Hi Reader,

This morning, as I sit in my usual Sunday spot with the fire on and a weighted blanket over me, I find myself imagining you. I wonder: where in the world are you as you open this? Are you starting your day, perhaps on a busy Monday morning? Are you skimming this on your phone while juggling kids or competing needs? Wherever you are, I wonder what headspace you might be in as you read these words.

For me, my headspace has felt fragmented and chaotic this week. I’m working to ground myself, to find ideas and moments that anchor me.

Yesterday, that sense of fragmentation was particularly strong. My attention felt pulled in a thousand directions: Should I fix one of the hundred broken links on my website after last week’s big migration (pro tip: don’t tackle a website migration unless you have bandwidth for chaos)? Should I respond to emails, which often feel like digging holes in dry sand (answer two, and five more appear)? Should I work on one of the three talks I’m prepping?

I felt scattered. I wanted to feel anchored.

So, I opened a book about belonging, about connection, community, and collective imagination. The very first invitation in the book was simple: “Take a breath for this precious moment, which cannot be recreated.”*

I did. I took that breath, anchored myself, and stepped into the author’s imagination. In doing so, I felt myself grounded once more.

Self-Connection and Other-Connection

This was the second book on belonging I’ve read in the past few months, and both started with an invitation inward: to pause, to notice, to be present. Both authors acknowledged that I, the reader, am a human with complex experiences, engaging with their words, which were forged through their own complex experiences.

It struck me that togetherness — authentic connection — begins with being in contact with ourselves. Or … connecting with someone who is deeply present in their own experience can ground us in the moment and guide us back to ourselves.

This week, on a call with some clinicians in the The Nook, someone shared the phrase “undoing aloneness.” I hadn’t heard that language before, but it resonated deeply.** How do we undo aloneness? How do we create human contact we can truly feel? When the world feels chaotic and frightening, seeping into our minds and bodies, how do we find one another again? And perhaps even harder — how do we find ourselves?

As adrienne maree brown writes: “We are brilliant at survival, but brutal at it. We tend to slip out of togetherness the way we slip out of the womb, bloody and messy and surprised to be alone.”

I know those moments — the moments I’ve slipped out of togetherness. This week, I’ve shown up in some spaces feeling fragmented and disconnected. When I lose my connection to myself, I inevitably lose my connection to others.

The Energy We Bring

Earlier this week, I posted a community prompt in The Nook, our space for shared conversations. Each Monday, I introduce a topic to guide us. This month, we’re exploring attachment and relationships, so I posted a question about what cultivates presence and safety in relationships.

But I didn’t ask it from a connected space. I asked it from a “to-do” mindset — fragmented, frantic, disconnected. And it showed. Conversations that are usually vibrant were slow to take off.

Later, my community manager and I reflected: The question was heavy and complex for many of us. But beyond that, the energy I brought when putting it into the world wasn’t relational. It matters, doesn’t it? The energy we show up with, the energy we bring into the spaces we inhabit.

So, why do books on belonging, relationships, and community often start with an invitation inward. Perhaps because it’s hard to truly connect with others when we’re not in touch with ourselves. It’s hard to be relational with others when we aren’t relational with ourselves. It’s hard to soothe a child when we haven’t first soothed the anxious parts within us. It’s hard to ask an open, searching question when we haven’t connected with the curious self inside.

When collective trauma happens, our responses can vary wildly. Some of us fragment or dissociate; others spiral between chaotic, sympathetic energy and numbness. But collective trauma can also break us open in moments of raw authenticity and vulnerable connection. This combination of chaos, dissociation, and broken-open authenticity can be disorienting and confusing to navigate. It can stir relational chaos — the chaos within us repeating and rippling outward into our closest relationships, creating fractals of disruption.

And yet, fractals work the other way, too. Connection within can spark connection without. Inner connection can ripple into grounding conversations and shared imagination. When we anchor ourselves, even briefly, we create the possibility for those around us to anchor, too. This is the power of belonging, of collective care.

