#2: Nervous System Diversity and Glimmers of Hope

This week Atif and Pasha went LIVE with their podcast to engage audiences in the conversation. After brief introductions and intention setting, they describe neurodiversity as nervous system diversity and the diversity of all minds. 

Atif shared his perspective on the current socio-political climate and Pasha shared her perspective on the impact on nervous systems. 

They discussed what worked and didn't work during this year's Neurodiversity Celebration Week and the GLIMMERS of hope they feel for a more neuroinclusive future. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Or welcome if it's your first time to the neuroinclusion conversations from across the pond and beyond. I'm Pasha Marlowe, co-hosting with Atif Chatrick.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yay!

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Um, we're trying to do this live, Atif. We're trying to do it live and streaming, and at the end of the conversation, we'll bring everyone out and have a more collaborative conversation and um be in the collective together. Do you want to start us off with intentions for the podcast today?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Uh yeah, sure. So this is a podcast that sprung off really from the previous one that Passion and I did, which was recorded but not live, and we decided it went so well. We're gonna do a series of them and sort of build up a conversation. Um it is really important why we are doing this as well. Why is it why is this conversation called Across the Pond and Beyond? Um, which I think is a really good name. I really liked it. Pasha came up with that. Um but why is it that neurodiversity is being spoken from a US or UK context? Uh I'll answer that to it to an extent and we'll answer it consistently throughout this podcast, but we'll also emphasize on the beyond part as well, which is really, you know, the the the heartbeat to all of this, you know, that neurodiversity is a global conversation and it's a global reality and it affects global lives. But the power behind who gets to engage with it, who gets to dictate what it looks like, who gets to medicalize it, and who gets to provide technology and tools and even workplaces is from a UK and US interpretation massively. And that has ramifications on how we get to show up. It has ramifications on migrants and how they feel safe in the conversation on Eurodiversity, and it has ramifications on how the world even understands neurodiversity. Is it really just a concept made by Americans and UK people? Is it really only going to be defined for Eurocentrism? These are the big questions that we're going to be asking the audience for you guys to engage with us, to join us in in the sincerity of that. Um to tear your hair out with us, I've always torn mine. But also we're going to offer a lot of what we like to call, and I'm sure you've heard the term glimmers. You know, and it's a moment of just positive light, you know, a glimmer of light. And so to do that, every session will finish with the intention of asking what keeps us hopeful this week. It could be things that we've seen, it's felt. But it's really important to share what keeps us hopeful, why it keeps us hopeful, um and how it reflects on you. Um but it's also an invitation for us to go as sincere as we need to do. Because if we are no if we know we're gonna finish on a glimmer, then we have a responsibility to sit with social justice and to be a part of an invitation to the voices that struggle to tell these stories. So we're gonna do both. Um, I hope that lands really well. And as I said, this podcast, the intention is to grow as many voices as possible. Pasha and I will have guests joining us in time, but for now, it's more the two of us, in a way. If I may say Pasha, it's a bit like learning to dance for um uh a ballroom, do you know, or a competition. We're finding our feet. I hope that worked for you. That's how I'm sort of looking at it.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

