionable, most material possessions.
I’ve grown to realise, through meditation, that happiness is really about getting out of your own way. It’s less about adding things or changing things, than it is about not adding reasons to be despondent. This is often referred to as non-doing (the funny bit comes when you catch yourself trying not to try).
As with almost everything, there are expectations (or at least instructions) in these practices that are often centred around neurotypicality (I may have made that word up). I aim to write much more about this, but one main adaptation I have found useful is to emphasise the physical during a meditation practice.
Felt sense is a word which I believe originated from Focusing, a book and practice from Eugene T. Gendlin. I have no evidence that we all have it, but to describe it - it’s how you know your leg is there without looking at it. Or how much space there is between your back and the wall behind you.
Just playing with this sense alone I find incredibly grounding. Closing the eyes for a minute or two, sensing the space above, to the sides, behind and even below the floor. It reminds you that you are a 3D body, in 3D space*. To me, it feels like remembering you are alive.
If you are interested in diving further, I intend to post much more on this. Though you’d also likely want to have a look at Michael Taft’s work, as well as superb teaching and courses based on the Alexander Technique from another superb Michael (Ashcroft). I’m also a big fan of Sam Harris’ Waking Up app, and I can share 30 day free trials to it from my account. If you’d like to try it, feel free to email me any time.
- This is a description I have learned, gratefully, from Michael Ashcroft!