Thursday: Think

accepting actions adulting autistic brain create emotional emotions facts life logical consequences low arousal notice practice quadrant situation solve thinking thought Sep 27, 2022
 

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Hi! It's Lynn. Your adulting coach.

Today we're going to create unshakable confidence with your autistic high school graduate by noticing our thinking, this is our Thursday practice.

It is so important that we notice and slow down and be mindful about our thinking because we do become what we think about. That concept has been accepted by so many wisdom teachers and it's and researched a lot by today's positive psychologists, who, whose work informs the body of the Art of Adulting.

So our first step in thinking is that we do a thought dump. We actually take a topic and we write down all of our thoughts. We take the time, maybe, you know, 2-3-4 minutes to actually look at what are those thoughts that come up all the time when this topic comes up? I love to use an unsolved problem.

If I have the time to really recognize the thinking that I have that automatically comes up, like brain offers me all the time, that that midbrain, that primitive brain, the one that's kept us alive, we're very grateful for us for just that offers thoughts of that are going to inspire fear that are going to inspire protection or that are going to inspire the actions where we don't want to miss out on something that could be enjoyable and fun in our life, and that's that's the connection. With the others. I mean, we're hardwired, hardwired to desire, that connection, and the connection to fun, especially. So that's what our midbrain is always going to be offering us. And our prefrontal cortex is there is designed to help us think and plan out long term. So that primitive says right now, the attention and the pre the prefrontal cortex says wait a second, let's think about the long term implications of our thinking and our emotions and our actions. So when we do a thought dump, we're really accessing that front part. of our brain. And we want to label which of those thoughts are real. In other words, we're thinking them in they feel so real versus true, where it's factual. And so once you're done doing your thought, download your thought dump. You want to just make an up, put an arrow next to it, if it's real, which means it's a story that we're creating about that fact. Or if it's true, if it's an actual fact that we can prove to the 7.9 billion people on the planet we would all agree that that is a fact it's observable, and there's no emotion in it. There's no opinion. It's just the facts. Separating out what we can and cannot control is really important so we cannot control the facts. The facts are the facts. But we can control the way that we choose to think about them. It just helps me to think about serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to to accept the things I cannot change. Those are the facts, the courage to change the things that I can. Those are my stories about them, and the wisdom to know the difference. So this is the practice that we use to look at the differences between them and then we map out what are the what are the logical consequences of the situation and then the thought that we're making How does it make us feel and how does it flavor our actions which create our results? And listen, this stuff happens in a, you know, just in a snap of a finger, because our brains are just so quick and so sharp that they can take us right through from the situation to the thought to the emotion just in a millisecond. So sometimes we can't always notice that thought, unless we hold things down and make sure that we're in a low arousal state, and that we're in a loving place. And yeah, it's really important to that if, if we're, if we are in a situation like I was last night when the alarms kept going off, the carbon monoxide detectors kept going off and I could not figure out how to fix it and the noise was just obnoxious and it was in two places and I couldn't find the ones. It was very frustrating. My emotional emotions just hijacked my whole thinking process. But I did

get to the end of it. We didn't you know, we were able to solve the problem on a temporary basis. But I just want to take the time sometimes to go back and learn from that particular situation. It's just kind of fun to observe when we go off the rails. And notice how easy it is for us to do it. So you know, imagine what it's like when you have an autistic brain, which tends to be more easily aroused. Why it is, gosh, now I've had it you know here I'm thinking I'm, you know, steady on all the time and I recognize that no, I wasn't studying at all last night. And of course the emotions that we want to notice are, you know in the middle of this, high energy, low energy, low comfort, high comfort quadrant, quad, you know, wherever this is Foursquare's the middle. This is when we are just accepting what is when neither high nor low nor energy or comfort or right in the middle. We are accepting what is which is our first practice. On Sundays. And yet we can travel into any one of the four quadrants based on how we're thinking, we really want to help our kids understand that that's what the body the brain the the whole human experience is meant to be. There's nothing wrong with them when they're in the red quiet quadrant or the blue quadrant. There's nothing exceptional. We're in the winter in the grave or the gold or the for the green quadrant. They're just being human. And what we really want to help them see is that it's their choice, and that's when they can move from emotional childhood to emotional adulthood. When they take the responsibility for the thoughts that are creating the emotions that they're feeling that fuel their actions and create the results that they have in their lives. And this is what we're trying to do is help them be more confident that they can create the thoughts that work for them to create the life that they love. And that confidence is an emotion fueled by the thoughts of I've got it I can do this. I can figure this out. Everything is figured out double everything. I look at all the things I've solved in the past. So I know I can do this today in the future. All of that confidence comes from the thinking and, and it's just so helpful when we slow it all down and do it over and over again. So that they can use this thinking tool and stare map and use the use the emotional mood meter to help them understand where they are on those quadrants. Then we're given them the power to manage their own life and solve all the struggles that come up. And then we'll know that they're going to be just fine when we're gone. So please join me in the art of adulting where we practice these seven, seven well founded science based practices. Every day and with each other because solving all these, solving all these challenges in life, you know, we were meant to do it together. So please join us there. Bye for now.

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