I love that, and I love your your tender heart and your global perspective. And I I wore my glimmery uh jacket to remind myself, it's got sequence all over it for those that cannot see it, it's uh I because my tendency is sometimes to get very intense and and I forget about sometimes bringing in the hope and the light. And and so I very much appreciate that perspective. I do also want to start by saying that um in the first podcast we mentioned, but that neurodiversity is the diversity of not just brains, it's minds, it's nervous systems. And so when we talk about any of these topics, we talk about it through the lens of neurodiversity, which is not just cognitive diversity, it is a diversity of minds, nervous systems, how we move, love, emote, stim, you communicate, socialize, on and on. And so it's it's quite a broad uh conversation that we want to continue to expand beyond and beyond and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I could listen to you all day. Um really good. Um, I might just so one of the feedbacks we got from the last podcast was that, and then it was a really nice thing actually, but it was um to say that we didn't speak much about ourselves, which I thought that was a joyful thing to hear. Um we're in a time of identity politics and and moral outrage and I guess moral injury too at times. So often people wear their identity, particularly when they've struggled to get a diagnosis or struggle to find meaning in the way they communicate. But they wear that as a badge, you know. If someone says I'm gay, I'm out, I'm proud. It's a big thing to say when people need to say it, and neurodiversity is the same. I don't have to say I'm a person of colour and out loud, I guess pretty obvious. But but what's not always obvious is what does that mean in neurodiversity world? You know, that might not be obvious, you know. Um but before we get into anything like that, I want to ask you, Pasha, you know, what do you think about the last podcast? And in terms of could we and should we have said something more about ourselves? And because I'm going to probably ask you a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Um, well, I do want to say that diagnoses and disclosure intersect with privilege. And some people do not have the privilege to mask or the privilege to not disclose. And so I I think it's just always important to call that out. And um, I'm fine. I'm fine sharing. I just always want to share my identity and my background in service to the conversation. Uh, and and I forget what I do sometimes. Sometimes at the end of a presentation or keynote, I forget to say what services I offer, what books I've written. It's just not always in the forefront of my mind. Hello, ADHD, right? And I would I identify uh with ADHD autism and a whole lot of trauma and anxiety as well, all forms of neurodivergence. So those would be the uh neurodivergent identities or um neurotypes, I suppose, that I would identify with. But honestly, if somebody were to ask me, you know, who are you? I wouldn't say initially I am an autistic woman, for example. Um, and I probably wouldn't even say I'm a white autistic woman from the United States, which right now is regretful. But I might say I'm a mother and uh just a deeply feeling human who most times feels like an alien on this planet because I don't align with most of the way the world is working right now. So that that would be how I identify. I identify as a mother alien today.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I I love that mother alien. I won't I want to ask you so much, but I'm gonna start gently with actually in terms of you you mentioned being ADHD and autistic and a mother. Yeah. This is intersectionality, right? These are the different intersects of which we show up. Um and I want to know more about your services and what you do in America, particularly. But before I ask that part, let me ask you on a personal level how do you know when autism is showing up or ADHD is showing up? And they're both a clash of civilizations in many lives, do you know?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

I might just clash Clash is a nice word to start with. Yeah, and so many share the uh that neurotype uh combo autism and ADHD. For me, you know, my ADHD shows up in the morning when I come downstairs almost every day and I say something like, I have a good idea, or I just thought of the best new business I could create, or I'm gonna start a new podcast, or I have another idea for a book. And then that's common with ADHD, just you know, the the ideas and spontaneity and the uh in innovation, which is beautiful. But my autism like follows through. My autism is like, you said a thing, and so it has to happen. That loop must close now, which leads to a lot of overworking. And by the way, in the lens of capitalism exploitation of autistic people's productivity, but that's another conversation. But I will work 80 hours plus a week every week and do because I because I often just hyperfocus until the loop is closed. If I say I'm gonna write a book, pretty much that day I'm starting to write a book and I'm gonna not stop until that book is done. That is that is a disability.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So does it fall in that order that the idea and the ADHD on fire and then the autism hyperfocuses? Is that is that in that order?

SPEAKER_02 10:04

To me it is.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Different for everyone, different for everyone, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I mean for me, I'm dyslexic and dyspraxic and the dyspraxia I can mostly handle. Driving, I'm fine, you know. I I'm I'm cautious. I'm not a fast driver. Uh I'm not a slow one, but I'm cautious. Definitely not a coordinated one, and it's hard for men to admit that. It's very hard for men to be saying, Well, I'm really great at driving. I said, Well, am I? Not really.

unknown 10:38

Am I bad?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

No, no, I've not had an accident, but but am I like it? I was never playing games, you know, computer games, driving or football games. Yeah, so I've never been coordinated particularly, but it's not worried me that much. What's always worried me is dyslexia, you know? Spelling, getting the ideas out, navigating those ideas.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

They've all played a real role in how how I show up. ADHD is definitely there, and I think had I uh if I was younger, I would probably have been diagnosed with ADHD instead of dyslexia. But in truth, I'm not sure which one starts and which one ends. I'm not sure they it they're more responses, and sometimes those responses are natural fair responses, and some of them they're not, some of them are just deeply reactive responses to fatigue and human tiredness, which we all have. Yeah, and sometimes they might be the rejection dysphoria responses, they might be the ADHD responses. I don't actually know. And I've been doing this work for 30 years, and I'd say I definitely would say comfortably, I do not know in the moment. And those listening, be gentle in yourselves, because maybe you don't know in the moment, but I can know in reflection. You know, I can know later in the day. You didn't give yourself credit for that. That was great. Or yeah, that was totally you know your reaction to something that wasn't even happening.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

