#37 | Son Needs Structure

Watch the webclass, "4-Part Roadmap to Encourage Adulting Actions."

Get the Preview of the workbook, When Autism Grows Up by Lynn C Davison, Adulting Coach, Available in Fall 2022.

Download, "The Quick Start Guide to STEAR Mapping"

RESOURCES

• SEEING AUTISM by Barb Avila: https://www.lynncdavison.com/pl/2147533610
• THE GAIN AND THE GAP by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• STEAR Map phone wallpaper
• Focus on the Gain  phone wallpaper
• The Art of Adulting Course, Coaching and Community

Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach. I help autistic adults systemize adulting with their families together.

Today's struggle comes from Loretta one Anderson. Her son is over 21 he has autism and intellectual disability. So her thoughts are that her son needs structure and direction.

Let's look at that in terms of you know, what can this fit into. You know what we talk about every week at The Art of Adulting. How can the art of adulting help Loretta?

And let's first start that in with SEEING AUTISM, the approach that Barb Avila outlines clearly in her book: understanding what's going on then connecting and finally, what are the practices that we need to put in place to make things better for us.

So let's understand first, what is going on in Loretta's family with her 21 year old son, and he's adorable. So I saw her some pictures on on Facebook.

It's very clear that Loretta is totally head over heels in love with her son.

So what's happening what why is this? Why is there some just dissonance happening in his life? And I think that what would be helpful to Loretta is to have a way to get to peace. And and I love this saying: find peace in the pieces. I love this image. I'm sorry that it doesn't show up so well.

What we want to do is we want to break life down into categories. And figure out let's get real specific about what our expectations are for first ourselves, and then  second for our autistic adult.

So first, we need to decide how we want to show up in every area of our life. And then we want to monitor how well we're doing. Then figure out what could be helpful. Which what approaches work and keep experimenting with different ways to show up so that we figure out really what works best for us and makes us be the mom, the person, that we're really proud of.

Then we want to take the time to do the same thing for our autistic young adult with them with their life, because that's going to give them the structure that they're going to need in their life for the rest of their life.

And we can do this over and over with them so that it becomes a habit-knit part of their lives, so that they themselves know, "Oh, these are the habits that I put in place in here and their reasons why they're there for my life for the rest of my life. I may need assistance, and that's perfectly okay."

Definitely supports are appropriate in there. They need them and there's no shame in it and they need to know how to ask for the supports that they need in their life and why? So that's why The Art of Adulting can seriously help in this part. With Loretta and with her family.

Because we really want to be the change that we're looking for first or ourselves and then the coach or our autistic young adults.

So by practicing these skills and strategies ourselves first, we get a good handle on them so that we can then help our autistic young adults practice, learn and practice. See and be aware of what it is that needs to be done and practice in each of the areas of their life.

By breaking it down. It just gives us that peace. Oh, we've broken it down into pieces. And now we can have peace because we realize that we're going to meet ourselves where we are in each one of the categories of our lives in each one of the domains. I call them domains of our life, or meet ourselves where we are and then we're going to decide what we need to do to level up and then we're going to decide maybe there might be something that we're doing that we want to stop doing.

It's a wonderful process. I promise you it's going to yield you know, give you so much peace in your life.

So all right, let's connect first with ourselves and then with here autistic young adult and see what we can do. To help Loretta here.

I'm just gonna I'm gonna tell you that this the major tool, the first tool, is the STEAR Map because what we're trying to do is take we're trying to notice what our primitive brain what our default brain, the brain that keeps us alive, the brain that tells us that we need to be safe, we need to conserve energy, and we need to belong to a tribe because that's going to keep us safe as well, to seek the pleasure of being in their company and our brains are wired for connection.

So this primitive brain is going to steer our lives on purpose to protect us and keep us alive. And know that with our autistic young adults, that brain is highly sensitive to what's going on usually what's going on around them. So that's why we see a lot of anxiety with our autistic young adults because that amygdala, that part that primitive part is just on fire always scanning the environment looking for whatever threat to dangers or pleasures that could be.

But because we're human and we have this mind piece that supervises our brain, and that's the piece that we have to train. That's the part of our brain. Some people call it our soul. Some people call it neutral watcher. It's the part of us where we can actually watch ourselves think. It's pretty miraculous.

This is the part that we can train with our thoughts to direct this other part which is our primitive brain, we can say okay, thank you, brain, for giving me that option. This is what we're going to do now. I mean, yes, I agree. That that chocolate brownie looks really good right now. And yet, I know that I might have a moment of pleasure. But in the long term, what I want to do is eat planned foods. That's just an example of how we can train our brain.

