In this email:

1. A strange story about my vacation
2. BIG NEWS
3. ND-positive kids summer camps ebook
4. Next free workshop
5. 4 Relevant Videos
6. Recent popular Tweet
7. Offering from a Colleague
8. Feature article: Letting Go Of The Blame And Shame Of Avoiding People

Hi Reader,

Well, vacation was...interesting. I had a passport issue and almost didn't get to go (but it did work out), I got sick midway through and had tummy issues for the rest of the trip, and Croatia was still in the last thrum of winter, so it wasn't as green and lush as I was hoping for...

and it was also a really lovely place and a surprisingly good energy reset.

I'm back, my tummy is settling, and I'm excited about working with my clients, gearing up on some new small projects, and reinvigorating some long-term projects again.

So, I guess it worked. Reset accomplished.

That's what vacation is for, right? Along with seeing new places and experiencing different cultures, and all that.

It was interesting to me that even as all sorts of things were coming up, like a last minute passport issue that threatened to cancel my entire trip and required a lot of scrambling and figuring out how to deal with it, I wasn't all that anxious. Sure, there was some of that, and I definitely had some strong, difficult emotions, but anxiety wasn't a big part of it. It was more actually experiencing the underlying emotions of disappointment, grief, hope, confusion, elation (when it worked out), and dealing with the practical situation in front of me as it evolved.

Which is evidence to me that all the anti-anxiety work I've been doing for the past several years are really working, not only at a day to day level (which is great, I'm not knocking that at all), but also in the big disruptive moments where everything looks like it's going wrong all at once.

Maybe I'll make a video about this and share more. Let me know if you'd like that.

Oh, and I've got one other pice of really BIG NEWS, that I'll share below.

And unrelated (or is it?), below I wrote an article about something that's been on my mind lately, on letting go of the shame and blame of avoiding people.

Anyway, I'm back and excited about the next phase of our Journey together.

Wishing you a neurowonderful day,
Heather

P.S. If you're interested in very mild, gentle sensory prompts delivered to you by email daily, check out Sensory Moments.

Big News

I've been accepted into a master coach training program!

It started last week!

(That's why I took three weeks off; two were for a vacation and recovering from travel, and the last week was for the intensive jumpstart to the program.)

It's through Martha Beck's Wayfinder coach training, which is were I did my initial coaching certification. In fact, you have to be a certified Wayfinder coach already and have quite a bit of real life coaching experience under your belt, and are ready to master the craft.

This is a select group of 12 Wayfinder coaches, who are ready to go deep and get 1,000x (I hope) better. :)

So this is going to be a big part of my life for the next seven months, and hopefully you'll get the benefit of my getting even better, and cutting out even more NT-static (from my coaching and my life).

Wish me well on this new Journey!*

*That's not an imperative, I just don't know how to punctuate a half-request-for-well-wishes-half-optomistic-excitement-vibe. Do you?

Autism-Friendly Camps Guide

How To Pick Neurodivergent-Affirming Camps Your Kid Will Love

Are you tired of wasting time scouring the internet for summer camps, or after school activities, or therapists, who are actually going to be accepting and affirming of your kid's (or your own) neurodiversity?

Are you frustrated trying to tell if they really mean it, or are just using the latest buzz words?

That's why I put together this guide, on how to screen out, reject, and identify autism- and ND-affirming programs.

This isn't just for summer camps. The principles here apply to any and every kind of activity, after school program, treatment, therapeutic provider, caretaker for hire, event, group, etc.

In fact, I've been using these principles for several years to pick out groups that I want to be a part of, and people I want to work with.

It's really about how to tell if someone or some group is actually accepting or if they just say that they are.

26 pages
​Dozens of hours saved
$15

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Next Free Public Workshop

What to Expect in the Later Identified Autism Journey

Are you figuring out as an adult that you’re Autistic, not broken, weird (in a bad way), or wrong after all?

Are you working on figuring out what that means for your future, and reframing your past with this new info?