I do, and I I think it's cultural and relational as well. I think in in my country, hearing voices, for example, is pathologized and stigmatized and seen as negative. And if in the culture and society you live in what you experience is seen as negative and the narrative is negative, you you might then experience it more negatively. And so I think you know, here if there's pathology and there's a lot of uh pathologization and discrimination against uh ADHD and and autistic people. Um and so then it leads to feeling more negative about it sometimes, depending on the context of who I'm talking to or what I allow into my consciousness. And same with relationally, I find like when I'm talking with you, I feel completely alive, lit up, my my best and truest self, and I don't feel disabled at all. And even if some of my um, you know, quirks show up, it's actually I already feel in the presence of you, the psychological safety to just do be it. And it's actually just celebrated and is. But if you put me in a room networking with corporate executives, I all of a sudden that's where the alien in me shows up. I don't, I don't feel like I belong at all. And so I I just I feel like it's so contextual to to culture and society and relational aspects. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Absolutely. So again, for folks listening, this might relate a lot of things that Patricia and I are going to talk about. Some will have answers, some won't. You know, some will have just shared experiences. What I'm really interested in is I suppose is how do we uh look at that? Because we are practitioners of of a kind, we work in this field supporting marginalized experiences for people, many who face traumas. And we're that good at it not despite sharing these experiences, but because of them. But through them, you know. But sometimes I'll quickly be reminded I'm still that 13-year-old kid who's lost in the classroom. I can go to conferences and feel that, and I'm about to speak at it, you know, and and then a number of times I think, no, this is just groovy. This is totally my my thing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

I say that to my clients often. I I've been a therapist for over 32 years, and I say, you know, we're all just little kids walking around trying to figure out how to do this humaning, you know, this adulting. We're all we're all just little kids. Even even the even the people, the the leaders and the ones in power and the ones who are so corrupt and dangerous right now. Sometimes I actually try to find pictures, like I try to find childhood or baby pictures of Trump to find some understanding or or um less rage and and try to like bring it to a human level because we've all been children who I believe all children were born you know good and and yes, yeah, wise, and we lose that over time.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, yeah. Pasha, you've situated brilliantly into the next stage of this. And look, folks, this is uh live, and we're just gonna they'll always be live as much as we can. But Pasha mentioned Trump there, and we talked a little bit about Trump last week. Um and for those who weren't there, Pasha's right. We are all born innocent. Um I find that hard to go to in my place, not just on Trump, but perhaps if I just stay on him for a second, his father was a member of the Klukax Klan. Um, it sounded like his father was abusive as a human being and perhaps as a husband, but certainly as a father. And then Trump lost his older brother. So this has a lot to do with the makeup of traumas and how people experience them. But I'm not his psychologist or or even his neurodiversity support worker. But I do know that people in leadership have huge ramifications when they don't do the work to look at their own central nervous systems, to look at their own power, to look at their own neurodiverse issues, but also their unresolved traumas. Inherently, by not doing that work, they will bleed over their own children. They'll continue to bleed over themselves, and in some cases, and in some cases, they become powerful enough to bleed all over the world. This is an example. And I'm talking to Pasha in Maine. But Trump isn't just president of America, he largely is a policymaker for the planet. So I am gonna take a moment here for those of you listening to think about what we're watching in the world. And when Pasha and I talk about this, we want to bring politics into the world because it is about reality and it's about people and how they show up in it. But when we're going to do it, our goal is to leave you with something that doesn't reinforce despair, but rather keeps you hopeful. But as I was saying earlier, in each of these sessions we'll have a section on it which really is about politics. I am watching the changes in the war in Iraq and sorry, in Iran. And I'm also finding myself very nervous about the state of the world through multiple wars. And I think if people are watching that and feeling it, that would be okay. It'd be okay to feel it. Absolutely. What's your thoughts on this in terms of where we're at?