Coming Back to Anchor

There are so many forces at play pulling me out of connection — with myself, and therefore with others. Today, I’m reflecting on what helps me come back to anchor, to presence, to togetherness.

Here are some things that help me when I’m feeling frantic and fragmented:

Writers with imagination, critical hope, and chewy ideas that help me sink into an experience
Interacting with material that requires more than 20 seconds of my attention
Weight on my body
Vibrations on my body
Deep breaths paired with reminders: “I am here. Now.”
Practicing being with complexity
Connection with others

I don’t expect presence to be permanent. I come in and out of it, just as I come in and out of togetherness with the people around me.

Belonging and connection, I believe, guide us back to ourselves — and to each other. Whatever anchoring or togetherness looks like for you, I hope you’re finding ways to create pockets of it this week.

Warmly,

*quote from adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy

**The term undoing aloneness comes from AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), a trauma-focused therapeutic approach developed by Diana Fosha. It reflects the idea that healing occurs when individuals experience emotions deeply and authentically in connection with others.

***We often learn what a "self" is and how to connect with it through early object relations — our foundational relationships with others. While I’ve simplified the dynamics here by saying "connection with others starts with connection to self," the process is deeply relational, interconnected and goes both ways.

★彡 Neurodivergent Insights Weekly Roundup ★彡

✨ Shop Gratitude (and Sale) ✨

Thank you so much for your patience as we navigate this big transition! Last week, we made the move from Squarespace to WordPress, which will ultimately make the website more accessible and user-friendly. But as with all big changes, migrations can be messy — things break, designs get disrupted, and chaos can creep in.

I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has stuck with us through this process (because let’s be honest: change is hard!). To say thank you, I’m sharing a special coupon with you. This isn’t a limited-time sale — I want to make sure nobody feels like they’ve missed out or felt any frantic urgency around it.

You can use this code once on any order, any time (it never expires). It’s my way of saying thank you for your patience and support.

Use code GRATITUDE40 for 40% off any purchase.

Shop Here ➜

🎙️ New on the Podcast

We’re currently re-releasing some of the most popular episodes from 2024, this weeks’ episode talks about the ADHD tax and dive mores into our ADHD experience. As an AuDHD podcast that focuses a lot on autism, it was fun to focus so directly on ADHD for several episodes!

Listen Here ➜

🌟 Upcoming Events - PDA North American Conference 🌟

I’m honored to join a lineup of incredible humans for the PDA North America Conference, happening both virtually and in-person from March 5-7th. I’ll be participating virtually and sharing about the AuDHD + OCD experience (at least, that’s the plan — my brain has been wrestling with some interesting tangents lately, so we’ll see what actually emerges!).

I’ve heard wonderful things about this conference — that it’s a space where many PDA families feel deeply connected and seen (speaking of belonging). It’s designed for parents, caregivers, and family members of PDA Autistic individuals, as well as professionals and PDAers themselves.

If you’re interested in attending, you can learn more about the event and register below. One key note from PDA North America: they are committed to accessibility and won’t turn anyone away from the virtual event due to financial need. If cost is a barrier, you can reach out to sara@pdanorthamerica.org for assistance.

Learn More Here ➜

Book Updates

This week, I discovered something that added to the fragmented, chaotic energy — a book posted on Amazon that has clearly pillaged Self-Care for Autistic People. It was cleverly done: no author is attached, and the title and subtitle are very similar, likely confusing readers and leading some to accidentally buy the wrong book. What made it even more frustrating? It’s performing well on Amazon, likely due to having more reviews than mine.

I’m not great at asking for reviews, but they really do make a difference. If you’ve read Self-Care for Autistic People and enjoyed it, leaving a review (on Amazon if you purchased there, or Goodreads if you bought it elsewhere) would mean the world to me.

On a brighter note, The Autistic Burnout Workbook is now officially available for pre-order! I’ve completely dropped the ball on promoting it (oops), but I’ll be pulling together some pre-order promotions soon. If you pre-order, save a screenshot of your confirmation — I’ll be announcing some giveaways for pre-orders soon (hopefully by next weekend).

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