The meaning of "happy"

     I find that I am constantly having to re-examine myself in the light of all the studying I'm doing about the psychology of trauma, giftedness, and neurodiversity. It's a very energy-intensive process, involving not just my rational mind but all my emotions and intuition as well. Evaluating and harmonizing all the things I'm learning with what feels true about myself, my understanding of myself, is really tricky. 

    Does this or that description or definition ring true, or not? Is this or that trait part of my fundamental personality, or is it a weakness associated with being gifted or ADHD or autistic, and what's the best kind of scaffolding to keep it from hampering me? Is my love of solitude all good and healthy, or am I keeping human relationships at arm's length as a dysfunctional result of trauma? Is it healthy boundaries, or cowardice? How can I know? 

About Time

     The ancient Greeks had two different words for time: Chronos and Kairos. You could think of them as left-brain time and right-brain time. Chronos is the kind of time measured by clocks and calendars, by which we make appointments and set deadlines, and generally coordinate our activities with those of other people who aren't alongside us all day long. It's linear, it's sequential, it runs out. Chronos can be wasted by procrastination or indecision, maximized by efficiency, extended with a healthy lifestyle ... but nothing in the world stops it. It is relentless, bearing each of us onward from birth to inevitable death, with (sometimes it feels like) nothing but shoulds and musts, hurry up, and what might have been in between.

I, sea-monster

     Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like an alien? Maybe you were literally an alien, in another country or cultural setting, or you're a minority in your own country. Or maybe, some time in your life you got some devastating, life-altering news -- even good news, like falling in love and then finding out it's mutual -- leaving you feeling totally cut off from the ordinary, oblivious, everyday lives of all the people around you. Or maybe you're just a teenager, when feeling like nobody understands you or ever will is pretty much normal. 

On Chastity

     I have an embarrassingly counter-cultural confession: I don't miss sex at all. I do not want sex, and I never enjoyed sex. Yes, I'm going there, even though yes, it's an uncomfortable subject. Chastity is not hard for me! It's a relief, actually. And another relief is discovering how common my dirty little secret is among people with autism. Not all autistics, by any means -- plenty of them love sex every bit as much as the world says we're all supposed to. But I'm finding that both the low desire for sex, and the sensory processing issues that make it impossible to enjoy sex, are very common among this tribe I never knew I belonged to. 

Gaia - liminal space of our being

     This week's blog post is something of a departure from what I've been writing about here lately! It was a thought challenge that came in a group of gifted people, and it was a real treat to be encouraged to use my mind in this abstract way to put words to some of my religious experience. The challenge given was simply the title of this blog post, which several people took and ran with in quite different directions. And here's mine.

Real Me in relationship

     I wrote a couple of months ago about the gift of "unmasking" in solitude. In fact, if there has been one major theme for this blog from its beginning until now, it has been all about learning to distinguish between Fantasy Me and Real Me. Solitude has been all about seeing myself more clearly, letting go of the drama of trying to be the person I wish I were, and embracing the person I really am.

    This week marks a new phase in my journey, that of unmasked friendship. My spiritual director has been visiting me here in Spain. He of all people (outside my immediate family) knows me as I really am. But our relationship until now has been more or less formal, vertical: I talk and he listens, and occasionally gives feedback. This visit has marked a definite change to a real, horizontal, friendship. I know that I can still count on him as confessor and mentor, but this week has also given me the opportunity for some concentrated practice in taking Real Me into relationship with another human being. 

Stress relief

    I'm reading the book When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, by Gabor Maté. It's all about the ways that repressed emotional stress is a major contributing factor to many kinds of serious illness. The title refers especially to the coping strategy of avoiding confrontation, people-pleasing, taking care of other people at the cost of the self. We know that emotion happens in the brain, and affects the whole nervous system, which in turn affects a whole series of other systems. If we don't learn to properly regulate our nervous system -- including managing stressful emotions -- it can make us vulnerable to a whole lot of health problems. 

    People across the neurodiversity spectrum are especially vulnerable to stress. We tend to react more intensely, to slighter triggers, and to have a harder time calming back down. If self-regulation is harder for us than for neurotypical people, it's natural that we would also be more likely to develop coping strategies that are unhealthy in the long term.