#86 | Why Should We Plant "Want Seeds"?

accommodate accommodations act adult adulting answer autistic bell shaped curve dearest desires kinds life live part question system thought virtues work Jun 29, 2022
 

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This is Lynn Davison, your adulting coach.

The question I'm asking us today is: Why should we plant “want seeds”? A “want seed” is a desire that we have about what types of actions we want to take and what kinds of goals we want to achieve, and what kinds of actions we want to take in our relationships. A want seed is something that we decide is important to us. And so why should we plant those kinds of seeds? 

This stems from a challenging episode I listened to on a Brooke Castillo life coach podcast, where she answered the question about why she was getting a divorce. And her answer was because I want to, and she got some blowback on that. Imagine that thought didn't work for a lot of people. And she took the time to answer those questions. Those what were you thinking kinds of things. And I thought they were especially relevant to our autistic high school graduates. And here's why. 

I think that our autistic high school graduate spent 13 years in our education system, figuring out what they need to do to get other people to think about them in the way that works for them. So what I'm saying is more of a conversation that I had recently with one of my autistic young adults, several conversations actually, with my family and other inlet clients about you know, what do they want to have in their life? What is that first part of the art of adulting, which is identity, and what is it that we determine our identity based on what our desires are? And what truly is at our core, and how we want to make that statement in our adult life? What, how are we going to take what's really important to us inside and manifest it outside in our adult life. 

It just occurred to me that they spent so much time for those 13 years they were in the school system, determining how to fit in based on what other people were thinking about them. And that makes sense that they had to do that because the school system is designed to hit the middle part of the needs of the student population. If you were to put the needs of the student population on a bell shaped curve, it would be the middle part that our school system is designed to address. And we've got some laws now that say, Okay, people who are alternative learners also have to be addressed; the people that are on the tail end of whatever characteristic we have in mind, and whatever human way of being that we like to run a bell shaped curve. And so we've got some laws out there. Finally that say even if you don't fit into this middle, standard deviation of two plus or minus, you still need to be accommodated in school. 

The reality of the accommodations versus what really does work for our kids is usually a pretty big gap. Because it's pretty hard to get the school system to customize an approach that's appropriate for our kids. But that's why I believe that it's happened over the last 13 year they were in school, that they had to work on how they really needed to be in order for other people to think about them, the hard working students that they wanted to be perceived as, as the obedient students that they needed to be perceived as. 

So now that we're adults, we're crossing that threshold from student to adult and when we are adults, we take responsibility for what we want to create. So it gives us a great deal of freedom and a great deal of responsibility, because we have to figure that out. And the question of what do we want others to think about us is an important one to revisit. Because we had to with that whole system that propelled us through those 13 years, we had to think about what other people thought about us. And now that question we need to revisit how important is it for us to figure out what we want others to think about us? Or, you know, maybe we just need to question the question. I mean, why do we want them to think that? Why does it matter what they think? And that's a pretty radical question for us to ask ourselves. Because that question wasn't available to us before. We had to. 

So now we're looking at it. Why do we want them to think what they're thinking and it further asks the question, what happens when someone has a negative opinion of us? What happens when they say we're lazy? What happens when they say we need to work a 40 hour workweek or we're not being an adult? What happens when they say we have to cut our hair and wear it a certain way in order to be accepted? When we go for an interview, or job? What happens when others impose their expectations on us? 

I think the answer is we have to decide if that's who we want to be. And sometimes, we need to be willing to say what if we let them be wrong about us? What if we decide that choosing to cut our hair the way that we want to cut our hair or choosing the work or time instead of full time or is choosing to ask for accommodations, like music when we're working? Really is in fact accommodating the way that our brains work together. And so we need to take the time to consider you know, what if we just let them be wrong about us? What if we let them think the thought, well, they're just listening to music because they don't want to hear what other people have to say or whatever or what if we let other people think, well, their hair is longer than we would expect or it's not in the style that we would expect based on their apparent gender identity. Or what if we decided that it really is appropriate for them to work part time instead of a 40 hour work week because they require more recovery time from working and being around other people because this takes a lot of energy for them to read the situation and respond appropriately and they need more time to recover from that. So I guess the question that we need to ask ourselves is why do we do what we can want? Why is it important for us to do what we want? And my belief is that we need to live in a way that is consistent with who we are at our core, because the research suggests that the further we are from acting consistent with our virtues, the more likely we are to get depressed. 

So there's actually a mental health reason to do what we want and especially for the people who are alternative learners are born with brains that don't fit into that convenient, middle part of the bell shaped curve. That we need to acknowledge that there's a biological difference, and that's why we need to accommodate for that. We need to be flexible with the way the opinions, the way that we think about them and our expectations for them, that we need to encourage and self advocate for what really does work on them. 

Now, this is one of Brook’s comments that I thought took a lot of courage to make. “I would rather walk the world alone in truth than live in the prison of lies”. So that's a pretty bold statement, and taking that on may require some thinking. Do I agree with that, do I disagree with that? What does she mean what does that mean to me? It's a worthwhile to consider becauseI, I really do believe that when we live authentically as we want to live that way that we will be more healthy, more capable of growing and enjoying life more each day and loving ourselves and others with compassion. 

So, my dearest wish for us is that we follow our truest desires. When we intentionally act in the virtues that vibrate at our core, we are at our center, and that way we will grow and enjoy life more each day. And that's my dearest wish for all of us. 

So if you'd like a transcript to this blog, please visit me here at my website lynncdavison.com/blog. And I'd love to hear any comments you have at the Facebook page about this video. Bye for now.