Are you feeling lost and found, happy and angry, confused and clear, questioning and hopeful?

And wondering a lot what to do next, what comes next in the process, and how to make this new understanding of yourself benefit you and hopefully make things better?

That’s what we’re going to be talking about in this workshop.

Based on my own experience and having accompanied dozens of others through the process, here’s an overview of what to expect and some practical tips for each phase of the unfolding Journey.

Tuesday, May 14th
12 PM PT - 3 PM ET - 8 PM BST

4 Relevant Videos

Links to transcripts are in the video descriptions.

Since I'm starting the Master Coach Training, I thought I'd put together a few videos that clarify, specifically, what kind of coaching I do.
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​Hi, I'm Heather, here's what I do​

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​Coaching with Heather: FAQs on goals and structure​

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​FAQs About Coaching with Heather​

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​Coaching with Heather: more FAQs​

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Recent Popular Tweet​
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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @hmm_cook While you’re in burnout, you may not be doing as much as you used to, but if you're also calling yourself lazy, a failure, etc, or fretting about your future, the stress of that cancels out much of the restorative benefit of the rest. #AutisticBurnout #BurnoutRecovery #Burnout 8:52 AM • Apr 19, 2024 7 Retweets 47 Likes Read 1 replies

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Offering from a Colleague

Autism Dialogue

FRIDAY MAY 3rd. 1pm - 3pm. ​
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All autistic people welcome (18+)

• SAFE AUTISTIC SPACE ON ZOOM
• STRUCTURED CONVERSATIONS
• AUTISTIC HOSTS
• ALL AUTISTIC PEOPLE WELCOME (diagnosed or not)
• EASY TO JOIN IN OR JUST HANG OUT AND LISTEN
• MAKING SENSE & MEANING TOGETHER
• AN ENJOYABLE WAY TO MEET PEOPLE AND MAKE FRIENDS

Letting Go Of The Blame And Shame Of Avoiding People

​Read this on my website here​

Social situations are complicated and difficult. I'd like to talk a bit about the pain and shame around them.

Interacting with people

I’ve avoided plenty of social situations in my life, but I’ve never actually followed through with my fantasy of becoming a hermit in the woods.

In fact, throughout most of my life, I encountered people almost every day; via school, work, running errands, going to medical appointments or stores, groups I belonged to, phone calls or texting, etc. People have always been a part of my routines. Nowadays, that is more intentional and wanted, but in the past I just told myself it was because I didn’t have any choice. But I don’t think that’s giving myself enough credit.

For much of my life, I was criticized for not picking up on social nuances that other people expected me to, yet I kept engaging. Though most encounters were awkward, I still talked to people, and though I sometimes hated it, I was used to the discomfort, to how people reacted to me, and I endured. At best, people reacted differently to me than they did with others. It wasn’t necessarily negative, but it was different, and I noticed. I was different, and they knew it.

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Miscommunication

For a few years, between bouts of burnout, I taught high school German. One of the most common reactions I get when I mention that is: “Oh, wow, that’s so hard! I could never do that!” I’ve gotten this reaction enough times, and questioned people about it enough, that I’ve noticed three main things that they are reacting to.

For some, the thought of teaching highschoolers is daunting (but I love the age group). For others, it is the stereotype that the German language is particularly daunting (but English is a Germanic language).

Yet the thing that most people seem to react to is the thought of learning a new language at all. Intimidation is an incredibly common response to language learning, no matter the language, and I think that’s because there’s a deep-seated fear in most of us of being unable to express yourself like you would in your native tongue. Of losing communication and feeling disconnected from others.

Autistic or not, humans generally have an aversion to situations where we can’t communicate comfortably. When I avoided dealing with social obligations until I couldn’t avoid it any longer, it wasn’t only because I’m Autistic, it’s because I’m human.

But because I am Autistic, I’ve had an extra generous serving of experiences in which being around people resulted in uncomfortable communication.