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, and I I love looking at this through the lens of neurodiversity and nervous systems. In my work in the mental health profession, what I'm finding is so many of my clients are coming to me feeling dysregulated, emotionally dysregulated, and to which I say, as you should be, because we live in a dysregulated, disabling, disorderly world. And um also an existential crisis, I think, is happening. You know, what is the direction of the world? Do should we have children and bring them into this world? Will our work matter? Will our work exist with AI in five or 10 years? Um there's a lot of this, like, what is happening and what is the purpose and what is my place? Existential, existential crisis and existential dread going on. And um, and I'm seeing and and people feeling also quite low in capacity to navigate it. And so this is where I feel like it's so important to lean into conversations and community and connections with with other people who feel this way as well, because if we if we feel lonely in that, it's even more terrifying. Um, and and to bring that that hope into the conversation, like acknowledging the the traumas and the realities and the oppression and the dangers um that are going on, but also to recognize uh how how together collaboratively and collectively is our way forward to to navigate it right now, to um, but also to hopefully you know heal from it and and change and learn from it, hopefully, in the future.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I think that's absolutely great. So it really is important that we take a deep breath here. So much about neurodiversity, I think, or neurodivergence as as many people would call it, um, and as we grow into this conversation, I'll perhaps share more why I find that challenging. But I am also really excited that we are here in a space talking about finally for many people to hear a conversation of a person of color, you know, talking to a person in America, you know, and what does it mean as migrants? What does it mean when you're afraid of these labels? What does it mean when you're desperate for them? Do you know? And what does it mean when a society or a workplace just isn't ready for it?

unknown 20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Um I am really, I mean, I was enamored to do this work, and I first met Pasha, and I thought Pasha's work's so important to pay attention to. Her book is really important. And I I really think so much more about that. All of us are experiencing life at a speed that perhaps our ancestors were never built for. Yes. Perhaps we were even our own parents were not built for.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Our nervous systems were not built for it. Our nervous systems were not built and designed to handle what we're handling right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yes. You know, it's really true. And we we are now at a speed in which our children process information are expected to through social media, through news. There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago, it could be even 50 years ago, when your neighbor is needing help, you can feel it.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

And when you hear information, what's happening in your local area, it was the information you got. Maybe 50 years ago, sixty. Years ago, you heard the world news on the radio. Wasn't that long ago? 60-70 years ago. We were not listening. 60 years ago, we were not watching TV, we were getting news on the radio, and we were tuning in or tuning out. But we did not have a device that constantly bombarded us. What we should care about, what who we should be angry about, why they've done this, why you should buy this, what makes you not good enough. The speed in which that is coming at us and our children is deeply profound. So again, I say if you are feeling dysregulated by that, you're not alone, but it feels lonely. So again, we're gonna go back to the theme of this podcast that we will pick political events and sit with them. We won't necessarily find an answer to fully address them. But it's very difficult, I think, and I share this with my heart, it's very difficult for me to think about what my mental and emotional needs are when I'm so deeply connected to the physical loss of people or the physical loss or watching the news and people losing their children. And here I am wanting to talk about dyslexia. I know that sounds a little bit challenging because we shouldn't have a hierarchy in suffering. What we should have is a connectedness. But I often find many podcasts or discussions on neurodiversity like reinforce the Eurocentrism of who gets to matter and what issues matter whilst the world is on fire, very close to the fence that we're in, you know?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yes, I think that's why I hesitate to share those identities of ADHD and autism, because that is the majority of the conversation and the narrative. And I think it's in disservice to the neurodiversity movement to specifically only talk about a couple neurotypes or even neurotypes in general, versus what I think you and I are starting to talk about is more collectively neurodiversity, the diversity of all human minds, all human nervous systems, and how we all interact together, and how, of course, we should all have equitable opportunity to survive and thrive in the world, but that's not the case because of systems of oppression. Um, and then calling that out and getting to the root of it, the stigma, the bias, the racism, ableism, sexism, sanism, capitalism, all of it isn't more uh productive. If you want to talk about productivity, which is what the workplace loves to talk about, um, I feel like that's a more productive conversation.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, yeah. Whereas um I've learned with with Grace and Pasha, you remind me of it a lot. Just what feminine energy can do, do you know? But how little we hear it, or how we become deaf to it. I know that I was, and I never really thought about it. I think, well, that's women's voices. And I said, it is, but it's also a nurturing voice. And it's you don't hear it that often. You know, not really. You can hear women trying to, especially mothers fighting hard for their children, you know, but that nurturing voice is very difficult, and you have to tune into it, especially for a lot of men. I I know that I I I do, and I realize when I'm not hearing it enough, I realize when I've heard it, I thought, oh god, yeah, absolutely. Because like I said, power dictates, and that could be misogyny, it could be uh um patriarchy, yeah. Um, but essentially it's male power dictating the terms of engagement, largely anywhere in the world, everywhere in the world. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um Crikey, folks, and I speak to my fellow men, we're missing a lot, you know, a lot. I mean, and not only are we missing things that prevents us from allowing women's contributions to be seen or heard, but we're doing harm to ourselves in just not hearing it.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

