New Year’s Goal Setting Strategies for Neurodivergent Spoonies | PART ONE

So it's a new year, and once again, you might feel like something has to change. You're chronically ill, neurodivergent, and maybe you feel broken, lazy, like a burden. Something needs to change this year. But, you know, the same old goals, the same old mindset shifts won't work this time, either. Something needs to change, but you have no idea what.

If any of that resonates with you, I made this video for you because that was me six years ago. Change is possible, I promise you. So, let me show you how.

Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.

By the way, this is the first in a four part video series leading to a free workshop at the end of the month. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of it. (soft ping) When you read that just now, that the plan for

today is to identify who the villain is, did you automatically think, (chuckles) that's easy. I'm the villain of my story! Or similarly, that your body, your illness, your mind, or your neurodivergence, AKA a part of you is the villain? If so, first thing's first, big hugs. I remember that feeling. I lived with that feeling for over half of my 36 years, and it still manages to rear its

ugly head every now and then. You are not alone in this feeling. I see you, and I'm so sorry that's been your experience. No one deserves that. You don't deserve that. Really, I am talking directly to you right now. You don't deserve that. You deserve so much better. If you're hearing me when I say that, type I hear you in the comments. In order to disprove the theory

that you, yourself, or any part of you is the villain in your story, I'm going to tell you who the actual villain is and then show you how that villain has gaslit you into believing everything's your fault. Ready? The villain of your story is ableism. Ableism is discrimination in favor of able-bodied, neurotypical, and mentally healthy people. You can think of ableism as a double edged sword. One edge

represents interpersonal, societal, cultural, and systemic ableism. Those things that are outside of us. For example, toxic hustle culture and productivity culture are both ableist. That friend or family member who gets frustrated and doesn't understand why you can't just do the thing is ableist. Ableism says, among other things, that your worth is inextricably linked to your productivity and independence. Any failure to meet society's impossible productivity and independence standards

means you're lazy and worthless, and people will often treat you as such. You are not lazy, and you are not worthless. Ableism has gaslit you into believing this about yourself, which brings me to the other edge of the ableism sword, which is something called internalized ableism. Internalized ableism happens when we've lived inside of an ableist system long enough that we've internalized ableism's harmful messages and unknowingly discriminate against

ourselves. Are you frustrated that you can't get yourself to do things you want to do, let alone all the things you need to do to care for yourself, let alone achieve your goals? Do you feel lazy because of this? Are you afraid you don't have what it takes? Are you frustrated because you're not living the life you, quote, unquote, should be? Or worse, do you believe that your

life isn't worth living? Do you feel broken? Seeing yourself through an ableist lens and treating yourself terribly because of it is the very definition of internalized ableism. You are not lazy, you are not worthless, you are not broken. Those are lies ableism told you, nothing more. Still with me? Write ableism is the villain in the comments. So we've identified the true villain of the story, ableism. Now what?

If your instinct is to say accommodations, you're on the right track, but ableism is sneaky, dastardly, if you will, and has a habit of co-opting even the most genuine attempts at accommodating ourselves. I've spoken about this before on the channel, but it is so, so important to understand and be reminded of, as neurodivergent spoonies, because of internalized ableism, it is very common to subconsciously expect that, if we

accommodate ourselves perfectly, we'll be able to finally meet the sky high expectations we've been expecting of ourselves our whole lives. This simply isn't true. This new expectation is unreasonable and harmful. Is it possible to improve your life and accomplish more by accommodating yourself well? Yes, definitely. But our standards need to shift, as well. We need to set safe, reasonable, doable expectations for ourselves based on our actual abilities

and not the ableist standard. So here's my question for you. What if, in 2023, instead of continuing to see yourself as the villain, instead of fighting to change yourself, you choose to see the truth, that ableism is the villain, and you are the hero. What if, in 2023, you choose to support yourself unconditionally, instead? Can you imagine it? The end of fighting yourself, the end of hating yourself,

the end of feeling broken and at fault. If you are ready for your hero story to truly begin, it's time to put down the sword and offer yourself a compassionate hand instead. This is how the transformational change you are seeking begins, with a simple, yet profound shift to see yourself as the hero instead of the villain, to choose to offer yourself radical support instead of infinite, undeserved shame

and cruelty. If you want to dive deeper into this lesson, here's a journal prompt for you. What would it mean if I wasn't the villain? And if you're curious about my favorite journaling technique, check out my post on Anytime Pages here. Subscribe so you don't miss part two next week, and if you already know you wanna attend my free workshop at the end of the month or receive

the recording if you can't attend live, make sure you're subscribed to my mailing list. A link to sign up is in the description box below. So, that was the end of the script I wrote for this video. I wrote it last week, intending to film and edit it yesterday, Monday, so that I could post it today, Tuesday, but I had a phenomenally awful weekend, and what's interesting to