And because of that extensive history, I knew that I would get through them. I knew that being embarrassed wouldn’t kill me, despite sometimes wishing it would, and I endured.

A lot of allistics who socialize more easily are able to avoid situations which they find awkward or embarrassing. They, too, have miscommunications, and are excluded, and have the whole gamut of negative social experiences (because they generally aren’t as good at communicating as they think), but they can usually minimize those encounters. And when they do avoid them, they’re avoiding a minority of their social experiences.

For Autistics, that is most of our encounters, and so avoiding the awkward ones means avoiding most, or all, interactions with people.

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Avoiding discomfort

My point is that this narrative that Autistics are socially avoidant, shy, withdrawn, antisocial, or whatnot, and therefore there’s something inherently wrong with us, is not true.

Autistics are not socially avoidant. People avoid discomfort. And people particularly avoid communication gaps.

We have a history of genuine experiences telling us that social encounters are, more often than not, going to be uncomfortable. And, like all reasonable humans, we avoid the thing that is uncomfortable. It’s not because we’re defective; we are responding entirely reasonably, and in the same way that everyone does, to painful situations.

So here’s what I hope you’ll take away from this: there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re a perfectly reasonable human being for avoiding things that are uncomfortable. That’s what humans do.

You are also incredibly brave for continuing to engage in this thing that you know is going to be uncomfortable. A lot of neurotypicals don’t do that; they can usually avoid their minority of awkward experiences, and so stick to the ones they feel comfortable with.

The fact that you keep engaging over, and over, and over, is a testament to your bravery in discomfort.

When I was resigned to the fact that I would have to do this “social thing” over and over, I didn’t give myself credit for that. I guess I didn’t think I had a choice, but I did (I could have gone to a literal cabin in the woods, or opted out more permanently, and didn’t). Even though I got intensely avoidant, and barely left the house for months at times, I did keep trying over and over.

Until something changed. I figured out I was Autistic, and everything started to make much more sense.

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Forging a new future

That kicked off a new set of possibilities for me. My history was no longer a determinant of my future. Now my history was the story of before I understood what was going on, and my future was a promise of a different direction.

When I started making changes, learning to unmask, learning to present myself differently, developing healthier and non-neurotypical conforming relationship skills, I started to engage differently. I was building out my Autistic social skills, and that opened up new possibilities for my future being different than the past. (It was still often awkward, but in different ways, and increasingly less so.)

And I let myself off the hook for all the years that I had hidden away from people, because there was nothing broken inside me after all. It was an entirely reasonable response to an unreasonable situation; I was expected to perform without ever getting decent instructions on how to do that, or in ways that made sense to me.

The more I understood what had been going on, and experienced genuine connection with people in increasingly positive encounters, the more the shame and blame that I had heaped on myself for years faded away (along with the damaging narratives I had told myself).

I won’t pretend that everything is perfect now. That every encounter with people is sunshine and roses and unicorn farts. I still have miscommunications and misunderstandings, and things are awkward sometimes. But now that is more a minority of my experiences, and I feel better equipped to deal with them, to come to a positive resolution.

And I’m also better able to differentiate when the problem is with my side of the communication or with the other person. Because it isn’t, and never was, all on me.

My history of people being confused or mad at me, or upset with me, of complaining at what I said, and telling me off but without explaining why, or what to do about it, no longer has to determine my future.

It took time to unlearn the many damaging lessons I had been taught, to understand what was really going on, to let go of the shame and blame I had taken on, and get to a better mental and relational space. But I’m no stranger to uncomfortable and difficult tasks, and this one had much better prospects for a positive outcome. It was absolutely worth it.

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About Heather
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Hi, I’m Heather. I’m Autistic, ADHD, disabled, and building a life I love.

I coach Autistic and other neurodivergent humans on creating their own neurowonderful lives.

Want personalized support in making your life more autism-friendly? See if 1:1 coaching is a good fit for you.
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