This morning I awoke feeling extra anxious and sad. As an autistic female, I normally feel a low level of anxiety which I typically manage well with pilates, yoga, meditation and proprioceptive solutions (weighted blanket, weight lifting, and tapping), but this morning my stomach felt extra tense, I kept clenching my jaw, and my heart felt incredibly heavy. Everything was annoying me. My husband and I got our coffee and tea and sat down for our morning meditation. We have various boxes of wisdom cards and this morning I chose from the late yet still fabulous original guru Louise Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Mind” card deck. The card I pulled was “Let Go.” The message had to do with surrendering-a hard one for me to do as it is (an autistic trait that I struggle often with is rigidity- lack of flexibility) but especially right now with such a scary time. Still, I decided that my morning meditation would focus on “letting go.”
We began our meditation practice. Immediately my mind said, “Nope-this is not happening,” and it quickly took me to into a sea of distraction-thinking about work, considering upcoming web-based groups and webinars I wanted to facilitate for clients, the snow falling outside, my dog barking. “Come back. Let go” I told myself, in hopes that my stomach would relax (I had been unconsciously sucking it in). “Nope” my mind said. I opened my eyes and looked at my husband. "This isn’t happening for me today,” I told him. I explained how my anxiety and sadness were through the roof right now. He calmly said, “We can hold hands as we sit here and look out the window at the snow falling. ” So we did that. I then shared that I like to name what I see as it helps me stay in the present moment. I started sharing what I saw out loud, “Snow flakes, rocks, pine trees, bird house, gray sky, clouds, white.” Soon, I found myself beginning to feel calmer and more focused. Holding his hand helped too; having another person to hold onto allowed me to relax even more. I thought about social distancing and how the isolation is starting to feel really lonely. In that moment, gratitude swept over me as I looked at my husband and our sweet old dog.
As an autistic person, sensory issues (sights, sounds, smells, and sensations) are typically turned way up or way down, depending on our experience of feeling overwhelmed. It’s important for me to acknowledge and remind myself of this so that I am not taking for granted how sensitive I am to my surroundings-to the news, to other people’s energy-to the collective consciousness of fear and pending doom right now. It’s magnified for me. To top it off, any change, however small, feels exponentially challenging right now, causing an increased spike in my anxiety and sense of overwhelm.
If you are an autistic adult reading this, please know that you are not alone. I know that every other autistic person is feeling what I am describing, even if it is expressed differently.
At the bottom of this blog I will provide a link to another blog I have written that specifically addresses dealing with stressful situations via having structure, rituals, routines, and mindfulness tools to manage our anxiety. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that we create morning, mid-day, and evening routines, especially right now since so many of us are working from home and our routines have gone out the window. Along with this, creating rituals to help us stay focused and be able to get things done is crucial to help manage our executive function challenges. I have specific rituals I do each morning that helps me focus. I have to prepare my surroundings before I start working. For example, I make some Yogi® tea, light a yummy candle, read a poem from Yung Pueblo’s “Inward” poetry book (today’s poem was “In one lifetime we can be reborn many times”), look through my social media for 10 minutes as my sensory seeking (helps me calm down-similar to a stim), get my weighted blanket and put on my snuggly. Once I am ready, I can begin to blog(which I am doing right now), respond to emails, check in with my amazing team, etc.
Even though there is a part deep inside of me that can feel that we will get through this horrendous time in the world, another part of me, the one that is screaming inside and constantly freaking out, isn’t so sure. Because I can feel the latter part more often, I use specific tools to ensure I am able to manage my daily anxiety, sadness for our world, and sense of overwhelm. I hope you will use some of the tools I have offered to help you as you navigate the constant changes we are all experiencing right now.
With gratitude,
Candice
Link to my blog: An Autistic Person’s Guide to Mindfulness: Effective Tips for Managing Our Stress