So first, we need to connect with ourselves by noticing what our thoughts are that are created by the situation. And the situation is always neutral facts. Facts can't hurt us.  We have to separate that the thoughts that was the difference between the facts and the thoughts.

So by connecting with ourselves first and then noticing what's happening with our young adults and teaching them this tool as well. And I believe everyone can learn this tool because everyone knows the difference between a fact and the story that we're telling ourselves about it. The thoughts that wrap our mind that where we tell a story and this becomes so believable, because we've repeated over and over again and it becomes a truth, but it's not a fact.

So then, the practice then is to ask, what do we do next? We need to proactively partner with ourselves and our autistic adults to create a life we love that works.

And here's where I get to the peace. I've once I've broken my life. You know, I've done this for years now I put my life down into the 10 categories. I've decided what I want in each one and what I'm going to do each day in each one.

I realized that this comes from ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear. (You have a love an author whose last name is clear and he is very clear in the way that he writes.)

So I highly recommend that book ATOMIC HABITS. He shows us here and trust me that math was not my strength, but he shows me here mathematically what we have to do is get 1% better every day and we will be 37 point 78 times better. At the end of 365 days, mathematically proven there just 1% better in each area of our life. Every day, and we'll grow immensely.

On the other hand, if we get 1% worse, we're going to slowly go down to zero but we're never going to meet zero.

The point is, is that the effect of small habits compound over time. What a relief that is! I don't have to figure it all out. I just have to do my best and maybe a little bit better you know every day, that 1% better each day.

That gives me so much peace I don't have to perfect my life, this project, my to do list, every day. All I have to do is a little bit, just push myself to get a little bit better each day and I will be incredibly better by the end of the year. So that's the first thought I would offer to you, Loretta. I really hope you get a chance to watch this video.

The second thing I want you to do is I want you to notice where you're making progress. This is so helpful. This concept is from THE GAIN AND THE GAP by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

Dan Sullivan coaches entrepreneurs. You have to have your own company and making over $200,000 a year to qualify to be coached by him. And he shares in the book that successful CEOs with their own companies are twice as likely to be depressed than the general population.

What? These are people doing exactly what they want to do. And yet they're depressed. What's going on? He figured it out.

What's going on is they are focusing on where they are you see that little guy right there. That's who they are versus their ideal. They are in the gap. They are always looking and concentrating on what they need to do to get better and they never remember how far they've come. It's hard. They just focus on all of the other things that aren't right in their lives.

Dan argues that what we need to do is okay, yes, we have to have that ideal out there, of where we want to go. We have to have that shining ideal of air to light the path that we want to travel on.

But we can't measure ourselves by the gap between where we are and our ideal because like the horizon is always moving out the minute the minute we humans achieve or acquire something, then we think that the next thing that we want. Our always progressing, so there will always be a gap between where we are and our ideal.

So instead, we need to measure ourselves backwards. We need to measure ourselves on the progress that we have made the gain. We need to notice that every day.

The easiest way to do that is at the end of each day you write down three things you did. That's it. Write down three things you did, and then cue yourself up for the next day. Write down three things that you need to do tomorrow.

If you do that every single day, notice your progress you're referring about. Oh, we are making progress. No worries. All we have to do is make progress 1% better each day.

So I offer to Loretta, even though things look tough. Even though you're still really far away from your ideal. Just know that you're always going to be far away from your ideal.

World peace isn't here yet. You know, we all want a peaceful world. So that's our vision. But you know, we've got to see what how far we've come and look how far we've come. We're so much more interdependent than we used to be we know people from all over the world now. There's really a chance that we're going to have more world peace.

We are closer as a human race now. In spite of what's happening today. In our world, we really have made significant progress in the area in this last year, in this last century.

So focusing on the gain. Write down three things you've done today, that were important to you, and then three things that you've got to get done tomorrow. Why three, because it's just a you probably got more than three things done, but it's just easier for your brain to remember three things than it is more than three things.

So that's what we teach in the art of adulting is how to how to train our brains to work better for us that part of our lives that are a no brainer way over here. Instead of having that you know that brownie we're going to plan on having a brownie on Saturday night.

We're just not going to have chocolate every day of the week. As much as sounds like a good idea. And this short run long running is not really the best thing for us even though you know what can I say? We're still gonna steer our brain to the thing that we really want which is a healthy body.

We're going to figure out how do we make all this work for us, and we're going to be the coach that we've always dreamed of being for her autistic young adult and help them apply the same concepts in their life.

So please join me. LynnCDavison.com/waitlist or /welcome.

Either one of those pages will get you into The Art of Adulting.

Bye for now!