And and I think I'm going back to neurodiversity in the same space, that it's the same thing for me. Yeah. It's deeply interconnected. That it is not about deficits and disorders, and we're gonna spend some more time really knuckling down why the US uses deficit and disorder narratives, and why the UK, even when it doesn't so much, it still does in many places when it chooses to, and what the consequences are that of that are, how that robs us of things. But I want to think about something that I reminded the room of, and then you just go back to Pasha with the conversations of power and healthy participation. But I um do a lot of work in Palestine and I saw some writing on the wall in Palestine, which really moved me. And it wasn't there was a lot of writing, and and there's a lot of reasons to be so angry about walls wherever they are in the world and they're reinforcing tyranny and oppression. But on this wall it was written, the words was if you've come here to save me, then go home. You're wasting your time. But if you've come here to understand that your liberation is deeply connected to mine, then let us talk. Let us talk. And that just stayed with me forever. That my liberation is deeply whether I live 7,000 miles away from this or in London or UK, or I'm living in Israel, or I'm living under the side other side of that wall in Palestine. My liberation is deeply connected to whoever wrote that. Of course it is. I cannot be healthy, misogyny. I cannot be healthy. So this goes back to the theme of this across the pond and beyond. Pasha for you. What's your hopes in this? That those listening to it, are they listening to this about neurodiversity? I guess so. Are they listening to something more? And are we gonna be give them something more? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Often what I refer to when I hear about um your liberation is deeply connected to mine is this idea of interconnectedness, and which I think we lose over. We're we're more connected and more disconnected than ever. You know, we can know what's going on in Palestine and feel more disconnected from it than we than we would have before. There's a um dehumanization and desensitization desensitization that's going on. I don't know if that's a word. Um on the whole, that that's very concerning to me. And I think it is tied all into neurodiversity. I I think I think neurodiversity is about collective liberation of of all people. And you know, at it at its root, we are all different and we are all as one, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

But do you I I'm with you 100%, which is why I'm enjoy this and enjoy this. And even honestly, if nobody come and listen to this, I'd still do this.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Just you know, but I have to tell you, um, Zara is there. I'm sorry, um yeah, Zara is there and sending hearts to you when you say things. And and I also know to anyone listening, we're going over time, as we knew we would, but it was so it's scheduled for half an hour and we'll probably go more like 40, 45. But um so just naming that for those that are there. And thank you, everybody who's watching. If miraculously technology is working and and being able to witness this. And um, and for those that are in the Zoom, if you want to write anything in chat or ask a question, that's possible. And we could we could actually respond to it live. We're still working up the the kinks of live live podcasts. Yeah, wait, wait. Um, but you're getting lots of hearts, is what I was saying. So you're not you're not speaking to the void.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

No, that's okay. That's okay. This is good. This is um there's a show called Strictly Come Dancing here in the UK. I don't know if you've got it in America, but no, um they just practice for competition and ballroom dancing. And I think that's what we're doing. Um, so I agree with you on collective liberation. I have a question, and then I'll move us to somewhere else that's hopeful. But I have a question do you believe our movement is on the same page as you or me?

