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When Autism Feels Better Than Therapy

If you are in therapy or considering psychoanalysis this episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you have been wondering about neurodivergence, autism, or ADHD. This is the beginning of what I think will be a long quest and potentially a new direction for this podcast and blog. In this episode, I lay out my experience with psychoanalysis and my recent foray into learning about ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and neurodivergence.…

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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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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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Doesn’t Life Want to Live?

Do you ever think about what life was like for early humans once we had our basic needs met? You know, once we figured out how to procure victuals and maintain a shelter. What was life like?  Experts including historians, anthropologists, and scientists seem to disagree. Some say we were ignorant savages (I’m looking at you, director of Pocahontas) whereas others claim we actually didn’t work that much but spent a lot of time playing.  I…

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Systems Thinking ( KEW Episode 122)

While this is not a definitive treatise on Systems Thinking, I wanted to talk a bit about this topic as it is relevant to many of my posts. People tell me that out-of-the-box thinking is atypical. Most people seem to think of the world in simplified, or at least minimized relationships. For example, you might think your job sucks. When thinking about how to change that or do something about it, you might think about…

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One Cognitive Distortion You Can Change To Reduce Anxiety

Meditation for your middle-of-the-night worries Do you follow the weather? You know, do you check the forecast to see what it’s going to be like outside? Do you appreciate meteorologists? Or beat up on them? It probably depends on whether the forecasts are accurate. And they are accurate a lot of the time. Meteorologists go to school to learn how to be good forecasters. But most of us have zero training in predicting the future.…

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“Because even if you win, you’re still a rat!” FLASHBACK! KEW Episode 15: Rat Racer

If I’ve said it before, I’ve said it a million times. I still feel cheated by the rat race. The American Dream. The big lie. We are born, at least in the USA, dependent on the exchange of labor for money to support the US capitalist system. If we’re lucky we have guardians to support us until we are ‘adults’, but then we have to earn a few thousand dollars a month just to pay…

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FLASHBACK! KEW Episode 9: Old Beliefs

What beliefs are you carrying around that no longer serve you? Maybe you grew up in a religious household but no longer practice. Maybe you were told that non-white people were bad, but you never understood why. Maybe you believed you had to do whatever people told you to do and lost your sense of self along the way. We learned a lot of things as kids (and as adults!), but no one ever asked…

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Preview KEW Episode 88: It Takes a Village

Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘it takes a village’? Man, I have. And I wish I understood earlier what they meant. When I was a full time stay-at-home dad, I felt totally isolated. My wife works 50+ hours a week. My parents were too old and far away to help. Her parents were too busy taking care of their other grandchildren. I wasn’t very good at navigating the moms at the playground or at…

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Preview KEW Episode 87: What Are You Afraid Of?

I know, I know. You’re not afraid of anything. None of us are, right? But if you are willing to let down your guard, I think you will see that, like everyone else, there are things that scare you. In fact, I argue that many of our issues, problems, and stresses are ultimately caused by fear. The problem is, this isn’t obvious. Usually we get mad about something, or feel judged by someone, or blame…

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