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The Cumulative Stress Hypothesis

Are you aware of the stress in your life?  Can you FEEL it when stressors are building up and you think you may pop? Do you ever feel like you’re right on the verge of a meltdown? I think most of us are familiar with these scenarios. We can only take so much stress. When I was an ecologist, I had a vision for my life’s work. I planned on studying how aquatic ecosystems resist or…

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Mindfulness Practice Is the Key to Human Success

Are you familiar with Jon Kabat-Zinn? In short, he’s one of the people who has made meditation mainstream. While I generally don’t like words like ‘mainstream’ and ‘conformity’, anything that makes helpful tools more accessible to the masses is good in my book. Known as one of the creators of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Kabat-Zinn has written a bunch of books and helped teach meditation to all sorts of regular people. This article is inspired…

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How Neurodivergent People Can Learn Healthy Boundaries

Have you ever thought about your boundaries? Maybe a therapist told you your boundaries were weak. Or maybe you read something about relationships and how some people might not respect your boundaries.  I learned early on that my boundaries are weak.  I tend to pay attention to other people’s needs more than my own. Some people in the world will take advantage of this. Many of us struggle to simultaneously love other people while protecting our…

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Masking is One Way Our Amazing Minds Protect Us

But can lead to bigger problems if misunderstood. How do you feel about terms like, We use these terms to describe when we are not ‘being ourselves’ in the presence of other people. This phenomenon reminds me of a quote attributed to comedian Chris Rock: When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them, you’re meeting their representative.  So this isn’t something I’m making up, it’s in the human vernacular. It is…

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It’s Not Low Self-Worth. It’s Autism

You have to love yourself first, they say. Have you ever been asked if you love yourself? Since the beginning of my healing journey over a decade ago, I have interacted with more than ten counselors, therapists, and coaches. Every single one has asked me if I love myself. Or, they have explained to me that I have to love myself first. You have to love yourself first This could just be my trauma speaking,…

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How Autism Blends With the World

Do you love yourself? I know, it’s an extremely personal question. When a counselor first asked me this question I was taken aback. It’s offensive and puts one in a defensive position. And who likes feeling defensive? But therapy is about healing and I answered as best I could. Again, and again. I’m fairly certain every counselor, therapist, and coach I have worked with has asked me some form of this question. I do love…

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The Purpose of Growth – Embracing Neurodiversity

The Purpose of Growth Embracing neurodiversity Have you ever felt like everyone understands the rules except for you? Me, too. And I’ve spent over a decade in therapy trying to figure it out. The main reason I sought help from therapists, counselors, and coaches is because I have always felt different. Like everyone else got the ‘Manual to Human Life’ except for me. As a result, I have always felt like an outsider. I think feeling…

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Pondering 50 Years of My Quirks

I used to think there was something wrong with me. AsI mull over my recent late self-diagnosis of Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) I feel the need to document my thoughts. This is the third of many posts to come on the subject. I started telling my neurodivergent story here and here and I think I’m going to be podcasting and writing about this a lot. My purpose in this essay is to illustrate the many ways that…

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Is It Awesome to Be Autistic?

I ask this question as part of my journey to demonstrate that diversity is better than conformity.  The idea, briefly, is that Life facilitates variety or diversity, yet we humans seem to resist this. We are all different, yet we do everything in our power to reduce this variation by trying to force each other to be the same. This journey was influenced recently by my exploration of neurodiversity and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD or…

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What Do You Do When Autism Feels Better than Therapy?

My raw, early stages of self-diagnosis Photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash Do you know someone who is autistic? Do you picture someone like Rain Man? Or someone like me? I’m Chris. I’m a smart, smiley, eye-contact-making, happily married father of four. Do I seem autistic? The answer is no. I don’t think many people would suspect me of being autistic. During thirteen years of therapy, counseling, and coaching no one even mentioned autism or ASD (Autism Spectrum…

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