SPEAKER_02 30:59

No. I think I think we've gone awry. It perhaps starts I don't even know if it started exactly that way, to be honest. But um having just come out of Neurodiversity Celebration Week, okay, where most people were not very celebratory and quite disappointed with how the week went, um, specifically in the workplace. The conversation that I'm seeing on LinkedIn is that most people were quite disappointed in the lack of action, in the lack of accountability, in the lack of continued efforts before and beyond a week, and also what it even means. What are we celebrating? And so I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, and I think it's hindering the neurodiversity movement or progress or neuroinclusive progress or whatever people hope to vision for the future. I think I think the confusion is a barrier to that. And uh yeah, so I would I would love to get into that.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Well, let's do that for the next ones. Well, let's get we're gonna get a bit more uh gonna get a bit more rigid on those things. So let me ask you, so on that sense, I think about that, and my opinion changes depending on I think the week I'm having. I thought this was a great neurodiversity celebration week this this year for me and for many others. But I speak on a personal level that I got to do things on you know, a little bit on TV, but also seeing something for the neurodiversity in the city, the square mile, city of London. And when I was 16, I you know, I barely could make eye contact with people, and I was so petrified people would see I don't spell. Uh, I used to really navigate where I sit and my adjustments and who would seem as if everyone was obsessed with seeing my handwriting. Nobody was, you know. Um and they went all like that for five years, and so then here I am watching the corporation, City Corporation in London, doing a celebration of neurodiversity called the City Belonging Project and Neurodiversity in the City, and it's happening. And I think I used to work here. Like, you know, what I here I am talking openly on television or on a video or whatever, about those days. And yeah, I never would have told a single person for five years. I was some of them I really cared about, right? But not dare tell them, hey, I don't spell, I I really struggle to read. My handwriting is illegible. That's why I'm really slow here. Um, I know you think I'm really good at meetings, but you don't really let me just do the meetings. You made me do all the admin, that's fine, that's my job. But I just didn't know how to tell you because I didn't even have a word for it myself, you know? Yeah, and so to see that is a really big deal on this celebration week. But you're right. I have a challenge to you as an audience as well. That like anything truly beautiful, we birth it through a lot of pain. Do you know? And I don't think we're yet to see what neurodiversity looks like. We're yet to see what the pain of it truly looks like. I know there's gonna be people really annoyed with me, going, How dare you? You don't know what pain I'm in. But I'm asking that we have yet to truly see what this looks like for people looking at it from social economics, from their poverty realities, from people affected by traumas and war and refugee camps with post-traumatic stress and that neurodiversity of that. And then why wouldn't autistic people be anywhere in the world, not just in the US or the UK? Why wouldn't those realities also be refugees? Why wouldn't they also be on the run? Why wouldn't they also be in tyranny or fear of wars that they never started? You know, and missiles they never asked for. All these things are living here, and we're about to find out truly what neodiversity can look like, deserves to look like, and needs to look like. But for us to do that, I think we're gonna have to get a whole lot more uncomfortable with the conversation and the urgency of it in order to celebrate it. And I I don't know if that's saying too much, but I genuinely mean that.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Yeah, I I feel that I when I think about neurodiversity, I think of it as a fact. Neurodiversity is a fact that there's a diversity of minds. When I think about neuroinclusion, um, which might be more what you were referring to, I think it's uh it's we're not there yet. And it's about systems of power and oppression and and some people not having access to care and some people not having access to uh support and also not having the ability to even access the information about it. And so, you know, it's it's challenging uh on a on a global scale, but neuroinclusion implies that there's somebody in power who's including a person. And so I think I said this last time, but it but it the word even trips me up sometimes because are we working towards inclusion? Like, are we working towards neuroinclusion where people in power include neurodivergent people, for example? Or are we working for in inclusion to just be part of reality, just like neurodiversity is real, just like neurodiversity just exists? Does inclusion just exist? You know, that we're all included. And so, so yeah, sometimes the words themselves, this is the autism, the words themselves sometimes make me wonder what it what are we working towards? What is the vision we're working towards? And what do we call that? And if we call that neurodiversity celebration, does that make sense? And if we call it neuroinclusion, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Uh I I agree because we're it's beautiful, isn't it? We're at a crossroads between everyday belonging, you know, and it just being a fabric of our civil societies, wherever they are. Right. The idea that human beings and human brains just function with joy, celebration, anguish, and differences. They just always have done. There's not an