me is that a lot of the things I struggled with were around this distinction. So much of how I was triggered into emotional flashbacks, which then cascaded into autistic meltdowns, I ended up having three meltdowns this weekend, it was all around situations where, as a child, I was trained to believe I was the bad guy, and, because I had done something wrong, which, in reality, I hadn't, I

did nothing wrong this weekend, but because I was trained to perceive my behavior as wrong, I was certain that it meant, you know, it feels like end of the world kind of stuff, where you're gonna lose everyone you care about, everyone you want to respect you. One of the things that happened this weekend was someone whom I have looked up to for almost 20 years said something phenomenally

cruel about me in my presence, and the habit that I have been in, pretty much my whole life, and is something that I have been working to heal, is that I am broken and worthless, and therefore, deserve to be treated that way. That isn't true. This person said something so cruel that it doesn't matter if I had done anything wrong, that behavior wasn't warranted. Treating me like that

is not okay under any circumstances. I don't believe they expected me to hear what they said, which doesn't make it any better, but one of the things that I am deeply struggling with since that happened is shifting back to the truth that I did nothing wrong, I did nothing to deserve that cruelty. One of the things that I'm finding the most difficult about that is basically answering that

journal prompt. What if I am not the villain? What does that mean? Because if I am not someone who deserves that kind of cruelty and disrespect, that means I have unfairly been treated my entire life, and to see the circumstances and relationships of my entire life, where the majority of them have been like that, where I have been in unjustly treated so horrendously, it's almost easier to see

myself as the problem, but to see those injustices as outside of my control is deeply painful, and suddenly, I've discovered so much more I have to grieve, and it terrifies me. One of the things that is really important about how I care for myself and that I teach my clients and all of you is finding the things in your life that you do have some semblance of control

over, and focusing on those, and understanding that other things are entirely outside of your control. Part of that healing process is coming to terms with and developing radical acceptance for things that you subconsciously thought were in your control, but are, in fact, not, and for me, this is a new one, realizing that I don't deserve that kind of treatment. It is not okay to speak to me like

that. It is not okay to speak about me like that. So, what does it mean if I'm not the villain? Well, it means that, in those instances where I was treated so terribly, abused, neglected, it means that it wasn't my fault, and I didn't deserve that. It means that, going forward, I do not deserve that, I deserve more. What I talked about today may seem oversimplified on the

surface, but it is deeply profound, and I will add that, if you don't feel safe exploring this topic on your own and you need a safe friend or a therapist to talk through with it, there's nothing wrong with you. You deserve that support. Please take care of yourself. Anyways, I just thought that might be helpful to hear and to share. And in case you're curious about the new

setup, I, going forward this year, am deciding a couple of things because I have essentially reached and shot past the limits of my capacity as a chronically ill neurodivergent person running this business, and I need to scale back, but I don't want to produce less. I want to continue to do the meaningful work that I do, for example, these YouTube videos. But in order for me to do

that, I need to lower the bar, so I didn't put on makeup today. This is me showing up messy. I think I'm more ready for all of you to see more transparency in what I do. Essentially, I've gotten a lot of good feedback on my last post, the Day In the Life with me, and while it was scary and vulnerable to show up as messy as my life

is, I see how helpful that was, so I wanna continue to show the truth of leading a chronically ill neurodivergent life, and also the truth of how it is possible to change. So you can not only logically see yourself as the hero of your story, logically understand that you're not the bad guy, but really internalize that information and become someone who is capable of caring for themselves. (sighs)

The words are hard today because I realize the way that's coming out is ableist, so let me try to find better words because my work isn't helping people cure their chronic illness, neurodivergence, mental health issues, whatever their disabilities and limited capacities are. I'm here to help them attain radical acceptance, and, from that, develop radical compassion for themselves, and it is from that foundation that change is possible, and

when I say change I mean waking up and not hating yourself. I had a profound moment after the Christmas holiday, just a week and a half ago. My partner had taken pictures of me and him and my mom, and the cats, of course, and I wasn't wearing makeup. I wasn't even wearing a bra, for crying out loud. And I had worked really hard on making a delicious holiday

meal for all of us. And so, objectively, I looked rather zombie-like, but when I looked at my picture I realized I didn't hate myself, and honestly, I feel like that's the first time I've ever had that experience, and I am 36 years old, almost 37. (sighs) And the irony that the immediate following weekend was gonna push that button so hard and try to convince me I do hate

myself, that's the only way the world makes sense, is if I am broken, I am the bad guy, and I deserve the cruelty that I experience. I'm here to help you learn to truly, truly love and care for yourself. That's my job. So if you're still with me after all of that unscripted, what will certainly become a vulnerability hangover for me, thank you for listening, thank you for

being here, I see you. You are not lazy, you are not broken. You are worthy, you are deserving, you're the good guy, and you don't deserve cruelty.

Again, here is my post about Anytime Pages if you want to do some journaling.

If you liked this video, hit that like button, and be sure to share it with your friends. See you next week for part two. Bye!