innovation in the world that isn't born out of differences, you know. But we have also historically, as we've seen, particularly in the US and particularly in the UK, seen a regimented version of power and what is acceptable and what is not, what is welcomed and what is not, what is productive and what is not, and what is uniformed and measurable and what is not. And in those things we've built concepts and constructed societies through. This is gonna be the theme of the next sessions as we go through this. But I have a question, is despite those things, and perhaps I'm boldly asking something, that's a lot here. But I feel sometimes I don't live in a country, I live in an economy. I don't think that anyone lives in a country. A country is a construct, a concept, you know. Um we live in economies, and in those economies we get to understand this is neurodiversity, okay. Yeah, this is neurodivergence, okay. Yeah, this is the right kind of dyslexic talent, ADHD genius, okay. This is the wrong kind, okay. You know, this is the ADHD autistic genius that we've been talking about and showcasing, okay. And and so we can go on.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Mm-hmm. The constructed, the constructed norms. Yes. It almost ties back to the alien. I promise this will make sense. But sometimes I imagine, and because I'm an alien, floating above the earth, looking down on the earth, where of course barriers and country lines and race and disability, like all of it, just it we're just this one, this one planet. And I know that sounds very idealistic and Pollyanish and romantic, blah, blah, blah. But I that's how I that's the hope for me, is this when we zoom out, when we zoom out to all countries, all of earth, all humans, all nervous systems, all souls, all ancestors, and beyond and beyond and beyond. Then it makes sense to just love everyone, just no matter who they are, just to be, just to be with each other and help each other and and to not and judgments aside and norms aside. And I know, I know that's not the world we live in and will likely not be the world either of us ever see. But it it but when you ask me what brings me hope or keeps me in in the game or gives me perspective, I I almost sometimes actually look at photographs of the earth from far away.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Well that makes sense. Yes, it does. Uh Pasha, you're awesome. I mean, really. Um it's if those of you who haven't listened, seen it, do look at a thing called Carl Sage and the pale blue dot. But it's really a way of seeing the world is a tiny pale blue dot. Um I can say a lot about what gives me hope is it's conversations like this that we can talk about intersectionality, we can see it measured, and we can recognize the depth of what's ahead of it when we're gonna talk not so much about neurodivergency, but rather what does healthy participation look like? Not so much about autism or ADHD or dyslexia, not because it's wrong. Right, because it tells us something, but not everything. So, what does everyday belonging look like? Um, what this week I, or last week rather, I had the joy of going to a Chinese autism conference and I met a lovely lady called Hazel Lim, who worked tirelessly to put this conference on. And I've never seen the experiences of Chinese, single, so many of them single mums telling a story of autism and shame and taboo, and especially in the context of non-verbal children, and how hard it is to share that story and get support in a community and even share a story back home in China to grandparents who worship these kids but for financial reasons aren't able to see them regular, but then come to realise that they are non-verbal and the grandparents haven't seen the kids because of the fear of what it means. These things are deeply profound, and yet I saw a conference in the Welsh Parliament where Wales was saying, we welcome this conversation. The Welsh Parliament and Chinese autistic campaigners were taking this these social taboos and really sitting with the psychological well-being of what is needed for mothers to feel supported, what is needed for migrant communities to understand how to support each other, and what they hope might influence Chinese society in time. That gave me a lot of hope. That's beautiful, you know. And I'm not sure I could have imagined that even two years ago. You know, that's progress. Yeah. So I think there will be more folks looking at the social model of what we're talking about, recognizing the urgency, taking on this conversation of across the bond and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yes. Yes. I I do hope. I I love it. I know that we're almost at time. Is it was that your was that your final. Oh my goodness, I love it. Um, assuming all this worked, well, we would love to know if it worked. If you happen to have been able to tune in through LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook or beyond, that would be amazing to know. Um, also, if there's anything you would like us to address on the podcast, because we want you to be part of the conversation. And um, and this will be posted to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon, apparently. I don't know what else. But but anyhow, I'm just so glad to have these conversations with you. And even if no one is listening, if I would want to meet with you every week because you bring me you bring me hope.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

So I see. Okay, folks. Well, look, isn't that wonderful? Pasha, thank you so much. Have a really lovely week. All of you look after your tender hearts. You have them. Hold them close. And we're going to get through this. We're going to get through more than this. And we're going to build through this. It's what we do. All right. Take care, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.